Matterhorn Read online

  “Prove you’re Americans,” the voice called out.

  “How the fuck we do that?” Hawke called back.

  “Answer my questions.”

  “OK, but don’t ask me nothing about fucking baseball. I hate fucking baseball.”

  “All right, where you guys from?”

  McCarthy giggled. “Let me,” he whispered. “East Padua,” he cried out. “You know where that is?”

  “East Padua? No.”

  Hawke cut in. “Hey, asshole, you’re supposed to be asking the questions.”

  There was silence.

  “All right, who’s the secretary of the army?”

  “I don’t know,” McCarthy replied.

  “OK, then, who’s the secretary of defense?”

  Murphy answered, “Who the fuck cares?”

  “I do,” the voice answered.

  “I don’t know,” McCarthy said.

  “Who’s the president then?”

  “You got me beat,” McCarthy answered. “I’m a gook.”

  “You must be fucking Marines. No one else could be so fucking stupid. Get your asses in here.”

  An hour later the mystery tour was at rest. McCarthy and Murphy were passed out on the exposed springs of two empty cots. McCarthy was naked from the waist down and his right buttock and thigh were swabbed red with Mercurochrome. The bullet had taken out a small piece of flesh from the right cheek. Pieces of glass lay on the floor. Murphy had performed surgery by pouring vodka on McCarthy’s rear and picking the glass out with his K-bar. Mellas was heating coffee over a piece of C-4; he had thrown up and his face was pallid. The coffee was for Hawke, who needed to sober up enough to stand watch in an hour. Mellas’s first mystery tour was over. It felt very good to be in.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Morning started with the barking cough of a motor and the clank of treads as a tank headed for VCB’s northern gate to escort the empty supply trucks returning to Quang Tri. Soon the grumble of truck motors vibrated through the ground to the wooden tent platform, rattling Mellas’s very sore head. Pallack, who had the last radio watch, lit a ball of C-4 to heat coffee. A white-hot glare filled the tent.

  Mellas cursed Pallack and pulled his poncho liner over his head. Fitch rolled onto his back and lay staring at the tent roof. The others, all completely clothed, including boots, moved stiff limbs and rolled from their air mattresses to the dirty wood floor.

  “Anything happen on the nets?” Fitch asked.

  “Naw,” Pallack replied. “Same old stuff. Some super-grunts got in a jam up nort’ of Sky Cap.”

  Fitch glanced quickly at Daniels, who pulled out his map. Rescuing reconnaissance teams was a primary mission of a Bald Eagle-Sparrow Hawk company. “Is that all you know about them?” Fitch asked. Mellas lay there listening under the poncho liner.

  “Shit Skipper. Dey don’t tell me what’s happening all over I Corps. Call sign’s Peachstate. Dere’s a bunch of gooks all around ’em and d’ey can’t move wit’out tipping the gooks off where d’ey are. Here’s d’coordinates.”

  Fitch and Daniels checked the coordinates on the map. “Right where Mellas guessed,” Fitch said.

  “Maybe they’ll use arty and yank them out, Skipper,” Daniels said.

  “Fuck,” Pallack said. “Don’t tell me dey’re expecting us to get deir asses unjammed.”

  “What the fuck you think we’re sitting here for?” Fitch said. “The artys all been pulled back for the Cam Lo op. If they get in trouble, we launch.”

  “Shit. If I’d a known I’d gotten scared last night.”

  Mellas moaned, threw back the poncho liner, and disappeared outside the tent.

  “What’s with him?” Fitch asked.

  “He’s caught Mallory’s problem,” Pallack said.

  “Huh?”

  “A bad head.”

  Fitch went to the COC to keep tabs on Peachstate. Around midmorning the word came down to put the company on standby. Mellas’s bad head got worse. Everyone sat there. Waiting. Watching the sky. Listening for the sound of choppers. All the spare radios were tuned to the reconnaissance battalion’s frequency so the company could listen to the team’s progress. Cassidy passed out the hair clippers to the squad leaders.

  At 1300 Peachstate made a break for it. At 1415 they were picked up by a Huey and got out with only one man wounded. By 1500 the Marines from Bravo Company were again filling sandbags at Task Force Oscar, rescuing knights one moment, serfs the next.

  Mellas went to see Sergeant Major Knapp at the tent that served as the battalion office. He knocked sharply at the wood-framed opening and heard Knapp say “Come!” It was more of a command than an invitation.

  Mellas entered, taking off his cap. Knapp looked up from a report and quickly rose to his feet. That embarrassed Mellas. The sergeant major was old enough to be his father.

  “Yes, sir. Can I help you, sir?” Knapp asked.

  “I hope so, Sergeant Major,” Mellas replied. “Can I sit down?”

  “Of course.” They sat and Mellas toyed briefly with his cap, going over the words he’d already worked out. He waited for Knapp to say something first to break the silence, in this way putting himself at a slight power advantage by establishing an unconscious obligation on Knapp’s part to make the situation agreeable. Mellas understood clearly that a second lieutenant nominally outranked but never outpowered a sergeant major. A sergeant major in the United States Marine Corps took shit from no one. This was going to be tricky.

  Mellas could tell that Knapp was scrambling to remember which company he was from. Finally Knapp said, “I thought you folks were going to have to bail out that recon team. Close.”

  “Too close,” Mellas replied. “I’d almost rather get launched right off the bat instead of standing by on that airfield.” Mellas laughed casually. He’d have stayed on the airfield forever, and he knew it.

  “I know what you mean, sir.”

  Again, Mellas waited.

  “So, how can I help, sir?”

  “Sergeant Major, it’s about Staff Sergeant Cassidy, our company gunny.”

  “I can’t imagine he’s giving you a problem.”

  “Well, I don’t know how to put this exactly, but I’m afraid for his life.”

  “How so?” The sergeant major leaned back, squinting slightly at Mellas, obviously not liking where this might lead.

  “Can we treat everything I say in complete confidence?”

  Sergeant Major Knapp hesitated. “As long as it’s not in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” he said carefully.

  “OK.” Mellas paused for effect. “On the last operation an attempt was made on Staff Sergeant Cassidy’s life. The person involved, PFC Parker, blurted it out the morning he died of cerebral malaria. Cassidy never said a word about it. I never asked him. There is, therefore, no charge. Since the party involved is dead, I see no reason to make an inquiry. Do you?”

  The sergeant major hesitated. “That might be a violation of the code.”

  “There would be no witnesses. No formal charge. It would only draw attention to racial unrest between one of your staff sergeants and a black PFC who died because a medevac bird was refused the day before by a battalion order.”

  The sergeant major jerked his head backward, almost imperceptibly. “Yes. I see what you mean.”

  Mellas continued. “I have it from certain sources close to radical black elements that Staff Sergeant Cassidy is still in danger.”

  Knapp took a deep breath through his nose, his lips compressed tightly. He exhaled. “Can I ask why, sir?”

  “Staff Sergeant Cassidy isn’t exactly tactful in the way he gets his job done.” Mellas smiled. “Particularly with blacks.”

  Knapp smiled back. “I know what you mean.”

  “I think the best thing would be to transfer him out of the company,” Mellas said. “They’re asking for certain changes and an apology from Cassidy. I don’t think I need to tell you the chances of that happening.”

  “He’d do it if he was ordered to.”

  “Yes,” Mellas said. “And what would that mean for the authority of the rest of the staff NCOs?”
/>
  “Yes. I see.”

  Mellas let that sink in before going on. “Cassidy doesn’t need to know anything about the transfer. It would defuse the situation. If we investigate, who knows where it will lead us?”

  “And Lieutenant Fitch? What does he think of this?”

  “You and I are the only ones who know. You can see what a bind that would put Fitch in, and the colonel, too, for that matter. The colonel would be obligated to start a formal investigation.”

  “Yes. I see, sir.” Knapp drummed his neatly trimmed nails on the plywood table. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I could use someone to handle work parties here in the rear. The lines will probably have to be expanded, bunkers built. There’s a lot to running a place like this, you know.”

  “I can sure see that, Sergeant Major. It’s amazing how much has to get done and fuck all recognition for it.” Mellas laughed lightly. “I remember being a guard on my football team and reading in the papers that somehow it was the halfbacks who scored all the points, not the team.”

  Knapp looked pleased by the remark. “Yes, sir. It ain’t any different here either.”

  Mellas smiled. “Nope, no different,” he said. “No matter where you go, it’s still high school.”

  The sergeant major laughed. Mellas repressed a smile at the irony of Knapp’s laughing at a statement that actually was about him.

  “OK. I’ll see what I can do, sir,” Knapp said. “No promises. But we’d sure hate to have the death of a good Marine on our hands.”

  “That’s the way I feel, Sergeant Major. I knew you’d understand.”

  “I appreciate your stopping by, Lieutenant.” He stood as Mellas did, and they shook hands. The sergeant major walked with Mellas to the door of the tent.

  “There’s one other thing, Sergeant Major,” Mellas said.

  “Sir?”

  “It might be a little awkward if any blacks had to wait on tables at mess night.”

  The sergeant major’s smile disappeared. “If they’ve drawn KP, they’ll do what they’re told. We don’t play favorites here.”

  “Of course not,” Mellas said. “And I admire that you would accept the responsibility for a fragging rather than compromise your principles. Any board of inquiry would approve.”

  The sergeant major’s breath was coming faster. He swallowed visibly. “I didn’t mean I’d risk a fragging.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” Mellas said. “I know that, Sergeant Major. I know you don’t like being put in this jam any more than I do. It’s a tough place to be. I really do appreciate your help on this. Thank you, Sergeant Major.”

  Mellas turned and went out of the tent. He carefully adjusted his stateside utility cover and headed back to the airstrip. He had no doubt about what the sergeant major would do.

  Several hours later Mellas and the other officers were running through the rain to the large chapel tent. Hawke and McCarthy, the latter apparently none the worse for the glass in his rear end, were standing outside in the drizzle. Hawke shook his head silently. An enlisted man from McCarthy’s platoon in Alpha Company, wearing a white coat dredged up from Da Nang, trudged past them carrying a large pot of soup. He managed to work enough of his right hand loose to give McCarthy the finger.

  “Suck out, Wick,” McCarthy hissed back at him. The kid disappeared inside.

  Candles lighted the interior, casting a flickering yellow glow over everything. Tables were arranged in a large U shape and covered with white cloths. The battalion communications officer stuck his head out the door. “You better get in and find your place cards. We’re all supposed to be standing by when the colonel arrives. Blakely’s orders.” He scurried back inside.

  Hawke sighed and walked in. The others followed.

  The tent’s ventilation flaps had been closed because of the rain, and it was uncomfortably warm inside. Several enlisted men waited in the rear, standing by their pots of food, sweating beneath their starched white coats. Mellas noted that there were no blacks among them.

  Shortround, at the very end of the line next to a large pot of string beans, grinned broadly when he saw the lieutenants from Bravo Company enter the tent. Mellas was happy to see him but suppressed a grin and just nodded quickly. Hawke gave the hawk power sign and Shortround returned it, wiggling his fingers next to his hip, smiling proudly to be included in Hawke’s private joke.

  Mellas found his place card opposite Hawke and between Captain Coates, the skipper of Charlie Company, whom he’d last seen passed out on the wet LZ, and a new lieutenant from Alpha Company. The new lieutenant and Coates exchanged pleasantries with Mellas, to which he barely replied. This was Mellas’s way of showing that he was here against his will and was not enjoying himself. The conversation lagged, and an awkward silence followed.

  The tension was released when the Three walked in the tent, calling everyone to attention. Blakely’s jungle utilities were starched stiff and his major’s leaves shone in the candlelight. He stood ramrod straight and cut an impressive figure. There was no doubt in Mellas’s mind that the fucking prig would be a general one day.

  Simpson strode in, flushed with excitement and pride. “Gentlemen, be seated,” he said crisply. The benches rumbled on the plywood floor as about thirty officers sat down. Blakely gave a brief talk on the tradition of mess night and raised his glass in a toast, and the official drinking began.

  By the time they were through dessert, they had, for the most part, finished at least a bottle of wine each. Conversation had risen to a clamor punctuated by outbursts of laughter. No one noticed the colonel rise from his chair to give a toast, except Major Blakely, who clinked his glass to get the tent quiet.

  Just like the fucking Rotary Club, Mellas thought darkly.

  All the voices died down except McCarthy’s. He was well into his second bottle of wine and was telling a new second lieutenant his favorite story about the Three. “‘But we’re fucking out here,’ the skipper says. ‘And I don’t care what your goddamned map says, we’re out here and you’re back there and I tell you we see fucking lights on Hill 967.’ But this fucking asshole tells us it’s impossible and over the radio for shit’s sake that we can’t see what’s in front of our fucking faces . . .”

  The new lieutenant was tugging at McCarthy’s sleeve and urgently nodding toward the head table. McCarthy turned darkly and leaned back, folding his arms. The Three announced that the colonel had something to say. His eyes never left McCarthy.

  Simpson, mildly and happily drunk, gave a quick official smile. He spilled a little of his wine as he leaned forward with his hands on both sides of his plate. Then he stood straight, bringing his glass up with him. “Gentlemen. First Battalion Twenty-Fourth Marines has made a fine name for itself here in Vietnam. I am both humble and proud to address you, the officers who have contributed so greatly to that record.” He lowered his voice and looked down at his dessert plate, where the ice cream that had been flown in from Quang Tri that afternoon was melting. “And to remember those officers who contributed their most precious possession, sacrificing all they had, that the record might remain proud and noble.”

  “He means the ones that got wasted,” Mellas whispered to the new lieutenant next to him without turning his head. Captain Coates touched Mellas’s boot with his own.

  “We took command of this battalion at the commencement of Operation Cathedral Forest,” the colonel continued, “a drive deep into the DMZ that resulted in significant findings of matériel, significant contact, and significant kills. From Cathedral Forest to Wind River, at the gateway to Laos. I’m sure many of you recall with fondness our friends from Co Roc.” About half of the officers laughed. Hawke wasn’t one of them.

  “Well, we got our own artillery. Fire Support Base Lookout, Puller, Sherpa, Margo, Sierra, Sky Cap.” The colonel paused. “And Matterhorn.” He looked at his silent officers. “We’re building fountainheads of steel right in the gooks’ backyard. We’re denying him the use of his own transportation network, forcing him to go farther and farther west, making his resupply more and more difficult for his operations in the populated
provinces to our south.” Simpson paused here and changed his tone. “We’ve been sitting on our asses around Cam Lo and in my opinion abandoned our mission.” He leaned across the table. “Well, gentlemen, we are through with the political bullshit. From now on we’ll be back at our real job, closing with and destroying the enemy. Wherever he may be. And gentlemen, I know where he is. I know.” He was leaning on his arms and looking intently at them, his eyes darting back and forth. Then he stood up for effect, head high, shoulders back.

  Mellas raised his eyebrows, looking at Hawke across from him.

  “He’s around Matterhorn,” the colonel continued. His eyes glittered. He leaned forward again, his small red hands in fists on the table. “Yes, goddamn it, Matterhorn. The gooks are there. Hiding. And by God we’re going to walk in there someday and kill every one of the yellow sons of bitches. We were ordered off Matterhorn, against my will, and against my own and my operations officer’s best judgment, to fulfill the wishes of some fat-assed politicians back in Washington. But every sign”—he emphasized his words with his fist—“every single piece of intelligence, every little contact”—he pushed back and smiled—“my fucking nose”—he touched it—“tells me that the NVA are in there, and in force. And that area is ours, gentlemen. We paid for it. In blood. And we’ll get our due.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Mellas whispered to the new lieutenant. “There’s nothing up there but leeches and malaria.”

  Coates elbowed Mellas in the ribs and glared at him. Hawke was staring stonily at his fork.

  “We had to leave Matterhorn before our work there was finished,” Simpson continued, “and Marines never leave their work unfinished. I promise you this, gentlemen: I’ll do every goddamned thing I can to get this battalion where it belongs. That’s where the fighting’s going to be. That’s where I want to be. That’s where Major Blakely wants to be, and I know that’s where every Marine in this battalion wants to be.”

  At this point McCarthy quietly belched, out of earshot of the head table.

  “So, gentlemen,” the colonel went on, “I’d like to propose a toast to the best goddamned fighting battalion in Vietnam today. Here’s to the Tigers of Tarawa, the Frozen Chosen of Chosin Reservoir. Here’s to the First Battalion Twenty-Fourth Marines.”