He missed Nurse Duckett in Rome. There was not much else to do after Hungry Joe left on his mail run.

　　Yossarian missed Nurse Duckett so much that he went searching hungrily through the streets for Luciana, whoselaugh and invisible scar he had never forgotten, or the boozy, blowzy, bleary-eyed floozy in the overloaded whitebrassière and unbuttoned orange satin blouse whose naughty salmon-colored cameo ring Aarfy had thrown awayso callously through the window of her car. How he yearned for both girls! He looked for them in vain. He wasso deeply in love with them, and he knew he would never see either again. Despair gnawed at him. Visions besethim. He wanted Nurse Duckett with her dress up and her slim thighs bare to the hips. He banged a thin streetwalker with a wet cough who picked him up from an alley between hotels, but that was no fun at all and hehastened to the enlisted men’s apartment for the fat, friendly maid in the lime-colored panties, who wasoverjoyed to see him but couldn’t arouse him. He went to bed there early and slept alone. He woke updisappointed and banged a sassy, short, chubby girl he found in the apartment after breakfast, but that was only alittle better, and he chased her away when he’d finished and went back to sleep. He napped till lunch and thenwent shopping for presents for Nurse Duckett and a scarf for the maid in the lime-coloured panties, who huggedhim with such gargantuan gratitude that he was soon hot for Nurse Duckett and ran looking lecherously forLuciana again. Instead he found Aarfy, who had landed in Rome when Hungry Joe returned with Dunbar, Natelyand Dobbs, and who would not go along on the drunken foray that night to rescue Nately’s whore from themiddle-aged military big shots holding her captive in a hotel because she would not say uncle.

　　“Why should I risk getting into trouble just to help her out?” Aarfy demanded haughtily. “But don’t tell Nately Isaid that. Tell him I had to keep an appointment with some very important fraternity brothers.”

　　The middle-aged big shots would not let Nately’s whore leave until they made her say uncle.

　　“Say uncle,” they said to her.

　　“Uncle,” she said.

　　“No, no. Say uncle.”

　　“Uncle,” she said.

　　“She still doesn’t understand.”

　　“You still don’t understand, do you? We can’t really make you say uncle unless you don’t want to say uncle.

　　Don’t you see? Don’t say uncle when I tell you to say uncle. Okay? Say uncle.”

　　“Uncle,” she said.

　　“No, don’t say uncle. Say uncle.”

　　She didn’t say uncle.

　　“That’s good!”

　　“That’s very good.”

　　“It’s a start. Now say uncle.”

　　“Uncle,” she said.

　　“It’s no good.”

　　“No, it’s no good that way either. She just isn’t impressed with us. There’s just no fun making her say unclewhen she doesn’t care whether we make her say uncle or not.”

　　“No, she really doesn’t care, does she? Say ‘foot.’”

　　“Foot.”

　　“You see? She doesn’t care about anything we do. She doesn’t care about us. We don’t mean a thing to you, dowe?”

　　“Uncle,” she said.

　　She didn’t care about them a bit, and it upset them terribly. They shook her roughly each time she yawned. Shedid not seem to care about anything, not even when they threatened to throw her out the window. They wereutterly demoralized men of distinction. She was bored and indifferent and wanted very much to sleep. She hadbeen on the job for twenty-two hours, and she was sorry that these men had not permitted her to leave with theother two girls with whom the orgy had begun. She wondered vaguely why they wanted her to laugh when theylaughed, and why they wanted her to enjoy it when they made love to her. It was all very mysterious to her, andvery uninteresting.

　　She was not sure what they wanted from her. Each time she slumped over with her eyes closed they shook herawake and made her say “uncle” again. Each time she said “uncle,” they were disappointed. She wondered what“uncle” meant. She sat on the sofa in a passive, phlegmatic stupor, her mouth open and all her clothing crumpledin a corner on the floor, and wondered how much longer they would sit around naked with her and make her sayuncle in the elegant hotel suite to which Orr’s old girl friend, giggling uncontrollably at Yossarian’s andDunbar’s drunken antics, guided Nately and the other members of the motley rescue party.

　　Dunbar squeezed Orr’s old girl friend’s fanny gratefully and passed her back to Yossarian, who propped heragainst the door jamb with both hands on her hips and wormed himself against her lasciviously until Natelyseized him by the arm and pulled him away from her into the blue sitting room, where Dunbar was alreadyhurling everything in sight out the window into the court. Dobbs was smashing furniture with an ash stand. Anude, ridiculous man with a blushing appendectomy scar appeared in the doorway suddenly and bellowed.

　　“What’s going on here?”

　　“Your toes are dirty,” Dunbar said.

　　The man covered his groin with both hands and shrank from view. Dunbar, Dobbs and Hungry Joe just keptdumping everything they could lift out the window with great, howling whoops of happy abandon. They soonfinished with the clothing on the couches and the luggage on the floor, and they were ransacking a cedar closetwhen the door to the inner room opened again and a man who was very distinguished-looking from the neck up padded into view imperiously on bare feet.

　　“Here, you, stop that,” he barked. “Just what do you men think you’re doing?”

　　“Your toes are dirty,” Dunbar said to him.

　　The man covered his groin as the first one had done and disappeared. Nately charged after him, but was blockedby the first officer, who plodded back in holding a pillow in front of him, like a bubble dancer.

　　“Hey, you men!” he roared angrily. “Stop it!”

　　“Stop it,” Dunbar replied.

　　“That’s what I said.”

　　“That’s what I said,” Dunbar said.

　　The officer stamped his foot petulantly, turning weak with frustration. “Are you deliberately repeatingeverything I say?”

　　“Are you deliberately repeating everything I say?”

　　“I’ll thrash you.” The man raised a fist.

　　“I’ll thrash you,” Dunbar warned him coldly. “You’re a German spy, and I’m going to have you shot.”

　　“German spy? I’m an American colonel.”

　　“You don’t look like an American colonel. You look like a fat man with a pillow in front of him. Where’s youruniform, if you’re an American colonel?”

　　“You just threw it out the window.”

　　“All right, men,” Dunbar said. “Lock the silly bastard up. Take the silly bastard down to the station house andthrow away the key.”

　　The colonel blanched with alarm. “Are you all crazy? Where’s your badge? Hey, you! Come back in here!”

　　But he whirled too late to stop Nately, who had glimpsed his girl sitting on the sofa in the other room and haddarted through the doorway behind his back. The others poured through after him right into the midst of the othernaked big shots. Hungry Joe laughed hysterically when he saw them, pointing in disbelief at one after the otherand clasping his head and sides. Two with fleshy physiques advanced truculently until they spied the look ofmean dislike and hostility on Dobbs and Dunbar and noticed that Dobbs was still swinging like a two-handed club the wrought-iron ash stand he had used to smash things in the sitting room. Nately was already at his girl’sside. She stared at him without recognition for a few seconds. Then she smiled faintly and let her head sink to hisshoulder with her eyes closed. Nately was in ecstasy; she had never smiled at him before.

　　“Filpo,” said a calm, slender, jaded-looking man who had not even stirred from his armchair. “You don’t obeyorders. I told you to get them out, and you’ve gone and brought them in. Can’t you see the difference?”

　　“They’ve thrown our things out the window, General.”

　　“Good for them. Our uniforms too? That was clever. We’ll never be able to convince anyone we’re superiorwithout our uniforms.”

　　“Let’s get their names, Lou, and—““Oh, Ned, relax,” said the slender man with practiced weariness. “You may be pretty good at moving armoreddivisions into action, but you’re almost useless in a social situation. Sooner or later we’ll get our uniforms back,and then we’ll be their superiors again. Did they really throw our uniforms out? That was a splendid tactic.”

　　“They threw everything out.”

　　“The ones in the closet, too?”

　　“They threw the closet out, General. That was that crash we heard when we thought they were coming in to killus.”

　　“And I’ll throw you out next,” Dunbar threatened.

　　The general paled slightly. “What the devil is he so mad about?” he asked Yossarian.

　　“He means it, too,” Yossarian said. “You’d better let the girl leave.”

　　“Lord, take her,” exclaimed the general with relief. “All she’s done is make us feel insecure. At least she mighthave disliked or resented us for the hundred dollars we paid her. But she wouldn’t even do that. Your handsomeyoung friend there seems quite attached to her. Notice the way he lets his fingers linger on the inside of herthighs as he preten............