“Catch-22” By Joseph - Khamkoo

“Catch-22” By Joseph Heller 183
impossible to be positive that Dobbs had killed him, for when Yossarian plugged his
headset back in, Dobbs was already on the intercom pleading for someone to go up
front and help the bombardier. And almost immediately Snowden broke in, whimpering,
‘Help me. Please help me. I’m cold. I’m cold.’ And Yossarian crawled slowly out of the
nose and up on top of the bomb bay and wriggled back into the rear section of the
plane—passing the first-aid kit on the way that he had to return for—to treat Snowden
for the wrong wound, the yawning, raw, melon-shaped hole as big as a football in the
outside of his thigh, the unsevered, blood-soaked muscle fibers inside pulsating weirdly
like blind things with lives of their own, the oval, naked wound that was almost a foot
long and made Yossarian moan in shock and sympathy the instant he spied it and
nearly made him vomit. And the small, slight tail-gunner was lying on the floor beside
Snowden in a dead faint, his face as white as a handkerchief, so that Yossarian sprang
forward with revulsion to help him first.
Yes, in the long run, he was much safer flying with McWatt, and he was not even safe
with McWatt, who loved flying too much and went buzzing boldly inches off the ground
with Yossarian in the nose on the way back from the training flight to break in the new
bombardier in the whole replacement crew Colonel Cathcart had obtained after Orr was
lost. The practice bomb range was on the other side of Pianosa, and, flying back,
McWatt edged the belly of the lazing, slow-cruising plane just over the crest of
mountains in the middle and then, instead of maintaining altitude, jolted both engines
open all the way, lurched up on one side and, to Yossarian’s astonishment, began
following the falling land down as fast as the plane would go, wagging his wings gaily
and skimming with a massive, grinding, hammering roar over each rocky rise and dip of
the rolling terrain like a dizzy gull over wild brown waves. Yossarian was petrified. The
new bombardier beside him sat demurely with a bewitched grin and kept whistling
‘Whee!’ and Yossarian wanted to reach out and crush his idiotic face with one hand as
he flinched and flung himself away from the boulders and hillocks and lashing branches
of trees that loomed up above him out in front and rushed past just underneath in a
sinking, streaking blur. No one had a right to take such frightful risks with his life.
‘Go up, go up, go up!’ he shouted frantically at McWatt, hating him venomously, but
McWatt was singing buoyantly over the intercom and probably couldn’t hear. Yossarian,
blazing with rage and almost sobbing for revenge, hurled himself down into the
crawlway and fought his way through against the dragging weight of gravity and inertia
until he arrived at the main section and pulled himself up to the flight deck, to stand
trembling behind McWatt in the pilot’s seat. He looked desperately about for a gun, a
gray-black.45 automatic that he could cock and ram right up against the base of
McWatt’s skull. There was no gun. There was no hunting knife either, and no other
weapon with which he could bludgeon or stab, and Yossarian grasped and jerked the
collar of McWatt’s coveralls in tightening fists and shouted to him to go up, go up. The
land was still swimming by underneath and flashing by overhead on both sides. McWatt
looked back at Yossarian and laughed joyfully as though Yossarian were sharing his
fun. Yossarian slid both hands around McWatt’s bare throat and squeezed. McWatt
turned stiff: ‘Go up,’ Yossarian ordered unmistakably through his teeth in a low,
menacing voice. ‘Or I’ll kill you.’ Rigid with caution, McWatt cut the motors back and
climbed gradually. Yossarian’s hands weakened on McWatt’s neck and slid down off his
shoulders to dangle inertly. He was not angry any more. He was ashamed. When
McWatt turned, he was sorry the hands were his and wished there were someplace
where he could bury them. They felt dead.
McWatt gazed at him deeply. There was no friendliness in his stare. ‘Boy,’ he said
coldly, ‘you sure must be in pretty bad shape. You ought to go home.’
‘They won’t let me.’ Yossarian answered with averted eyes, and crept away.
Yossarian stepped down from the flight deck and seated himself on the floor, hanging
his head with guilt and remorse. He was covered with sweat.
McWatt set course directly back toward the field. Yossarian wondered whether
McWatt would now go to the operations tent to see Piltchard and Wren and request that