The late-August morning sun was hot and steamy, and there was no breeze on the balcony. The chaplain movedslowly. He was downcast and burdened with self-reproach when he stepped without noise from the colonel’soffice on his rubber-soled and rubber-heeled brown shoes. He hated himself for what he construed to be his owncowardice. He had intended to take a much stronger stand with Colonel Cathcart on the matter of the sixtymissions, to speak out with courage, logic and eloquence on a subject about which he had begun to feel verydeeply. Instead he had failed miserably, had choked up once again in the face of opposition from a strongerpersonality. It was a familiar, ignominious experience, and his opinion of himself was low.

　　He choked up even more a second later when he spied Colonel Korn’s tubby monochrome figure trotting up thecurved, wide, yellow stone staircase toward him in lackadaisical haste from the great dilapidated lobby belowwith its lofty walls of cracked dark marble and circular floor of cracked grimy tile. The chaplain was even morefrightened of Colonel Korn than he was of Colonel Cathcart. The swarthy, middle-aged lieutenant colonel withthe rimless, icy glasses and faceted, bald, domelike pate that he was always touching sensitively with the tips ofhis splayed fingers disliked the chaplain and was impolite to him frequently. He kept the chaplain in a constantstate of terror with his curt, derisive tongue and his knowing, cynical eyes that the chaplain was never braveenough to meet for more than an accidental second. Inevitably, the chaplain’s attention, as he cowered meeklybefore him, focused on Colonel Korn’s midriff, where the shirttails bunching up from inside his sagging belt andballooning down over his waist gave him an appearance of slovenly girth and made him seem inches shorter thanhis middle height. Colonel Korn was an untidy disdainful man with an oily skin and deep, hard lines runningalmost straight down from his nose between his crepuscular jowls and his square, clefted chin. His face wasdour, and he glanced at the chaplain without recognition as the two drew close on the staircase and prepared topass.

　　“Hiya, Father,” he said tonelessly without looking at the chaplain. “How’s it going?”

　　“Good morning, sir,” the chaplain replied, discerning wisely that Colonel Korn expected nothing more in theway of a response.

　　Colonel Korn was proceeding up the stairs without slackening his pace, and the chaplain resisted the temptationto remind him again that he was not a Catholic but an Anabaptist, and that it was therefore neither necessary norcorrect to address him as Father. He was almost certain now that Colonel Korn remembered and that calling himFather with a look of such bland innocence was just another one of Colonel Korn’s methods of taunting himbecause he was only an Anabaptist.

　　Colonel Korn halted without warning when he was almost by and came whirling back down upon the chaplainwith a glare of infuriated suspicion. The chaplain was petrified.

　　“What are you doing with that plum tomato, Chaplain?” Colonel Korn demanded roughly.

　　The chaplain looked down his arm with surprise at the plum tomato Colonel Cathcart had invited him to take. “I got it in Colonel Cathcart’s office, sir,” he managed to reply.

　　“Does the colonel know you took it?”

　　“Yes, sir. He gave it to me.”

　　“Oh, in that case I guess it’s okay,” Colonel Korn said, mollified. He smiled without warmth, jabbing thecrumpled folds of his shirt back down inside his trousers with his thumbs. His eyes glinted keenly with a privateand satisfying mischief. “What did Colonel Cathcart want to see you about, Father?” he asked suddenly.

　　The chaplain was tongue-tied with indecision for a moment. “I don’t think I ought—““Saying prayers to the editors of The Saturday Evening Post?”

　　The chaplain almost smiled. “Yes, sir.”

　　Colonel Korn was enchanted with his own intuition. He laughed disparagingly. “You know, I was afraid he’dbegin thinking about something so ridiculous as soon as he saw this week’s Saturday Evening Post. I hope yousucceeded in showing him what an atrocious idea it is.”

　　“He has decided against it, sir.”

　　“That’s good. I’m glad you convinced him that the editors of The Saturday Evening Post were not likely to runthat same story twice just to give some publicity to some obscure colonel. How are things in the wilderness,Father? Are you able to manage out there?”

　　“Yes, sir. Everything is working out.”

　　“That’s good. I’m happy to hear you have nothing to complain about. Let us know if you need anything to makeyou comfortable. We all want you to have a good time out there.”

　　“Thank you, sir. I will.”

　　Noise of a growing stir rose from the lobby below. It was almost lunchtime, and the earliest arrivals were driftinginto the headquarters mess halls, the enlisted men and officers separating into different dining halls on facingsides of the archaic rotunda. Colonel Korn stopped smiling.

　　“You had lunch with us here just a day or so ago, didn’t you, Father?” he asked meaningfully.

　　“Yes, sir. The day before yesterday.”

　　“That’s what I thought,” Colonel Korn said, and paused to let his point sink in. “Well, take it easy, Father. I’llsee you around when it’s time for you to eat here again.”

　　“Thank you, sir.”

　　The chaplain was not certain at which of the five officers’ and five enlisted men’s mess halls he was scheduled tohave lunch that day, for the system of rotation worked out for him by Colonel Korn was complicated, and he hadforgotten his records back in his tent. The chaplain was the only officer attached to Group Headquarters who didnot reside in the moldering red-stone Group Headquarters building itself or in any of the smaller satellitestructures that rose about the grounds in disjuncted relationship. The chaplain lived in a clearing in the woodsabout four miles away between the officers’ club and the first of the four squadron areas that stretched awayfrom Group Headquarters in a distant line. The chaplain lived alone in a spacious, square tent that was also hisoffice. Sounds of revelry traveled to him at night from the officers’ club and kept him awake often as he turnedand tossed on his cot in passive, half-voluntary exile. He was not able to gauge the effect of the mild pills he tookoccasionally to help him sleep and felt guilty about it for days afterward.

　　The only one who lived with the chaplain in his clearing in the woods was Corporal Whitcomb, his assistant.

　　Corporal Whitcomb, an atheist, was a disgruntled subordinate who felt he could do the chaplain’s job muchbetter than the chaplain was doing it and viewed himself, therefore, as an underprivileged victim of socialinequity. He lived in a tent of his own as spacious and square as the chaplain’s. He was openly rude andcontemptuous to the chaplain once he discovered that the chaplain would let him get away with it. The borders ofthe two tents in the clearing stood no more than four or five feet apart.

　　It was Colonel Korn who had mapped out this way of life for the chaplain. One good reason for making thechaplain live outside the Group Headquarters building was Colonel Korn’s theory that dwelling in a tent as mostof his parishioners did would bring him into closer communication with them. Another good reason was the factthat having the chaplain around Headquarters all the time made the other officers uncomfortable. It was one thingto maintain liaison with the Lord, and they were all in favor of that; it was something else, though, to have Himhanging around twenty-four hours a day. All in all, as Colonel Korn described it to Major Danby, the jittery andgoggle-eyed group operations officer, the chaplain had it pretty soft; he had little more to do than listen to thetroubles of others, bury the dead, visit the bedridden and conduct religious services. And there were not so manydead for him to bury any more, Colonel Korn pointed out, since opposition from German fighter planes hadvirtually ceased and since close to ninety per cent of what fatalities there still were, he estimated, perished behindthe enemy lines or disappeared inside the clouds, where the chaplain had nothing to do with disposing of theremains. The religious services were certainly no great strain, either, since they were conducted only once a weekat the Group Headquarters building and were attended by very few of the men.

　　Actually, the chaplain was learning to love it in his clearing in the woods. Both he and Corporal Whitcomb hadbeen provided with every convenience so that neither might ever plead discomfort as a basis for seekingpermission to return to the Headquarters building. The chaplain rotated his breakfasts, lunches and dinners inseparate sets among the eight squadron mess halls and ate every fifth meal in the enlisted men’s mess at GroupHeadquarters and every tenth meal at the officers’ mess there. Back home in Wisconsin the chaplain had beenvery fond of gardening, and his heart welled with a glorious impression of fertility and fruition each time hecontemplated the low, prickly boughs of the stunted trees and the waist-high weeds and thickets by which he wasalmost walled in. In the spring he had longed to plant begonias and zinnias in a narrow bed around his tent but had been deterred by his fear of Corporal Whitcomb’s rancor. The chaplain relished the privacy and isolation ofhis verdant surroundings and the reverie and meditation that living there fostered. Fewer people came to himwith their troubles than formerly, and he allowed himself a measure of gratitude for that too. The chaplain didnot mix freely and was not comfortable in conversation. He missed his wife and his three small children, and shemissed him.

　　What displeased Corporal Whitcomb most about the chaplain, apart from the fact that the chaplain believed inGod, was his lack of initiative and aggressiveness. Corporal Whitcomb regarded the low attendance at religiousservices as a sad reflection of his own status. His mind germinated feverishly with challenging new ideas forsparking the great spiritual revival of which he dreamed himself the architect—box lunches, church socials, formletters to the families of men killed and injured in combat, censorship, Bingo. But the chaplain blocked him.

　　Corporal Whitcomb bridled with vexation beneath the chaplain’s restraint, for he spied room for improvementeverywhere. It was people like the chaplain, he concluded, who were responsible for giving religion such a badname and making pariahs out of them both. Unlike the chaplain, Corporal Whitcomb detested the seclusion ofthe clearing in the woods. One of the first things he intended to do after he deposed the chaplain was move backinto the Group Headquarters building, where he could be right in the thick of things.

　　When the chaplain drove back into the clearing after leaving Colonel Korn, Corporal Whitcomb was outside inthe muggy haze talking in conspiratorial tones to a strange chubby man in a maroon corduroy bathrobe and grayflannel pajamas. The chaplain recognized the bathrobe and pajamas as official hospital attire. Neither of the twomen gave him any sign of recognition. The stranger’s gums had been painted purple; his corduroy bathrobe wasdecorated in back with a picture of a B-25 nosing through orange bursts of flak and in front with six neat rows oftiny bombs signifying sixty combat missions flown. The chaplain was so struck by the sight that he stopped tostare. Both men broke off their conversation and waited in stony silence for him to go. The chaplain hurriedinside his tent. He heard, or imagined he heard, them tittering.

　　Corporal Whitcomb walked in a moment later and demanded, “What’s doing?”

　　“There isn’t anything new,” the chaplain replied with averted eyes. “Was anyone here to see me?”

　　“Just that crackpot Yossarian again. He’s a real troublemaker, isn’t he?”

　　“I’m not so sure he’s a crackpot,” the chaplain observed.

　　“That’s right, take his part,” said Corporal Whitcomb in an injured tone, and stamped out.

　　The chaplain could not believe that Corporal Whitcomb was offended again and had really walked out. As soonas he did realize it, Corporal Whitcomb walked back in.

　　“You always side with other people,” Corporal Whitcomb accused. “You............