Catch-22(177)

The ruddy stout colonel stepped forward vigorously with a sudden idea. “Why don’t we knock his goddam brains out?” he suggested with robust enthusiasm to the others.

“Yes, we could knock his goddam brains out, couldn’t we?” the hawk-faced major agreed. “He’s only an Anabaptist.”

“No, we’ve got to find him guilty first,” the officer without insignia cautioned with a languid restraining wave. He slid lightly to the floor and moved around to the other side of the table, facing the chaplain with both hands pressed flat on the surface. His expression was dark and very stern, square and forbidding. “Chaplain,” he announced with magisterial rigidity, “we charge you formally with being Washington Irving and taking capricious and unlicensed liberties in censoring the letters of officers and enlisted men. Are you guilty or innocent?”

“Innocent, sir.” The chaplain licked dry lips with a dry tongue and leaned forward in suspense on the edge of his chair.

“Guilty,” said the colonel.

“Guilty,” said the major.

“Guilty it is, then,” remarked the officer without insignia, and wrote a word on a page in the folder. “Chaplain,” he continued, looking up, “we accuse you also of the commission of crimes and infractions we don’t even know about yet. Guilty or innocent?”

“I don’t know, sir. How can I say if you don’t tell me what they are?”

“How can we tell you if we don’t know?”

“Guilty,” decided the colonel.

“Sure he’s guilty,” agreed the major. “If they’re his crimes and infractions, he must have committed them.”

“Guilty it is, then,” chanted the officer without insignia, and moved off to the side of the room. “He’s all yours, Colonel.”

“Thank you,” commended the colonel. “You did a very good job.” He turned to the chaplain. “Okay, Chaplain, the jig’s up. Take a walk.”

The chaplain did not understand. “What do you wish me to do?”

“Go on, beat it, I told you!” the colonel roared, jerking a thumb over his shoulder angrily. “Get the hell out of here.”

The chaplain was shocked by his bellicose words and tone and, to his own amazement and mystification, deeply chagrined that they were turning him loose. “Aren’t you even going to punish me?” he inquired with querulous surprise.

“You’re damned right we’re going to punish you. But we’re certainly not going to let you hang around while we decide how and when to do it. So get going. Hit the road.”

The chaplain rose tentatively and took a few steps away. “I’m free to go?”

“For the time being. But don’t try to leave the island. We’ve got your number, Chaplain. Just remember that we’ve got you under surveillance twenty-four hours a day.”

It was not conceivable that they would allow him to leave. The chaplain walked toward the exit gingerly, expecting at any instant to be ordered back by a peremptory voice or halted in his tracks by a heavy blow on the shoulder or the head. They did nothing to stop him. He found his way through the stale, dark, dank corridors to the flight of stairs. He was staggering and panting when he climbed out into the fresh air. As soon as he had escaped, a feeling of overwhelming moral outrage filled him. He was furious, more furious at the atrocities of the day than he had ever felt before in his whole life. He swept through the spacious, echoing lobby of the building in a temper of scalding and vindictive resentment. He was not going to stand for it any more, he told himself, he was simply not going to stand for it. When he reached the entrance, he spied, with a feeling of good fortune, Colonel Korn trotting up the wide steps alone. Bracing himself with a deep breath, the chaplain moved courageously forward to intercept him.

“Colonel, I’m not going to stand for it any more,” he declared with vehement determination, and watched in dismay as Colonel Korn went trotting by up the steps without even noticing him. “Colonel Korn!”

The tubby, loose figure of his superior officer stopped, turned and came trotting back down slowly. “What is it, Chaplain?”

“Colonel Korn, I want to talk to you about the crash this morning. It was a terrible thing to happen, terrible!”

Colonel Korn was silent a moment, regarding the chaplain with a glint of cynical amusement. “Yes, Chaplain, it certainly was terrible,” he said finally. “I don’t know how we’re going to write this one up without making ourselves look bad.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” the chaplain scolded firmly without any fear at all. “Some of those twelve men had already finished their seventy missions.”