‘You?’ they replied with asperity.
‘You’re going with Yossarian.
Right back into combat!’
And back into combat they both went.
Yossarian was enraged when the ambulance returned him to the squadron, and he went limping for justice to Doc Daneeka, who glared at him glumly with misery and disdain.
‘You!’ Doc Daneeka exclaimed mournfully with accusing disgust, the egg-shaped pouches under both eyes firm and censorious.
‘All you ever think of is yourself.
Go take a look at the bomb line if you want to see what’s been happening since you went to the hospital.’
Yossarian was startled. ‘Are we losing?’
‘Losing?’ Doc Daneeka cried.
‘The whole military situation has been going to hell ever since we captured Paris.
I knew it would happen.’
He paused, his sulking ire turning to melancholy, and frowned irritably as though it were all Yossarian’s fault.
‘American troops are pushing into German soil.
The Russians have captured back all of Romania.
Only yesterday the Greeks in the Eighth Army captured Rimini.
The Germans are on the defensive everywhere!’
Doc Daneeka paused again and fortified himself with a huge breath for a piercing ejaculation of grief.
‘There’s no more Luftwaffe left!’ he wailed.
He seemed ready to burst into tears.
‘The whole Gothic line is in danger of collapsing!’
‘So?’ asked Yossarian.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘What’s wrong?’ Doc Daneeka cried.
‘If something doesn’t happen soon, Germany may surrender.
And then we’ll all be sent to the Pacific!’
Yossarian gawked at Doc Daneeka in grotesque dismay.
‘Are you crazy?
Do you know what you’re saying?’
‘Yeah, it’s easy for you to laugh,’ Doc Daneeka sneered.
‘Who the hell is laughing?’
‘At least you’ve got a chance. You’re in combat and might get killed.
But what about me?
I’ve got nothing to hope for.’
‘You’re out of your goddam head!’ Yossarian shouted at him emphatically, seizing him by the shirt front.
‘Do you know that?
Now keep your stupid mouth shut and listen to me.’
Doc Daneeka wrenched himself away.
‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that.
I’m a licensed physician.’
‘Then keep your stupid licensed physician’s mouth shut and listen to what they told me up at the hospital.
I’m crazy.
Did you know that?’
‘So?’
‘Really crazy.’
‘So?’
‘I’m nuts.
Cuckoo.
Don’t you understand?
I’m off my rocker.