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By Root 7332 0

an avenging punch that made Nately call out his name and made Colonel Cathcart blanch and retreat prudently smack into General Dreedle, who shoved him off his bruised foot disgustedly and order him forward to kick the chaplain right back into the officers’ club. It was all very upsetting to Colonel Cathcart, first the dreaded name Yossarian! tolling out again clearly like a warning of doom and then General Dreedle’s bruised foot, and that was another fault Colonel Cathcart found in the chaplain, the fact that it was impossible to predict how General Dreedle would react each time he saw him. Colonel Cathcart would never forget the first evening General Dreedle took notice of the chaplain in the officers’ club, lifting his ruddy, sweltering, intoxicated face to stare ponderously through the yellow pall of cigarette smoke at the chaplain lurking near the wall by himself.

‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ General Dreedle had exclaimed hoarsely, his shaggy gray menacing eyebrows beetling in recognition. ‘Is that a chaplain I see over there? That’s really a fine thing when a man of God begins hanging around a place like this with a bunch of dirty drunks and gamblers.’ Colonel Cathcart compressed his lips primly and started to rise. ‘I couldn’t agree with you more, sir,’ he assented briskly in a tone of ostentatious disapproval. ‘I just don’t know what’s happening to the clergy these days.’

‘They’re getting better, that’s what’s happening to them,’ General Dreedle growled emphatically.

Colonel Cathcart gulped awkwardly and made a nimble recovery. ‘Yes, sir. They are getting better. That’s exactly what I had in mind, sir.’

‘This is just the place for a chaplain to be, mingling with the men while they’re out drinking and gambling so he can get to understand them and win their confidence. How the hell else is he ever going to get them to believe in God?’

‘That’s exactly what I had in mind, sir, when I ordered him to come here,’ Colonel Cathcart said carefully, and threw his arm familiarly around the chaplain’s shoulders as he walked him off into a corner to order him in a cold undertone to start reporting for duty at the officers’ club every evening to mingle with the men while they were drinking and gambling so that he could get to understand them and win their confidence.

The chaplain agreed and did report for duty to the officers’ club every night to mingle with men who wanted to avoid him, until the evening the vicious fist fight broke out at the ping-pong table and Chief White Halfoat whirled without provocation and punched Colonel Moodus squarely in the nose, knocking Colonel Moodus down on the seat of his pants and making General Dreedle roar with lusty, unexpected laughter until he spied the chaplain standing close by gawking at him grotesquely in tortured wonder. General Dreedle froze at the sight of him. He glowered at the chaplain with swollen fury for a moment, his good humor gone, and turned back toward the bar disgruntedly, rolling from side to side like a sailor on his short bandy legs. Colonel Cathcart cantered fearfully along behind, glancing anxiously about in vain for some sign of help from Colonel Korn.

‘That’s a fine thing,’ General Dreedle growled at the bar, gripping his empty shot glass in his burly hand. ‘That’s really a fine thing, when a man of God begins hanging around a place like this with a bunch of dirty drunks and gamblers.’ Colonel Cathcart sighed with relief. ‘Yes, sir,’ he exclaimed proudly. ‘It certainly is a fine thing.’

‘Then why the hell don’t you do something about it?’

‘Sir?’ Colonel Cathcart inquired, blinking.

‘Do you think it does you credit to have your chaplain hanging around here every night? He’s in here every goddam time I come.’

‘You’re right, sir, absolutely right,’ Colonel Cathcart responded. ‘It does me no credit at all. And I am going to do something about it, this very minute.’

‘Aren’t you the one who ordered him to come here?’

‘No, sir, that was Colonel Korn. I intend to punish him severely, too.’

‘If he wasn’t a chaplain,’ General Dreedle muttered, ‘I’d have him taken outside