Matterhorn Read online

  “He seems pretty riled up, sir.”

  “Goddamn it, I’ve looked at his ugly head until I’m blue in the face. I was training to be a surgeon, not a psychiatrist.” Selby reached for a bottle of aspirin and slugged down four, not bothering to take any water. “Now you tell him that sick bay goes at oh nine hundred, and let me do some work. You got that, Foster?”

  “Yes, sir.” Foster paused as Selby sat down behind the crude desk, his hands over his face. “Sir?”

  “What, Foster?”

  “Will you see him at oh nine hundred? I don’t think he’s going to take one of us squids giving him more Darvon. He’s eating the stuff like candy anyway.”

  “What do you want me to do, hold his fucking hand? I’ve got a bunch of people out there that I can cure, and I’m sick of seeing him. No. I won’t see him.”

  “Yes sir.” Foster walked to the entrance of the tent. Mallory was sitting on a bench, his forehead in his hands, gear strewn beneath his feet. His flak jacket and .45 lay across his pack.

  “PFC Mallory,” Foster said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I talked with Lieutenant Selby and he said there wasn’t really anything he could do for you.”

  “That’s what they all say. What’s going down around here, huh?” Foster sighed. “Mallory, I don’t know what else to tell you. If there’s nothing they can do in Quang Tri, there’s sure not anything we can do here.”

  “My fucking head hurts.”

  “I know that, Mallory. All I can do for you is give you—”

  “Fucking pills.” Mallory stood up, screaming, “I don’t need fucking pills. I need help. And that motherfucking doctor is fucking me over and I’m tired of it. I’m tired, you hear me?” He began to whimper. “I’m so fucking tired.”

  Selby walked through the partition. “You get out of this sick bay right now, Marine,” he said, “and if your ass isn’t out that door in five seconds, I’ll have it for disobeying a direct order.”

  Mallory, visibly in pain, screamed and reached for the .45 at his feet. He pulled back the action. “My fucking head hurts and I want it fixed.” The pistol was pointed at Selby’s stomach.

  Selby backed slowly away. “You’re going to be in a heap of trouble over this, Marine,” he said nervously.

  “My head hurts.”

  Foster started easing toward the door. Mallory turned the pistol on him. “Where you going?”

  “Let me go find the colonel or someone. Maybe they can do something about it. What do you think, Lieutenant Selby?”

  “Oh, yes,” Selby said. “Maybe we could send you to Da Nang. Maybe Japan. I had no idea you—”

  “You shut up,” Mallory said. “You had no idea. That right. You had no idea until I stand up here with a gun barrel poked at you fat face. You sure as shit have no fucking idea.”

  “Look, I’ll write up an order right now, sending you to Da Nang.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Sure I can. Foster here can get it all typed up, can’t you, Foster?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s right.”

  “All right. You start typing,” Selby said to Foster. It was clear that Mallory’s anger was cooling. Selby could also see that Mallory was no longer sure about what to do with the pistol or how to get out of the situation.

  Foster put three forms with carbon paper between them into a typewriter and started pounding away. Selby stood stiffly next to Foster’s table, trying to summon up enough courage to glare at Mallory. He ended up pretending to read what Foster was typing.

  Hospitalman Third Class Milbank, returning from breakfast, came whistling up the small path to the aid station. He stopped short when Foster shouted, “Sick call doesn’t go until oh nine hundred, Marine.”

  “What?” Milbank said. He could see Foster through the open doorway, with Selby standing nervously by him.

  “You know the rules, Marine. Oh nine hundred. We’re under a lot of pressure here. Now clear out.”

  “Sure.” Milbank walked off the path, puzzled. He walked quietly to the side of the tent. It was absolutely silent inside. Then he heard a hostile voice. “Where you going?”

  “I have to look up the right coding on the order.” Foster’s voice answered, a little too slowly and clearly. “It’s in that book over there.”

  Milbank carefully peeked beneath the wall of the tent. It ended about half an inch above the ground. He could make out the bleached boots of a bush Marine and a helmet among some gear with the medevac number M-0941 on it. A medevac number consisted of the first letter of the man’s surname and the last four of his serial number. Then he saw the .45 held in a black hand. M—Mallory. It was that morose fucking machine gunner with the headaches, from Bravo Company.

  Milbank ran to the mess tent and found Staff Sergeant Cassidy scraping the remains of his breakfast into a garbage can. “Mallory’s got a .45 pulled on Doc Selby and Foster,” he said. “Over at the battalion aid station.”

  “You get Lieutenant Fitch right now,” Cassidy said. He ran for the aid station.

  Milbank didn’t know which way to go. He spotted Connolly and shouted at him. “Mallory’s pulled a fucking gun on Doc Selby. Get your skipper up here right away.” Everyone in the place stopped eating. Connolly looked at his cup of coffee and closed his eyes, then ran for the airstrip.

  Cassidy reached the battalion aid station with Milbank close behind him. “You can see him through the crack under the tent,” Milbank whispered. Cassidy merely grunted. He went to the ground and peered up through the narrow open space between the tent wall and the ground. He saw Mallory’s jungle camouflage trousers and then the underside of the .45.

  He walked calmly around the tent and through the door. Mallory, surprised, took a step backward.

  “Give it to me, Mallory,” Cassidy said.

  “I tell you, my head hurts. I’m getting outa here.”

  “Give me the fucking pistol or so help me I’ll jam it down your scrawny fucking throat.”

  Mallory shook his head, then seemed to collapse into a whimpering child. “It hurts me.”

  Cassidy walked over, took the .45 away, and tossed it at Selby, who put his hands in front of his face rather than catch it. The pistol clattered to the floor. “They don’t work without magazines in them, Lieutenant Selby, sir,” Cassidy said. He looked at Mallory, his hands on his hips. “And you, you fucking excuse for a man, I ought to tear your head right off.” Cassidy suddenly lashed out with his fist, sinking it into Mallory’s stomach. Mallory doubled over. Cassidy, cooling down, picked up Mallory’s .45, went to Mallory’s pack, and found a magazine, which he inserted into the butt. He pointed it at Mallory. “This one’s loaded, fuckhead. Now get up.”

  “I got my rights,” Mallory muttered.

  “That’s all that’s saving you, puke,” Cassidy said. “Now move.”

  Cassidy walked Mallory past a crowd of Marines to an empty steel conex box and roughly kicked him inside. He had just rammed the steel pin into the hasp of the heavy door when Fitch and Pallack came roaring up in the jeep. Major Blakely came running over from COC.

  “What the fuck happened?” Fitch asked.

  “It’s that puke Mallory.”

  “What’s going on here, Sergeant Cassidy?” Blakely asked, panting after his run.

  “Like I was telling the skipper here, sir, it’s PFC Mallory. He pulled his .45 on Lieutenant Selby over in the sick bay. I locked his ass in this cargo box.”

  “I guess he won’t cause too much trouble in there,” Blakely said, smiling.

  Fitch smiled hesitantly, took his cap off, and stroked his hair. “Anyone hurt?” he asked.

  “No sir,” Cassidy answered.

  “Well, we can’t just leave him in the cargo box,” Fitch said, half questioningly.

  “Leave him there for now,” Blakely answered quickly. “Do some good to see someone locked up for a crime around here. Besides, we got another situation developing I want you to sit in on.”

  Fitch carefully put his cap back on. “We’ll talk about it later, Sergeant Cassidy,” he said. He and Blakely walked away.

  Cassidy tossed the .45 to a Marine from H &
S who was in the crowd. “Schaffran, shoot anyone that tries to let this fuckhead out. Just make sure he doesn’t roll over and die in there. He doesn’t come out until I say so.” Cassidy walked off.

  “Not even to piss, Sergeant Cassidy?” Schaffran called after him.

  “Till I say so, numbnuts.”

  Schaffran looked at the pistol, sighed, and sat down in front of the box.

  Twenty minutes later Mellas received word to put the Bald Eagle on alert. It was another reconnaissance team, call sign Sweet Alice. They were fighting a running battle with a company-size unit just south of Matterhorn. Sweet Alice had six Marines.

  Mellas radioed the news to the work party over at Task Force Oscar. Something deep within him stirred as he watched the Marines run down the hill from where they’d been filling sandbags. Entrenching tools and shirts in their hands, they streamed across the damp airstrip, running for their gear, running possibly to their deaths.

  “Semper Fi, brothers,” Mellas whispered to himself, understanding for the first time what the word “always” required if you meant what you said. He remembered a discussion at his eating club with his friends and their dates one night after a dance. They were talking about the stupidity of warriors and their silly codes of honor. He’d joined in, laughing with the rest of them, hiding the fact that he’d joined the Marines several years before, not wanting to be thought of as whatever bad thing they thought a warrior was. Protected by their class and sex, they would never have to know otherwise. Now, seeing the Marines run across the landing zone, Mellas knew he could never join that cynical laughter again. Something had changed. People he loved were going to die to give meaning and life to what he’d always thought of as meaningless words in a dead language.

  Mellas’s knees were quivering. His hands shook as he buckled down the straps on his pack and tested the springs in his ammunition magazines. “Make sure everyone’s canteens are full,” he said to each platoon commander. “You never know when we’ll be getting water next.”

  Fracasso was walking back and forth like a caged animal. In his hands were several plastic-covered cards on which he had written the directions for calling in artillery fire and air strikes.

  “Don’t worry about it, Fracasso,” Mellas said. “When you need artillery, you’ll get it called in. Just remember they need to know three things: where you are, where the gooks are, and then you just tell them if they’re long or short.” Fracasso laughed, looking at his carefully prepared cards. “Put them in your pocket if it makes you feel better,” Mellas said, sounding more combat-wise then he felt.

  He and Fracasso both turned at the sound of someone running up to them. It was China. “They got Mallory in a fuckin’ cage like some kind a animal,” he screamed at Mellas. “They ain’t gettin’ away with shit like that.”

  Mellas put his arms up, palms toward China. That gesture cooled China down a bit. “He pulled a fucking pistol on a goddamned Navy doctor,” Mellas said evenly. “What do you want me to do about it, change the fucking rules for you?”

  “They don’t lock him in no cage like no fuckin’ animal. That’s the fuckin’ rules.”

  “China, we don’t have time for this bullshit. We got somebody in the bush in a shit sandwich. Mallory can fucking wait.”

  “But the pistol didn’t have no magazine in it.”

  This was news to Mellas. “What? You sure?”

  “Yes sir. One of the squids told me, and it makes sense. I know Mallory. Mallory wouldn’t shoot nobody.”

  Mellas didn’t know whether to believe this or not. Even if he did believe it, what could he do about it?

  “You don’t believe me, just call up those fuckers that helped Cassidy put him in the cage,” China said.

  Thoughts crowded into Mellas’s head. Maybe the alert wasn’t a go. They’d suffered through no-gos before. Mellas looked around. The company was formed into heli teams. Goodwin was walking slowly down the line of his platoon, joking, bantering. Kendall was sitting tensely by his radioman, Genoa, staring at the hills across the airstrip. He saw Bass checking his own gear, a sure sign that everyone else’s was ready.

  “OK, China,” Mellas said. “I’ll see if I can get the Jayhawk on it. You better have it fucking straight.” He picked up the handset of the radio. “I want to talk to character Hotel, the Three Zulu. This is Bravo Five. Over.”

  There was a long wait. The battalion operator came back up. “The Three says character Hotel is busy. Over.”

  “Did you ask Hotel if he was busy?” Mellas asked. “Over.”

  “Wait one.” There was another pause, shorter than the first.

  Then Major Blakely’s voice came over the hook. “Bravo Five, this is Big John Three. We’ve got a Bald Eagle alert and you better be getting that mob ready to fly. Over.”

  “Roger that. Bravo Five out.”

  Mellas looked at China. “I’m stuck,” he said.

  “Shit,” China said. He turned away, disgusted.

  “Look, China,” Mellas said. “Even if we can get Lieutenant Hawke to get Mallory out of the cargo box, you know he’s still in deep shit even if it wasn’t loaded.” Mellas knew that whoever he sent to find Hawke had to be trusted to come back for the launch. At the same time, it had to be someone China trusted.

  “China,” he said, “so help me if you don’t make it back in time for this launch, I’ll fuck with you so bad you’ll never have seen such fucking-with. Now get going.”

  China took off full tilt up the road. Goodwin and Ridlow came running to Mellas. “What in fuck’s going on?” Ridlow growled, looking at China’s disappearing backside.

  “Mallory pulled a forty-five on the battalion surgeon.”

  “I know that. Relsnik told us.”

  “The pistol wasn’t loaded. I sent China to tell Hawke to try and get him out of the cargo box.”

  “Cargo box? Fuck,” Ridlow said slowly. “That fucking nigger couldn’t break out of a cellophane bag.”

  “Who the fuck wants him sprung?” Goodwin asked.

  “Guess, Scar.”

  “Ah, shit,” Goodwin said. “China’s one of my best fucking gunners.”

  “He’ll be back.”

  “You want to lose some money on that?” Ridlow asked.

  “He’ll be back,” Mellas said. He looked down the road, wishing he could be certain. He saw Fitch and Pallack driving up in the jeep. It skidded to a stop and they both jumped out.

  “I just saw China shagging ass down the road,” Fitch said. “What the fuck’s going on? The company ready to go?”

  Mellas told him it was and explained what China was doing. “I believe him,” Mellas added. He looked at the cynical faces around him.

  Fitch hesitated a moment. He turned to Pallack. “Go pick up China and take him wherever he wants to go. And then get his ass back down here. We need fucking gunners.”

  Pallack jumped into the jeep and spun down the road, slinging mud and water behind him.

  Fracasso, Goodwin, and Kendall were already moving in on Mellas and Fitch, their notebooks out. Mellas pulled his own notebook out. His hands were sweating. Jesus Christ, please just make it another false alarm. Mellas felt as if he were on a conveyor belt that was slowly moving him toward the edge of a cliff.

  Fitch spread his map out on the ground. “Here,” he said, pointing to a spot circled in red. “A recon team, call sign Sweet Alice, is in contact right now with a company-size NVA unit. Scar, you patrolled this valley. You too, Mellas. What’s it like?”

  “Thick as shit, Jack.”

  Mellas nodded agreement. “Elephant grass and bamboo,” he added.

  Fitch licked his lips. “If we get the word to launch we’re going in hot, take them on their flank from the west. Right here.” His finger was almost on the red line of the circle. “We’ll have gunships but arty is probably out. Extreme range.”

  “We went in first last time,” Ridlow said.

  Fitch ignored him. “What do you think, Scar? Can we get a bird in?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We went in first last time,” Ridlow said again.

  “Shit, Ridlow, I know. I also know why fucki
ng platoon sergeants don’t usually attend the actuals meetings.”

  Ridlow smiled. “Just looking out for my men’s best interests.”

  People laughed and Fitch grinned.

  Mellas looked at the tableau of friends around him. Some of them would very likely be dead in an hour. Fracasso, who was barely old enough to drink, really showed his fear. He was writing everything he could in his notebook, bouncing up and down in a crouch, his teeth bared in a tense grin. Goodwin, the hunter, was nervous, like a runner before a race, possessing some primitive ability to lead men into situations where death was the understood payoff. Kendall, worried sick, his face pallid, his helmet already on his head, was leading a platoon that didn’t trust him. Fitch, at age twenty-three, had already worn responsibility that most men only debated about. He was now taking 190 kids into battle, and his decisions would determine how many came back. The kids: dreaming of R & R, or remembering the R & R from which they’d just returned, some savoring a memory of smooth brown skin pressed against their own, a few remembering wives left behind at antiseptic airports. And Mellas: in less than an hour there could be no Mellas.

  The radio crackled to life.

  “It’s a go, sir,” Relsnik said gravely.

  Everyone looked at everyone else.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The kids filed quietly to the edge of the strip to wait for the helicopters. Other Marines stopped to watch them, wanting to say an encouraging word yet not daring to break into their private world—a world no longer shared with ordinary people. Some of them were experiencing the last hour of that brief mystery called life.

  Pallack skidded the company jeep to a stop and he and China ran for their packs and weapons. They trotted heavily to where the company waited.

  China came up to Mellas, his machine gun on his shoulder. “Jayhawk said he’d do the best he could. If the pistol wasn’t loaded, he’d get him out.”

  Mellas really didn’t care. “Good,” he said. He was trying to figure out from which side they should come in on the gook company and whether or not they’d have any choice, not knowing the wind conditions.