The morning after Hungry Joe's fist fight with Huple's cat, the rain stopped falling in both places. The landing strip began to dry. It would take a full twenty-four hours to harden; but the sky remained cloudless. The resentments incubating in each man hatched into hatred. First they hated the infantrymen on the mainland because they had failed to capture Bologna. Then they began to hate the bomb line itself. For hours they stared relentlessly at the scarlet ribbon on the map and hated it because it would not move up high enough to encompass the city. When night fell, they congregated in the darkness with flashlights, continuing their macabre vigil at the bomb line in brooding entreaty as though hoping to move the ribbon up by the collective weight of their sullen prayers.
'I really can't believe it,' Clevinger exclaimed to Yossarian in a voice rising and falling in protest and wonder. 'It's a complete reversion to primitive superstition. They're confusing cause and effect. It makes as much sense as knocking on wood or crossing your fingers. They really believe that we wouldn't have to fly that mission tomorrow if someone would only tiptoe up to the map in the middle of the night and move the bomb line over Bologna. Can you imagine? You and I must be the only rational ones left.' In the middle of the night Yossarian knocked on wood, crossed his fingers, and tiptoed out of his tent to move the bomb line up over Bologna.
Corporal Kolodny tiptoed stealthily into Captain Black's tent early the next morning, reached inside the mosquito net and gently shook the moist shoulder-blade he found there until Captain Black opened his eyes.
'What are you waking me up for?' whimpered Captain Black.
'They captured Bologna, sir,' said Corporal Kolodny. 'I thought you'd want to know. Is the mission canceled?' Captain Black tugged himself erect and began scratching his scrawny long thighs methodically. In a little while he dressed and emerged from his tent, squinting, cross and unshaven. The sky was clear and warm. He peered without emotion at the map. Sure enough, they had captured Bologna. Inside the intelligence tent, Corporal Kolodny was already removing the maps of Bologna from the navigation kits. Captain Black seated himself with a loud yawn, lifted his feet to the top of his desk and phoned Colonel Korn.
'What are you waking me up for?' whimpered Colonel Korn.
'They captured Bologna during the night, sir. Is the mission canceled?'
'What are you talking about, Black?' Colonel Korn growled. 'Why should the mission be canceled?'
'Because they captured Bologna, sir. Isn't the mission canceled?'
'Of course the mission is canceled. Do you think we're bombing our own troops now?'
'What are you waking me up for?' Colonel Cathcart whimpered to Colonel Korn.
'They captured Bologna,' Colonel Korn told him. 'I thought you'd want to know.'
'Who captured Bologna?'
'We did.' Colonel Cathcart was overjoyed, for he was relieved of the embarrassing commitment to bomb Bologna without blemish to the reputation for valor he had earned by volunteering his men to do it. General Dreedle was pleased with the capture of Bologna, too, although he was angry with Colonel Moodus for waking him up to tell him about it. Headquarters was also pleased and decided to award a medal to the officer who captured the city. There was no officer who had captured the city, so they gave the medal to General Peckem instead, because General Peckem was the only officer with sufficient initiative to ask for it.
As soon as General Peckem had received his medal, he began asking for increased responsibility. It was General Peckem's opinion that all combat units in the theater should be placed under the jurisdiction of the Special Service Corps, of which General Peckem himself was the commanding officer. If dropping bombs on the enemy was not a special service, he reflected aloud frequently with the martyred smile of sweet reasonableness that was his loyal confederate in every dispute, then he could not help wondering what in the world was. With amiable regret, he declined the offer o
f a combat post under General Dreedle.
'Flying combat missions for General Dreedle is not exactly what I had in mind,' he explained indulgently with a smooth laugh. 'I was thinking more in terms of replacing General Dreedle, or perhaps of something above General Dreedle where I could exercise supervision over a great many other generals too. You see, my most precious abilities are mainly administrative ones. I have a happy facility for getting different people to agree.'
'He has a happy facility for getting different people to agree what a prick he is,' Colonel Cargill confided invidiously to ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen in the hope that ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen would spread the unfavorable report along through Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters. 'If anyone deserves that combat post, I do. It was even my idea that we ask for the medal.'
'You really want to go into combat?' ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen inquired.
'Combat?' Colonel Cargill was aghast. 'Oh, no--you misunderstand me. Of course, I wouldn't actually mind going into combat, but my best abilities are mainly administrative ones. I too have a happy facility for getting different people to agree.'
'He too has a happy facility for getting different people to agree what a prick he is,' ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen confided with a laugh to Yossarian, after he had come to Pianosa to learn if it was really true about Milo and the Egyptian cotton. 'If anyone deserves a promotion, I do.' Actually, he had risen already to ex-corporal, having shot through the ranks shortly after his transfer to Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters as a mail clerk and been busted right down to private for making odious audible comparisons about the commissioned officers for whom he worked. The heady taste of success had infused him further with morality and fired him with ambition for loftier attainments. 'Do you want to buy some Zippo lighters?' he asked Yossarian. 'They were stolen right from quartermaster.'
'Does Milo know you're selling cigarette lighters?'
'What's it his business? Milo's not carrying cigarette lighters too now, is he?'
'He sure is,' Yossarian told him. 'And his aren't stolen.'
'That's what you think,' ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen answered with a laconic snort. 'I'm selling mine for a buck apiece. What's he getting for his?'
'A dollar and a penny.' Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen snickered triumphantly. 'I beat him every time,' he gloated. 'Say, what about all that Egyptian cotton he's stuck with? How much did he buy?'
'All.'
'In the whole world? Well, I'll be danmed!' ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen crowed with malicious glee. 'What a dope! You were in Cairo with him. Why'd you let him do it?'
'Me?' Yossarian answered with a shrug. 'I have no influence on him. It was those teletype machines they have in all the good restaurants there. Milo had never seen a stock ticker before, and the quotation for Egyptian cotton happened to be coming in just as he asked the headwaiter to explain it to him. "Egyptian cotton?" Milo said with that look of his. "How much is Egyptian cotton selling for?" The next thing I knew he had bought the whole goddam harvest. And now he can't unload any of it.'
'He has no imagination. I can unload plenty of it in the black market if he'll make a deal.'