It was not jamais vu, since the apparition was not of someone, or something, familiar appearing to him in an unfamiliar guise.
And it was certainly not presque vu, for the chaplain did see him.
A jeep started up with a backfire directly outside and roared away.
Had the naked man in the tree at Snowden’s funeral been merely a hallucination?
Or had it been a true revelation?
The chaplain trembled at the mere idea.
He wanted desperately to confide in Yossarian, but each time he thought about the occurrence he decided not to think about it any further, although now that he did think about it he could not be sure that he ever really had thought about it.
Corporal Whitcomb sauntered back in wearing a shiny new smirk and leaned his elbow impertinently against the center pole of the chaplain’s tent.
‘Do you know who that guy in the red bathrobe was?’ he asked boastfully.
‘That was a C.I.D. man with a fractured nose. He came down here from the hospital on official business.
He’s conducting an investigation.’
The chaplain raised his eyes quickly in obsequious commiseration.
‘I hope you’re not in any trouble.
Is there anything I can do?’
‘No, I’m not in any trouble,’ Corporal Whitcomb replied with a grin.
‘You are.
They’re going to crack down on you for signing Washington Irving’s name to all those letters you’ve been signing Washington Irving’s name to.
How do you like that?’
‘I haven’t been signing Washington Irving’s name to any letters,’ said the chaplain.
‘You don’t have to lie to me,’ Corporal Whitcomb answered.
‘I’m not the one you have to convince.’
‘But I’m not lying.’
‘I don’t care whether you’re lying or not.
They’re going to get you for intercepting Major Major’s correspondence, too.
A lot of that stuff is classified information.’
‘What correspondence?’ asked the chaplain plaintively in rising exasperation.
‘I’ve never even seen any of Major Major’s correspondence.’
‘You don’t have to lie to me,’ Corporal Whitcomb replied. ‘I’m not the one you have to convince.’
‘But I’m not lying!’ protested the chaplain.
‘I don’t see why you have to shout at me,’ Corporal Whitcomb retorted with an injured look.
He came away from the center pole and shook his finger at the chaplain for emphasis. ‘I just did you the biggest favor anybody ever did you in your whole life, and you don’t even realize it.
Every time he tries to report you to his superiors, somebody up at the hospital censors out the details.
He’s been going batty for weeks trying to turn you in.
I just put a censor’s okay on his letter without even reading it.
That will make a very good impression for you up at C.I.D. headquarters.
It will let them know that we’re not the least bit afraid to have the whole truth about you come out.’
The chaplain was reeling with confusion.
‘But you aren’t authorized to censor letters, are you?’
‘Of course not,’ Corporal Whitcomb answered.
‘Only officers are ever authorized to do that.
I censored it in your name.’
‘But I’m not authorized to censor letters either. Am I?’
‘I took care of that for you, too,’ Corporal Whitcomb assured him.
‘I signed somebody else’s name for you.’
‘Isn’t that forgery?’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that either.
The only one who might complain in a case of forgery is the person whose name you forged, and I looked out for your interests by picking a dead man.
I used Washington Irving’s name.’
Corporal Whitcomb scrutinized the chaplain’s face closely for some sign of rebellion and then breezed ahead confidently with concealed irony. ‘That was pretty quick thinking on my part, wasn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ the chaplain wailed softly in a quavering voice, squinting with grotesque contortions of anguish and incomprehension.