9. Major Major Major Major
Major Major Major Major had had a difficult time from the start.
Like Miniver Cheevy, he had been born too late-exactly thirty-six
hours too late for the physical well-being of his mother, a gentle, ailing
woman who, after a full day and a half's agony in the rigors of
childbirth, was depleted of all resolve to pursue further the argument
over the new child's name. In the hospital corridor, her husband moved
ahead with the unsmiling determination of someone who knew what
he was about. Major Major's father was a towering, gaunt man in heavy
shoes and a black woolen suit. He filled out the birth certificate without
faltering, betraying no emotion at all as he handed the completed
form to the floor nurse. The nurse took it from him without comment
and padded out of sight. He watched her go, wondering what she had
on underneath.
Back in the ward, he found his wife lying vanquished beneath the
blankets like a desiccated old vegetable, wrinkled, dry and white, her
enfeebled tissues absolutely still. Her bed was at the very end of the
ward, near a cracked window thickened with grime. Rain splashed
from a moiling sky and the day was dreary and cold. In other parts of
the hospital chalky people with aged, blue lips were dying on time. The
man stood erect beside the bed and gazed down at the woman a long
time.
"I have named the boy Caleb," he announced to her finally in a soft
voice. "In accordance with your wishes." The woman made no answer,
and slowly the man smiled. He had planned it all perfectly, for his wife
was asleep and would never know that he had lied to her as she lay on
her sickbed in the poor ward of the county hospital.
From this meager beginning had sprung the ineffectual squadron
commander who was now spending the better part of each working day
in Pianosa forging Washington Irving's name to official documents.
Major Major forged diligently with his left hand to elude identification,
insulated against intrusion by his own undesired authority and
camouflaged in his false mustache and dark glasses as an additional
safeguard against detection by anyone chancing to peer in through the
dowdy celluloid window from which some thief had carved out a slice.
In between these two low points of his birth and his success lay thirty-one
dismal years of loneliness and frustration.
Major Major had been born too late and too mediocre. Some men
are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have
mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three.
Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a
man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met
him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.
Major Major had three strikes on him from the beginning-his
mother, his father and Henry Fonda, to whom he bore a sickly resemblance
almost from the moment of his birth. Long before he even
suspected who Henry Fonda was, he found himself the subject of
unflattering comparisons everywhere he went. Total strangers saw fit
to deprecate him, with the result that he was stricken early with a guilty
fear of people and an obsequious impulse to 'apologize to society for
the fact that he was not Henry Fonda. It was not an easy task for him
to go through life looking something like Henry Fonda, but he never
once thought of quitting, having inherited his perseverance from his
father, a lanky man with a good sense of humor.
Major Major's father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a
good joke was to lie about his age. He was a long-limbed farmer, a
God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who
held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He
advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who
turned. him down. His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing
out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every
bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the
more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he
didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not
produce. Major Major's father worked without rest at not growing
alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not
mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day
just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in
land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man
in the county. Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for
he had made much money and was therefore wise. "As ye sow, so shall
ye reap," he counseled one and all, and everyone said, "Amen."
Major Major's father was an outspoken champion of economy in
government, provided it did not interfere with the sacred duty of government
to pay farmers as much as they could get for all the alfalfa they
produced that no one else wanted or for not producing any alfalfa at
all. He was a proud and independent man who was opposed to unemployment
insurance and never hesitated to whine, whimper, wheedle,
and extort for as much as he could get from whomever he could. He
was a devout man whose pulpit was everywhere.
"The Lord gave us good farmers two strong hands so that we could
take as much as we could grab with both of them," he preached with
ardor on the courthouse steps or in the front of the A & P as he waited
for the bad-tempered gum-chewing young cashier he was after to step
outside and give him a nasty look. "If the Lord didn't want us to take as
much as we could get," he preached, "He wouldn't have given us two
good hands to take it with." And the others murmured, "Amen."
Major Major's father had a Calvinist's faith in predestination and
could perceive distinctly how everyone's misfortunes but his own were
expressions of God's will. He smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey,
and he thrived on good wit and stimulating intellectual conversation,
particularly his own when he was lying about his age or telling that
good one about God and his wife's difficulties in delivering Major
Major. The good one about God and his wife's difficulties had to do
with the fact that it had taken God only six days to produce the whole
world, whereas his wife had spent a full day and a half in labor just to
produce Major Major. A lesser man might have wavered that day in
the hospital corridor, a weaker man might have compromised on such
excellent substitutes as Drum Major, Minor Major, Sergeant Major, or
C Sharp Major, but Major Major's father had waited fourteen years
for just such an opportunity, and he was not a person to waste it.
Major Major's father had a good joke about opportunity. "Opportunity
only knocks once in this world," he would say. Major Major's father
repeated this good joke at every opportunity.
Being born with a sickly resemblance to Henry Fonda was the first
of a long series of practical jokes of which destiny was to make Major
Major the unhappy victim throughout his joyless life. Being born
Major Major Major was the second. The fact that he had been born
Major Major Major was a secret known only to his father. Not until
Major Major was enrolling in kindergarten was the discovery of his
real name made, and then the effects were disastrous. The news killed
his mother, who just lost her will to live and wasted away and died,
which was just fine with his father, who had decided to marry the bad-
tempered girl at the A & P if he had to and who had not been optimistic
about his chances of getting his wife off the land without paying
her some money or flogging her.
On Major Major himself the consequences were only slightly less
severe. It was a harsh and stunning realization that was forced upon him
at so tender an age, the realization that he was not, as he had always
been led to believe, Caleb Major, but instead was some total stranger
named Major Major Major about whom he knew absolutely nothing
and about whom nobody else had ever heard before. What playmates
he had withdrew from him and never returned, disposed, as they were,
to distrust all strangers, especially one who had already deceived them
by pretending to be someone they had known for years. Nobody would
have anything to do with him. He began to drop things and to trip. He
had a shy and hopeful manner in each new contact, and he was always
disappointed. Because he needed a friend so desperately, he never found
one. He grew awkwardly into a tall, strange, dreamy boy with fragile
eyes and a very delicate mouth whose tentative, groping smile collapsed
instantly into hurt disorder at every fresh rebuff.
He was polite to his elders, who disliked him. Whatever his elders
told him to do, he did. They told him to look before he leaped, and he
always looked before he leaped. They told him never to put off until
the next day what he could do the day before, and he never did. He was
told to honor his father and his mother, and he honored his father and
his mother. He was told that he should not kill, and he did not kill,
until he got into the Army. Then he was told to kill, and he killed. He
turned the other cheek on every occasion and always did unto others
exactly as he would have had others do unto him. When he gave to
charity, his left hand never knew what his right hand was doing. He
never once took the name of the Lord his God in vain, committed
adultery or coveted his neighbor's ass. In fact, he loved his neighbor
and never even bore false witness against him. Major Major's elders
disliked him because he was such a flagrant nonconformist.
Since he had nothing better to do well in, he did well in school. At
the state university he took his studies so seriously that he was suspected
by the homosexuals of being a Communist and suspected by the
Communists of being a homosexual. He majored in English history,
which was a mistake.
"English history!" roared the silver-maned senior Senator from his
state indignantly. "What's the matter with American history? American
history is as good as any history in the world!"
Major Major switched immediately to American literature, but not
before the F.B.I. had opened a file on him. There were six people and
a Scotch terrier inhabiting the remote farmhouse Major Major called
home, and five of them and the Scotch terrier turned out to be agents
for the F.B.I. Soon they had enough derogatory information on Major
Major to do whatever they wanted to with him. The only thing they
could find to do with him, however, was take him into the Army as a
private and make him a major four days later so that Congressmen
with nothing else on their minds could go trotting back and forth
through the streets of Washington, D.C., chanting, "Who promoted
Major Major? Who promoted Major Major?"
Actually, Major Major had been promoted by an I.B.M. machine
with a sense of humor almost as keen as his father's. When war broke
out, he was still docile and compliant. They told him to enlist, and he
enlisted. They told him to apply for aviation cadet training, and he
applied for aviation cadet training, and the very next night found himself
standing barefoot in icy mud at three o'clock in the morning
before a tough and belligerent sergeant from the Southwest who told
them he could beat hell out of any man in his outfit and was ready to
prove it. The recruits in his squadron had all been shaken roughly
awake only minutes before by the sergeant's corporals and told to
assemble in front of the administration tent. It was still raining on
Major Major. They fell into ranks in the civilian clothes they had
brought into the Army with them three days before. Those who had
lingered. to put shoes and socks on were sent back to their cold, wet,
dark tents to remove them, and they were all barefoot in the mud as
the sergeant ran his stony eyes over their faces and told them he could
beat hell out of any man in his outfit. No one was inclined to dispute
rum.
Major Major's unexpected promotion to major the next day plunged
the belligerent sergeant into a bottomless gloom, for he was no longer
able to boast that he could beat hell out of any man in his outfit. He
brooded for hours in his tent like Saul, receiving no visitors, while his
elite guard of corporals stood discouraged watch outside. At three
o'clock in the morning he found his solution, and Major Major and the
other recruits were again shaken roughly awake and ordered to assemble
barefoot in the drizzly glare at the administration tent, where the
sergeant was already waiting, his fists clenched on his hips cockily, so
eager to speak that he could hardly wait for them to arrive.
"Me and Major Major," he boasted, in the same tough, clipped
tones of the night before, "can beat hell out of any man in my outfit."
The officers on the base took action on the Major Major problem
later that same day. How could they cope with a major like Major
Major? To demean him personally would be to demean all other officers
of equal or lesser rank. To treat him with courtesy, on the other
hand, was unthinkable. Fortunately, Major Major had applied for aviation
cadet training. Orders transferring him away were sent to the
mimeograph room late in the afternoon, and at three o'clock in the
morning Major Major was again shaken roughly awake, bidden Godspeed
by the sergeant and placed aboard a plane heading west.
Lieutenant Scheisskopf turned white as a sheet when Major Major
reported to him in California with bare feet and mud-caked toes.
Major Major had taken it for granted that he was being shaken roughly
awake again to stand barefoot in the mud and had left his shoes and
socks in the tent. The civilian clothing in which he reported for duty
to Lieutenant Scheisskopf was rumpled and dirty. Lieutenant Scheisskopf,
who had not yet made his reputation as a parader, shuddered
violently at the picture Major Major would make marching barefoot in
his squadron that coming Sunday.
"Go to the hospital quickly," he mumbled, when he had recovered
sufficiently to speak, "and tell them you're sick. Stay there until your
allowance for uniforms catches up with you and you have some money
to buy some clothes. And some shoes. Buy some shoes."
"Yes, sir."
"I don't think you have to call me 'sir,' sir," Lieutenant Scheisskopf
pointed out. "You outrank me."
"Yes, sir. 1 may outrank you, sir, but you're still my commanding
officer."
"Yes, sir, that's right," Lieutenant Scheisskopf agreed. "You may
outrank me, sir, but I'm still your commanding officer. So you better
do what I tell you, sir, or you'll get into trouble. Go to the hospital and
tell them you're sick, sir. Stay there until your uniform allowance
catches up with you and you have some money to buy some uniforms."
"Yes, sir."
"And some shoes, sir. Buy some shoes the first chance you get, sir."
"Yes, sir. I will, sir."
"Thank you, sir."
Life in cadet school for Major Major was no different than life had
been for him all along. Whoever he was with always wanted him to be
with someone else. His instructors gave him preferred treatment at
every stage in order to push him along quickly and be rid of him. In
almost no time he had his pilot's wings and found himself overseas,
where things began suddenly to improve. All his life, Major Major had
longed for but one thing, to be absorbed, and in Pianosa, for a while,
he finally was. Rank meant little to the men on combat duty, and relations
between officers and enlisted men were relaxed and informal.
Men whose names he didn't even know said "Hi" and invited him to
go swimming or play basketball. His ripest hours were spent in the
day-long basketball games no one gave a damn about winning. Score
was never kept, and the number of players might vary from one to
thirty-five. Major Major had never played basketball or any other game
before, but his great, bobbing height and rapturous enthusiasm helped
make up for his innate clumsiness and lack of experience. Major Major
found true happiness there on the lopsided basketball court with the
officers and enlisted men who were almost his friends. If there were no
winners, there were no losers, and Major Major enjoyed every gamboling
moment right up till the day Colonel Cathcart roared up in his
jeep after Major Duluth was killed and made it impossible for him ever
to enjoy playing basketball there again.
"You're the new squadron commander," Colonel Cathcart -had
shouted rudely across the railroad ditch to him. "But don't think it
means anything, because it doesn't. All it means is that you're the new
squadron commander."
Colonel Cathcart had nursed an implacable grudge against Major
Major for a long time. A superfluous major on his rolls meant an
untidy table of organization and gave ammunition to the men at
Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters who Colonel Cathcart was
positive were his enemies and rivals. Colonel Cathcart had been praying
for just some stroke of good luck like Major Duluth's death. He had
been plagued by one extra major; he now had an opening for one
major. He appointed Major Major squadron commander and roared
away in his jeep as abruptly as he had come.
For Major Major, it meant the end of the game. His face flushed
with discomfort, and he was rooted to the spot in disbelief as the rain
clouds gathered above him again. When he turned to his teammates,
he encountered a reef of curious, reflective faces all gazing at him
woodenly with morose and inscrutable animosity. He shivered with
shame. When the game resumed, it was not good any longer. When he
dribbled, no one tried to stop him; when he called for a pass, whoever
had the ball passed it; and when he missed a basket, no one raced him
for the rebound. The only voice was his own. The next day was the
same, and the day after that he did not come back.
Almost on cue, everyone in the squadron stopped talking to him and
started staring at him. He walked through life self-consciously with
downcast eyes and burning cheeks, the object of contempt, envy, suspicion,
resentment and malicious innuendo everywhere he went.
People who had hardly noticed his resemblance to Henry Fonda
before now never ceased discussing it, and there were even those who
hinted sinisterly that Major Major had been elevated to squadron commander
because he resembled Henry Fonda. Captain Black, who had
aspired to the position himself, maintained that Major Major really was
Henry Fonda but was too chickenshit to admit it.
Major Major floundered bewilderedly from one embarrassing catastrophe
to another. Without consulting him, Sergeant Towser had his
belongings moved into the roomy trailer Major Duluth had occupied
alone, and when Major Major came rushing breathlessly into the
orderly room to report the theft of his things, the young corporal there
scared him half out of his wits by leaping to his feet and shouting
"Attention!" the moment he appeared. Major Major snapped to attention
with all the rest in the orderly room, wondering what important
personage had entered behind him. Minutes passed in rigid silence,
and the whole lot of them might have stood there at attention till
doomsday if Major Danby had not dropped by from Group to congratulate
Major Major twenty minutes later and put them all at ease.
Major Major fared even more lamentably at the mess hall, where
Milo, his face fluttery with smiles, was waiting to usher him proudly to
a small-table he had set up in front and decorated with an embroided
tablecloth and a nosegay of posies in a pink cut-glass vase. Major Major
hung back with horror, but he was not bold enough to resist with all
the others watching. Even Havermeyer had lifted his head from his
plate to gape at him with his heavy, pendulous jaw. Major Major submitted
meekly to Milo's tugging and cowered in disgrace at his private
table throughout the whole meal. The food was ashes in his mouth, but
he swallowed every mouthful rather than risk offending any of the men
connected with its preparation. Alone with Milo later, Major Major felt
protest stir for the first time and said he would prefer to continue eating
with the other officers. Milo told him it wouldn't work.
"I don't see what there is to work," Major Major argued. "Nothing
ever happened before."
"You were never the squadron commander before."
"Major Duluth was the squadron commander and he always ate at
the same table with the rest of the men."
"It was different with Major Duluth, sir."
"In what way was it different with Major Duluth?"
"I wish you wouldn't ask me that, sir," said Milo.
"Is it because I look like Henry Fonda?" Major Major mustered the
courage to demand.
"Some people say you are Henry Fonda," Milo answered.
"Well, I'm not Henry Fonda," Major Major exclaimed, in a voice
quavering with exasperation. "And I don't look the least bit like him.
And even if I do look like Henry Fonda, what difference does that
make?"
"It doesn't make any difference. That's what I'm trying to tell you,
sir. It's just not the same with you as it was with Major Duluth."
And it just wasn't the same, for when Major Major, at the next meal,
stepped from the food counter to sit with the others at the regular
tables, he was frozen in his tracks by the impenetrable wall of antagonism
thrown up by their faces and stood petrified with his tray quivering
in his hands until Milo glided forward wordlessly to rescue him, by
leading him tamely to his private table. Major Major gave up after that
and always ate at his table alone with his back to the others. He was certain
they resented him because he seemed too good to eat with them
now that he was squadron commander. There was never any conversation
in the mess tent when Major Major was present. He was conscious
that other officers tried to avoid eating at the same time, and everyone
was greatly relieved when he stopped coming there altogether and
began taking his meals in his trailer.
Major Major began forging Washington Irving's name to official
documents the day after the first C.I.D. man showed up to interrogate
him about somebody at the hospital who had been doing it and gave
him the idea. He had been bored and dissatisfied in his new position.
He had been made squadron commander but had no idea what he was
supposed to do as squadron commander, unless all he was supposed to
do was forge Washington Irving's name to official documents and listen
to the isolated clinks and thumps of Major -- de Coverley's
horseshoes falling to the ground outside the window of his small office
in the rear of the orderly-room tent. He was hounded incessantly by
an impression of vital duties left unfulfilled and waited in vain for his
responsibilities to overtake him. He seldom went out unless it was
absolutely necessary, for he could not get used to being stared at.
Occasionally, the monotony was broken by some officer or enlisted
man Sergeant Towser referred to him on some matter that Major
Major was unable to cope with and referred right back to Sergeant
Towser for sensible disposition. Whatever he was supposed to get done
as squadron commander apparently was getting done without any
assistance from him. He grew moody and depressed. At times he
thought seriously of going with all his sorrows to see the chaplain, but
the chaplain seemed so overburdened with miseries of his own that
Major Major shrank from adding to his troubles. Besides, he was not
quite sure if chaplains were for squadron commanders.
He had never been quite sure about Major -- de Coverley, either,
who, when he was not away renting apartments or kidnapping foreign
laborers, had nothing more pressing to do than pitch horseshoes.
Major Major often paid strict attention to the horseshoes falling softly
against the earth or riding down around the small steel pegs in the
ground. He peeked out at Major -- de Coverley for hours and marveled
that someone so august had nothing more important to do. He
was often tempted to join Major -- de Coverley, but pitching horseshoes
all day long seemed almost as dull as signing "Major Major
Major" to official documents, and Major -- de Coverley's countenance
was so forbidding that Major Major was in awe of approaching
him.
Major Major wondered about his relationship to Major -- de
Coverley and about Major -- de Coverley's relationship to him. He
knew that Major -- de Coverley was his executive officer, but he did
not know what that meant, and he could not decide whether in Major
-- de Coverley he was blessed with a lenient superior or cursed with
a delinquent subordinate. He did not want to ask Sergeant Towser, of
whom he was secretly afraid, and there was no one else he could ask,
least of all Major -- de Coverley. Few people ever dared approach
Major -- de Coverley about anything and the only officer foolish
enough to pitch one of his horseshoes was stricken the very next day
with the worst case of Pianosan crud that Gus or Wes or even Doc
Daneeka had ever seen or even heard about. Everyone was positive the
disease had been inflicted upon the poor officer in retribution by
Major -- de Coverley, although no one was sure how.
Most of the official documents that came to Major Major's desk did
not concern him at all. The vast majority consisted of allusions to prior
communications which Major Major had never seen or heard of. There
was never any need to look them up, for the instructions were invariably to disregard. In the space of a single productive minute, therefore,
he might endorse twenty separate documents each advising him to pay
absolutely no attention to any of the others. From General Peckem's
office on the mainland came prolix bulletins each day headed by such
cheery homilies as "Procrastination Is the Thief of Time" and "Cleanliness
Is Next to Godliness."
General Peckem's communications about cleanliness and procrastination
made Major Major feel like a filthy procrastinator, and he
always got those out of the way as quickly as he could. The only official
documents that interested him were those occasional ones pertaining
to the unfortunate second lieutenant who had been killed on
the mission over Orvieto less than two hours after he arrived on
Pianosa and whose partly unpacked belongings were still in Yossarian's
tent. Since the unfortunate lieutenant had reported to the operations
tent instead of to the orderly room, Sergeant Towser had decided that
it would be safest to report him as never having reported to the
squadron at all, and the occasional documents relating to him dealt
with the fact that he seemed to have vanished into thin air, which, in
one way, was exactly what did happen to him. In the long run, Major
Major was grateful for the official documents that came to his desk, for
sitting in his office signing them all day long was a lot better than sitting
in his office all day long not signing them. They gave him something
to do.
Inevitably, every document he signed came back with a fresh page
added for a new signature by him after intervals of from two to ten
days. They were always much thicker than formerly, for in between the
sheet bearing his last endorsement and the sheet added for his new
endorsement were the sheets bearing the most recent endorsements of
all the other officers in scattered locations who were also occupied in
signing their names to that same official document. Major Major grew
despondent as he watched simple communications swell prodigiously
into huge manuscripts. O matter how many times he signed one, it
always came back for still another signature, and he began to despair
of ever being free of any of them. One day-it was the day after the
C.I.D. man's first visit-Major Major signed Washington Irving's
name to one of the documents instead of his own, just to see how it
would feel. He liked it. He liked it so much that for the rest of that
afternoon he did the same with all the official documents. It was an act
of impulsive frivolity and rebellion for which he knew afterward he
would be punished severely. The next morning he entered his office in
trepidation and waited to see what would happen. Nothing happened.
He had sinned, and it was good, for none of the documents to which
he had signed Washington Irving's name ever came back! Here, at last,
was progress, and Major Major threw himself into his new career with
uninhibited gusto. Signing Washington Irving's name to official documents
was not much of a career, perhaps, but it was less monotonous
than signing "Major Major Major." When Washington Irving did
grow monotonous, he could reverse the order and sign Irving Washington
until that grew monotonous. And he was getting something
done, for none of the documents signed with either of these names
ever came back to the squadron.
What did come back, eventually, was a second C.I.D. man, masquerading
as a pilot. The men knew he was a C.I.D. man because he
confided to them he was and urged each of them not to reveal his true
identity to any of the other men to whom he had already confided that
he was a C.I.D. man.
"You're the only one in the squadron who knows I'm a C.I.D. man,"
he confided to Major Major, "and it's absolutely essential that it remain
a secret so that my efficiency won't be impaired. Do you understand?"
"Sergeant Towser knows."
"Yes, I know. I had to tell him in order to get in to see you. But I
know he won't tell a soul under any circumstances."
"He told me," said Major Major. "He told me there was a C.I.D.
man outside to see me."
"That bastard. I'll have to throw a security check on him. I wouldn't
leave any top-secret documents lying around here if I were you. At
least not until I make my report."
"I don't get any top-secret documents," said Major Major.
"That's the kind I mean. Lock them in your cabinet where Sergeant
Towser can't get his hands on them."
"Sergeant Towser has the only key to the cabinet."
"I'm afraid we're wasting time," said the second C.I.D. man rather
stiffly. He was a brisk, pudgy, high-strung person whose movements
were swift and certain. He took a number of photostats out of a large
red expansion envelope he had been hiding conspicuously beneath a
leather flight jacket painted garishly with pictures of airplanes flying
through orange bursts of flak and with orderly rows of little bombs signifying
fifty-five combat missions flown. "Have you ever seen any of
these?"
Major Major looked with a blank expression at copies of personal
correspondence from the hospital on which the censoring officer had
written "Washington Irving" or "Irving Washington."
"No."
"How about these?"
Major Major gazed next at copies of official documents addressed to
him to which he had been signing the same signatures.
"No."
"Is the man who signed these names in your squadron?"
"Which one? There are two names here."
"Either one. We figure that Washington Irving and Irving Washington
are one man and that he's using two names just to throw us off
the track. That's done very often, you know."
"I don't think there's a man with either of those names in my
squadron."
A look of disappointment crossed the second C.I.D. man's face.
"He's a lot cleverer than we thought," he observed. "He's using a third
name and posing as someone else. And I think ... yes, I think I know
what the third name is." With excitement and inspiration, he held
another photostat out for Major Major to study. "How about this?"
Major Major bent forward slightly and saw a copy of the piece of V
mail from which Yossarian had blacked out everything but the name
Mary and on which he had written, "I yearn for you tragically. A. T.
Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army." Major Major shook his head.
"I've never seen it before."
"Do you know who A. T. Tappman is?"
"He's the group chaplain."
"That locks it up," said the second C.I.D. man. "Washington Irving
is the group chaplain."
Major Major felt a twinge of alarm. "A. T. Tappman is the group
chaplain," he corrected.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Why should the group chaplain write this on a letter?"
"Perhaps somebody else wrote it and forged his name."
"Why would somebody want to forge the group chaplain's name?"
"To escape detection."
"You may be right," the second C.I.D. man decided after an instant's
hesitation, and smacked his lips crisply. "Maybe we're confronted with
a gang, with two men working together who just happen to have opposite
names. Yes, I'm sure that's it. One of them here in the squadron,
one of them up at the hospital and one of them with the chaplain. That
makes three men, doesn't it? Are you absolutely sure you never saw any
of these official documents before?"
"I would have signed them if! had."
"With whose name?" asked the second C.I.D. man cunningly.
"Yours or Washington Irving's?"
"With my own name," Major Major told him. "I don't even know
Washington Irving's name."
The second C.I.D. man broke into a smile.
"Major, I'm glad you're in the clear. It means we'll be able to work
together, and I'm going to need every man I can get. Somewhere in the
European theater of operations is a man who's getting his hands on
communications addressed to you. Have you any idea who it can be?"
"No."
"Well, I have a pretty good idea," said the second C.I.D. man, and
leaned forward to whisper confidentially. "That bastard Towser. Why
else would he go around shooting his mouth off about me? Now, you
keep your eyes open and let me know the minute you hear anyone even
talking about Washington Irving. I'll throw a 'security check on the
chaplain and everyone else around here."
The moment he was gone, the first C.I.D. man jumped into Major
Major's office through the window and wanted to know who the second
C.I.D. man was. Major Major barely recognized him.
"He was a C.I.D. man," Major Major told him.
"Like hell he was," said the first C.I.D. man. "I'm the C.I.D. man
around here."
Major Major barely recognized him because he was wearing a faded
maroon corduroy bathrobe with open seams under both arms, limy
flannel pajamas, and worn house slippers with one flapping sole. This
was regulation hospital dress, Major Major recalled. The man had
added about twenty pounds and seemed bursting with good health.
"I'm really a very sick man," he whined. "I caught cold in the hospital
from a fighter pilot and came down with a very serious case of
pneumonia."
"I'm very sorry," Major Major said.
"A lot of good that does me," the C.I.D. man sniveled. "I don't want
your sympathy. I just want you to know what I'm going through. I came
down to warn you that Washington Irving seems to have shifted his
base of operations from the hospital to your squadron. You haven't
heard anyone around here talking about Washington Irving, have you?"
"As a matter of fact, I have," Major Major answered. "That man
who was just in there. He was talking about Washington Irving."
"Was he really?" the first C.I.D. man cried with delight. "This might
be just what we needed to crack the case wide open! You keep him under
surveillance twenty-four hours a day while I rush back to the hospital
and write my superiors for further instructions." The C.I.D. man
jumped out of Major Major's office through the window and was gone.
A minute later, the flap separating Major Major's office from the
orderly room flew open and the second C.I.D. man was back, puffing
frantically in haste. Gasping for breath, he shouted, "I just saw a man
in red pajamas come jumping out of your window and go running up
the road! Didn't you see him?"
"He was here talking to me," Major Major answered.
"I thought that looked mighty suspicious, a man jumping out the
window in red pajamas." The man paced about the small office in vigorous
circles. "At first I thought it was you, hightailing it for Mexico.
But now I see it wasn't you. He didn't say anything about Washington
Irving, did he?"
"As a matter of fact," said Major Major, "he did."
"He did?" cried the second C.I.D. man. "That's fine! This might be
just the break we needed to crack the case wide open. Do you know
where we can find him?"
"At the hospital. He's really a very sick man."
"That's great!" exclaimed the second C.I.D. man. "I'll go right up
there after him. It would be best if I went incognito. I'll go explain the
situation at the medical tent and have them send me there as a patient."
"They won't send me to the hospital as a patient unless I'm sick," he
reported back to Major Major. "Actually, I am pretty sick. I've been
meaning to turn myself in for a checkup, and this will be a good opportunity.
I'll go back to the medical tent and tell them I'm sick, and I'll
get sent to the hospital that way."
"Look what they did to me," he reported back to Major Major with
purple gums. His distress was inconsolable. He carried his shoes and
socks in his hands, and his toes had been painted with gentian-violet
solution, too. "Who ever heard of a C.I.D. man with purple gums?" he
moaned.
He walked away from the orderly room with his head down and
tumbled into a slit trench and broke his nose. His temperature was still
normal, but Gus and Wes made an exception of him and sent him to
the hospital in an ambulance.
Major Major had lied, and it was good. He was not really surprised
that it was good, for he had observed that people who did lie were, on
the whole, more resourceful and ambitious and successful than people
who did not lie. Had he told the truth to the second C.I.D. man, he
would have found himself in trouble. Instead he had lied, and he was
free to continue his work.
He became more circumspect in his work as a result of the visit from
the second C.I.D. man. He did all his signing with his left hand and
only while wearing the dark glasses and false mustache he had used
unsuccessfully to help him begin playing basketball again. As an additional
precaution, he made a happy switch from Washington Irving to
John Milton. John Milton was supple and concise. Like Washington
Irving, he could be reversed with good effect whenever he grew monotonous.
Furthermore, he enabled Major Major to double his output,
for John Milton was so much shorter than either his own name or
Washington Irving's and took so much less time to write. John Milton
proved fruitful in still one more respect. He was versatile, and Major
Major soon found himself incorporating the signature in fragments of
imaginary dialogues. Thus, typical endorsements on the official documents
might read, "John, Milton is a sadist" or "Have you seen Milton,
John?" One signature of which he was especially proud read, "Is anybody
in the John, Milton?" John Milton threw open whole new vistas
filled with charming, inexhaustible possibilities that promised to ward
off monotony forever. Major Major went back to Washington Irving
when John Milton grew monotonous.
Major Major had bought the dark glasses and false mustache in
Rome in a final, futile attempt to save himself from the swampy degradation
into which he was steadily sinking. First there had been the
awful humiliation of the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, when not one of
the thirty or forty people circulating competitive loyalty oaths would
even allow him to sign. Then, just when that was blowing over, there
was the matter of Clevinger's plane disappearing so mysteriously in
thin air with every member of the crew, and blame for the strange
mishap centering balefully on him because he had never signed any of
the loyalty oaths.
The dark glasses had large magenta rims. The false black mustache
was a flamboyant organ grinder's, and he wore them both to the basketball
game one day when he felt he could endure his loneliness no
longer. He affected an air of jaunty familiarity as he sauntered to the
court and prayed silently that he would not be recognized. The others
pretended not to recognize him, and he began to have fun. Just as he
finished congratulating himself on his innocent ruse he was bumped
hard by one of his opponents and knocked to his knees. Soon he was
bumped hard again, and it dawned on him that they did recognize him
and that they were using his disguise as a license to elbow, trip and maul
him. They did not want him at all. And just as he did realize this, the
players on his team fused instinctively with the players on the other
team into a single, howling, bloodthirsty mob that descended upon him
from all sides with foul curses and swinging fists. They knocked him to
the ground, kicked him while he was on the ground, attacked him again
after he had struggled blindly to his feet. He covered his face with his
hands and could not see. They swarmed all over each other in their
frenzied compulsion to bludgeon him, kick him, gouge him, trample
him. He was pummeled spinning to the edge of the ditch and sent slithering
down on his head and shoulders. At the bottom he found his footing,
clambered up the other wall and staggered away beneath the hail
of hoots and stones with which they pelted him until he lurched into
shelter around a corner of the orderly-room tent. ,His paramount concern
throughout the entire assault was to keep his dark glasses and false
mustache in place so that he might continue pretending he was somebody
else and be spared the dreaded necessity of having to confront
them with his authority.
Back in his office, he wept; and when he finished weeping he washed
the blood from his mouth and nose, scrubbed the dirt from the abrasions
on his cheek and forehead, and summoned Sergeant Towser.
"From now on," he said, "I don't want anyone to come in to see me
while I'm here. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir," said Sergeant Towser. "Does that include me?"
"Yes."
"I see. Will that be all?"
"Yes."
"What shall I say to the people who do come to see you while you're
here?"
"Tell them I'm in and ask them to wait."
"Yes, sir. For how long?"
"Until I've left."
"And then what shall I do with them?"
"I don't care."
"May I send them in to see you after you've left?"
"Yes."
"But you won't be here then, will you?"
"No."
"Yes, sir. Will that be all?"
"Yes."
"Yes, sir."
"From now on," Major Major said to the middle-aged enlisted man
who took care of his trailer, "I don't want you to come here while I'm
here to ask me if there's anything you can do for me. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir," said the orderly. "When should I come here to find out if
there's anything you want me to do for you?"
"When I'm not here."
"Yes, sir. And what should I do?"
"Whatever I tell you to."
"But you won't be here to tell me. Will you?"
"No."
"Then what should I do?"
"Whatever has to be done."
"Yes, sir."
"That will be all," said Major Major.
"Yes, sir," said the orderly. "Will that be all?"
"No," said Major Major. "Don't come in to clean, either. Don't
come in for anything unless you're sure I'm not here."
"Yes, sir. But how can I always be sure?"
"If you're not sure, just assume that I am here and go away until you
are sure. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir."
"I'm sorry to have to talk to you in this way, but I have to. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, sir."
"And thank you. For everything."
"Yes, sir."
"From now on," Major Major said to Milo Minderbinder, "I'm not
going to come to the mess hall any more. I'll have all my meals brought
to me in my trailer."
"I think that's a good idea sir," Milo answered. "Now I'll be able to
serve you special dishes that the others will never know about. I'm sure
you'll enjoy them. Colonel Cathcart always does."
"I don't want any special dishes. I want exactly what you serve all the
other officers. Just have whoever brings it knock once on my door and
leave the tray on the step. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir," said Milo. "That's very clear. I've got some live Maine
lobsters hidden away that I can serve you tonight with an excellent
Roquefort salad and two frozen eclairs that were smuggled out of Paris
only yesterday together with an important member of the French
underground. Will that do for a start?"
"No."
"Yes, sir. I understand."
For dinner that night Milo served him broiled Maine lobster with
excellent Roquefort salad and two frozen eclairs. Major Major was
annoyed. If he sent it back, though, it would only go to waste or to
somebody else, and Major Major had a weakness for broiled lobster.
He ate with a guilty conscience. The next day for lunch there was terrapin
Maryland with a whole quart of Dom Perignon 1937, and Major
Major gulped it down without a thought.
After Milo, there remained only the men in the orderly room, and
Major Major avoided them by entering and leaving every time through
the dingy celluloid window of his office. The window unbuttoned and
was low and large and easy to jump through from either side. He managed
the distance between the orderly room and his trailer by darting
around the corner of the tent when the coast was clear, leaping down
into the railroad ditch and dashing' along with his head bowed until he
attained the sanctuary of the forest. Abreast of his trailer, he left the
ditch and wove his way speedily toward home through the dense
underbrush, in which the only person he, ever encountered was Captain
Flume, ~ho, drawn and ghostly, frightened him half to death one
twilight by materializing without warning out of a patch of dewberry
bushes to complain that Chief White Halfoat had threatened to slit his
throat open from ear to ear.
"If you ever frighten me like that again," Major Major told him, "I'll
slit your throat open from ear to ear."
Captain Flume gasped and dissolved right back into the patch of
dewberry bushes, and Major Major never set eyes on him again.
When Major Major looked back on what he had accomplished, he was
pleased. In the midst of a few foreign acres teeming with more than two
hundred people, he had succeeded in becoming a recluse. With a little
ingenuity and vision, he had made it all but impossible for anyone in the
squadron to talk to him, which was just fine with everyone, he noticed,
since no one wanted to talk to him anyway. No one, it turned out, but that
madman Yossarian, who brought him down with a flying tackle one day
as he was scooting along the bottom of the ditch to his trailer for lunch.
The last person in the squadron Major Major wanted to be brought
down with a flying tackle by was Yossarian. There was something inherently
disreputable about Yossarian, always carrying on so disgracefully
about that dead man in his tent who wasn't even there and then taking
off all his clothes after the Avignon mission and going around without
them right up to the day General Dreedle stepped up to pin a medal on
him for his heroism over Ferrara and found him standing in formation
stark naked. No one in the world had the power to remove the dead
man's disorganized effects from Yossarian's tent. Major Major had forfeited
the authority when he permitted Sergeant Towser to report the
lieutenant who had been killed over Orvieto less than two hours after
he arrived in the squadron as never having arrived in the squadron at all.
The only one with any right to remove his belongings from Yossarian's
tent, it seemed to Major Major, was Yossarian himself, and Yossarian, it
seemed to Major Major, had no right.
Major Major groaned after Yossarian brought him down with a flying
tackle, and tried to wiggle to his feet. Yossarian wouldn't let him.
"Captain Yossarian," Yossarian said, "requests permission to speak
to the major at once about a matter of life or death,"
"Let me up, please," Major Major bid him in cranky discomfort. "I
can't return your salute while I'm lying on my arm."
Yossarian released him. They stood up slowly. Yossarian saluted
again and repeated his request.
"Let's go to my office," Major Major said. "I don't think this is the
best place to talk."
"Yes, sir," answered Yossarian.
They smacked the gravel from their clothing and walked in constrained
silence to the entrance of the orderly room.
"Give me a minute or two to put some Mercurochrome on these
cuts. Then have Sergeant Towser send you in."
"Yes, sir."
Major Major strode with dignity to the rear of the orderly room without
glancing at any of the clerks and typists working at the desks and filing
cabinets. He let the flap leading to his office fall closed behind him.
As soon as he was alone in his office, he raced across the room to the
window and jumped outside to dash away. He found Yossarian blocking
his path. Yossarian was waiting at attention and saluted again.
"Captain Yossarian requests permission to speak to the major at
once about a matter of life and death," he repeated determinedly.
"Permission denied," Major Major snapped.
"That won't do it."
Major Major gave in. "All right," he conceded wearily. "I'll talk to
you. Please jump inside my office."
"After you."
They jumped inside the office. Major Major sat down, and Yossarian
moved around in front of his desk and told him that he did not want to
fly any more combat missions. What could he do? Major Major asked
himself. All he could do was what he had been instructed to do by
Colonel Korn and hope for the best.
"Why not?" he asked.
"I'm afraid."
"That's nothing to be ashamed of," Major Major counseled him
kindly. "We're all afraid."
"I'm not ashamed," Yossarian said. "I'm just afraid."
"You wouldn't be normal if you were never afraid. Even the bravest
men experience fear. One of the biggest jobs we all face in combat is to
overcome fear."
"Oh, come on, Major. Can't we do without that horseshit?"
Major Major lowered his gaze sheepishly and fiddled with his fingers.
"What do you want me to tell you?"
"That I've flown enough missions and can go home."
"How many have you flown?"
"Fifty-one."
"You've only got four more to fly."
"He'll raise them. Every time I get close he raises them."
"Perhaps he won't this time."
"He never sends anyone home, anyway. He just keeps them around
waiting for rotation orders until he doesn't have enough men left for
the crews, and then raises the number of missions and throws them all
back on combat status. He's been doing that ever since he got here."
"You mustn't blame Colonel Cathcart for any delay with the
orders," Major Major advised. "It's Twenty-seventh Air Force's responsibility
to process the orders promptly once they get them from us."
"He could still ask for replacements and send us home when the
orders did come back. Anyway, I've been told that Twenty-seventh Air
Force wants only forty missions and that it's only his own idea to get
us to fly fifty-five."
"I wouldn't know anything about that," Major Major answered.
"Colonel Cathcart is our commanding officer and we must obey him.
Why don't you fly the four more missions and see what happens?"
"I don't want to."
What could you do? Major Major asked himself again. What could
you do with a man who looked you squarely in the eye and said he
would rather die than be killed in combat, a man who was at least as
mature and intelligent as you were and who you had to pretend was
not? What could you say to him?
"Suppose we let you pick your missions and fly milk runs," Major
Major said. "That way you can fly the four missions and not run any
risks."
"I don't want to fly milk runs. I don't want to be in the war any
more."
"Would you like to see our country lose?" Major Major asked.
"We won't lose. We've got more men, more money and more material.
There are ten million men in uniform who could replace me.
Some people are getting killed and a lot more are making money and
having fun. Let somebody else get killed."
"But suppose everybody on our side felt that way."
"Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way.
Wouldn't I?"
What could you possibly say to him? Major Major wondered forlornly.
One thing he could not say was that there was nothing he could do. To
say there was nothing he could do would suggest he would do something
if he could and imply the existence of an error or injustice in
Colonel Korn's policy. Colonel Korn had been most explicit about
that. He must never say there was nothing he could do.
"I'm sorry," he said. "But there's nothing I can do."