‘The next time I go over the hill it will be as a buck private, and I just know it won’t be the same.’
There was no future in digging holes.
‘The job isn’t even steady.
I lose it each time I finish serving my sentence.
Then I have to go over the hill again if I want it back.
And I can’t even keep doing that.
There’s a catch.
Catch-22.
The next time I go over the hill, it will mean the stockade.
I don’t know what’s going to become of me.
I might even wind up overseas if I’m not careful.’
He did not want to keep digging holes for the rest of his life, although he had no objection to doing it as long as there was a war going on and it was part of the war effort.
‘It’s a matter of duty,’ he observed, ‘and we each have our own to perform.
My duty is to keep digging these holes, and I’ve been doing such a good job of it that I’ve just been recommended for the Good Conduct Medal.
Your duty is to screw around in cadet school and hope the war ends before you get out.
The duty of the men in combat is to win the war, and I just wish they were doing their duty as well as I’ve been doing mine.
It wouldn’t be fair if I had to go overseas and do their job too, would it?’
One day ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen struck open a water pipe while digging in one of his holes and almost drowned to death before he was fished out nearly unconscious.
Word spread that it was oil, and Chief White Halfoat was kicked off the base.
Soon every man who could find a shovel was outside digging frenziedly for oil.
Dirt flew everywhere; the scene was almost like the morning in Pianosa seven months later after the night Milo bombed the squadron with every plane he had accumulated in his M & M syndicate, and the airfield, bomb dump and repair hangars as well, and all the survivors were outside hacking cavernous shelters into the solid ground and roofing them over with sheets of armor plate stolen from the repair sheds at the field and with tattered squares of waterproof canvas stolen from the side flaps of each other’s tents.
Chief White Halfoat was transferred out of Colorado at the first rumor of oil and came to rest finally in Pianosa as a replacement for Lieutenant Coombs, who had gone out on a mission as a guest one day just to see what combat was like and had died over Ferrara in the plane with Kraft.
Yossarian felt guilty each time he remembered Kraft, guilty because Kraft had been killed on Yossarian’s second bomb run, and guilty because Kraft had got mixed up innocently also in the Splendid Atabrine Insurrection that had begun in Puerto Rico on the first leg of their flight overseas and ended in Pianosa ten days later with Appleby striding dutifully into the orderly room the moment he arrived to report Yossarian for refusing to take his Atabrine tablets.
The sergeant there invited him to be seated.
‘Thank you, Sergeant, I think I will,’ said Appleby.
‘About how long will I have to wait?
I’ve still got a lot to get done today so that I can be fully prepared bright and early tomorrow morning to go into combat the minute they want me to.’
‘Sir?’
‘What’s that, Sergeant?’
‘What was your question?’
‘About how long will I have to wait before I can go in to see the major?’
‘Just until he goes out to lunch,’ Sergeant Towser replied.
‘Then you can go right in.’ ‘But he won’t be there then. Will he?’
‘No, sir. Major Major won’t be back in his office until after lunch.’
‘I see,’ Appleby decided uncertainly.
‘I think I’d better come back after lunch, then.’
Appleby turned from the orderly room in secret confusion.
The moment he stepped outside, he thought he saw a tall, dark officer who looked a little like Henry Fonda come jumping out of the window of the orderly-room tent and go scooting out of sight around the corner.
Appleby halted and squeezed his eyes closed.
An anxious doubt assailed him.
He wondered if he were suffering from malaria, or, worse, from an overdose of Atabrine tablets.
Appleby had been taking four times as many Atabrine tablets as the amount prescribed because he wanted to be four times as good a pilot as everyone else.
His eyes were still shut when Sergeant Towser tapped him lightly on the shoulder and told him he could go in now if he wanted to, since Major Major had just gone out.
Appleby’s confidence returned.
‘Thank you, Sergeant.
Will he be back soon?’
‘He’ll be back right after lunch.
Then you’ll have to go right out and wait for him in front till he leaves for dinner.
Major Major never sees anyone in his office while he’s in his office.’
‘Sergeant, what did you just say?’