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Catch-22

CHAPTER 31 - MRS

(AnyBooksFree) CHAPTER 31 - MRS. DANEEKA
When Colonel Cathcart learned that Doc Daneeka too had been killed in McWatt's
plane, he increased the number of missions to seventy.
The first person in the squadron to find out that Doc Daneeka was dead was
Sergeant Towser, who had been informed earlier by the man in the control tower
that Doc Daneeka's name was down as a passenger on the pilot's manifest McWatt
had filed before taking off. Sergeant Towser brushed away a tear and struck Doc
Daneeka's name from the roster of squadron personnel. With lips still quivering, he
rose and trudged outside reluctantly to break the bad news to Gus and Wes,
discreetly avoiding any conversation with Doc Daneeka himself as he moved by the
flight surgeon's slight sepulchral figure roosting despondently on his stool in the
late-afternoon sunlight between the orderly room and the medical tent. Sergeant
Towser's heart was heavy; now he had two dead men on his hands - Mudd, the dead
man in Yossarian's tent who wasn't even there, and Doc Daneeka, the new dead man
in the squadron, who most certainly was there and gave every indication of proving a
still thornier administrative problem for him.
Gus and Wes listened to Sergeant Towser with looks of stoic surprise and said not a
word about their bereavement to anyone else until Doc Daneeka himself came in
about an hour afterward to have his temperature taken for the third time that day
and his blood pressure checked. The thermometer registered a half degree lower
than his usual subnormal temperature of 96.8. Doc Daneeka was alarmed. The fixed,
vacant, wooden stares of his two enlisted men were even more irritating than always.
'Goddammit,' he expostulated politely in an uncommon excess of exasperation,
'what's the matter with you two men anyway? It just isn't right for a person to have
a low temperature all the time and walk around with a stuffed nose.' Doc Daneeka
emitted a glum, self-pitying sniff and strolled disconsolately across the tent to help
himself to some aspirin and sulphur pills and paint his own throat with Argyrol. His
downcast face was fragile and forlorn as a swallow's, and he rubbed the back of his
arms rhythmically. 'Just look how cold I am right now. You're sure you're not holding
anything back?'
'You're dead, sir,' one of his two enlisted men explained.
Doc Daneeka jerked his head up quickly with resentful distrust. 'What's that?'
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'You're dead, sir,' repeated the other.
'That's probably the reason you always feel so cold.'
'That's right, sir. You've probably been dead all this time and we just
didn't detect it.'
'What the *hell* are you both talking about?' Doc Daneeka cried shrilly with a
surging, petrifying sensation of some onrushing unavoidable disaster.
'It's true, sir,' said one of the enlisted men. 'The records show that you went up in
McWatt's plane to collect some flight time. You didn't come down in a parachute, so
you must have been killed in the crash.'
'That's right, sir,' said the other. 'You ought to be glad you've got any
temperature at all.'
Doc Daneeka's mind was reeling in confusion. 'Have you both gone crazy?' he
demanded. 'I'm going to report this whole insubordinate incident to
Sergeant Towser.'
'Sergeant Towser's the one who told us about it,' said either Gus or Wes.
'The War Department's even going to notify your wife.'
Doc Daneeka yelped and ran out of the medical tent to remonstrate with Sergeant
Towser, who edged away from him with repugnance and advised Doc Daneeka to
remain out of sight as much as possible until some decision could be reached relating
to the disposition of his remains.
'Gee, I guess he really is dead,' grieved one of his enlisted men in a low, respectful
voice. 'I'm going to miss him. He was a pretty wonderful guy, wasn't he?'
'Yeah, he sure was,' mourned the other. 'But I'm glad the little fuck is gone. I was
getting sick and tired of taking his blood pressure all the time.'
Mrs. Daneeka, Doc Daneeka's wife, was not glad that Doc Daneeka was gone and split
the peaceful Staten Island night with woeful shrieks of lamentation when she
learned by War Department telegram that her husband had been killed in action.
Women came to comfort her, and their husbands paid condolence calls and hoped
inwardly that she would soon move to another neighborhood and spare them the
obligation of continuous sympathy. The poor woman was totally distraught for almost
a full week. Slowly, heroically, she found the strength to contemplate a future filled
with dire problems for herself and her children.
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Just as she was growing resigned to her loss, the postman rang with a bolt from the
blue - a letter from overseas that was signed with her husband's signature and urged
her frantically to disregard any bad news concerning him. Mrs. Daneeka was
dumbfounded. The date on the letter was illegible. The handwriting throughout was
shaky and hurried, but the style resembled her husband's and the melancholy, selfpitying tone was familiar, although more dreary than usual. Mrs. Daneeka was
overjoyed and wept irrepressibly with relief and kissed the crinkled, grubby tissue of
V-mail stationery a thousand times. She dashed a grateful note off to her husband
pressing him for details and sent a wire informing the War Department of its error.
The War Department replied touchily that there had been no error and that she was
undoubtedly the victim of some sadistic and psychotic forger in her husband's
squadron . The letter to her husband was returned unopened,
stamped KILLED IN ACTION.
Mrs. Daneeka had been widowed cruelly again, but this time her grief was mitigated
somewhat by a notification from Washington that she was sole beneficiary of her
husband's $10,000 GI insurance policy, which amount was obtainable by her on
demand. The realization that she and the children were not faced immediately with
starvation brought a brave smile to her face and marked the turning point in her
distress. The Veterans Administration informed her by mail the very next day that
she would be entitled to pension benefits for the rest of her natural life because of
her husband's demise, and to a burial allowance for him of $250. A government check
for $250 was enclosed. Gradually, inexorably, her prospects brightened.
A letter arrived that same week from the Social Security Administration stating
that, under the provisions of the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Act Of 1935, she
would receive monthly support for herself and her dependent children until they
reached the age of eighteen, and a burial allowance of $250. With these government
letters as proof of death, she applied for payment on three life insurance policies
Doc Daneeka had carried, with a value of $50,000 each; her claim was honored and
processed swiftly. Each day brought new unexpected treasures. A key to a safedeposit box led to a fourth life insurance policy with a face value of $50,000, and to
$18,000 in cash on which income tax had never been paid and need never be paid. A
fraternal lodge to which he had belonged gave her a cemetery plot. A second
fraternal organization of which he had been a member sent her a burial allowance of
$250. His county medical association gave her a burial allowance of $250.
The husbands of her closest friends began to flirt with her. Mrs. Daneeka was simply
delighted with the way things were turning out and had her hair dyed. Her fantastic
wealth just kept piling up, and she had to remind herself daily that all the hundreds
of thousands of dollars she was acquiring were not worth a single penny without her
husband to share this good fortune with her.
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It astonished her that so many separate organizations were willing to do so much to
bury Doc Daneeka, who, back in Pianosa, was having a terrible time trying to keep his
head above the ground and wondered with dismal apprehension why his wife did not
answer the letter he had written.
He found himself ostracized in the squadron by men who cursed his memory foully
for having supplied Colonel Cathcart with provocation to raise the number of combat
missions. Records attesting to his death were pullulating like insect eggs and
verifying each other beyond all contention. He drew no pay or PX rations and
depended for life on the charity of Sergeant Towser and Milo, who both knew he was
dead. Colonel Cathcart refused to see him, and Colonel Korn sent word through Major
Danby that he would have Doc Daneeka cremated on the spot if he ever showed up at
Group Headquarters. Major Danby confided that Group was incensed with all flight
surgeons because of Dr. Stubbs, the bushy-haired, baggy-chinned, slovenly flight
surgeon in Dunbar's squadron who was deliberately and defiantly brewing insidious
dissension there by grounding all men with sixty missions on proper forms that were
rejected by Group indignantly with orders restoring the confused pilots, navigators,
bombardiers and gunners to combat duty. Morale there was ebbing rapidly, and
Dunbar was under surveillance. Group was glad Doc Daneeka had been killed and did
not intend to ask for a replacement.
Not even the chaplain could bring Doc Daneeka back to life under the circumstances.
Alarm changed to resignation, and more and more Doc Daneeka acquired the look of
an ailing rodent. The sacks under his eyes turned hollow and black, and he padded
through the shadows fruitlessly like a ubiquitous spook. Even Captain Flume recoiled
when Doc Daneeka sought him out in the woods for help. Heartlessly, Gus and Wes
turned him away from their medical tent without even a thermometer for comfort,
and then, only then, did he realize that, to all intents and purposes,
he really was dead, and that he had better do something damned fast if
he ever hoped to save himself.
There was nowhere else to turn but to his wife, and he scribbled an impassioned
letter begging her to bring his plight to the attention of the War Department and
urging her to communicate at once with his group commander, Colonel Cathcart, for
assurances that - no matter what else she might have heard - it was indeed he, her
husband, Doc Daneeka, who was pleading with her, and not a corpse or some impostor.
Mrs. Daneeka was stunned by the depth of emotion in the almost illegible appeal. She
was torn with compunction and tempted to comply, but the very next letter she
opened that day was from that same Colonel Cathcart, her husband's group
commander, and began:
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[Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. and Mrs. Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep
personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father or brother was killed,
wounded or reported missing in action.]
Mrs. Daneeka moved with her children to Lansing, Michigan, and left
no forwarding address.
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Catch-22

CHAPTER 31 - MRS

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