Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War Read online

  “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.”

  The officers stood, echoing the toast. Then they sat down with the colonel, who received congratulations on his fine toast from Blakely.

  Coates turned to Mellas, his eyes dancing with deep humor. “Cool down, Lieutenant Mellas. Colonel Mulvaney will never let him near the place. You don’t commit an entire battalion to an area covered by enemy artillery that we can’t go after because of political reasons. Add to that uncertain air support because of the weather. That’s why Mulvaney pulled us out in the first place. Return to Matterhorn? Nevah hoppin.”

  Mellas was surprised. “Here I thought you were a lifer,” he said, smiling.

  “I am, Lieutenant Mellas. But I ain’t stupid. And I also know how to keep my mouth shut.”

  Mellas awoke the next morning to hard rain slashing against the tent. Relsnik, on radio watch, was hunched in his poncho liner staring out into the dark. Mellas’s first thought was hopeful. With rain like that, no choppers would be able to fly. Anyone who got into the shit would have to rely on something besides the Bald Eagle to get rescued. He wrapped the snoopy around his shoulders, never wanting to leave its security. He remained in a snug ball but was slowly losing a fight with his bladder. He gave up and ran out into the rain to piss.

  When he got back inside the tent, Fitch was up, starting coffee.

  “No way we can get launched today,” Mellas said.

  Fitch squinted into the darkness. He turned to his radio operator. “Hey, Snik, see if you can get a weather report out of battalion.”

  The weather report wasn’t good. It was supposed to stop raining by midmorning. That meant the choppers could fly.

  An hour later Mellas was at the supply tent, doing paperwork that ranged from writing press releases for local newspapers about the activities of local boys to handling inquiries about paternity suits from Red Cross workers to straightening out paycheck allocations to divorced wives, current wives, and women illegally claiming to be wives, mothers, and mothers-in-law. To Mellas it seemed as if half the company came from broken homes and had wives or parents who were drunks, dope addicts, runaways, prostitutes, or child beaters. Two things about this surprised him. The first was the fact itself. The second was that everyone seemed to cope with it so well.

  A runner dropped off a small stack of papers and radio messages from battalion. Included were orders transferring Staff Sergeant Cassidy to H & S Company. Mellas marveled at Sergeant Major Knapp’s efficiency. He looked back into the gloom of the tent where Cassidy and two helpers were trying to straighten out a mess of equipment and steeled himself for what had to follow. “Hey, Gunny,” he said, feigning excitement and getting up from the table, “you’ve got orders out of the bush. Look at this.” He walked back with the triplicate orders.

  Cassidy looked at Mellas in surprise. “What? Let me see ’em.” He furrowed his brow, reading the order slowly. It was a routine set, transferring a lot of people. His name was singled out by a neat rubber-stamped arrow. The words ORIGINAL ORDERS were stamped in bold capitals across the mimeographed sheet. “Well, I’ll be fucked,” he said.

  “Where are you going, Gunny?” one of the Marines asked. Both of them were grinning broadly, happy that anyone was escaping the bush alive.

  “Well, I’ll be fucked,” Cassidy said again. He sat down. “H & S Company. I didn’t know nothing about it.” He looked up at Mellas. “I don’t see nothing about my replacement.”

  “He’s probably coming in from division or someplace.”

  Cassidy said, “Well, sir, I’d like to go see what I’ll be doing. No one told me nothing. I swear.”

  “Sure, Gunny, go ahead. I’ll honcho this.”

  Cassidy sent the two Marines to chow, with orders to send two replacements back afterward. Then he walked off to see his new company commander.

  Vancouver was one of the two Marines who managed to wangle work in the supply tent rather than fill sandbags in the rain. He and the other kid were soon rummaging through the damp, often mildewed bags of personal gear left behind by Marines who had rotated home or been killed.

  “Hey, Vancouver,” the other kid said. “Here’s something that’s yours.”

  When Vancouver saw the long rectangular box he felt a foreboding. It was his sword. It had been a funny shtick when he ordered it. He thought it had been lost for good. Now he said—but it was as if he heard someone else’s voice saying—“Jesus Christ. Hey, it’s my fucking gook sword. It’s been here all along.” He was tearing at the paper, pulling the long handle and sheath from the narrow box. He grabbed the hilt and, with a ringing sound, drew the sword from its sheath.

  Mellas had turned at the sound of Vancouver’s cry.

  “Look at this mother, Lieutenant,” Vancouver crowed. He was standing on top of two seabags, his feet spread apart, holding the sword in front of him. He took a quick slash at the air. “I’m gonna get some now,” he said through clenched teeth.

  By late afternoon word of Vancouver’s sword had made its way through the entire battalion. A friend of Jancowitz’s f
rom H & S stopped by the sandbag detail to tell Jancowitz about it. Jancowitz had a feeling of despair which he couldn’t identify and which he quickly forced back into the reservoir of other feelings he’d fought down for the past year and a half. “Crazy fucker,” he said, smiling. “He’ll get some, too. You wait and see.”

  “Yeah, he might,” his friend told him, “but the gooks ain’t hardly going to use swords. They ain’t no fucking savages.”

  “Yeah, but Vancouver is,” Jancowitz retorted. People laughed. His friend grinned and set off down the road. Jancowitz turned sadly back to his pile of dirt.

  All day Bravo Company dug in the clay, filling the green plastic bags, trying to forget that at any second an officer in an air-conditioned bunker in Dong Ha or Da Nang could call in the helicopters that would carry them to some unknown spot in the jungle where they would die. They tried with every shovelful to forget that at any moment the company jeep might come tearing across the narrow airstrip, with Pallack shouting that someone was in the shit and Bravo Company was going to bail them out.

  Jancowitz was as anxious as everybody else. He tried to think of Susi, but he was having a hard time remembering her face. He was embarrassed to take out his wallet in front of everyone and look at her picture, so he remained torn between wanting to do just that and not wanting to appear foolish. The guys would laugh and say she was just another fucking bar girl. He couldn’t have taken that. He’d signed on for an extra six months of fear and filth just to spend thirty days with her. He threw himself into filling the next sandbag.

  At 1700 they folded their E-tools and walked in twos and threes back toward their tents. Broyer had joined Jancowitz, his eyeglasses steaming slightly from the perspiration dripping from his forehead. “Hey, Janc,” he said, wiping the glasses on his shirttail. “What we got an assistant general for anyway?” He was referring to the one-star general who resided at Task Force Hotel and whose red flag with a single gold star on it they had stared at all day while filling sandbags for his bunker. He put the glasses back on. They promptly slid forward. Annoyed, he pushed them back onto his nose, but then they started to steam up again.

  Jancowitz didn’t answer. He was thinking of Susi, trying to block out the smell of oil that had been sprayed on the road and the smoke that came from the efforts of a lone Marine who was burning shit with kerosene in three sawed-off steel barrels. Eventually, though, Broyer’s question worked its way into his consciousness. He looked at Broyer. When Broyer showed up on Matterhorn, Jancowitz had been worried about his thin frame and hesitant way of talking. But he didn’t worry about Broyer anymore—a good fucking Marine. “Fucked if I know, Broyer. General Neitzel probably needs someone to handle his paperwork.”

  “Way I hear it, he needs someone to handle his fighting. First order he gave was for everyone to button their utility shirts. Sheeit.”

  Jancowitz smiled, listening to Broyer, who was trying to make his “shit” sound cool. Jancowitz had been in-country when the previous general had arrived and had heard the same kind of bitching. Jancowitz had his own criterion for whether or not a general, or any other officer for that matter, was any good, and that was the number of times he saw the officer out in the bush with the snuffs. That’s why he liked Colonel Mulvaney. He’d been out on the lines at VCB one night, raining like hell, dark as a motherfucker, when he heard this jeep coming up. He thought it was Hawke. So he hollered out, “What the fuck you doing out here?” He about shit his pants when it turned out to be Mulvaney, the commander of the whole Twenty-Fourth Marine Regiment. The old fucker had proceeded to ask him if he’d killed any rats, inspect his rifle, and tell him he was doing a good job.

  “Lieutenant Mellas doesn’t give a shit if we don’t button our utility shirts,” Broyer went on.

  “Yeah. Only he won’t stay in.”

  “You going to stay in?” Broyer asked after a moment.

  “I don’t know. I got this girl in Bangkok.” Jancowitz smiled. “How about you?”

  “I want to go to the University of Maryland on the GI Bill and get into government work.” Broyer hesitated. “Maybe the State Department.” He looked quickly at Jancowitz to see if there was any reaction. Then he smiled ruefully. “I thought being a Marine would look good on my résumé.”

  “What’s a résumé?” Jancowitz asked. He saw that Broyer was surprised that he didn’t know but was trying not to let on.

  “You use it when you’re looking for a job. It’s a couple of pages that tells your experience, where you went to school. That sort of thing.”

  Jancowitz laughed out loud. He couldn’t imagine why he’d ever need one of those to get a job.

  They walked along silently for a while.

  “I hear there’s going to be a movie tonight,” Broyer said. “And maybe even a Red Cross girl.”

  “That’s an old rumor. They don’t let Red Cross girls out of Da Nang. They say it’s too dangerous. Such horseshit. They don’t let the fucking Budweiser and air mattresses out of Da Nang either.”

  “But the movie isn’t a rumor,” Broyer said.

  “I bet you it’s a fucking cowboy show.”

  Broyer laughed quietly, and they walked along in silence again. Overhead they heard the gentle honking of some geese and they both looked up at a small flock of about six moving north. They stood and watched until the geese were lost in the clouds hiding Mutter’s Ridge.

  “Makes me homesick,” Jancowitz said quietly.

  “Me too,” Broyer answered.

  When they rounded the last bend before their tents by the airfield, Jancowitz said, “Well, I’ll be fucked.” Arran was sitting on the ground, leaning his back against his pack. Pat was beside him in the down position, head and reddish ears alert, panting quietly, watching the two of them approach. Pat looked questioningly at Arran, who said, “OK.” Pat got to his feet and trotted over to greet Jancowitz and Broyer. He put his muzzle right in Broyer’s crotch, and Broyer giggled and started ruffling his fur. Then Pat danced away and circled behind Jancowitz, nuzzling up against the back of his knees, causing Jancowitz to giggle as well.

  “Looks like he’s singled you guys out,” Arran called.

  “Yeah, the old quitter,” Jancowitz said fondly, rubbing Pat’s head. “How long did it take for him to get back on his feet?”

  “Aw, about a week. We just fucked off back at scout platoon, both of us getting fat and happy.” He smiled and got to his feet, snapping his fingers quietly. “We were already dumb.” Pat quickly moved into heel position. Arran turned to Broyer, nodding his head toward Jancowitz. “This crazy motherfucker got you broken in yet?”

  Broyer grinned. “Yeah.”

  “You watch out for him, Broyer. Janc’s the only other crazy motherfucker I know besides me upped for an extension in the Nam. Of course he did it for some chick in Bangkok, not someone who’d really stand by you.” He squatted down and grabbed Pat on both sides of his jowls, putting his face right into Pat’s nose, moving it back and forth. “Won’t you, boy? Won’t you, you dumb sheepdog?” He stood again. It was well known that Arran had extended his tour twice because the scout dogs couldn’t be transferred to other handlers, and when their tour was over, they were killed. Someone back in the world had declared them too dangerous to bring home.

  “You back with us for a while?” Jancowitz asked.

  “Not as long as you’re on Bald fucking Eagle, I ain’t,” Arran answered. “No need for a fucking four-legged radar set when they dump you right in the middle of the shit.” He turned to Pat. “We’re specialists, ain’t we, Pat?” Pat wagged his tail.

  “What’re you doing here, then?” Jancowitz asked.

  “We’re going out with Alpha One Fifteen tomorrow. They’re getting dropped in the east end of the Da Krong Valley. Lots of sensor activity.” He stopped short and grinned. “You ain’t supposed to hear that, otherwise I’d have to kill you.”

  “The fucking gooks already know about it anyway,” Jancowitz said, not really joking.

  There was an awkward silence. Janc realized that Arran had come over because he was going out in the jungle again and wanted to say good
-bye.

  “You’ll be OK,” Janc finally said. “Hell, you’re the one’s got Pat.”

  Arran grinned, looked down at Pat, and then looked up at the clouds, embarrassed. “Hope you motherfuckers don’t get launched,” he said. “We’ll see you on your next op.”

  They watched Arran and Pat walk off. They all knew that it could be the last time.

  At dinner that evening Blakely and Simpson walked to the head of the chow line where Marines on KP slopped large spoonfuls of food onto trays. One of the Marines splattered a speck of gravy on Blakely’s sleeve. Blakely glared at him, unable to sop it up because both hands were holding the tray.

  “Sorry, sir,” the young Marine stammered.

  Blakely smiled. “It’s OK, Tiger. Just don’t get so damn eager.”

  Blakely followed Simpson into the officers’ and NCOs’ mess. Someone shouted “Attention” and everyone rose. Simpson grunted “As you were,” and everyone resumed eating, all conversation dulled temporarily until Simpson and Blakely got settled. Blakely got up soon after they had seated themselves and poured two mugs of coffee. He returned to his seat and said to Simpson, “I heard there was another fragging last night, down south. You hear about it, sir?”