Catch-22 - Heller, Joseph [47]
‘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. ‘R. O. Shipman 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 should 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 I 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, linty 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 here. 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 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,