The long vessel was halfway across the harbor when they flew in from the west, and broke it apart with direct hits from every flight that filled them all with waves of enormously satisfying group pride until they found themselves engulfed in great barrages of flak that rose from guns in every bend of the huge horseshoe of mountainous land below.
Even Havermeyer resorted to the wildest evasive action he could command when he saw what a vast distance he had still to travel to escape, and Dobbs, at the pilot’s controls in his formation, zigged when he should have zagged, skidding his plane into the plane alongside, and chewed off its tail.
His wing broke off at the base, and his plane dropped like a rock and was almost out of sight in an instant. There was no fire, no smoke, not the slightest untoward noise.
The remaining wing revolved as ponderously as a grinding cement mixer as the plane plummeted nose downward in a straight line at accelerating speed until it struck the water, which foamed open at the impact like a white water lily on the dark-blue sea, and washed back in a geyser of apple-green bubbles when the plane sank.
It was over in a matter of seconds.
There were no parachutes.
And Nately, in the other plane, was killed too.
The Cellar Nately’s death almost killed the chaplain.
Chaplain Shipman was seated in his tent, laboring over his paperwork in his reading spectacles, when his phone rang and news of the mid-air collision was given to him from the field.
His insides turned at once to dry clay.
His hand was trembling as he put the phone down.
His other hand began trembling.
The disaster was too immense to contemplate.
Twelve men killed—how ghastly, how very, very awful!
His feeling of terror grew.
He prayed instinctively that Yossarian, Nately, Hungry Joe and his other friends would not be listed among the victims, then berated himself repentantly, for to pray for their safety was to pray for the death of other young men he did not even know.
It was too late to pray; yet that was all he knew how to do.
His heart was pounding with a noise that seemed to be coming from somewhere outside, and he knew he would never sit in a dentist’s chair again, never glance at a surgical tool, never witness an automobile accident or hear a voice shout at night, without experiencing the same violent thumping in his chest and dreading that he was going to die.
He would never watch another fist fight without fearing he was going to faint and crack his skull open on the pavement or suffer a fatal heart attack or cerebral hemorrhage.
He wondered if he would ever see his wife again or his three small children.
He wondered if he ever should see his wife again, now that Captain Black had planted in his mind such strong doubts about the fidelity and character of all women.
There were so many other men, he felt, who could prove more satisfying to her sexually.
When he thought of death now, he always thought of his wife, and when he thought of his wife he always thought of losing her.
In another minute the chaplain felt strong enough to rise and walk with glum reluctance to the tent next door for Sergeant Whitcomb.
They drove in Sergeant Whitcomb’s jeep.
The chaplain made fists of his hands to keep them from shaking as they lay in his lap.
He ground his teeth together and tried not to hear as Sergeant Whitcomb chirruped exultantly over the tragic event. Twelve men killed meant twelve more form letters of condolence that could be mailed in one bunch to the next of kin over Colonel Cathcart’s signature, giving Sergeant Whitcomb hope of getting an article on Colonel Cathcart into The Saturday Evening Post in time for Easter.
At the field a heavy silence prevailed, overpowering motion like a ruthless, insensate spell holding in thrall the only beings who might break it.
The chaplain was in awe.
He had never beheld such a great, appalling stillness before.
Almost two hundred tired, gaunt, downcast men stood holding their parachute packs in a somber and unstirring crowd outside the briefing room, their faces staring blankly in different angles of stunned dejection.
They seemed unwilling to go, unable to move.
The chaplain was acutely conscious of the faint noise his footsteps made as he approached.
His eyes searched hurriedly, frantically, through the immobile maze of limp figures.
He spied Yossarian finally with a feeling of immense joy, and then his mouth gaped open slowly in unbearable horror as he noted Yossarian’s vivid, beaten, grimy look of deep, drugged despair.
He understood at once, recoiling in pain from the realization and shaking his head with a protesting and imploring grimace, that Nately was dead.
The knowledge struck him with a numbing shock. A sob broke from him.
The blood drained from his legs, and he thought he was going to drop.
Nately was dead.
All hope that he was mistaken was washed away by the sound of Nately’s name emerging with recurring clarity now from the almost inaudible babble of murmuring voices that he was suddenly aware of for the first time.
Nately was dead: the boy had been killed.
A whimpering sound rose in the chaplain’s throat, and his jaw began to quiver. His eyes filled with tears, and he was crying.
He started toward Yossarian on tiptoe to mourn beside him and share his wordless grief.
At that moment a hand grabbed him roughly around the arm and a brusque voice demanded,
‘Chaplain Shipman?’
He turned with surprise to face a stout, pugnacious colonel with a large head and mustache and a smooth, florid skin.
He had never seen the man before.
‘Yes.
What is it?’
The fingers grasping the chaplain’s arm were hurting him, and he tried in vain to squirm loose.