Major Major Major Major had had a difficult time from the start.

　　Like Minniver Cheevy, he had been born too late—exactly thirty-six hours too late for the physical well-being ofhis mother, a gentle, ailing woman who, after a full day and a half’s agony in the rigors of childbirth, wasdepleted of all resolve to pursue further the argument over the new child’s name. In the hospital corridor, herhusband moved ahead with the unsmiling determination of someone who knew what he was about. MajorMajor’s father was a towering, gaunt man in heavy shoes and a black woolen suit. He filled out the birthcertificate without faltering, betraying no emotion at all as he handed the completed form to the floor nurse. Thenurse took it from him without comment and padded out of sight. He watched her go, wondering what she hadon underneath.

　　Back in the ward, he found his wife lying vanquished beneath the blankets like a desiccated old vegetable,wrinkled, dry and white, her enfeebled tissues absolutely still. Her bed was at the very end of the ward, near acracked window thickened with grime. Rain splashed from a moiling sky and the day was dreary and cold. Inother parts of the hospital chalky people with aged, blue lips were dying on time. The man stood erect beside thebed and gazed down at the woman a long time.

　　“I have named the boy Caleb,” he announced to her finally in a soft voice. “In accordance with your wishes.”

　　The woman made no answer, and slowly the man smiled. He had planned it all perfectly, for his wife was asleepand would never know that he had lied to her as she lay on her sickbed in the poor ward of the county hospital.

　　From this meager beginning had sprung the ineffectual squadron commander who was now spending the betterpart of each working day in Pianosa forging Washington Irving’s name to official documents. Major Majorforged diligently with his left hand to elude identification, insulated against intrusion by his own undesiredauthority and camouflaged in his false mustache and dark glasses as an additional safeguard against detection byanyone chancing to peer in through the dowdy celluloid window from which some thief had carved out a slice. Inbetween these two low points of his birth and his success lay thirty-one dismal years of loneliness andfrustration.

　　Major Major had been born too late and too mediocre. Some men are born mediocre, some men achievemediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Evenamong men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, andpeople who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.

　　Major Major had three strikes on him from the beginning—his mother, his father and Henry Fonda, to whom hebore a sickly resemblance almost from the moment of his birth. Long before he even suspected who HenryFonda was, he found himself the subject of unflattering comparisons everywhere he went. Total strangers saw fitto deprecate him, with the result that he was stricken early with a guilty fear of people and an obsequiousimpulse to apologize to society for the fact that he was not Henry Fonda. It was not an easy task for him to gothrough life looking something like Henry Fonda, but he never once thought of quitting, having inherited hisperseverance from his father, a lanky man with a good sense of humor.

　　Major Major’s father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was along-limbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid toanyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose womenwho turned him down. His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. Thegovernment paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, themore money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase theamount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major’s father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On longwinter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noonevery day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was notgrowing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, forhe had made much money and was therefore wise. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” he counseled one and all, andeveryone said, “Amen.”

　　Major Major’s father was an outspoken champion of economy in government, provided it did not interfere withthe sacred duty of government to pay farmers as much as they could get for all the alfalfa they produced that noone else wanted or for not producing any alfalfa at all. He was a proud and independent man who was opposed tounemployment insurance and never hesitated to whine, whimper, wheedle, and extort for as much as he could get from whomever he could. He was a devout man whose pulpit was everywhere.

　　“The Lord gave us good farmers two strong hands so that we could take as much as we could grab with both ofthem,” he preached with ardor on the courthouse steps or in front of the A&P as he waited for the bad-temperedgum-chewing young cashier he was after to step outside and give him a nasty look. “If the Lord didn’t want us totake as much as we could get,” he preached, “He wouldn’t have given us two good hands to take it with.” Andthe others murmured, “Amen.”

　　Major Major’s father had a Calvinist’s faith in predestination and could perceive distinctly how everyone’smisfortunes but his own were expressions of God’s will. He smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey, and hethrived on good wit and stimulating intellectual conversation, particularly his own when he was lying about hisage or telling that good one about God and his wife’s difficulties in delivering Major Major. The good one aboutGod and his wife’s difficulties had to do with the fact that it had taken God only six days to produce the wholeworld, whereas his wife had spent a full day and a half in labor just to produce Major Major. A lesser man mighthave wavered that day in the hospital corridor, a weaker man might have compromised on such excellentsubstitutes as Drum Major, Minor Major, Sergeant Major, or C. Sharp Major, but Major Major’s father hadwaited fourteen years for just such an opportunity, and he was not a person to waste it. Major Major’s father hada good joke about opportunity. “Opportunity only knocks once in this world,” he would say. Major Major’sfather repeated this good joke at every opportunity.

　　Being born with a sickly resemblance to Henry Fonda was the first of along series of practical jokes of whichdestiny was to make Major Major the unhappy victim throughout his joyless life. Being born Major Major Majorwas the second. The fact that he had been born Major Major Major was a secret known only to his father. Notuntil Major Major was enrolling in kindergarten was the discovery of his real name made, and then the effectswere disastrous. The news killed his mother, who just lost her will to live and wasted away and died, which wasjust fine with his father, who had decided to marry the bad-tempered girl at the A&P if he had to and who hadnot been optimistic about his chances of getting his wife off the land without paying her some money or floggingher.

　　On Major Major himself the consequences were only slightly less severe. It was a harsh and stunning realizationthat was forced upon him at so tender an age, the realization that he was not, as he had always been led tobelieve, Caleb Major, but instead was some total stranger named Major Major Major about whom he knewabsolutely nothing and about whom nobody else had ever heard before. What playmates he had withdrew fromhim and never returned, disposed, as they were, to distrust all strangers, especially one who had already deceivedthem by pretending to be someone they had known for years. Nobody would have anything to do with him. Hebegan to drop things and to trip. He had a shy and hopeful manner in each new contact, and he was alwaysdisappointed. Because he needed a friend so desperately, he never found one. He grew awkwardly into a tall,strange, dreamy boy with fragile eyes and a very delicate mouth whose tentative, groping smile collapsedinstantly into hurt disorder at every fresh rebuff.

　　He was polite to his elders, who disliked him. Whatever his elders told him to do, he did. They told him to lookbefore he leaped, and he always looked before he leaped. They told him never to put off until the next day whathe could do the day before, and he never did. He was told to honor his father and his mother, and he honored his father and his mother. He was told that he should not kill, and he did not kill, until he got into the Army. Then hewas told to kill, and he killed. He turned the other cheek on every occasion and always did unto others exactly ashe would have had others do unto him. When he gave to charity, his left hand never knew what his right handwas doing. He never once took the name of the Lord his God in vain, committed adultery or coveted hisneighbor’s ass. In fact, he loved his neighbor and never even bore false witness against him. Major Major’selders disliked him because he was such a flagrant nonconformist.

　　Since he had nothing better to do well in, he did well in school. At the state university he took his studies soseriously that he was suspected by the homosexuals of being a Communist and suspected by the Communists ofbeing a homosexual. He majored in English history, which was a mistake.

　　“English history!” roared the silver-maned senior Senator from his state indignantly. “What’s the matter withAmerican history? American history is as good as any history in the world!”

　　Major Major switched immediately to American literature, but not before the F.B.I. had opened a file on him.

　　There were six people and a Scotch terrier inhabiting the remote farmhouse Major Major called home, and fiveof them and the Scotch terrier turned out to be agents for the F.B.I. Soon they had enough derogatoryinformation on Major Major to do whatever they wanted to with him. The only thing they could find to do withhim, however, was take him into the Army as a private and make him a major four days later so thatCongressmen with nothing else on their minds could go trotting back and forth through the streets ofWashington, D.C., chanting, “Who promoted Major Major? Who promoted Major Major?”

　　Actually, Major Major had been promoted by an I.B.M. machine with a sense of humor almost as keen as hisfather’s. When war broke out, he was still docile and compliant. They told him to enlist, and he enlisted. Theytold him to apply for aviation cadet training, and he applied for aviation cadet training, and the very next nightfound himself standing barefoot in icy mud at three o’clock in the morning before a tough and belligerentsergeant from the Southwest who told them he could beat hell out of any man in his outfit and was ready toprove it. The recruits in his squadron had all been shaken roughly awake only minutes before by the sergeant’scorporals and told to assemble in front of the administration tent. It was still raining on Major Major. They fellinto ranks in the civilian clothes they had brought into the Army with them three days before. Those who hadlingered to put shoes and socks on were sent back to their cold, wet, dark tents to remove them, and they were allbarefoot in the mud as the sergeant ran his stony eyes over their faces and told them he could beat hell out of anyman in his outfit. No one was inclined to dispute him.

　　Major Major’s unexpected promotion to major the next day plunged the belligerent sergeant into a bottomlessgloom, for he was no longer able to boast that he could beat hell out of any man in his outfit. He brooded forhours in his tent like Saul, receiving no visitors, while his elite guard of corporals stood discouraged watchoutside. At three o’clock in the morning he found his solution, and Major Major and the other recruits were againshaken roughly awake and ordered to assemble barefoot in the drizzly glare at the administration tent, where thesergeant was already waiting, his fists clenched on his hips cockily, so eager to speak that he could hardly waitfor them to arrive.

　　“Me and Major Major,” he boasted, in the same tough, clipped tones of the night before, “can beat hell out of any man in my outfit.”

　　The officers on the base took action on the Major Major problem later that same day. How could they cope witha major like Major Major? To demean him personally would be to demean all other officers of equal or lesserrank. To treat him with courtesy, on the other hand, was unthinkable. Fortunately, Major Major had applied foraviation cadet training. Orders transferring him away were sent to the mimeograph room late in the afternoon,and at three o’clock in the morning Major Major was again shaken roughly awake, bidden Godspeed by thesergeant and placed aboard a plane heading west.

　　Lieutenant Scheisskopf turned white as a sheet when Major Major reported to him in California with bare feetand mudcaked toes. Major Major had taken it for granted that he was being shaken roughly awake again to standbarefoot in the mud and had left his shoes and socks in the tent. The civilian clothing in which he reported forduty to Lieutenant Scheisskopf was rumpled and dirty. Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who had not yet made hisreputation as a parader, shuddered violently at the picture Major Major would make marching barefoot in hissquadron that coming Sunday.

　　“Go to the hospital quickly,” he mumbled, when he had recovered sufficiently to speak, “and tell them you’resick. Stay there until your allowance for uniforms catches up with you and you have some money to buy someclothes. And some shoes. Buy some shoes.”

　　“Yes, sir.”

　　“I don’t think you have to call me ‘sir,’ sir,” Lieutenant Scheisskopf pointed out. “You outrank me.”

　　“Yes, sir. I may outrank you, sir, but you’re still my commanding officer.”

　　“Yes, sir, that’s right,” Lieutenant Scheisskopf agreed. “You may outrank me, sir, but I’m still your commandingofficer. So you better do what I tell you, sir, or you’ll get into trouble. Go to the hospital and tell them you’resick, sir. Stay there until your uniform allowance catches up with you and you have some money to buy someuniforms.”

　　“Yes, sir.”

　　“And some shoes, sir. Buy some shoes the first chance you get, sir.”

　　“Yes, sir. I will, sir.”

　　“Thank you, sir.”

　　Life in cadet school for Major Major was no different than life had been for him all along. Whoever he was withalways wanted him to be with someone else. His instructors gave him preferred treatment at every stage in orderto push him along quickly and be rid of him. In almost no time he had his pilot’s wings and found himselfoverseas, where things began suddenly to improve. All his life, Major Major had longed for but one thing, to be absorbed, and in Pianosa, for a while, he finally was. Rank meant little to the men on combat duty, and relationsbetween officers and enlisted men were relaxed and informal. Men whose names he didn’t even know said “Hi”

　　and invited him to go swimming or play basketball. His ripest hours were spent in the day-long basketball gamesno one gave a damn about winning. Score was never kept, and the number of players might vary from one tothirty-five. Major Major had never played basketball or any other game before, but his great, bobbing height andrapturous enthusiasm helped make up for his innate clumsiness and lack of experience. Major Major found truehappiness there on the lopsided basketball court with the officers and enlisted men who were almost his friends.

　　If there were no winners, there were no losers, and Major Major enjoyed every gamboling moment right up tillthe day Colonel Cathcart roared up in his jeep after Major Duluth was killed and made it impossible for him everto enjoy playing basketball there again.

　　“You’re the new squadron commander,” Colonel Cathcart had shouted rudely across the railroad ditch to him.

　　“But don’t think it means anything, because it doesn’t. All it means is that you’re the new squadroncommander.”

　　Colonel Cathcart had nursed an implacable grudge against Major Major for a long time. A superfluous major onhis rolls meant an untidy table of organization and gave ammunition to the men at Twenty-seventh Air ForceHeadquarters who Colonel Cathcart was positive were his enemies and rivals. Colonel Cathcart had been prayingfor just some stroke of good luck like Major Duluth’s death. He had been plagued by one extra major; he nowhad an opening for one major. He appointed Major Major squadron commander and roared away in his jeep asabruptly as he had come.

　　For Major Major, it meant the end of the game. His face flushed with discomfort, and he was rooted to the spotin disbelief as the rain clouds gathered above him again. When he turned to his teammates, he encountered a reefof curious, reflective faces all gazing at him woodenly with morose and inscrutable animosity. He shivered withshame. When the game resumed, it was not good any longer. When he dribbled, no one tried to stop him; whenhe called for a pass, whoever had the ball passed it; and when he missed a basket, no one raced him for therebound. The only voice was his own. The next day was the same, and the day after that he did not come back.

　　Almost on cue, everyone in the squadron stopped talking to him and started staring at him. He walked throughlife selfconsciously with downcast eyes and burning cheeks, the object of contempt, envy, suspicion, resentmentand malicious innuendo everywhere he went. People who had hardly noticed his resemblance to Henry Fondabefore now never ceased discussing it, and there were even those who hinted sinisterly that Major Major hadbeen elevated to squadron commander because he resembled Henry Fonda. Captain Black, who had aspired tothe position himself, maintained that Major Major really was Henry Fonda but was too chickenshit to admit it.

　　Major Major floundered bewilderedly from one embarrassing catastrophe to another. Without consulting him,Sergeant Towser had his belongings moved into the roomy trailer Major Duluth had occupied alone, and whenMajor Major came rushing breathlessly into the orderly room to report the theft of his things, the young corporalthere scared him half out of his wits by leaping to his feet and shouting “Attention!” the moment he appeared.

　　Major Major snapped to attention with all the rest in the orderly room, wondering what important personage hadentered behind him. Minutes passed in rigid silence, and the whole lot of them might have stood there atattention till doomsday if Major Danby had not dropped by from Group to congratulate Major Major twenty minutes later and put them all at ease.

　　Major Major fared even more lamentably at the mess hall, where Milo, his face fluttery with smiles, was waitingto usher him proudly to a small table he had set up in front and decorated with an embroidered tablecloth and anosegay of posies in a pink cut-glass vase. Major Major hung back with horror, but he was not bold enough toresist with all the others watching. Even Havermeyer had lifted his head from his plate to gape at him with hisheavy, pendulous jaw. Major Major submitted meekly to Milo’s tugging and cowered in disgrace at his privatetable throughout the whole meal. The food was ashes in his mouth, but he swallowed every mouthful rather thanrisk offending any of the men connected with its preparation. Alone with Milo later, Major Major felt protest stirfor the first time and said he would prefer to continue eating with the other officers. Milo told him it wouldn’twork.

　　“I don’t see what there is to work,” Major Major argued. “Nothing ever happened before.”

　　“You were never the squadron commander before.”

　　“Major Duluth was the squadron commander and he always ate at the same table with the rest of the men.”

　　“It was different with Major Duluth, Sir.”

　　“In what way was it different with Major Duluth?”

　　“I wish you wouldn’t ask me that, sir,” said Milo.

　　“Is it because I look like Henry Fonda?” Major Major mustered the courage to demand.

　　“Some people say you are Henry Fonda,” Milo answered.

　　“Well, I’m not Henry Fonda,” Major Major exclaimed, in a voice quavering with exasperation. “And I don’t lookthe least bit like him. And even if I do look like Henry Fonda, what difference does that make?”

　　“It doesn’t make any difference. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, sir. It’s just not the same with you as it waswith Major Duluth.”

　　And it just wasn’t the same, for when Major Major, at the next meal, stepped from the food counter to sit withthe others at the regular tables, he was frozen in his tracks by the impenetrable wall of antagonism thrown up bytheir faces and stood petrified with his tray quivering in his hands until Milo glided forward wordlessly to rescuehim, by leading him tamely to his private table. Major Major gave up after that and always ate at his table alonewith his back to the others. He was certain they resented him because he seemed too good to eat with them nowthat he was squadron commander. There was never any conversation in the mess tent when Major Major waspresent. He was conscious that other officers tried to avoid eating at the same time, and everyone was greatlyrelieved when he stopped coming there altogether and began taking his meals in his trailer.

　　Major Major began forging Washington Irving’s name to official documents the day after the first C.I.D. manshowed up to interrogate him about somebody at the hospital who had been doing it and gave him the idea. Hehad been bored and dissatisfied in his new position. He had been made squadron commander but had no ideawhat he was supposed to do as squadron commander, unless all he was supposed to do was forge WashingtonIrving’s name to official documents and listen to the isolated clinks and thumps of Major ---de Coverley’shorseshoes falling to the ground outside the window of his small office in the rear of the orderly-room tent. Hewas hounded incessantly by an impression of vital duties left unfulfilled and waited in vain for hisresponsibilities to overtake him. He seldom went out unless it was absolutely necessary, for he could not get usedto being stared at. Occasionally, the monotony was broken by some officer or enlisted man Sergeant Towserreferred to him on some matter that Major Major was unable to cope with and referred right back to SergeantTowser for sensible disposition. Whatever he was supposed to get done as squadron commander apparently wasgetting done without any assistance from him. He grew moody and depressed. At times he thought seriously ofgoing with all his sorrows to see the chaplain, but the chaplain seemed so overburdened with miseries of his ownthat Major Major shrank from adding to his troubles. Besides, he was not quite sure if chaplains were forsquadron commanders.

　　He had never been quite sure about Major ---de Coverley, either, who, when he was not away rentingapartments or kidnaping foreign laborers, had nothing more pressing to do than pitch horseshoes. Major Majoroften paid strict attention to the horseshoes falling softly against the earth or riding down around the small steelpegs in the ground. He peeked out at Major ---de Coverley for hours and marveled that someone so august hadnothing more important to do. He was often tempted to join Major ---de Coverley, but pitching horseshoes allday long seemed almost as dull as signing “Major Major Major” to official documents, and Major ---deCoverley’s countenance was so forbidding that Major Major was in awe of approaching him.

　　Major Major wondered about his relationship to Major ---de Coverley and about Major ---de Coverley’srelationship to him. He knew that Major ---de Coverley was his executive officer, but he did not know what thatmeant, and he could not decide whether in Major --- de Coverley he was blessed with a lenient superior or cursedwith a delinquent subordinate. He did not want to ask Sergeant Towser, of whom he was secretly afraid, andthere was no one else he could ask, least of all Major ---de Coverley. Few people ever dared approach Major --deCoverley about anything and the only officer foolish enough to pitch one of his horseshoes was stricken thevery next day with the worst case of Pianosan crud that Gus or Wes or even Doc Daneeka had ever seen or evenheard about. Everyone was positive the disease had been inflicted upon the poor officer in retribution by Major--- de Coverley, although no one was sure how.

　　Most of the official documents that came to Major Major’s desk did not concern him at all. The vast majorityconsisted of allusions to prior communications which Major Major had never seen or heard of. There was neverany need to look them up, for the instructions were invariably to disregard. In the space of a single productiveminute, therefore, he might endorse twenty separate documents each advising him to pay absolutely no attentionto any of the others. From General Peckem’s office on the mainland came prolix bulletins each day headed bysuch cheery homilies as “Procrastination is the Thief of Time” and “Cleanliness is Next to Godliness.”

　　General Peckem’s communications about cleanliness and procrastination made Major Major feel like a filthyprocrastinator, and he always got those out of the way as quickly as he could. The only official documents that interested him were those occasional ones pertaining to the unfortunate second lieutenant who had been killed onthe mission over Orvieto less than two hours after he arrived on Pianosa and whose partly unpacked belongingswere still in Yossarian’s tent. Since the unfortunate lieutenant had reported to the operations tent instead of to theorderly room, Sergeant Towser had decided that it would be safest to report him as never having reported to thesquadron at all, and the occasional documents relating to him dealt with the fact that he seemed to have vanishedinto thin air, which, in one way, was exactly what did happen to him. In the long run, Major Major was gratefulfor the official documents that came to his desk, for sitting in his office signing them all day long was a lot betterthan sitting in his office all day long not signing them. They gave him something to do.

　　Inevitably, every document he signed came back with a fresh page added for a new signature by him afterintervals of from two to ten days. They were always much thicker than formerly, for in between the sheet bearinghis last endorsement and the s............