‘Oh, boy! I can’t wait to see those bastards’ faces when they find out they’re going to Bologna.
Ha, ha, ha!’
It was the first really good laugh Captain Black had enjoyed since the day Major Major outsmarted him and was appointed squadron commander, and he rose with torpid enthusiasm and stationed himself behind the front counter in order to wring the most enjoyment from the occasion when the bombardiers arrived for their map kits.
‘That’s right, you bastards, Bologna,’ he kept repeating to all the bombardiers who inquired incredulously if they were really going to Bologna.
‘Ha! Ha! Ha!
Eat your livers, you bastards.
This time you’re really in for it.’
Captain Black followed the last of them outside to observe with relish the effect of the knowledge upon all of the other officers and enlisted men who were assembling with their helmets, parachutes and flak suits around the four trucks idling in the center of the squadron area.
He was a tall, narrow, disconsolate man who moved with a crabby listlessness.
He shaved his pinched, pale face every third or fourth day, and most of the time he appeared to be growing a reddish-gold mustache over his skinny upper lip.
He was not disappointed in the scene outside.
There was consternation darkening every expression, and Captain Black yawned deliciously, rubbed the last lethargy from his eyes and laughed gloatingly each time he told someone else to eat his liver.
Bologna turned out to be the most rewarding event in Captain Black’s life since the day Major Duluth was killed over Perugia and he was almost selected to replace him.
When word of Major Duluth’s death was radioed back to the field, Captain Black responded with a surge of joy.
Although he had never really contemplated the possibility before, Captain Black understood at once that he was the logical man to succeed Major Duluth as squadron commander.
To begin with, he was the squadron intelligence officer, which meant he was more intelligent than everyone else in the squadron.
True, he was not on combat status, as Major Duluth had been and as all squadron commanders customarily were; but this was really another powerful argument in his favor, since his life was in no danger and he would be able to fill the post for as long as his country needed him.
The more Captain Black thought about it, the more inevitable it seemed.
It was merely a matter of dropping the right word in the right place quickly.
He hurried back to his office to determine a course of action.
Settling back in his swivel chair, his feet up on the desk and his eyes closed, he began imagining how beautiful everything would be once he was squadron commander.
While Captain Black was imagining, Colonel Cathcart was acting, and Captain Black was flabbergasted by the speed with which, he concluded, Major Major had outsmarted him.
His great dismay at the announcement of Major Major’s appointment as squadron commander was tinged with an embittered resentment he made no effort to conceal.
When fellow administrative officers expressed astonishment at Colonel Cathcart’s choice of Major Major, Captain Black muttered that there was something funny going on; when they speculated on the political value of Major Major’s resemblance to Henry Fonda, Captain Black asserted that Major Major really was Henry Fonda; and when they remarked that Major Major was somewhat odd, Captain Black announced that he was a Communist.
‘They’re taking over everything,’ he declared rebelliously.
‘Well, you fellows can stand around and let them if you want to, but I’m not going to.
I’m going to do something about it.
From now on I’m going to make every son of a bitch who comes to my intelligence tent sign a loyalty oath.
And I’m not going to let that bastard Major Major sign one even if he wants to.’
Almost overnight the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was in full flower, and Captain Black was enraptured to discover himself spearheading it.
He had really hit on something.
All the enlisted men and officers on combat duty had to sign a loyalty oath to get their map cases from the intelligence tent, a second loyalty oath to receive their flak suits and parachutes from the parachute tent, a third loyalty oath for Lieutenant Balkington, the motor vehicle officer, to be allowed to ride from the squadron to the airfield in one of the trucks.
Every time they turned around there was another loyalty oath to be signed.
They signed a loyalty oath to get their pay from the finance officer, to obtain their PX supplies, to have their hair cut by the Italian barbers.
To Captain Black, every officer who supported his Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a competitor, and he planned and plotted twenty-four hours a day to keep one step ahead.
He would stand second to none in his devotion to country.
When other officers had followed his urging and introduced loyalty oaths of their own, he went them one better by making every son of a bitch who came to his intelligence tent sign two loyalty oaths, then three, then four; then he introduced the pledge of allegiance, and after that ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ one chorus, two choruses, three choruses, four choruses.
Each time Captain Black forged ahead of his competitors, he swung upon them scornfully for their failure to follow his example.
Each time they followed his example, he retreated with concern and racked his brain for some new stratagem that would enable him to turn upon them scornfully again.
Without realizing how it had come about, the combat men in the squadron discovered themselves dominated by the administrators appointed to serve them.
They were bullied, insulted, harassed and shoved about all day long by one after the other.
When they voiced objection, Captain Black replied that people who were loyal would not mind signing all the loyalty oaths they had to.
To anyone who questioned the effectiveness of the loyalty oaths, he replied that people who really did owe allegiance to their country would be proud to pledge it as often as he forced them to.
And to anyone who questioned the morality, he replied that ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ was the greatest piece of music ever composed.
The more loyalty oaths a person signed, the more loyal he was; to Captain Black it was as simple as that, and he had Corporal Kolodny sign hundreds with his name each day so that he could always prove he was more loyal than anyone else.
‘The important thing is to keep them pledging,’ he explained to his cohorts.
‘It doesn’t matter whether they mean it or not.
That’s why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what "pledge" and "allegiance" mean.’
To Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren, the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a glorious pain in the ass, since it complicated their task of organizing the crews for each combat mission.
Men were tied up all over the squadron signing, pledging and singing, and the missions took hours longer to get under way.