Catch-22(173)

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 Tappman?”

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.

“Come along.”

The chaplain pulled back in frightened confusion. “Where? Why? Who are you, anyway?”

“You’d better come along with us, Father,” a lean, hawk-faced major on the chaplain’s other side intoned with reverential sorrow. “We’re from the government. We want to ask you some questions.”

“What kind of questions? What’s the matter?”

“Aren’t you Chaplain Tappman?” demanded the obese colonel.

“He’s the one,” Sergeant Whitcomb answered.

“Go on along with them,” Captain Black called out to the chaplain with a hostile and contemptuous sneer. “Go on into the car if you know what’s good for you.”

Hands were drawing the chaplain away irresistibly. He wanted to shout for help to Yossarian, who seemed too far away to hear. Some of the men nearby were beginning to look at him with awakening curiosity. The chaplain bent his face away with burning shame and allowed himself to be led into the rear of a staff car and seated between the fat colonel with the large, pink face and the skinny, unctuous, despondent major. He automatically held a wrist out to each, wondering for a moment if they wanted to handcuff him. Another officer was already in the front seat. A tall M.P. with a whistle and a white helmet got in behind the wheel. The chaplain did not dare raise his eyes until the closed car had lurched from the area and the speeding wheels were whining on the bumpy blacktop road.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked in a voice soft with timidity and guilt, his gaze still averted. The notion came to him that they were holding him to blame for the mid-air crash and the death of Nately. “What have I done?”

“Why don’t you keep your trap shut and let us ask the questions?” said the colonel.

“Don’t talk to him that way,” said the major. “It isn’t necessary to be so disrespectful.”

“Then tell him to keep his trap shut and let us ask the questions.”

“Father, please keep your trap shut and let us ask the questions,” urged the major sympathetically. “It will be better for you.”

“It isn’t necessary to call me Father,” said the chaplain. “I’m not a Catholic.”

“Neither am I, Father,” said the major. “It’s just that I’m a very devout person, and I like to call all men of God Father.”

“He doesn’t even believe there are atheists in foxholes,” the colonel mocked, and nudged the chaplain in the ribs familiarly. “Go on, Chaplain, tell him. Are there atheists in foxholes?”

“I don’t know, sir,” the chaplain replied. “I’ve never been in a foxhole.”

The officer in front swung his head around swiftly with a quarrelsome expression. “You’ve never been in heaven either, have you? But you know there’s a heaven, don’t you?”