Major Danby was shocked.
‘Where to?
Where could you go?’
‘I could get to Rome easily enough.
And I could hide myself there.’
‘And live in danger every minute of your life that they would find you?
No, no, no, no, Yossarian.
That would be a disastrous and ignoble thing to do.
Running away from problems never solved them.
Please believe me.
I am only trying to help you.’
‘That’s what that kind detective said before he decided to jab his thumb into my wound,’ Yossarian retorted sarcastically.
‘I am not a detective,’ Major Danby replied with indignation, his cheeks flushing again.
‘I’m a university professor with a highly developed sense of right and wrong, and I wouldn’t try to deceive you.
I wouldn’t lie to anyone.’
‘What would you do if one of the men in the group asked you about this conversation?’
‘I would lie to him.’
Yossarian laughed mockingly, and Major Danby, despite his blushing discomfort, leaned back with relief, as though welcoming the respite Yossarian’s changing mood promised.
Yossarian gazed at him with a mixture of reserved pity and contempt.
He sat up in bed with his back resting against the headboard, lit a cigarette, smiled slightly with wry amusement, and stared with whimsical sympathy at the vivid, pop-eyed horror that had implanted itself permanently on Major Danby’s face the day of the mission to Avignon, when General Dreedle had ordered him taken outside and shot.
The startled wrinkles would always remain, like deep black scars, and Yossarian felt sorry for the gentle, moral, middle-aged idealist, as he felt sorry for so many people whose shortcomings were not large and whose troubles were light.
With deliberate amiability he said,
‘Danby, how can you work along with people like Cathcart and Korn?
Doesn’t it turn your stomach?’
Major Danby seemed surprised by Yossarian’s question.
‘I do it to help my country,’ he replied, as though the answer should have been obvious. ‘Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn are my superiors, and obeying their orders is the only contribution I can make to the war effort. I work along with them because it’s my duty. And also,’ he added in a much lower voice, dropping his eyes, ‘because I am not a very aggressive person.’ ‘Your country doesn’t need your help any more,’ Yossarian reasoned with antagonism. ‘So all you’re doing is helping them.’
‘I try not to think of that,’ Major Danby admitted frankly. ‘But I try to concentrate on only the big result and to forget that they are succeeding, too. I try to pretend that they are not significant.’
‘That’s my trouble, you know,’ Yossarian mused sympathetically, folding his arms. ‘Between me and every ideal I always find Scheisskopfs, Peckems, Korns and Cathcarts. And that sort of changes the ideal.’
‘You must try not to think of them,’ Major Danby advised affirmatively.
‘And you must never let them change your values. Ideals are good, but people are sometimes not so good.
You must try to look up at the big picture.’
Yossarian rejected the advice with a skeptical shake of his head.
‘When I look up, I see people cashing in.
I don’t see heaven or saints or angels.
I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy.’
‘But you must try not to think of that, too,’ Major Danby insisted.
‘And you must try not to let it upset you.’
‘Oh, it doesn’t really upset me.
What does upset me, though, is that they think I’m a sucker.
They think that they’re smart, and that the rest of us are dumb.
And, you know, Danby, the thought occurs to me right now, for the first time, that maybe they’re right.’
‘But you must try not to think of that too,’ argued Major Danby.
‘You must think only of the welfare of your country and the dignity of man.’
‘Yeah,’ said Yossarian.
‘I mean it, Yossarian.
This is not World War One. You must never forget that we’re at war with aggressors who would not let either one of us live if they won.’
‘I know that,’ Yossarian replied tersely, with a sudden surge of scowling annoyance.
‘Christ, Danby, I earned that medal I got, no matter what their reasons were for giving it to me.
I’ve flown seventy goddam combat missions.
Don’t talk to me about fighting to save my country.