Joseph Heller - Catch-22

“And maybe there would have been more losses, with the bridge still left standing. I thought you wanted the bridge destroyed.”

“Don’t contradict me,” Colonel Cathcart said. “We’re all in enough trouble.”

“I’m not contradicting you, sir.”

“Yes you are. Even that’s a contradiction.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”

Colonel Cathcart cracked his knuckles violently. Colonel Korn, a stocky, dark, flaccid man with a shapeless paunch, sat completely relaxed on one of the benches in the front row, his hands clasped comfortably over the top of his bald and swarthy head. His eyes were amused behind his glinting rimless spectacles.

“We’re trying to be perfectly objective about this,” he prompted Colonel Cathcart.

“We’re trying to be perfectly objective about this,” Colonel Cathcart said to Yossarian with the zeal of sudden inspiration. “It’s not that I’m being sentimental or anything. I don’t give a damn about the men or the airplane. It’s just that it looks so lousy on the report. How am I going to cover up something like this in the report?”

“Why don’t you give me a medal?” Yossarian suggested timidly.

“For going around twice?”

“You gave one to Hungry Joe when he cracked up that airplane by mistake.”

Colonel Cathcart snickered ruefully. “You’ll be lucky if we don’t give you a court-martial.”

“But I got the bridge the second time around,” Yossarian protested. “I thought you wanted the bridge destroyed.”

“Oh, I don’t know what I wanted,” Colonel Cathcart cried out in exasperation. “Look, of course I wanted the bridge destroyed. That bridge has been a source of trouble to me ever since I decided to send you men out to get it. But why couldn’t you do it the first time?”

“I didn’t have enough time. My navigator wasn’t sure we had the right city.”

“The right city?” Colonel Cathcart was baffled. “Are you trying to blame it all on Aarfy now?”

“No, sir. It was my mistake for letting him distract me. All I’m trying to say is that I’m not infallible.”

“Nobody is infallible,” Colonel Cathcart said sharply, and then continued vaguely, with an afterthought: “Nobody is indispensable, either.”

There was no rebuttal. Colonel Korn stretched sluggishly. “We’ve got to reach a decision,” he observed casually to Colonel Cathcart.

“We’ve got to reach a decision,” Colonel Cathcart said to Yossarian. “And it’s all your fault. Why did you have to go around twice? Why couldn’t you drop your bombs the first time like all the others?”

“I would have missed the first time.”

“It seems to me that we’re going around twice,” Colonel Korn interrupted with a chuckle.

“But what are we going to do?” Colonel Cathcart exclaimed with distress. “The others are all waiting outside.”

“Why don’t we give him a medal?” Colonel Korn proposed.

“For going around twice? What can we give him a medal for?”

“For going around twice,” Colonel Korn answered with a reflective, self-satisfied smile. “After all, I suppose it did take a lot of courage to go over that target a second time with no other planes around to divert the antiaircraft fire. And he did hit the bridge. You know, that might be the answer-to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That’s a trick that never seems to fail.”

“Do you think it will work?”

“I’m sure it will. And let’s promote him to captain, too, just to make certain.”

“Don’t you think that’s going a bit farther than we have to?”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s best to play safe. And a captain’s not much difference.”

“All right,” Colonel Cathcart decided. “We’ll give him a medal for being brave enough to go around over the target twice. And we’ll make him a captain, too.”

Colonel Korn reached for his hat.

“Exit smiling,” he joked, and put his arm around Yossarian’s shoulders as they stepped outside the door.

By the time of the mission to Bologna, Yossarian was brave enough not to go around over the target even once, and when he found himself aloft finally in the nose of Kid Sampson’s plane, he pressed in the button of his throat mike and asked,

“Well? What’s wrong with the plane?”

Kid Sampson let out a shriek. “Is something wrong with the plane? What’s the matter?”

Kid Sampson’s cry turned Yossarian to ice. “Is something the matter?” he yelled in horror. “Are we bailing out?”

“I don’t know!” Kid Sampson shot back in anguish, wailing excitedly. “Someone said we’re bailing out! Who is this, anyway? Who is this?”

“This is Yossarian in the nose! Yossarian in the nose. I heard you say there was something the matter. Didn’t you say there was something the matter?”

“I thought you said there was something wrong. Everything seems okay. Everything is all right.”

Yossarian’s heart sank. Something was terribly wrong if everything was all right and they had no excuse for turning back. He hesitated gravely.

“I can’t hear you,” he said.

“I said everything is all right.”

The sun was blinding white on the porcelain-blue water below and on the flashing edges of the other airplanes. Yossarian took hold of the colored wires leading into the jackbox of the intercom system and tore them loose.

“I still can’t hear you,” he said.

He heard nothing. Slowly he collected his map case and his three flak suits and crawled back to the main compartment. Nately, sitting stiffly in the co-pilot’s seat, spied him through the corner of his eye as he stepped up on the flight deck behind Kid Sampson. He smiled at Yossarian wanly, looking frail and exceptionally young and bashful in the bulky dungeon of his earphones, hat, throat mike, flak suit and parachute. Yossarian bent close to Kid Sampson’s ear.

“I still can’t hear you,” he shouted above the even drone of the engines.

Kid Sampson glanced back at him with surprise. Kid Sampson had an angular, comical face with arched eyebrows and a scrawny blond mustache.

“What?” he called out over his shoulder.

“I still can’t hear you,” Yossarian repeated.

“You’ll have to talk louder,” Kid Sampson said. “I still can’t hear you.”

“I said I still can’t hear you!” Yossarian yelled.

“I can’t help it,” Kid Sampson yelled back at him. “I’m shouting as loud as I can.”

“I couldn’t hear you over my intercom,” Yossarian bellowed in mounting helplessness. “You’ll have to turn back.”

“For an intercom?” asked Kid Sampson incredulously.

“Turn back,” said Yossarian, “before I break your head.”

Kid Sampson looked for moral support toward Nately, who stared away from him pointedly. Yossarian outranked them both. Kid Sampson resisted doubtfully for another moment and then capitulated eagerly with a triumphant whoop.

“That’s just fine with me,” he announced gladly, and blew out a shrill series of whistles up into his mustache. “Yes sirree, that’s just fine with old Kid Sampson.” He whistled again and shouted over the intercom, “Now hear this, my little chickadees. This is Admiral Kid Sampson talking. This is Admiral Kid Sampson squawking, the pride of the Queen’s marines. Yessiree. We’re turning back, boys, by crackee, we’re turning back! ”

Nately ripped off his hat and earphones in one jubilant sweep and began rocking back and forth happily like a handsome child in a high chair. Sergeant Knight came plummeting down from the top gun turret and began pounding them all on the back with delirious enthusiasm. Kid Sampson turned the plane away from the formation in a wide, graceful arc and headed toward the airfield. When Yossarian plugged his headset into one of the auxiliary jackboxes, the two gunners in the rear section of the plane were both singing “La Cucaracha.”