Matterhorn Read online

  “Sorry, sir,” Hippy said.

  “Sorry don’t get it,” Mellas barked, immediately wishing he hadn’t. “Who do you want to take over the gun squad?”

  Hippy touched the butt plate of the machine gun. “I humped that motherfucker a long ways, sir. I want to hump it in. It’s got good karma.”

  “Hippy, they’ll goddamned amputate. You ever hear of gangrene?”

  Hippy looked down at his feet, then giggled. “They’re pretty fucking bad, aren’t they, Lieutenant?”

  “Yeah. Pretty fucking bad.” Mellas waited a moment. “Who, Hippy?”

  “Mole. And let Young hump my gun.” Hippy reached down and toyed with the silver peace medallion that hung around his neck. “This is my last op, sir. My twelve and twenty’s in nine days and I’m out of the bush. Ten days after that, I sky out for home. I’m so short what you’re hearing now is a tape recording.”

  “We’ll get you out. They’ve got to bring us some fucking food sometime and pick Williams up.”

  In the blackness in front of Fitch’s hooch the conversation was also about helicopters and food. Fitch was on the hook with the battalion watch officer.

  “What’s the word on our resupply?” Fitch said tightly. “We’re already on our spare power sources and we’re fucking hungry. Over.”

  “We’re trying, but the Whiskey Oscar at MAG-Thirty-Nine says they got all the birds tied up in some big to-do in the flatlands and all the heavies are in bed, so we can’t alter the priorities. Can you wait a couple of days? Over.”

  Hawke, who was sitting across from Fitch, winced at the security breach about the upcoming operation.

  “Wait a couple of days? Goddamn it, we haven’t eaten for a couple of days already and we’ve been on half rations the entire time we’ve been out here because some dumb son of a bitch sitting on his fat ass back at Victor Charlie Bravo forgot to give Delta time to get organized. Now I want a fucking chopper out here with some food on it or by God there’ll be hell to pay when I get in. Now. I mean it, Stevens.”

  “Don’t use my name over the net, Bravo Six,” Stevens replied. “You know the gooners monitor our nets. I don’t want them using my name, writing weird stuff home to my wife. Over.”

  “Sorry, character Sierra,” Fitch replied, realizing that if he argued with Stevens their chances for resupply would be worse. “Look, help us out. We’re starving to death. At least tell us what the fuck we’re supposed to be doing out here. Over.”

  “I don’t know what to do about the birds, Bravo Six. Honest. As far as what you’re doing out there I thought that would be obvious. If you found that much ammunition, there must be more around there someplace. Hell, division public relations put out a news release about Alpha’s fight for it and everything. Over.”

  “Fight for it? They were fucking ambushed.” Fitch unkeyed the handset and looked at Hawke and Cassidy. “News story?” he said. His stomach felt weak.

  “Well, that isn’t the way I heard it.” Stevens started to say something else but was cut off.

  “Shut the fuck up and let me think, goddamn it,” Fitch shouted back into the receiver, interrupting Stevens’s transmission and probably not being totally received. Stevens apparently received enough of it to get the message, though.

  “We got to have food, Jim,” Hawke said. He had been doodling a pentangle star in the mud. “Even Lewis and Clark could hunt buffalo on the way.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cassidy said, “and I caught a couple of kids limping. I think we got some immersion foot cases that we ought to medevac. Otherwise we’ll cripple some good Marines.”

  “OK,” Fitch said. He put the receiver back to his ear and keyed it. “Big John, this is Bravo Six. Make the bird request a priority, and if I don’t get it tomorrow, then you tell them the next day it’ll be an emergency. I got some bad cases of immersion foot we’ve got to take care of ASAP. Over.”

  “Oh. The Six isn’t going to like that. You know what he thinks about immersion foot. Over.”

  “Let me worry about Big John Six. You worry about fragging us a fucking bird. Pri-or-it-y,” he enunciated. “We’ll have a zone cleared by noon. Over.”

  “Noon? How are you going to make checkpoint Alpha tomorrow?”

  “Frag the fucking bird,” Fitch said between clenched teeth. “Bravo Six out.”

  There was a pause, then the radio hissed again. “Don’t get sore, Bravo Six. I was just trying to tell you the score, that’s all. Over.”

  Fitch stared into the darkness, holding the handset away from his mouth. After a long wait, the radio hissed again.

  “OK, Bravo Six. I’ll see what I can do. No need to get sore. Big John out.”

  The next morning they drew straws to see who would clear away enough jungle to make a landing zone. Mellas lost. Still shivering with the wet and cold, he walked dejectedly back to tell the platoon. Kendall and Goodwin went back to prepare security patrols.

  The only possible place for an LZ was a small level spot just off the crest of the hill. It was, however, covered with a formidable mass of matted bamboo and elephant grass. Mellas felt physically ill. His small K-bar and dull E-tool seemed useless in the face of this clotted, dense plant life. He looked at his hands, feeling the sores of jungle rot. He looked at Jackson, knowing he could tell Jackson to start clearing while he went back to sit with Bass and monitor the single radio they now shared. He’d ordered the other radio turned off to save power. He knew, however, that he couldn’t leave these kids and ever earn their respect. Still, he didn’t know what to do in the face of this overwhelming green wall. He sensed Jackson beside him, getting mad. Mellas simply stared at the impossible task. His mind wouldn’t focus. Clear the jungle—with no tools and no food. He closed his eyes.

  Then he heard Jackson scream.

  “Fucking no-good shit!” Jackson went snarling past Mellas. Mellas looked dumbly at him, thinking Jackson had cracked. Jackson threw himself like a football player making a cross-body block into the wall of bamboo and grass. The mass yielded slightly. Jackson ran back to the group, let out a whoop, and again hurled himself at the tangled mass. It bent. He backed off and jumped into it feet first, cursing it. He began jumping up and down on it, shouting an exultant chant. The bamboo broke. The grass sagged and fell. Broyer, shielding his glasses with his arms, gave a whoop and ran headlong at the dent made by Jackson.

  Mellas took only a second to realize that he’d just had his first lesson in real leadership. He then charged forward, headfirst, as if going off tackle. The mass of vegetation let his head in but stopped his shoulders. He was followed by Tilghman, the M-79 man, and then Parker and Cortell. Mellas ran back, turned around, snarled, and did it again. Jacobs’s and Connolly’s squads, infected with the excitement of the game, went crashing into the grass too. Vancouver actually picked Connolly up and threw him like a log into the mess. Uniforms turned black with the wet rot. Hands and arms ran with blood from the rasping razor grass. But the landing zone grew.

  By eleven that morning the zone was cleared. The kids lay flat on their backs, exhausted, staring at the gray swirling clouds. An hour later the clouds touched the earth. Both the landing zone and the waiting Marines looked ghostly and unreal. By late afternoon they were all shivering with the cold, dejected, quiet, still waiting for the bird. The food was all gone. Many had eaten only three-quarters of a can in the last forty-eight hours. Fog was all around them. Even Jackson could not crush the fog.

  Fitch sent Kendall and Goodwin out on squad-size patrols to provide security for the landing zone, just in case. Kendall got lost and had to fire a pop-up flare for Daniels and Fitch to get a bearing on him. Everyone grumbled that the flare would tell the NVA where the Marines were, and among themselves the kids started calling Kendall Pop-Up. Kendall’s platoon sergeant, Samms, sat down with Bass and bitched for nearly an hour about Kendall and the policy of having every officer get experience by commanding a rifle platoon. Goodwin radioed in that he’d found something, but it was a surprise. Fitch offered Hawke twenty dollars for his can of apricots. Hawke refused.

  In midafternoon, Cortell and Jack
son walked up to see Hawke about the next R & R quotas. When they reached the center of the perimeter they found Lieutenant Goodwin, still loaded with hand grenades and ammunition, fondling two baby tigers. Senior Squid and Relsnik were watching Sergeant Cassidy poke playfully at the blind kittens, a smile on his face.

  Cortell, who’d shared a fighting hole with Williams since they’d arrived in-country eight months earlier, saw the two tigers differently. He broke away from Jackson and walked over to the group.

  “I don’t think they ought to be here,” he said. His heart was starting to pound, but he was vowing to do something for Williams—anything to ease the guilty feeling that he had let Williams down.

  “Well, fuck me,” Cassidy said, standing up. “You don’t think they ought to be here, do you? Do you remember me asking for your opinion?”

  Cortell said nothing, wishing Jackson would speak up.

  “You just walk up to your fucking superiors and tell them what you think all the time?” Cassidy asked.

  “No sir,” Cortell said. The old fear of the Deep South returned, weakening his knees.

  “Then I suggest you mind your own business. I thought you’d fucking like jungle animals.”

  Cortell’s nostrils flared and his face went pallid. His hands and legs burned. He felt Jackson’s hand on his elbow, pulling him gently back, away from Cassidy and away from an inner precipice. Cortell was breathing hard, staring at Cassidy, who was staring right back at him. “I’ll kill those motherfuckers,” Cortell said.

  “Over my dead body,” Cassidy said.

  “You want it that way?”

  “You threatening to kill me, Cortell?” Cassidy asked.

  “Come on, Cortell,” Jackson said. Cortell heard him as if through a long tunnel. Jackson turned to Cassidy and added quietly, “He ain’t threatening to kill you, Gunny. It’s about Williams, his fucking friend.”

  Cortell slapped angrily at Jackson’s hand, pulling himself from its grip.

  “Come on, Cortell,” Jackson hissed. “You gonna get your ass locked up.” Jackson pulled him around, Cortell jerking back and Jackson jerking him forward. Cortell somehow managed to break free of his rage by stepping outside himself. He became aware of himself being angry. Then he realized that he and Jackson were pulling at each other. His mind went spinning through images of Jesus and the money changers, Peter cutting the servant’s ear, Jesus hanging on the cross, God crying for his lost child. He remembered who he was and where he was and allowed Jackson to grip his elbow and walk him down the hill, leaving Cassidy standing in front of the silent group.

  Then he remembered Four Corners, Mississippi, and Gilead, four miles down the dirt road, where the white people lived. He remembered driving down the tree-lined streets, trying to look inconspicuous in his grandfather’s old 1947 Ford, carefully wiped clean of dust. He remembered his grandmother having made sure his shirt was white and ironed. Then he remembered his older cousin, Luella, walking back home on the dusty road from Gilead, hot and exhausted in her housemaid’s uniform, to nurse her baby who’d been left with Luella’s mother the whole fourteen hours of her absence, aching to ease her breasts and her heart. Then he remembered hours and hours of holding his urine and the white high school boys who stared at him with hard eyes when he came to the cotton storage shed without “proper business,” only wanting to pass a message to his uncle who worked in the yard out back. In his memory now they all looked like Cassidy.

  Cortell started running for the lines. Jackson watched him go. Then he shouted, “Cortell, you stupid mother.” When Cortell reached his fighting hole he grabbed his M-16 and pulled back the action to chamber a round. He turned around, his eyes wild, and started running toward the top of the hill. Jackson tackled him from above, sending the M-16 flying.

  “I’ll kill the motherfuckers,” Cortell screamed. “I’ll kill the motherfuckers.” He kicked and writhed under Jackson’s hold, scratching at Jackson’s eyes, trying to claw his way back to his weapon. Jackson held on tight.

  Mellas was watching Bass make a cup of coffee with the last envelope of instant coffee in the platoon when they heard Cortell scream. They immediately started running. Mellas jumped on top of both Jackson and Cortell, tearing Jackson away. Cortell started to scramble to his feet, but Bass fell on him, pinning him to the ground. Cortell’s wide, normally pleasant face was contorted with pain and rage.

  Jackson, much more under control, didn’t struggle with Mellas. “I’m all right,” he said. “It’s Cortell.” Mellas looked into his eyes, then rolled off. Jackson stood and began brushing himself off, looking down at Cortell, pinned under Bass’s solid body.

  “What the fuck’s the matter with you?” Mellas asked Cortell.

  “The Gunny,” Cortell said. “I’ll kill him.” He was under control, however, and it was obvious he did not mean it.

  Bass, seeing that Cortell had regained control of himself, got up, reached out a hand, and helped him off the ground. “What’d Cassidy do?” Bass asked.

  Jackson spoke up. “Scar brought back two baby tigers and the Gunny’s up playing with them.”

  “So?” Bass asked.

  “So I told him to get them out of here,” Cortell said. “A tiger killed Williams, or don’chew remember either?”

  Bass’s face registered the pain the statement caused, but he said nothing.

  Mellas cut in. “You just can’t go telling the Gunny to do what you want. I know how you feel. You’ve got to know he’d react to that. He probably doesn’t know how it affects you.”

  “He told Cortell he ought to like jungle animals,” Jackson said quietly.

  Mellas’s head sank and he turned away momentarily. Bass muttered under his breath, then turned, heading toward the CP.

  Mellas stopped him. “It’s my problem,” he said. “Let’s get our story straight, then I’ll go up and talk to Scar about it. That’ll be easier than talking to Cassidy.”

  Jackson and Cortell told their side of the story. When they’d finished, Mellas looked at Cortell. “You still figure you’re going to kill old Cassidy?” he asked, smiling.

  Cortell smiled back, his nose running a little. “No, I guess I let him go home. Somebody stupid back there must want him.” He laughed shakily and Mellas joined in.

  Mellas found Goodwin over by his platoon area. “It’s just a couple of little baby tigers. Hey, look at them.” He knelt down to let one lick his finger. “Wouldn’t harm no one. Shit, Jack, I can’t kill ’em.”

  Mellas looked at the two tiny kittens. “Jesus, no, don’t kill them,” he said, solemnly. “We’d have mama outside the lines in a second. You’ve got to take them back to where you found them.”

  “Fuck I do, Jack. That’s a couple of fucking klicks.”

  “I’ll take them back,” Mellas said.

  “It’s OK by me, Jack. But you don’t know where to go, do you?” Goodwin smiled, enjoying Mellas’s temporary loss of composure.

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Well then, fuck.” Goodwin picked up one of the kittens. “I’ll take them back.” He paused a moment, thinking. “Ain’t no fucking gooks stupid enough to be out here anyway.”

  “Thanks, Scar,” Mellas said, truly grateful. “I owe you one.”

  “Naw. I got nothing better to do. Shouldn’t have brought them back in the first place. I didn’t think nothing about that guy of yours getting eaten.”

  Vancouver volunteered to go with Goodwin, along with several of Goodwin’s men, and they left the kittens just outside the entrance of the cave where they had found them. The group returned well after midnight, slowed by the darkness, silent and bent with exhaustion.

  While Goodwin was out, Mellas, filled with self-righteous anger, confronted Cassidy at the actuals meeting. Cassidy, forced again into the role of villain, responded to Mellas’s attack with anger of his own. “I just told the dumb fucker he ought to like the fucking animals because they’re both from the fucking jungle in the first place. They are, ain’t they? They’re so fucking proud of all this black power bullshit and if they’re supposed to be big bad African warriors, they ought to be proud about where they come
from.”

  Mellas didn’t answer.

  “This Marine Corps’ gone to shit since this fucking war,” Cassidy continued. “Maybe I popped off. But a fucking private first class ain’t got no right barging in on an officer and a staff sergeant telling them his worthless opinion. No fucking discipline. No fucking pride. And they keep fucking us career professionals by sending us out into the bush for the millionth time while the fat-asses and fucking shirkers can refuse to go out in the bush any time they want. Well, I’m getting the fuck out.”

  There was an embarrassed silence. Mellas suddenly felt sorry for this man for whom the world was changing too quickly. “I guess I was a little quick too, Sergeant Cassidy,” Mellas said. “Maybe if you just told Cortell you were sorry.”

  “I ain’t fucking sorry, Lieutenant.”

  “Cassidy, things could get bad. They’re already pissed about Parker’s haircut. This on top of it isn’t going to sit too well.”

  “If they want to try any of that black power bullshit on me, Lieutenant, I’ll black power their black asses to fucking hell. They don’t scare me. I’ve handled punks before.”

  Mellas dropped it, glancing at Fitch to let him know. Fitch quickly moved on with the actuals meeting. The only news he had was that the batteries were getting so low that, in addition to all second radios being turned off, the actuals’ radios were to be turned on only when the company was moving and at night. Battalion’s last order was to make up the time lost; reach today’s checkpoint, Alpha, by late morning tomorrow; hit checkpoint Bravo by midafternoon; and be back on schedule at checkpoint Charlie by tomorrow night. There would be no resupply. The LZ had been built for nothing.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When they moved out in the darkness the next morning, Goodwin’s platoon was on point. Mellas’s platoon had the relative safety of the middle of the column. Resigned to humping out instead of flying, the kids put one foot in front of the other in the endless dance of the infantry. For those not on point, thoughts turned to memories of better times, meals they had eaten, girls they had known or wished they had known better. For those on point, there was no past; there was only the frightening now.