Catch-22 - Heller, Joseph [110]
‘He keeps her around just to drive me crazy,’ Colonel Moodus accused aggrievedly at the other end of the bar. ‘Back at Wing she’s got a uniform made out of purple silk that’s so tight her nipples stand out like bing cherries. There isn’t even room for panties or a brassière underneath. You should hear that rustle every time she shifts her weight. The first time I make a pass at her or any other girl he’ll bust me right down to private and put me on K.P. for a year. She drives me out of my mind.’
‘He hasn’t gotten laid since we shipped overseas,’ confided General Dreedle, and his square grizzled head bobbed with sadistic laughter at the fiendish idea. ‘That’s one of the reasons I never let him out of my sight, just so he can’t get to a woman. Can you imagine what that poor son of a bitch is going through?’
‘I haven’t been to bed with a woman since we shipped overseas,’ Colonel Moodus whimpered tearfully. ‘Can you imagine what I’m going through?’ General Dreedle could be as intransigent with anyone else when displeased as he was with Colonel Moodus. He had no taste for sham, tact or pretension, and his credo as a professional soldier was unified and concise: he believed that the young men who took orders from him should be willing to give up their lives for the ideals, aspirations and idiosyncrasies of the old men he took orders from. The officers and enlisted men in his command had identity for him only as military quantities. All he asked was that they do their work; beyond that, they were free to do whatever they pleased. They were free, as Colonel Cathcart was free, to force their men to fly sixty missions if they chose, and they were free, as Yossarian had been free, to stand in formation naked if they wanted to, although General Dreedle’s granite jaw swung open at the sight and he went striding dictatorially right down the line to make certain that there really was a man wearing nothing but moccasins waiting at attention in ranks to receive a medal from him. General Dreedle was speechless. Colonel Cathcart began to faint when he spied Yossarian, and Colonel Korn stepped up behind him and squeezed his arm in a strong grip. The silence was grotesque. A steady warm wind flowed in from the beach, and an old cart filled with dirty straw rumbled into view on the main road, drawn by a black donkey and driven by a farmer in a flopping hat and faded brown work clothes who paid no attention to the formal military ceremony taking place in the small field on his right.
At last General Dreedle spoke. ‘Get back in the car,’ he snapped over his shoulder to his nurse, who had followed him down the line. The nurse toddled away with a smile toward his brown staff car, parked about twenty yards away at the edge of the rectangular clearing. General Dreedle waited in austere silence until the car door slammed and then demanded, ‘Which one is this?’ Colonel Moodus checked his roster. ‘This one is Yossarian, Dad. He gets a Distinguished Flying Cross.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ mumbled General Dreedle, and his ruddy monolithic face softened with amusement. ‘Why aren’t you wearing clothes, Yossarian?’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘What do you mean you don’t want to? Why the hell don’t you want to?’
‘I just don’t want to, sir.’
‘Why isn’t he wearing clothes?’ General Dreedle demanded over his shoulder of Colonel Cathcart.
‘He’s talking to you,’ Colonel Korn whispered over Colonel Cathcart’s shoulder from behind, jabbing his elbow sharply into Colonel Cathcart’s back.
‘Why isn’t he wearing clothes?’ Colonel Cathcart demanded of Colonel Korn with a look of acute pain, tenderly nursing the spot where Colonel Korn had just jabbed him.
‘Why isn’t he wearing clothes?’ Colonel Korn demanded of Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren.
‘A man was killed in his plane over Avignon last week and bled all over him,’ Captain Wren replied. ‘He swears he’s never going to wear a uniform again.’
‘A man was killed in his plane over Avignon last week and bled all over him,’ Colonel Korn reported directly to General Dreedle.