Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War Read online

  That night, the faint glow of red-lens flashlights shone beneath poncho liners as last letters home were written. Mellas wrote too, trying to sound cheerful. But leaving Matterhorn filled him with cold foreboding.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The mood on the landing zone at the battalion CP was different. Lieutenant Colonel Simpson had opened a second bottle of Wild Turkey and was generously passing out shots to the pared-down staff that had come up the hill with him.

  “I smell ’em, goddamn it,” Simpson said, pouring Blakely and Stevens another shot. “I smell ’em.” Light from the hissing Coleman lanterns flickered against the walls of the bunker, casting the shadows of the five officers huddled around the C-ration boxes that served as a low map table. Blakely took his bourbon neat, but Stevens didn’t much like the stuff and mixed his with enough 7-Up to kill the taste. When the colonel started drinking, there was no clear stopping point until the colonel stopped drinking. Junior officers didn’t stop first—that was protocol. Captain Bainford, the air liaison officer, and Captain Higgins, the intelligence officer, sat wearily on the ground with their backs against the bunker wall, not really in the group around the map. They were trying to stay awake. The battalion radio operators also had shots of whiskey—Simpson was certainly not unfair to enlisted men—but they kept their distance and were quiet, monitoring the desultory radio traffic of the night.

  “Well, sir,” Blakely mused aloud, “we got a compromise. Can’t complain.”

  “By God, we can’t, can we,” Simpson said. “Two companies in the bush is better than none.” He paused, took another quick drink, sighed, and smacked his lips. “Goddamn, that’s good whiskey.”

  “Yes, sir,” Blakely agreed, taking another, smaller sip of his own. He knew that if they did find something in the valley during the next few days, it would be very unlikely that General Neitzel could resist doing something about known enemy troops operating just north of them. Matterhorn anchored the west end of Mutter’s Ridge, an avenue of attack into the populated lowlands. No matter how intensely he felt the political pressure that was diverting nearly the whole regiment to the Cam Lo operation, he’d have to respond. Blakely’s mind drifted to an imaginary scene at division headquarters, where he was chief of staff, advising the general on the political complications and how they interacted with the strategic complications. He smiled at his daydream. Simpson was right. This damned Wild Turkey got smoother and smoother.

  Blakely mentally reviewed the flip-flop plan again. Originally it had been easy. Continue the original mission with two companies in the valley snooping and pooping. Charlie flip-flops with Bravo on Matterhorn, and Alpha flip-flops with Delta on Eiger. Then comes the idea of the Cam Lo cluster fuck with everyone pulling back to VCB to get ready for that. So that plan had to be changed. Then comes Mulvaney’s compromise with Simpson. So now Bravo and Delta are going out to the valley instead of to VCB. So that plan had to be changed. A question flickered in his mind. When was the last ration resupply for Delta on Eiger? It hadn’t mattered before, because Delta was originally going back to VCB with everyone else. Then it occurred to him that with Charlie moving back to VCB instead of to Matterhorn, that left Golf Battery and battalion headquarters exposed, albeit just briefly, during the time of the flip-flop. This pushed the question of Delta’s food supply out of his mind.

  “Sir,” he said to Simpson. “I’m just thinking about covering the battery. They’ll be exposed without Bravo Company for a while until we get them moved back to VCB.”

  “What are we talking about? A couple of hours? Blakely, they’re Marines. If the gooks are dumb enough to attack us, the battery’ll hold them off, and instead of dropping Delta into the valley we’ll drop ’em back here and kill gooks from both sides.” He put his arm around Blakely’s shoulders. “You’re a hell of a staff officer, Blakely, but you’re a worrywart.” He took Blakely’s glass and poured more Wild Turkey into it. “Now relax. That’s an order.” He handed a full glass to Blakely.

  Blakely smiled at him and took it. “Can’t disobey an order, sir.”

  “Goddamn right you can’t.”

  Blakely took a drink. Damn, Simpson could sure pick a good whiskey. The glow was moving from his stomach through his arms and legs. He felt good. The battery did have only a small window of vulnerability during which it had to protect itself. He was being a worrywart—Simpson was right. For a brief moment Blakely wondered who was blowing the abandoned bunkers on Matterhorn, but just then the other officers broke into laughter. Simpson had pulled out another bottle of Wild Turkey from someplace and was grinning widely as he opened it. He’s got to be just as tired as me, Blakely thought. The colonel was right about something else—Blakely should relax more. Besides, it would do nothing for his fitness reports if he looked like a stick-in-the-mud and got on Simpson’s wrong side. No one liked stick-in-the-muds. Simpson needed him, too. Simpson had lots of guts; Silver Stars don’t come easily in the Marine Corps. But Simpson wasn’t up to handling the details. Of course, that’s why Simpson had him. Blakely took another sip, savoring it. He had to hand it to the old man: Simpson could pick whiskey. It had been a fucking nightmare to get everything rescrewed around once Simpson got the word he could put two companies in the valley instead of taking the whole battalion into the flats. One small change, just one, and all that fucking food and ammunition, all set up to go one way, had to be turned around to go somewhere else. Good staff work was complicated. Blakely’s mind wandered; he was half-listening to the jokes and stories of the other officers. He wished he were home. He wished he were asleep. He slugged the rest of the whiskey. What was wrong with relaxing when he could? If everyone was getting drunk before the Cam Lo operation kicked off, why be left behind? You want to be seen as a team player.

  Before first light, Bravo Company assembled in heli teams at the LZ. The kids, fully loaded, heavy, encumbered, crouched in a single line that stretched below the crest of the hill, waiting for the choppers to come with the daylight. The artillerymen went about their business of packing up their gear, stepping between and sometimes over the infantrymen sitting on the ground. Some looked at the infantrymen curiously, but most tried to ignore them, not wanting to be caught up in their fate.

  When Vancouver strolled across the LZ in the predawn semi-darkness, however, even the studied indifference of the artillerymen was broken.

  “Where the fuck did he come from?”

  “A fucking movie. Didn’t you know the Crotch was making a fucking movie out of this op?”

  “They couldn’t get John Wayne so they got him.”

  “Naww, fuck. They’re shooting background for Huntley-Brinkley.”

  “Did you see what that mother was carrying? A fucking sawed-off M-60. Jesus Christ.”

  “He’d never be able to hit a thing with it. It’s a bunch of gunjy bullshit.”

  “I don’t know, man.”

  “It’s bullshit. You couldn’t control it.”

  “Who the fuck cares if you can control a fucking M-60?”

  Mellas kept walking around to check each heli team, asking if everything was all right. He approached the last team, Bass’s. Skosh was lying on the ground with his eyes half closed, a green towel wrapped around his neck.

  “I guess we’re all set, Sergeant Bass,” Mellas said.

  Bass looked at him. “I guess we are, Lieutenant.”

  Embarrassed by his obvious anxiety, Mellas walked over to where Goodwin lay on his back, eyes shut, head cradled in his helmet.

  Mellas whispered, so the others wouldn’t hear, “Hey, Scar.”

  Goodwin grunted.

  “Did you pack any underwear?”

  “Naw, shit, Jack. All it does is give you crotch rot.”

  “Yeah,” Mellas whispered. He fingered the pale green T-shirt that his mother had dyed for him.

  “How come you call everyone Jack?”

  Goodwin opened his eyes and looked at him. “It’s easier to remember their names that way.”

  “Oh,” Mellas said. “Sure.”

  Goodwin closed his eyes again.

  Mellas wa
lked over to where Jackson was lying with his team. Jackson looked up at Mellas, craning his neck over his immense pack. His record player was tied on top with communication wire. “All set, Jackson?” Mellas asked for the third time.

  “Yes sir.” Jackson, with that nothing-to-hide look of his, held Mellas’s eyes. Then he broke eye contact to look down the line of tired bodies in his squad. Mellas could see that everyone in the squad had cultivated a bored waiting-for-a-bus expression that concealed all emotions.

  “Couldn’t go without your sounds, huh?” Mellas asked.

  “No sir. Not hardly.”

  “How much does it weigh?”

  Cortell, the leader of the second fire team, who was sitting next to his friend Williams, chuckled. “Man,” Cortell said, “you can’t carry nothin’ lighter than music.”

  Jackson flipped a thick middle finger in Cortell’s direction. “Easy for you to say, you ain’t carryin’ it.” He turned back to Mellas. “The suffering I endure so my men can have music, and Cortell makes light of it.”

  “Jesus make all your burdens light,” Cortell said.

  “Yeah, well he ain’t here today, Preacher.”

  “Where two or more are gathered in his name, Jesus be there.” Cortell was used to the banter about his Christianity and gave back as good as he received.

  Mellas had caught Jackson’s pun, and it made him feel more secure with Jackson as a squad leader. “Why didn’t you get a little tape recorder?” he asked Jackson.

  Jackson paused, thinking. “I guess I just like to see the record go around.”

  Mellas laughed but knew what Jackson meant. Somehow the cassette was foreign—Japanese—or futuristic. A forty-five record was probably as near to home as anyone could get in the jungle.

  Corporal Arran walked by with Pat tagging just behind and to his right, obviously not on heel, sniffing at whatever was of interest to him, turning his head, panting happily in response to the various greetings of the Marines. He sniffed at Mellas’s trouser leg, then trotted over to where Williams was sitting against his pack, his large rancher’s hands cradling the back of his head. Williams sat up and reached out to tousle the dog’s reddish ears, smiling, obviously pleased that Pat had singled him out. “I like dogs,” he said to Mellas. “They seem to know it.” He turned back to the dog, grabbed the loose skin on Pat’s neck, and gently wagged the dog’s head back and forth. “Hey, big fella. Hey. What you doing in Vietnam?” The dog licked Williams’s hand and then his cheek and Williams giggled. “You don’t know why you’re here any more than me, do you, big guy?”

  Arran gave a quick low whistle and Pat trotted off after him. Mellas continued down the line of Marines, stopping when he reached Pollini, who was retying his mortar rounds to the top of his pack. He reminded Mellas of a mouse busily trying to set things right in a cluttered nest.

  Pollini looked up at him. “Hello, Lieutenant Mellas, sir.” He had his big grin on. His face was smeared with grime.

  “Pollini, don’t you ever wash?” Mellas asked quietly.

  Pollini reached a grimy hand to his face, rubbed it down his cheek, then looked at it, but of course the hand showed nothing new. His hands were the large ones of an old carpenter, with big yellow nails, yet his face under his mop of curly black hair looked like that of a choirboy who’d fallen in the mud. He looked up at Mellas, grinning again. “I washed this morning, sir, and shaved too.”

  Jackson had walked over, mild annoyance showing on his face because Pollini wasn’t ready to go. “Shortround, you didn’t shave this morning.” Jackson said. “You ain’t never shaved.”

  “I did too.” Pollini stood up. “Ask Cortell.” He turned to Mellas. “I did shave.”

  Jackson knelt down beside Pollini’s mangled pack and started tightening wire and tying down objects. “Shortround, goddamn it,” he said, pushing a wire into place. “Lieutenant, I swear he was all wired up about three minutes ago.”

  “I had to get a . . .” Pollini said.

  Jackson stopped tying. “You had to get a what?”

  “Just something.”

  “Shortround, you eating your food?”

  Pollini grinned. Grinning was his main defense against all bigger and more competent people. “Well, just a can of peaches. I was on LP last night and missed breakfast.”

  “Why did you miss breakfast?” Jackson turned to Mellas. “I gave him twenty minutes while we were taking down our trip flares and claymores, sir.”

  “It’s all right, Jackson.” Mellas turned to Pollini. “You know you’re going to need all the food you can carry. Why didn’t you just go get some out of the boxes lying around the area?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “You don’t know because you’re fucking stupid,” Jackson said.

  “Now get your gear back together. Where are the peaches?”

  Pollini dug into a large pocket. His size-small jungle utilities fit him like a clown suit. He pulled out the can and handed it to Jackson, who stuck it back in Pollini’s jammed pack, angrily making room for it.

  Pollini suddenly looked as though he was going to cry. “I’m not stupid,” he said.

  “You’re fucking stupid,” Jackson said.

  “That’s enough, Jackson,” Mellas said.

  He turned to Pollini. “Shortround, you’re just going to have to learn to think about things. The choppers are due in about five minutes and here you are farting around and eating up your food besides.”

  “I didn’t get any breakfast.” Pollini was getting stubborn, his back to the wall.

  Mellas felt his nerves, already jangling, begin to fray despite the enforced coolness. “Make sure he’s ready to go, Jackson,” he said, deciding it would be better to drop the subject. He walked away and settled back on the ground. He shut his eyes, hoping to look as if he’d gone to sleep. He gradually became aware of a plane droning overhead, lost above the clouds. He knew it was an airplane and not a helicopter because of the smoothness of the drone and the absence of the flat slapping thud a helicopter’s rotors made against the air. He looked up from where he lay, seeing nothing, scanning the area where the sound was coming from with the interest of any bored person in a distraction. For a moment he caught a glimpse of a large plane, a quick leaden flash amid the cloud cover. Then it disappeared again. It seemed to be circling in lower. When it finally broke out of the cloud cover, it was far off to the northeast, over the valley into which they were to be dropped. It was a large propeller-driven aircraft.

  “Looks like a transport plane,” Mellas said to Hamilton. “What do you think he’s doing?”

  “Fucked if I know, sir.” Hamilton didn’t even bother to look. He was memorizing radio frequencies and codes.

  The plane turned in a lazy circle, gaining altitude up above the ridgeline that extended from Matterhorn to Helicopter Hill and into the east. When it swung around again it was directly in line with the ridge, heading straight toward them. It kept coming. Quite a few people were watching it by now. A fine faint plume fell from behind it, a darker grayish silver cloud, hardly distinguishable from the overcast backdrop. The drone grew louder. The plane continued straight on. A few more Marines rose to their feet.

  “What the hell?” said Mellas. He too stood up.

  The plane roared overhead, its U.S. Air Force markings clearly visible, the sound of its four turboprops deafening. Within seconds they were enveloped in a chemical mist. People were coughing, wheezing, shouting obscenities. Mellas could see Fitch, tears running from his eyes, shouting over Relsnik’s radio to battalion, demanding to know what was going on and trying to get battalion to stop it. The plane was dwindling into a speck to the southwest, climbing for altitude over the Laotian border until it was lost in the clouds. The only evidence of its passing was that the whole hill reeked, as if covered with mosquito repellent.

  Hamilton raised an imaginary glass to the air. “Here’s to the fucking Air Force.”

  Mellas, his eyes still tearing, walked over to where the company CP group was sitting. Fitch was holding on to the hook, clearly waiting for a reply from battalion. “I’ve got Bainford, the batta
lion forward air controller, on it,” he said when Mellas got within speaking distance.

  About a minute later the handset squawked and Mellas could hear a tinny voice saying, “It’s a defoliant. We put an order in for it for tomorrow, but it looks like we got a fuckup someplace. Sorry about that. It won’t hurt you. It’s just to kill plants. It’s called Agent Orange. It’s so the trees won’t give any shelter to the enemy. The Air Force has used it a lot, and it won’t bother humans.”