‘He’s the one who started it all. It’s his dream.’
‘Oh, Dunbar.’ Major Sanderson sneered, his confidence returning. ‘I’ll bet Dunbar is that evil fellow who really does all those nasty things you’re always being blamed for, isn’t he?’
‘He’s not so evil.’ And yet you’ll defend him to the very death, won’t you?’
‘Not that far.’ Major Sanderson smiled tauntingly and wrote ‘Dunbar’ on his pad. ‘Why are you limping?’ he asked sharply, as Yossarian moved to the door. ‘And what the devil is that bandage doing on your leg? Are you mad or something?’
‘I was wounded in the leg. That’s what I’m in the hospital for.’
‘Oh, no, you’re not,’ gloated Major Sanderson maliciously. ‘You’re in the hospital for a stone in your salivary gland. So you’re not so smart after all, are you? You don’t even know what you’re in the hospital for.’
‘I’m in the hospital for a wounded leg,’ Yossarian insisted.
Major Sanderson ignored his argument with a sarcastic laugh. ‘Well, give my regards to your friend Dunbar. And you will tell him to dream that dream for me, won’t you?’ But Dunbar had nausea and dizziness with his constant headache and was not inclined to co-operate with Major Sanderson. Hungry Joe had nightmares because he had finished sixty missions and was waiting again to go home, but he was unwilling to share any when he came to the hospital to visit.
‘Hasn’t anyone got any dreams for Major Sanderson?’ Yossarian asked. ‘I hate to disappoint him. He feels so rejected already.’
‘I’ve been having a very peculiar dream ever since I learned you were wounded,’ confessed the chaplain. ‘I used to dream every night that my wife was dying or being murdered or that my children were choking to death on morsels of nutritious food. Now I dream that I’m out swimming in water over my head and a shark is eating my left leg in exactly the same place where you have your bandage.’
‘That’s a wonderful dream,’ Dunbar declared. ‘I bet Major Sanderson will love it.’
‘That’s a horrible dream!’ Major Sanderson cried. ‘It’s filled with pain and mutilation and death. I’m sure you had it just to spite me. You know, I’m not even sure you belong in the Army, with a disgusting dream like that.’ Yossarian thought he spied a ray of hope. ‘Perhaps you’re right, sir,’ he suggested slyly. ‘Perhaps I ought to be grounded and returned to the States.’
‘Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that in your promiscuous pursuit of women you are merely trying to assuage your subconscious fears of sexual impotence?’
‘Yes, sir, it has.’
‘Then why do you do it?’
‘To assuage my fears of sexual impotence.’
‘Why don’t you get yourself a good hobby instead?’ Major Sanderson inquired with friendly interest. ‘Like fishing. Do you really find Nurse Duckett so attractive? I should think she was rather bony. Rather bland and bony, you know. Like a fish.’
‘I hardly know Nurse Duckett.’
‘Then why did you grab her by the bosom? Merely because she has one?’
‘ Dunbar did that.’
‘Oh, don’t start that again,’ Major Sanderson exclaimed with vitriolic scorn, and hurled down his pencil disgustedly. ‘Do you really think that you can absolve yourself of guilt by pretending to be someone else? I don’t like you, Fortiori. Do you know that? I don’t like you at all.’ Yossarian felt a cold, damp wind of apprehension blow over him. ‘I’m not Fortiori, sir,’ he said timidly. ‘I’m Yossarian.’
‘You’re who?’
‘My name is Yossarian, sir. And I’m in the hospital with a wounded leg.’
‘Your name is Fortiori,’ Major Sanderson contradicted him belligerently. ‘And you’re in the hospital for a stone in your salivary gland.’
‘Oh, come on, Major!’ Yossarian exploded. ‘I ought to know who I am.’
‘And I’ve got an official Army record here to prove it,’ Major Sanderson retorted. ‘You’d better get a grip on yourself before it’s too late. First you’re Dunbar. Now you’re Yossarian. The next thing you know you’ll be claiming you’re Washington Irving. Do you know what’s wrong with you? You’ve got a split personality, that’s what’s wrong with you.’
‘Perhaps you’re right, sir.’ Yossarian agreed diplomatically.
‘I know I’m right. You’ve got a bad persecution complex. You think people are trying to harm you.’
‘People are trying to harm me.’
‘You see? You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You’re dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!’
‘Are you serious?’
‘You’re an enemy of the people!’
‘Are you nuts?’ Yossarian shouted.
‘No, I’m not nuts,’ Dobbs roared furiously back in the ward, in what he imagined was a furtive whisper. ‘Hungry Joe saw them, I tell you. He saw them yesterday when he flew to Naples to pick up some black-market air conditioners for Colonel Cathcart’s farm. They’ve got a big replacement center there and it’s filled with hundreds of pilots, bombardiers and gunners on the way home. They’ve got forty-five missions, that’s all. A few with Purple Hearts have even less. Replacement crews are pouring in from the States into the other bomber groups. They want everyone to serve overseas at least once, even administrative personnel. Don’t you read the papers? We’ve got to kill him now!’
‘You’ve got only two more missions to fly,’ Yossarian reasoned with him in a low voice. ‘Why take a chance?’
‘I can get killed flying them, too,’ Dobbs answered pugnaciously in his rough, quavering, overwrought voice. ‘We can kill him the first thing tomorrow morning when he drives back from his farm. I’ve got the gun right here.’ Yossarian goggled with amazement as Dobbs pulled a gun out of his pocket and displayed it high in the air. ‘Are you crazy?’ he hissed frantically. ‘Put it away. And keep your idiot voice down.’
‘What are you worried about?’ Dobbs asked with offended innocence. ‘No one can hear us.’
‘Hey, knock it off down there,’ a voice rang out from the far end of the ward. ‘Can’t you see we’re trying to nap?’
‘What the hell are you, a wise guy?’ Dobbs yelled back and spun around with clenched fists, ready to fight. He whirled back to Yossarian and, before he could speak, sneezed thunderously six times, staggering sideways on rubbery legs in the intervals and raising his elbows ineffectively to fend each seizure off. The lids of his watery eyes were puffy and inflamed.
‘Who does he think,’ he demanded, sniffing spasmodically and wiping his nose with the back of his sturdy wrist, ‘he is, a cop or something?’
‘He’s a C.I.D. man,’ Yossarian notified him tranquilly. ‘We’ve got three here now and more on the way. Oh, don’t be scared. They’re after a forger named Washington Irving. They’re not interested in murderers.’
‘Murderers?’ Dobbs was affronted. ‘Why do you call us murderers? Just because we’re going to murder Colonel Cathcart?’
‘Be quiet, damn you!’ directed Yossarian. ‘Can’t you whisper?’
‘I am whispering. I—’
‘You’re still shouting.’
‘No, I’m not. I—’
‘Hey, shut up down there, will you?’ patients all over the ward began hollering at Dobbs.
‘I’ll fight you all!’ Dobbs screamed back at them, and stood up on a rickety wooden chair, waving the gun wildly. Yossarian caught his arm and yanked him down. Dobbs began sneezing again. ‘I have an allergy,’ he apologized when he had finished, his nostrils running and his eyes streaming with tears.
‘That’s too bad. You’d make a great leader of men without it.’
‘Colonel Cathcart’s the murderer,’ Dobbs complained hoarsely when he had shoved away a soiled, crumpled khaki handkerchief. ‘Colonel Cathcart’s the one who’s going to murder us all if we don’t do something to stop him.’
‘Maybe he won’t raise the missions any more. Maybe sixty is as high as he’ll go.’
‘He always raises the missions. You know that better than I do.’ Dobbs swallowed and bent his intense
