Explore "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren, the inoffensive joint squadron operations officers, were both mild, soft-spoken men of less than middle height who enjoyed flying combat missions and begged nothing more of life and Colonel Cathcart than the opportunity to continue flying them. They had flown hundreds of combat missions and wanted to fly hundreds more. They assigned themselves to every one. Nothing so wonderful as war had ever happened to them before; and they were afraid it might never happen to them again. They conducted their duties humbly and reticently, with a minimum of fuss, and went to great lengths not to antagonize anyone. They smiled quickly at everyone they passed. When they spoke, they mumbled. They were shifty, cheerful, subservient men who were comfortable only with each other and never met anyone else's eye, not even Yossarian's eye at the open-air meeting they called to reprimand him publicly for making Kid Sampson turn back from the mission to Bologna.
"Fellas," said Captain Piltchard, who had thinning dark hair and smiled awkwardly. "When you turn back from a mission, try to make sure it's for something important, will you? Not for something unimportant. like a defective intercom. or something like that. Okay? Captain Wren has more he wants to say to you on that subject."