Yossarian shares a tent with an airman named Orr and a mysterious “dead man.” Orr is an odd little fellow, a mechanical wizard who is always fixing up the tent. Currently, he is working on a faucet that will feed gasoline into a stove that he has built in Yossarian’s absence. Orr alternately delights Yossarian and drives him nuts. Today it is the latter. As he pursues his meticulous task, Orr delights in confounding Yossarian with an anecdote about Orr’s childhood.
Yossarian wants to go home. The number of missions to complete a tour of duty is supposed to be forty, but Colonel Cathcart keeps increasing the number just as Yossarian is about to reach it; the current requirement is fifty. When Yossarian can take it no more, he goes to Doc Daneeka to request to be grounded; but Doc has his own problems.
