Captain Flume

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Captain Flume is a minor character in Joseph Heller's classic novel Catch-22.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Captain Flume is the squadron's public relations officer, until he moves out of the trailer he shares with Chief White Halfoat after Halfoat threatens to slit Flume's throat open from ear to ear. It seems that Chief White Halfoat's goal in this is to turn Flume from an obnoxious upstart to a lonely, paranoid, introvert, which he succeeds in doing. This is meant as a bad joke, but Flume takes it seriously and runs away into the woods until winter comes. He survives by the charity of others, namely Milo Minderbinder, but he otherwise lives outside. When asked what he does when it rains, he replied "I get wet."

Several times in the novel, people who are running from Major Major's office to Major Major's trailor encounter Flume. Usually, they are startled and angered and either threaten to slit his throat open from ear to ear (when he suggests the idea given by Chief White Halfoat) or he believes they wish to, in the case of Chaplain Tappman. The Chaplain runs into Captain Flume and asks who he is, and after discovering he lives in the forest, begins questioning him about his living conditions. He absentmindedly asks Flume where he sleeps, and Captain Flume replies "Oh No! Not you too!" (presumably believing that the Chaplain wishes to slit his throat) and retreats into the forest, much to the Chaplain's dismay. Thus, Captain Flume is extremely paranoid and believes everyone is trying to kill him.

Although a minor character, he is an important plot element the book:

  • He brings out the violent side of Major MajorWhen Flume surprises him while running away, telling him about Chief White Halfoat's threat, to which Major Major responds: "If you ever scare me like that again, I'll slit your throat open from ear to ear!"
  • He brings about a prophetic idealism in Chaplain Tappman
  • He also spells the death of Chief White Halfoat, who sees his return to camp as a prophesy of his impending death of pneumonia, which he dies of soon after.
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