Joseph Heller - Catch-22

As soon as General Peckem had received his medal, he began asking for increased responsibility. It was General Peckem’s opinion that all combat units in the theater should be placed under the jurisdiction of the Special Service Corps, of which General Peckem himself was the commanding officer. If dropping bombs on the enemy was not a special service, he reflected aloud frequently with the martyred smile of sweet reasonableness that was his loyal confederate in every dispute, then he could not help wondering what in the world was. With amiable regret, he declined the offer of a combat post under General Dreedle.

“Flying combat missions for General Dreedle is not exactly what I had in mind,” he explained indulgently with a smooth laugh. “I was thinking more in terms of replacing General Dreedle, or perhaps of something above General Dreedle where I could exercise supervision over a great many other generals too. You see, my most precious abilities are mainly administrative ones. I have a happy facility for getting different people to agree.”

“He has a happy facility for getting different people to agree what a prick he is,” Colonel Cargill confided invidiously to ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen in the hope that ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen would spread the unfavorable report along through Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters. “If anyone deserves that combat post, I do. It was even my idea that we ask for the medal.”

“You really want to go into combat?” ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen inquired.

“Combat?” Colonel Cargill was aghast. “Oh, no-you misunderstand me. Of course, I wouldn’t actually mind going into combat, but my best abilities are mainly administrative ones. I too have a happy facility for getting different people to agree.”

“He too has a happy facility for getting different people to agree what a prick he is,” ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen confided with a laugh to Yossarian, after he had come to Pianosa to learn if it was really true about Milo and the Egyptian cotton. “If anyone deserves a promotion, I do.” Actually, he had risen already to ex-corporal, having shot through the ranks shortly after his transfer to Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters as a mail clerk and been busted right down to private for making odious audible comparisons about the commissioned officers for whom he worked. The heady taste of success had infused him further with morality and fired him with ambition for loftier attainments. “Do you want to buy some Zippo lighters?” he asked Yossarian. “They were stolen right from quartermaster.”

“Does Milo know you’re selling cigarette lighters?”

“What’s it his business? Milo’s not carrying cigarette lighters too now, is he?”

“He sure is,” Yossarian told him. “And his aren’t stolen.”

“That’s what you think,” ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen answered with a laconic snort. “I’m selling mine for a buck apiece. What’s he getting for his?”

“A dollar and a penny.”

Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen snickered triumphantly. “I beat him every time,” he gloated. “Say, what about all that Egyptian cotton he’s stuck with? How much did he buy?”

“All.”

“In the whole world? Well, I’ll be damned!” ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen crowed with malicious glee. “What a dope! You were in Cairo with him. Why’d you let him do it?”

“Me?” Yossarian answered with a shrug. “I have no influence on him. It was those teletype machines they have in all the good restaurants there. Milo had never seen a stock ticker before, and the quotation for Egyptian cotton happened to be coming in just as he asked the headwaiter to explain it to him. ‘Egyptian cotton?’ Milo said with that look of his. ‘How much is Egyptian cotton selling for?’ The next thing I knew he had bought the whole goddam harvest. And now he can’t unload any of it.”

“He has no imagination. I can unload plenty of it in the black market if he’ll make a deal.”

“Milo knows the black market. There’s no demand for cotton.”

“But there is a demand for medical supplies. I can roll the cotton up on wooden toothpicks and peddle them as sterile swabs. Will he sell to me at a good price?”

“He won’t sell to you at any price,” Yossarian answered. “He’s pretty sore at you for going into competition with him. In fact, he’s pretty sore at everybody for getting diarrhea last weekend and giving his mess hall a bad name. Say, you can help us.” Yossarian suddenly seized his arm. “Couldn’t you forge some official orders on that mimeograph machine of yours and get us out of flying to Bologna?”

Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen pulled away slowly with a look of scorn. “Sure I could,” he explained with pride. “But I would never dream of doing anything like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s your job. We all have our jobs to do. My job is to unload these Zippo lighters at a profit if I can and pick up some cotton from Milo. Your job is to bomb the ammunition dumps at Bologna.”

“But I’m going to be killed at Bologna,” Yossarian pleaded. “We’re all going to be killed.”

“Then you’ll just have to be killed,” replied ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen. “Why can’t you be a fatalist about it the way I am? If I’m destined to unload these lighters at a profit and pick up some Egyptian cotton cheap from Milo, then that’s what I’m going to do. And if you’re destined to be killed over Bologna, then you’re going to be killed, so you might just as well go out and die like a man. I hate to say this, Yossarian, but you’re turning into a chronic complainer.”

Clevinger agreed with ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen that it was Yossarian’s job to get killed over Bologna and was livid with condemnation when Yossarian confessed that it was he who had moved the bomb line and caused the mission to be canceled.

“Why the hell not?” Yossarian snarled, arguing all the more vehemently because he suspected he was wrong. “Am I supposed to get my ass shot off just because the colonel wants to be a general?”

“What about the men on the mainland?” Clevinger demanded with just as much emotion. “Are they supposed to get their asses shot off just because you don’t want to go? Those men are entitled to air support!”

“But not necessarily by me. Look, they don’t care who knocks out those ammunition dumps. The only reason we’re going is because that bastard Cathcart volunteered us.”

“Oh, I know all that,” Clevinger assured him, his gaunt face pale and his agitated brown eyes swimming in sincerity. “But the fact remains that those ammunition dumps are still standing. You know very well that I don’t approve of Colonel Cathcart any more than you do.” Clevinger paused for emphasis, his mouth quivering, and then beat his fist down softly against his sleeping-bag. “But it’s not for us to determine what targets must be destroyed or who’s to destroy them or-“

“Or who gets killed doing it? And why?”

“Yes, even that. We have no right to question-“

“You’re insane!”

“-no right to question-“

“Do you really mean that it’s not my business how or why I get killed and that it is Colonel Cathcart’s? Do you really mean that?”

“Yes, I do,” Clevinger insisted, seeming unsure. “There are men entrusted with winning the war who are in a much better position than we are to decide what targets have to be bombed.”

“We are talking about two different things,” Yossarian answered with exaggerated weariness. “You are talking about the relationship of the Air Corps to the infantry, and I am talking about the relationship of me to Colonel Cathcart. You are talking about winning the war, and I am talking about winning the war and keeping alive.”

“Exactly,” Clevinger snapped smugly. “And which do you think is more important?”