Catch-22

Next he began binding the compress in place with a roll of gauze. The second time around Snowden’s thigh with the bandage, he spotted the small hole on the inside through which the piece of flak had entered, a round, crinkled wound the size of a quarter with blue edges and a black core inside where the blood had crusted. Yossarian sprinkled this one with sulfanilamide too and continued unwinding the gauze around Snowden’s leg until the compress was secure. Then he snipped off the roll with the scissors and slit the end down the center. He made the whole thing fast with a tidy square knot. It was a good bandage, he knew, and he sat back on his heels with pride, wiping the perspiration from his brow, and gri

“I’m cold,” Snowden moaned. “I’m cold.”

“You’re going to be all right, kid,” Yossarian assured him, patting his arm comfortingly. “Everything’s under control.”

Snowden shook his head feebly. “I’m cold,” he repeated, with eyes as dull and blind as stone. “I’m cold.”

“There, there,” said Yossarian, with growing doubt and trepidation. “There, there. In a little while we’ll be back on the ground and Doc Daneeka will take care of you.”

But Snowden kept shaking his head and pointed at last, with just the barest movement of his chin, down toward his armpit. Yossarian bent forward to peer and saw a strangely colored stain seeping through the coveralls just above the armhole of Snowden’s flak suit. Yossarian felt his heart stop, then pound so violently he found it difficult to breathe. Snowden was wounded inside his flak suit. Yossarian ripped open the snaps of Snowden’s flak suit and heard himself scream wildly as Snowden’s insides slithered down to the floor in a soggy pile and just kept dripping out. A chunk of flak more than three inches big had shot into his other side just underneath the arm and blasted all the way through, drawing whole mottled quarts of Snowden along with it through the gigantic hole in his ribs it made as it blasted out. Yossarian screamed a second time and squeezed both hands over his eyes. His teeth were chattering in horror. He forced himself to look again. Here was God’s plenty, all right, he thought bitterly as he stared-liver, lungs, kidneys, ribs, stomach and bits of the stewed tomatoes Snowden had eaten that day for lunch. Yossarian hated stewed tomatoes and turned away dizzily and began to vomit, clutching his burning throat. The tail gu

“I’m cold,” Snowden whimpered. “I’m cold.”

“There, there,” Yossarian mumbled mechanically in a voice too low to be heard. “There, there.”

Yossarian was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollably. He felt goose pimples clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor. It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. Drop him out a window and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden’s secret. Ripeness was all.

“I’m cold,” Snowden said. “I’m cold.”

“There, there,” said Yossarian. “There, there.” He pulled the rip cord of Snowden’s parachute and covered his body with the white nylon sheets.

“I’m cold.”

“There, there.”

42 YOSSARIAN

“Colonel Korn says,” said Major Danby to Yossarian with a prissy, gratified smile, “that the deal is still on. Everything is working out fine.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Oh, yes, indeed,” Major Danby insisted benevolently. “In fact, everything is much better. It was really a stroke of luck that you were almost murdered by that girl. Now the deal can go through perfectly.”

“I’m not making any deals with Colonel Korn.”

Major Danby’s effervescent optimism vanished instantly, and he broke out all at once into a bubbling sweat. “But you do have a deal with him, don’t you?” he asked in anguished puzzlement. “Don’t you have an agreement?”

“I’m breaking the agreement.”

“But you shook hands on it, didn’t you? You gave him your word as a gentleman.”

“I’m breaking my word.”

“Oh, dear,” sighed Major Danby, and began dabbing ineffectually at his careworn brow with a folded white handkerchief. “But why, Yossarian? It’s a very good deal they’re offering you.”

“It’s a lousy deal, Danby. It’s an odious deal.”

“Oh, dear,” Major Danby fretted, ru

“Danby, don’t you think it’s odious?”

Major Danby pondered a moment. “Yes, I suppose it is odious,” he conceded with reluctance. His globular, exophthalmic eyes were quite distraught. “But why did you make such a deal if you didn’t like it?”

“I did it in a moment of weakness,” Yossarian wisecracked with glum irony. “I was trying to save my life.”

“Don’t you want to save your life now?”

“That’s why I won’t let them make me fly more missions.”

“Then let them send you home and you’ll be in no more danger.”

“Let them send me home because I flew more than fifty missions,” Yossarian said, “and not because I was stabbed by that girl, or because I’ve turned into such a stubborn son of a bitch.”

Major Danby shook his head emphatically in sincere and bespectacled vexation. “They’d have to send nearly every man home if they did that. Most of the men have more than fifty missions. Colonel Cathcart couldn’t possibly requisition so many inexperienced replacement crews at one time without causing an investigation. He’s caught in his own trap.”

“That’s his problem.”

“No, no, no, Yossarian,” Major Danby disagreed solicitously. “It’s your problem. Because if you don’t go through with the deal, they’re going to institute court-martial proceedings as soon as you sign out of the hospital.”

Yossarian thumbed his nose at Major Danby and laughed with smug elation. “The hell they will! Don’t lie to me, Danby. They wouldn’t even try.”

“But why wouldn’t they?” inquired Major Danby, blinking with astonishment.

“Because I’ve really got them over a barrel now. There’s an official report that says I was stabbed by a Nazi assassin trying to kill them. They’d certainly look silly trying to court-martial me after that.”

“But, Yossarian!” Major Danby exclaimed. “There’s another official report that says you were stabbed by an i

Yossarian was taken back severely with surprise and disappointment. “Another official report?”

“Yossarian, they can prepare as many official reports as they want and choose whichever ones they need on any given occasion. Didn’t you know that?”

“Oh, dear,” Yossarian murmured in heavy dejection, the blood draining from his face. “Oh, dear.”

Major Danby pressed forward avidly with a look of vulturous well-meaning. “Yossarian, do what they want and let them send you home. It’s best for everyone that way.”

“It’s best for Cathcart, Korn and me, not for everyone.”

“For everyone,” Major Danby insisted. “It will solve the whole problem.”

“Is it best for the men in the group who will have to keep flying more missions?”

Major Danby flinched and turned his face away uncomfortably for a second. “Yossarian,” he replied, “it will help nobody if you force Colonel Cathcart to court-martial you and prove you guilty of all the crimes with which you’ll be charged. You will go to prison for a long time, and your whole life will be ruined.”