‘I hardly know Nurse Duckett.’
‘Then why did you grab her by the bosom?
Merely because she has one?’ ‘ Dunbar did that.’
‘Oh, don’t start that again,’ Major Sanderson exclaimed with vitriolic scorn, and hurled down his pencil disgustedly.
‘Do you really think that you can absolve yourself of guilt by pretending to be someone else? I don’t like you, Fortiori. Do you know that?
I don’t like you at all.’
Yossarian felt a cold, damp wind of apprehension blow over him.
‘I’m not Fortiori, sir,’ he said timidly.
‘I’m Yossarian.’
‘You’re who?’
‘My name is Yossarian, sir. And I’m in the hospital with a wounded leg.’
‘Your name is Fortiori,’ Major Sanderson contradicted him belligerently.
‘And you’re in the hospital for a stone in your salivary gland.’
‘Oh, come on, Major!’ Yossarian exploded.
‘I ought to know who I am.’
‘And I’ve got an official Army record here to prove it,’ Major Sanderson retorted.
‘You’d better get a grip on yourself before it’s too late.
First you’re Dunbar. Now you’re Yossarian. The next thing you know you’ll be claiming you’re Washington Irving.
Do you know what’s wrong with you?
You’ve got a split personality, that’s what’s wrong with you.’
‘Perhaps you’re right, sir.’ Yossarian agreed diplomatically.
‘I know I’m right.
You’ve got a bad persecution complex.
You think people are trying to harm you.’
‘People are trying to harm me.’
‘You see?
You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions.
You’re dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!’
‘Are you serious?’
‘You’re an enemy of the people!’
‘Are you nuts?’ Yossarian shouted.
‘No, I’m not nuts,’ Dobbs roared furiously back in the ward, in what he imagined was a furtive whisper.
‘Hungry Joe saw them, I tell you. He saw them yesterday when he flew to Naples to pick up some black-market air conditioners for Colonel Cathcart’s farm.
They’ve got a big replacement center there and it’s filled with hundreds of pilots, bombardiers and gunners on the way home.
They’ve got forty-five missions, that’s all.
A few with Purple Hearts have even less.
Replacement crews are pouring in from the States into the other bomber groups.
They want everyone to serve overseas at least once, even administrative personnel.
Don’t you read the papers?
We’ve got to kill him now!’
‘You’ve got only two more missions to fly,’ Yossarian reasoned with him in a low voice.
‘Why take a chance?’
‘I can get killed flying them, too,’ Dobbs answered pugnaciously in his rough, quavering, overwrought voice.
‘We can kill him the first thing tomorrow morning when he drives back from his farm.
I’ve got the gun right here.’
Yossarian goggled with amazement as Dobbs pulled a gun out of his pocket and displayed it high in the air.
‘Are you crazy?’ he hissed frantically.
‘Put it away.
And keep your idiot voice down.’
‘What are you worried about?’ Dobbs asked with offended innocence.