the bomb line

The bomb line is a scarlet satin ribbon tacked across a large, wobbling easel map of Italy that stands under the awning of the intelligence tent, delineating the forwardmost position of the Allied ground forces in every sector of the Italian mainland. During the Great Big Siege of Bologna, when Colonel Cathcart has volunteered his group to bomb the ammunition dumps there and the mission is delayed day after day by rain, the bomb line becomes the focal point of a desperate, superstitious vigil. The men stare at it relentlessly for hours, hating it because it will not move up high enough to encompass the city, and they congregate in the darkness with flashlights, continuing their macabre vigil in brooding entreaty as though hoping to move the ribbon up by the collective weight of their sullen prayers. Clevinger exclaims to Yossarian that this is a complete reversion to primitive superstition, confusing cause and effect, and that the men really believe they would not have to fly the mission if someone would only tiptoe up to the map in the middle of the night and move the bomb line over Bologna. In the middle of the night, Yossarian knocks on wood, crosses his fingers, and tiptoes out of his tent to move the bomb line up over Bologna. The next morning, Corporal Kolodny reports to Captain Black that the Allies have captured Bologna, and the mission is canceled. The bomb line's movement does not fool the Germans, but it does fool Major -- de Coverley, who packs his musette bag, commandeers an airplane, and, under the impression that Florence too has been captured, has himself flown to that city to rent two apartments for the officers and enlisted men to use on rest leaves. The bomb line thus functions as a physical object that embodies the arbitrary, manipulable nature of the war's official reality, a symbol that the men's fear can alter the map but not the actual danger, and a device that drives the plot by both canceling and then necessitating the Bologna mission.