19. Colonel Cathcart
Colonel Cathcart was a slick, successful, slipshod, unhappy man of
thirty-six who lumbered when he walked and wanted to be a general.
He was dashing and dejected, poised and chagrined. He was complacent
and insecure, daring in the administrative stratagems he employed
to bring himself to the attention of his superiors and craven in his concern
that his schemes might all backfire. He was handsome and unattractive,
a swashbuckling, beefy, conceited man who was putting on fat
and was tormented chronically by prolonged seizures of apprehension.
Colonel Cathcart was conceited because he was a full colonel with a
combat command at the age of only thirty-six; and Colonel Cathcart
was dejected because although he was already thirty-six he was still
only a full colonel.
Colonel Cathcart was impervious to absolutes. He could measure
his own progress only in relationship to others, and his idea of excellence
was to do something at least as well as all the men his own age
who were doing the same thing even better. The fact that there were
thousands of men his own age and older who had not even attained the
rank of major enlivened him with foppish delight in his own remarkable
worth; on the other hand, the fact that there were men of his own
age and younger who were already generals contaminated him with an
agonizing sense of failure and made him gnaw at his fingernails with an
unappeasable anxiety that was even more intense than Hungry Joe's.
Colonel Cathcart was a very large, pouting, broad-shouldered man
with close-cropped curly dark hair that was graying at the tips and an
ornate cigarette holder that he purchased the day before he arrived in
Pianosa to take command of his group. He displayed the cigarette
holder grandly on every occasion and had learned to manipulate it
adroitly. Unwittingly, he had discovered deep within himself a fertile
aptitude for smoking with a cigarette holder. As far as he could tell, his
was the only cigarette holder in the whole Mediterranean theater of
operations, and the thought was both flattering and disquieting. He
had no doubts at all that someone as debonair and intellectual as
General Peckem approved of his smoking with a cigarette holder, even
though the two were in each other's presence rather seldom, which in
a way was very lucky, Colonel Cathcart recognized with relief, since
General Peckem might not have approved of his cigarette holder at all.
When such misgivings assailed Colonel Cathcart, he choked back a sob
and wanted to throw the damned thing away, but he was restrained by
his, unswerving conviction that the cigarette holder never failed to
embellish his masculine, martial physique with a high gloss of sophisticated
heroism that illuminated him to dazzling advantage among all
the other full colonels in the American Army with whom he was in
competition. Although how could he be sure?
Colonel Cathcart was indefatigable that way, an industrious, intense,
dedicated military tactician who calculated day and night in the service
of himself. He was his own sarcophagus, a bold and infallible diplomat
who was always berating himself disgustedly for all the chances he had
missed and kicking himself regretfully for all the errors he had made. He
was tense, irritable, bitter and smug. He was a valorous opportunist ~ho
pounced hoggishly upon every opportunity Colonel Korn discovered for
him and trembled in damp despair immediately afterward at the possible
consequences he might suffer. He collected rumors greedily and
treasured gossip. He believed all the news he heard and had faith in
none. He was on the alert constantly for every signal, shrewdly sensitive
to relationships and situations that did not exist. He was someone in the
know who was always striving pathetically to find out what was going on.
He was a blustering, intrepid bully who brooded inconsolably over the
terrible ineradicable impressions he knew he kept making on people of
prominence who were scarcely aware that he was even alive.
Everybody was persecuting him. Colonel Cathcart lived by his wits
in an unstable, arithmetical world of black eyes and feathers in his
cap, of overwhelming imaginary triumphs and catastrophic imaginary
defeats. He oscillated hourly between anguish and exhilaration, multiplying
fantastically the grandeur of his victories and exaggerating tragically
the seriousness of his defeats. Nobody ever caught him napping.
If word reached him that General Dreedle or General Peckem had been
seen smiling, frowning, or doing neither, he could not make himself rest
until he had found an acceptable interpretation and grumbled mulishly
until Colonel Korn persuaded him to relax and take things easy.
Lieutenant Colonel Korn was a loyal, indispensable ally who got on
Colonel Cathcart's nerves. Colonel Cathcart pledged eternal gratitude
to Colonel Korn for the ingenious moves he devised and was furious
with him afterward when he realized they might not work. Colonel
Cathcart was greatly indebted to Colonel Korn and did not like him at
all. The two were very close. Colonel Cathcart was jealous of Colonel
Korn's intelligence and had to remind himself often that Colonel Korn
was still only a lieutenant colonel, even though he was almost ten years
older than Colonel Cathcart, and that Colonel Korn had obtained his
education at a state university. Colonel Cathcart bewailed the miserable
fate that had given him for an invaluable assistant someone as
common as Colonel Korn. It was degrading to have to depend so thoroughly
on a person who had been educated at a state university. If
someone did have to become indispensable to him, Colonel Cathcart
lamented, it could just as easily have been someone wealthy and well
groomed, someone from a better family who was more mature than
Colonel Korn and who did not treat Colonel Cathcart's desire to
become a general as frivolously as Colonel Cathcart secretly suspected
Colonel Korn secretly did.
Colonel Cathcart wanted to be a general so desperately he was willing
to try anything, even religion, and he summoned the chaplain to
his office late one morning the week after he had raised the number of
missions to sixty and pointed abruptly down toward his desk to his
copy of The Saturday Evening Post. The colonel wore his khaki shirt
collar wide open, exposing a shadow of tough black bristles of beard on
his egg-white neck, and had a spongy hanging underlip. He was a person
who never tanned, and he kept out of the sun as much as possible
to avoid burning. The colonel was more than a head taller than the
chaplain and over twice as broad, and his swollen, overbearing authority
made the chaplain feel frail and sickly by contrast.
"Take a look, Chaplain," Colonel Cathcart directed, screwing a cigarette
into his holder and seating himself affluently in the swivel chair
behind his desk. "Let me know what you think."
The chaplain looked down at the open magazine compliantly and
saw an editorial spread dealing with an American bomber group in
England whose chaplain said prayers in the briefing room before each
mission. The chaplain almost wept with happiness when he realized
the colonel was not going to holler at him. The two had hardly spoken
since the tumultuous evening Colonel Cathcart had thrown him out of
the officers' club at General Dreedle's bidding after Chief White
Halfoat had punched Colonel Moodus in the nose. The chaplain's initial
fear had been that the colonel intended reprimanding him for having
gone back into the officers' club without permission the evening
before. He had gone there with Yossarian and Dunbar after the two
had come unexpectedly to his tent in the clearing in the woods to ask
him to join them. Intimidated as he was by Colonel Cathcart, he nevertheless
found it easier to brave his displeasure than to decline the
thoughtful invitation of his two new friends, whom he had met on one
of his hospital visits just a few weeks before and who had worked
so effectively to insulate him against the myriad social vicissitudes
involved in his official duty to live on closest terms of familiarity with
more than nine hundred unfamiliar officers and enlisted men who
thought him an odd duck.
The chaplain glued his eyes to the pages of the magazine. He studied
each photograph twice and read the captions intently as he organized
his response to the colonel's question into a grammatically
complete sentence that he rehearsed and reorganized in his mind a
considerable number of times before he was able finally to muster the
courage to reply.
"I think that saying prayers before each mission is a very moral and
highly laudatory procedure, sir," he offered timidly, and waited.
"Yeah," said the colonel. "But 1 want to know if you think they'll
work here."
"Yes, sir," answered the chaplain after a few moments. "I should
think they would."
"Then I'd like to give it a try." The colonel's ponderous, farinaceous
cheeks were tinted suddenly with glowing patches of enthusiasm. He rose
to his feet and began walking around excitedly. "Look how much good
they've done for these people in England. Here's a picture of a colonel in
The Saturday Evening Post whose chaplain conducts prayers before each
mission. If the prayers work for him, they should work for us. Maybe if
we say prayers, they'll put my picture in The Saturday Evening Post."
The colonel sat down again and smiled distantly in lavish contemplation.
The chaplain had no hint of what he was expected to say next.
With a pensive expression on his oblong, rather pale face, he allowed
his gaze to settle on several of the high bushels filled with red plum
tomatoes that stood in rows against each of the walls. He pretended to
concentrate on a reply. After a while he realized that he was staring at
rows and rows of bushels of red plum tomatoes and grew so intrigued
by the question of what bushels brimming with red plum tomatoes
were doing in a group commander's office that he forgot completely
about the discussion of prayer meetings until Colonel Cathcart, in a
genial digression, inquired:
"Would you like to buy some, Chaplain? They come right off the
farm Colonel Korn and I have up in the hills. I can let you have a
bushel wholesale."
"Oh, no, sir; I don't think so."
"That's quite all right," the colonel assured him liberally. "You don't
have to. Milo is glad to snap up all we can produce. These were picked
only yesterday. Notice how firm and ripe they are, like a young girl's
breasts."
The chaplain blushed, and the colonel understood at once that he
had made a mistake. He lowered his head in shame, his cumbersome
face burning. His fingers felt gross and unwieldy. He hated the chaplain
venomously for being a chaplain and making a coarse blunder out
of an observation that in any other circumstances, he knew, would have
been considered witty and urbane. He tried miserably to recall some
means of extricating them both from their devastating embarrassment.
He recalled instead that the chaplain was only a captain, and he
straightened at once with a shocked and outraged gasp. His cheeks
grew tight with fury at the thought that he had just been duped into
humiliation by a man who was almost the same age as he was and still
only a captain, and he swung upon the chaplain avengingly with a look
of such murderous antagonism that the chaplain began to tremble.
The colonel punished him sadistically with a long, glowering, malignant,
hateful, silent stare.
"We were speaking about something else," he reminded the chaplain
cuttingly at last. "We were not speaking about the firm, ripe
breasts of young girls but about something else entirely. We were
speaking about conducting religious services in the briefing room
before each mission. Is there any reason why we can't?"
"No, sir," the chaplain mumbled.
"Then we'll begin with this afternoon's mission." The colonel's
hostility softened gradually as he applied himself to details. "Now, I
want you to give a lot of thought to the kind of prayers we're going to
say. I don't want anything heavy or sad. I'd like you to keep it light and
snappy, something that will send the boys out feeling pretty good. Do
you know what I mean? I don't want any of this Kingdom of God or
Valley of Death stuff. That's all too negative. What are you making
such a sour face for?"
"I'm sorry, sir," the chaplain stammered. "I happened to be thinking
of the Twenty-third Psalm just as you said that."
"How does that one go?"
"That's the one you were just referring to, sir. 'The Lord is my
shepherd; 1-'"
"That's the one I was just referring to. It's out. What else have you
got?"
"'Save me, 0 God; for the waters are come in unto-'"
"No waters," the colonel decided, blowing ruggedly into his cigarette
holder after flipping the butt down into his combed-brass ash
tray. "Why don't we try something musical? How about the harps on
the willows?"
"That has the rivers of Babylon in it, sir," the chaplain replied.
"' ... there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.'''
"Zion? Let's forget about that one right now. I'd like to know how
that one even got in there. Haven't you got anything humorous that
stays away from waters and valleys and God? I'd like to keep away from
the subject of religion altogether if we can."
The chaplain was apologetic. "I'm sorry, sir, but just about all the
prayers I know are rather somber in tone and make at least some passing
reference to God."
"Then let's get some new ones. The men are already doing enough
bitching about the missions I send them on without our rubbing it in
with any sermons about God or death or Paradise. Why can't we take
a more positive approach? Why can't we all pray for something good,
like a tighter bomb pattern, for example? Couldn't we pray for a
tighter bomb pattern?"
"Well, yes, sir, I suppose so," the chaplain answered hesitantly. "You
wouldn't even need me if that's all you wanted to do. You could do that
yourself."
"I know I could," the colonel responded tartly. "But what do you
think you're here for? I could shop for my own food, too, but that's
Milo's job, and that's why he's doing it for every group in the area. Your
job is to lead us in prayer, and from now on you're going to lead us in
a prayer for a tighter bomb pattern before every mission. Is that clear?
I think a tighter bomb pattern is something really worth praying for. It
will be a feather in all our caps with General Peckem. General Peckem
feels it makes a much nicer aerial photograph when the bombs explode
close together."
"General Peckem, sir?"
"That's right, Chaplain," the colonel replied, chuckling paternally at
the chaplain's look of puzzlement. "I wouldn't want this to get around,
but it looks like General Dreedle is finally on the way out and that
General Peckem is slated to replace him. Frankly, I'm not going to be
sorry to see that happen. General Peckem is a very good man, and I
think we'll be all much better off under him. On the other hand, it
might never take place, and we'd still remain under General Dreedle.
Frankly, I wouldn't be sorry to see that happen either, because General
Dreedle is another very good man, and I think we'll all be much better
off under him too. I hope you're going to keep all this under your
hat, Chaplain. I wouldn't want either one to get the idea I was throwing
my support on the side of the other."
"Yes, sir."
"That's good," the colonel exclaimed, ,and stood up jovially. "But
all this gossip isn't getting us into The Saturday Evening Post, eh,
Chaplain? Let's see what kind of procedure we can evolve. Incidentally,
Chaplain, not a word about this beforehand to Colonel Korn. Understand?"
"Yes, sir."
Colonel Cathcart began tramping back and forth reflectively in the
narrow corridors left between his bushels of plum tomatoes and the
desk and wooden chairs in the center of the room. "I suppose we'll
have to keep you waiting outside until the briefing is over, because all
that information is classified. We can slip you in while Major Danby is
synchronizing the watches. I don't think there's anything secret about
the right time. We'll allocate about a minute and a half for you in the
schedule. Will a minute and a half be enough?"
"Yes, sir. If it doesn't include the time necessary to excuse the atheists
from the room and admit the enlisted men."
Colonel Cathcart stopped in his tracks. "What atheists?" he bellowed
defensively, his whole manner changing in a flash to one of virtuous
and belligerent denial. "There are no atheists in my outfit!
Atheism is against the law, isn't it?"
"No, sir."
"It isn't?" The colonel was surprised. "Then it's un-American, isn't
it?"
"I'm not sure, sir," answered the chaplain.
"Well, I am!" the colonel declared. "I'm not going to disrupt our
religious services just to accommodate a bunch of lousy atheists.
They're getting no special privileges from me. They can stay right
where they are and pray with the rest of us. And what's all this about
enlisted men? Just how the hell do they get into this act?"
The chaplain felt his face flush. "I'm sorry, sir. I just assumed you
would want the enlisted men to be present, since they would be going
along on the same mission."
"Well, 1 don't. They've got a God and a chaplain of their own,
haven't they?"
"No, sir."
"What are you talking about? You mean they pray to the same God
we do?"
"Yes, sir."
"And He listens?"
"I think so, sir."
"Well, I'll be damned," remarked the colonel, and he snorted to
himself in quizzical amusement. His spirits drooped suddenly a
moment later, and he ran his hand nervously over his short, black,
graying curls. "Do you really think it's a good idea to let the enlisted
men in?" he asked with concern.
"I should think it only proper, sir."
"I'd like to keep them out," confided the colonel, and began cracking
his knuckles savagely as he wandered back and forth. "Oh, don't get
me wrong, Chaplain. It isn't that 1 think the enlisted men are dirty,
common and inferior. It's that we just don't have enough room.
Frankly, though, I'd just as soon the officers and enlisted men didn't
fraternize in the briefing room. They see enough of each other during
the mission, it seems to me. Some of my very best friends are enlisted
men, you understand, but that's about as close as 1 care to let them
come. Honestly now, Chaplain, you wouldn't want your sister to marry
an enlisted man, would you?"
"My sister is an enlisted man, sir," the chaplain replied.
The colonel stopped in his tracks again and eyed the chaplain
sharply to make certain he was not being ridiculed. "Just what do you
mean by that remark, Chaplain? Are you trying to be funny?"
"Oh, no, sir," the' chaplain hastened to explain with a look of excruciating
discomfort. "She's a master sergeant in the Marines."
The colonel had never liked the chaplain and now he loathed and
distrusted him. He experienced a keen premonition of danger and
wondered if the chaplain too was plotting against him, if the chaplain's
reticent, unimpressive manner was really just a sinister disguise masking
a fiery ambition that, way down deep, was crafty and unscrupulous.
There was something funny about the chaplain, and the colonel soon
detected what it was. The chaplain was standing stiffly at attention, for
the colonel had forgotten to put him at ease. Let him stay that way, the
colonel decided vindictively, just to show him who was boss and to
safeguard himself against any loss of dignity that might devolve from
his acknowledging the omission.
Colonel Cathcart was drawn hypnotically toward the window with a
massive, dull stare of moody introspection. The enlisted men were
. always treacherous, he decided. He looked downward in mournful
gloom at the skeet-shooting range he had ordered built for the officers
on his headquarters staff, and he recalled the mortifying afternoon
General Dreedle had tongue-lashed him ruthlessly in front of Colonel
Korn and Major Danby and ordered him to throw open the range to all
the enlisted men and officers on combat duty. The skeet-shooting range
had been a real black eye for him, Colonel Cathcart was forced to conclude.
He was positive that General Dreedle had never forgotten it,
even though he was positive that General Dreedle didn't even remember
it, which was really very unjust, Colonel Cathcart lamented, since
the idea of a skeet-shooting range itself should have been a real feather
in his cap, even though it had been such a real black eye. Colonel
Cathcart was helpless to assess exactly how much ground he had gained
or lost with his goddam skeet-shooting range and wished that Colonel
Korn were in his office right then to evaluate the entire episode for him
still one more time and assuage his fears.
It was all very perplexing, all very discouraging. Colonel Cathcart
took the cigarette holder out of his mouth, stood it on end inside the
pocket of his shirt, and began gnawing on the fingernails of both hands
grievously. Everybody was against him, and he was sick to his soul that
Colonel Korn was not with him in this moment of crisis to help him
decide what to do about the prayer meetings. He had almost no faith
at all in the chaplain, who was still only a captain. "Do you think," he
asked, "that keeping the enlisted men out might interfere with our
chances of getting results?"
The chaplain hesitated, feeling himself on unfamiliar ground again.
"Yes, sir," he replied finally. "I think it's conceivable that such an action
could interfere with your chances of having the prayers for a tighter
bomb pattern answered."
"I wasn't even thinking about that!" cried the colonel, with his eyes
blinking and splashing like puddles. "You mean that God might even
decide to punish me by giving us a looser bomb pattern?"
"Yes, sir," said the chaplain. "It's conceivable He might."
"The hell with it, then," the colonel asserted in a huff of independence.
"I'm not going to set these damned prayer meetings up just to
make things worse than they are." With a scornful snicker, he settled
himself behind his desk, replaced the empty cigarette holder in his
mouth and lapsed into parturient silence for a few moments. "Now that
I think about it," he confessed, as much to himself as to the chaplain,
"having the men pray to God probably wasn't such a hot idea anyway.
The editors of The Saturday Evening Post might not have cooperated."
The colonel abandoned his project with remorse, for he had conceived
it entirely on his own and had hoped to unveil it as a striking
demonstration to everyone that he had no real need for Colonel Korn.
Once it was gone, he was glad to be rid of it, for he had been troubled
from the start by the danger of instituting the plan without first checking
it out with Colonel Korn. He heaved an immense sigh of contentment.
He had a much higher opinion of himself now that his idea was
abandoned, for he had made a very wise decision, he felt, and, most
important, he had made this wise decision 'Without consulting Colonel
Korn.
"Will that be all, sir?" asked the chaplain.
"Yeah," said Colonel Cathcart. "Unless you've got something else to
suggest."
"No, sir. Only ... "
The colonel lifted his eyes as though affronted and studied the
chaplain with aloof distrust. "Only what, Chaplain?"
"Sir," said the chaplain, "some of the men are very upset since you
raised the number of missions to sixty. They've asked me to speak to
you about it."
The colonel was silent. The chaplain's face reddened to the roots of
his sandy hair as he waited. The colonel kept him squirming a long
time with a fixed, uninterested look devoid of all emotion.
"Tell them there's a war going on," he advised finally in a flat voice.
"Thank you, sir, I will," the chaplain replied in a flood of gratitude
because the colonel had finally said something. "They were wondering
why you couldn't requisition some of the replacement crews that are
waiting in Africa to take their places and then let them go home."
"That's an administrative matter," the colonel said. "It's none of
their business." He pointed languidly toward the wall. "Help yourself
to a plum tomato, Chaplain. Go ahead, it's on me."
"Thank you, sir. Sir-"
"Don't mention it. How do you like living out there in the woods,
Chaplain? Is everything hunky-dory?"
"Yes, sir."
"That's good. You get in touch with us if you need anything."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Sir-"
"Thanks for dropping around, Chaplain. I've got some work to do
now. You'll let me know if you can think of anything for getting our
names into The Saturday Evening Post, won't you?"
"Yes, sir, I will." The chaplain braced himself with a prodigious
effort of the will and plunged ahead brazenly. "I'm particularly concerned
about the condition of one of the bombardiers, sir. Yossarian."
The colonel glanced up quickly with a start of vague recognition.
"Who?" he asked in alarm.
"Yossarian, sir."
"Yossarian?"
"Yes, sir. Yossarian. He's in a very bad way, sir. I'm afraid he won't
be able to suffer much longer without doing something desperate."
"Is that a fact, Chaplain?"
"Yes, sir. I'm afraid it is."
The colonel thought about it in heavy silence for a few moments.
"Tell him to trust in God," he advised finally.
"Thank you, sir," said the chaplain. "I will."