“Are you sure you didn’t imagine the whole thing?” Hungry Joe inquired hesitantly after a while.
“Imagine it? You were right there with me, weren’t you? You just flew her back to Rome.”
“Maybe I imagined the whole thing, too. Why does she want to kill you for?”
“She never did like me. Maybe it’s because I broke his nose, or maybe it’s because I was the only one in sight she could hate when she got the news. Do you think she’ll come back?”
Yossarian went to the officers’ club that night and stayed very late. He kept a leery eye out for Nately’s whore as he approached his tent. He stopped when he saw her hiding in the bushes around the side, gripping a huge carving knife and all dressed up to look like a Pianosan farmer. Yossarian tiptoed around the back noiselessly and seized her from behind.
“Caramba!” she exclaimed in a rage, and resisted like a wildcat as he dragged her inside the tent and hurled her down on the floor.
“Hey, what’s going on?” queried one of his roommates drowsily.
“Hold her till I get back,” Yossarian ordered, yanking him out of bed on top of her and running out. “Hold her!”
“Let me kill him and I’ll ficky-fick you all,” she offered.
The other roommates leaped out of their cots when they saw it was a girl and tried to make her ficky-fick them all first as Yossarian ran to get Hungry Joe, who was sleeping like a baby. Yossarian lifted Huple’s cat off Hungry Joe’s face and shook him awake. Hungry Joe dressed rapidly. This time they flew the plane north and turned in over Italy far behind the enemy lines. When they were over level land, they strapped a parachute on Nately’s whore and shoved her out the escape hatch. Yossarian was positive that he was at last rid of her and was relieved. As he approached his tent back in Pianosa, a figure reared up in the darkness right beside the path, and he fainted. He came to sitting on the ground and waited for the knife to strike him, almost welcoming the mortal blow for the peace it would bring. A friendly hand helped him up instead. It belonged to a pilot in Dunbar’s squadron.
“How are you doing?” asked the pilot, whispering.
“Pretty good,” Yossarian answered.
“I saw you fall down just now. I thought something happened to you.”
“I think I fainted.”
“There’s a rumor in my squadron that you told them you weren’t going to fly any more combat missions.”
“That’s the truth.”
“Then they came around from Group and told us that the rumor wasn’t true, that you were just kidding around.”
“That was a lie.”
“Do you think they’ll let you get away with it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What will they do to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think they’ll court-martial you for desertion in the face of the enemy?”
“I don’t know.”
“I hope you get away with it,” said the pilot in Dunbar’s squadron, stealing out of sight into the shadows. “Let me know how you’re doing.”
Yossarian stared after him a few seconds and continued toward his tent.
“Pssst!” said a voice a few paces onward. It was Appleby, hiding in back of a tree. “How are you doing?”
“Pretty good,” said Yossarian.
“I heard them say they were going to threaten to court-martial you for deserting in the face of the enemy. But that they wouldn’t try to go through with it because they’re not even sure they’ve got a case against you on that. And because it might make them look bad with the new commanders. Besides, you’re still a pretty big hero for going around twice over the bridge at Ferrara. I guess you’re just about the biggest hero we’ve got now in the group. I just thought you’d like to know that they’ll only be bluffing.”
“Thanks, Appleby.”
“That’s the only reason I started talking to you, to warn you.”
“I appreciate it.”
Appleby scuffed the toes of his shoes into the ground sheepishly. “I’m sorry we had that fist fight in the officers’ club, Yossarian.”
“That’s all right.”
“But I didn’t start it. I guess that was all Orr’s fault for hitting me in the face with his Ping-Pong paddle. What’d he want to do that for?”
“You were beating him.”
“Wasn’t I supposed to beat him? Isn’t that the point? Now that he’s dead, I guess it doesn’t matter any more whether I’m a better Ping-Pong player or not, does it?”
“I guess not.”