“Catch-22” By Joseph - Khamkoo

“Catch-22” By Joseph Heller 150
chaplain’s mind.
The chaplain was sincerely a very helpful person who was never able to help anyone,
not even Yossarian when he finally decided to seize the bull by the horns and visit Major
Major secretly to learn if, as Yossarian had said, the men in Colonel Cathcart’s group
really were being forced to fly more combat missions than anyone else. It was a daring,
impulsive move on which the chaplain decided after quarreling with Corporal Whitcomb
again and washing down with tepid canteen water his joyless lunch of Milky Way and
Baby Ruth. He went to Major Major on foot so that Corporal Whitcomb would not see
him leaving, stealing into the forest noiselessly until the two tents in his clearing were left
behind, then dropping down inside the abandoned railroad ditch, where the footing was
surer. He hurried along the fossilized wooden ties with accumulating mutinous anger.
He had been browbeaten and humiliated successively that morning by Colonel Cathcart,
Colonel Korn and Corporal Whitcomb. He just had to make himself felt in some respect!
His slight chest was soon puffing for breath. He moved as swiftly as he could without
breaking into a run, fearing his resolution might dissolve if he slowed. Soon he saw a
uniformed figure coming toward him between the rusted rails. He clambered
immediately up the side of the ditch, ducked inside a dense copse of low trees for
concealment and sped along in his original direction a narrow, overgrown mossy path
he found winding deep inside the shaded forest. It was tougher going there, but he
plunged ahead with the same reckless and consuming determination, slipping and
stumbling often and stinging his unprotected hands on the stubborn branches blocking
his way until the bushes and tall ferns on both sides spread open and he lurched past
an olive-drab military trailer on cinder blocks clearly visible through the thinning
underbrush. He continued past a tent with a luminous pearl-gray cat sunning itself
outside and past another trailer on cinder blocks and then burst into the clearing of
Yossarian’s squadron. A salty dew had formed on his lips. He did not pause, but strode
directly across the clearing into the orderly room, where he was welcomed by a gaunt,
stoop-shouldered staff sergeant with prominent cheekbones and long, very light blond
hair, who informed him graciously that he could go right in, since Major Major was out.
The chaplain thanked him with a curt nod and proceeded alone down the aisle
between the desks and typewriters to the canvas partition in the rear. He bobbed
through the triangular opening and found himself inside an empty office. The flap fell
closed behind him. He was breathing hard and sweating profusely. The office remained
empty. He thought he heard furtive whispering. Ten minutes passed. He looked about in
stern displeasure, his jaws clamped together indomitably, and then turned suddenly to
water as he remembered the staff sergeant’s exact words: he could go right in, since
Major Major was out. The enlisted men were playing a practical joke! The chaplain
shrank back from the wall in terror, bitter tears springing to his eyes. A pleading whimper
escaped his trembling lips. Major Major was elsewhere, and the enlisted men in the
other room had made him the butt of an inhuman prank. He could almost see them
waiting on the other side of the canvas wall, bunched up expectantly like a pack of
greedy, gloating omnivorous beasts of prey, ready with their barbaric mirth and jeers to
pounce on him brutally the moment he reappeared. He cursed himself for his gullibility
and wished in panic for something like a mask or a pair of dark glasses and a false
mustache to disguise him, or for a forceful, deep voice like Colonel Cathcart’s and
broad, muscular shoulders and biceps to enable him to step outside fearlessly and
vanquish his malevolent persecutors with an overbearing authority and self-confidence
that would make them all quail and slink away cravenly in repentance. He lacked the
courage to face them. The only other way out was the window. The coast was clear, and
the chaplain jumped out of Major Major’s office through the window, darted swiftly
around the corner of the tent, and leaped down inside the railroad ditch to hide.
He scooted away with his body doubled over and his face contorted intentionally into a
nonchalant, sociable smile in case anyone chanced to see him. He abandoned the ditch
for the forest the moment he saw someone coming toward him from the opposite
direction and ran through the cluttered forest frenziedly like someone pursued, his