Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War Read online

  “I don’t give a fuck about their barrels. You call in the goddamn mission.”

  Everyone was throwing dirt, cursing, scratching at the earth. Again there were six explosions. Someone screamed.

  Mellas dug. At the same time he was timing the pattern. He figured at least two mortars firing three rounds, or maybe even three firing two. With barely enough dug out to get his body in lengthwise, he pushed his face into the soil, feeling naked and exposed.

  “Here come the birds!”

  Two Huey medevac slicks came shooting in over their heads from the south. FAC-man popped a green smoke grenade and was moving with his radio on his back, talking to the lead bird as it swung up away from the ground and made a looping turn to come back into the zone. Off to the north, muffled by the distance, they could hear the deepthroated roar of machine gun fire from one of the two gunships that Fitch had sent over toward Matterhorn.

  The big lieutenant ran, limping, across the landing zone. The lead chopper hit the earth hard. Marines loaded the wounded. The lieutenant waited for the second chopper, helped more of the wounded aboard, threw the dead body inside, and climbed on the skids. The chopper was just getting airborne, its nose tipped down as it gained forward speed, when six more mortar rounds hit. The explosions hid the chopper from view. Then it cleared the smoke at the far end of the zone and lifted into the air.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Fitch said. “Goddamn it, Daniels, get us some fucking smoke.” Daniels already knew that he couldn’t effectively counter the mortars. His only hope was to lay a smoke screen between the company and the ridgeline to the north. The shells, however, weren’t striking where he’d called for them. With Eiger abandoned, he was forced to use the 8-inch howitzers on Sherpa, but they were at the edge of their range. At that distance the shells were subject to winds and temperature differentials he could only guess at. He hoped that where they did land would be good enough. He looked uneasily at the clouds hiding the tops of the ridges.

  Bravo Company split into three columns and moved into the protection of the jungle. A final NVA mortar shell found the tail of Kendall’s platoon before they reached the cover of the trees, and two more Marines were wounded, but these weren’t emergency medevacs and could be carried. The company had medevaced six kids, none of whom had died, and had rescued Sweet Alice, the reconnaissance team. If they got their other two wounded out by morning they’d have lost no one. They all felt proud. Drained, yet oddly content, they dug in, feeling protected by the thick jungle. In the morning they would be skying out, mission accomplished.

  Colonel Simpson, too, felt proud and flushed with success. “I knew the little bastards were there,” he kept crowing. He and Blakely had just returned to the combat operations center from the regimental briefings, where congratulations had been warm and plentiful. He reached for the hook, calling Bravo Company once again.

  Hawke heard Relsnik’s voice over the squawk box that enabled everyone in the COC to hear the conversation. Hawke imagined Fitch’s eyes rolling. It was at least the fifth time since the fight that the colonel had wanted to talk with Fitch.

  Hawke continued plotting air observer and sensor sightings. He didn’t like the look of them. Too much activity, right where the colonel wanted it, right where Bravo Company was.

  Simpson asked, “You say you can see them? Over.”

  “We sent our Foxtrot Oscar up a tree to call in fire and he says they’re digging in on Helicopter Hill. Matterhorn’s covered with clouds. We can’t see anything on it.” There was a slight pause filled with background static. “Sweet Alice told me they’re probably well entrenched on Matterhorn in our old bunkers. Over.”

  Hawke looked to see if Blakely and Simpson had any reaction to Fitch’s statement. They didn’t show one.

  “They’ve split their forces.” Simpson turned excitedly to Blakely. “I think we ought to exploit the situation.”

  Blakely picked up the hook. “Bravo Six, this is Big John Three. What do you estimate the enemy size at? Over.”

  “Like I said, the Oscar type from Sweet Alice told me he thinks maybe a company. We can only see maybe fifty or so on Helicopter Hill, but there’s got to be at least twice that on Matterhorn just to cover the perimeter. Besides, the mortar rounds come in sixes. Over.”

  “How many do you see, Bravo Six?” Blakely replied. “Not how many do you guess. Over.”

  “Fifty,” was Fitch’s terse reply. The handset keyed off and then on again. Fitch’s voice was controlled and without intonation. “Sir, one of my O types did a lot of patrolling down here and he says we’ve got a good Lima Zulu at—from Comiskey Park—up two-point-two, left one-point-seven.” Fitch was telling them the location of a landing zone using the radio brevity code for the day. “We can hump over there, it’s below the cloud layer, and get out without exposing the wingies to a lot of mortar fire from Matterhorn or Helicopter Hill. Over.”

  “Wait one, Bravo Six.” Blakely turned to Simpson. “You say anything about lifting them out, sir?”

  “Fuck, no. Not with the gooks with their tails between their legs and me with three companies ready to kick ass.”

  Hawke stopped putting marks on the map.

  “Bravo Six, this is Big John Three. Hold off awhile. I want you to wait at your present pos until you receive a frag order from us. You copy? Over.”

  “Roger, copy, Big John Three. Bravo Six out.”

  Blakely walked briskly over to the map. Simpson followed him. They stood looking at it, aware that everyone’s eyes were on them.

  “We’ve got a known platoon-size unit, maybe more,” Blakely said. “A fresh company of Marines who know the enemy territory like the back of their hands. And damn near a battalion in reserve.”

  “I knew the bastards were there,” Simpson said. “No one would listen to me. I’m ordering Bravo Company into the assault. I’ll go confirm with Mulvaney right now. I bet he’s just eating boiled crow.” Simpson laughed, high on excitement and success.

  Blakely could see that this was an opportunity. He knew they had only a little time before the enemy consolidated on the two hills, but he also knew Fitch couldn’t leave his wounded behind without protection and this would weaken his assaulting force. If there was a company up there, as Fitch suspected, attacking it would be foolish. They had no surprise, no local superiority, and no real firepower, with all the artillery batteries pulled back because of the Cam Lo operation. It would take time to shift a couple of batteries back out that way, but that would of course leave the other battalions with less support, and that wouldn’t be done unless Mulvaney agreed.

  On the other hand, it was the first time in a couple of months they actually knew where a sizable unit was. If he could keep Simpson under control, they might be able to do some real damage. Meanwhile, they had to keep Nagoolian fixed. And they would have to commit the battalion, for which they needed Mulvaney’s OK. That wouldn’t be easy. Mulvaney had been criticized before about getting too aggressive, and his bitching about the Cam Lo operation hadn’t scored him any points with the brass.

  But people also got criticized for not being aggressive enough, and that was far worse. The log would show a unit of fifty on Helicopter Hill. Blakely had learned that younger officers tended to overestimate the size of the enemy force they were facing, so maybe there were thirty gooks up there. But the enemy was digging in, probably with machine guns, and certainly had mortars. Thirty on Helicopter Hill meant at least seventy or eighty on Matterhorn. Still, with air support, a fresh company of Marines could easily take them. A vague thought about the difficulty of fixed wing support with monsoon clouds surfaced in his mind but was quickly repressed by the thought that helicopter gunships could get in there. They’d done it earlier today, after all.

  Obviously they didn’t need the fucking hill. They’d abandoned it themselves. But Blakely knew that the fight was no longer about terrain; it was about attrition. Body count. That was the job, and he’d do it. If there was a company up there, a battalion couldn’t be too far away. And if he could fix that battalion in place using
the battalion’s three remaining rifle companies and any others that Mulvaney could spare, they’d have a field day. They could bring in the B-52s from Guam, flying well above the monsoon clouds, and cream the little bastards whether they could see them or not. There would finally be something tangible to report instead of these infuriating dribbles of kills and casualties they’d been turning in for weeks.

  Blakely began calculating lift capacities and artillery positions. They were too far inland for naval support, even from the New Jersey and its big sixteen-inchers. It would take time to move the artillery to compensate for the inconsistent air support, but they could do it. That meant they had to get Nagoolian to stick while they shifted artillery around—if he could get Mulvaney to go along with it.

  He came back to the present at the COC, aware that Simpson was ready to act, but that was about all. “Sir, before we see Mulvaney, maybe we’d better have a sketch of a plan worked out,” Blakely said. “This could involve a lot more than just the battalion, you know, if your hunches about the gooks prove correct.”

  “Yes, by God, you’re right.”

  The two of them walked out of the COC and over to Simpson’s tent. Simpson reached for a bottle of Wild Turkey and poured himself a shot. “This could develop into something really big,” he said, smiling, trying to hide his nervousness. He got a glass out for Blakely, but Blakely refused. Simpson suddenly felt embarrassed. He hadn’t really been thinking about the booze; it was just a natural thing to offer someone a drink. Now he didn’t know whether or not to drink the shot he’d poured. God, he couldn’t be drinking—not when a company had recently been in contact with the enemy and was maybe about to go into the assault. He put the bottle away, looked at the shot glass sitting on his table, ignored it, and walked over to the map. “We’ll have to move some artillery batteries if we’ve got a sizable force there,” he said, trying to regain his command of the situation. He felt like a fool.

  “Sir,” Blakely said, “what do you think the chances are of Mulvaney letting you commit the battalion to retake Matterhorn?”

  “What do you mean? You mean he might turn us down?”

  “Not if we do it right.” Blakely walked over to Simpson’s map. “Look, sir, Matterhorn is at the ultimate limits of our artillery protection, as you just pointed out, but it’s well within range of the gooks out of Co Roc or anywhere else inside Laos. But we can’t attack their artillery without political OK.”

  “That’s no problem,” Simpson said. “We’ll get it. We’ll be suppressing fire to help one of our units on this side of the border.”

  “It’s not the approval that’s the problem, sir,” Blakely said. “It’s the process. To get approval we’ll have to submit all our reasons why we want it, before we need it.” He paused. “Or we’ll have to have some good reason for needing it when we want it.”

  Simpson reached for the shot glass and tossed down the whiskey. This fucking political bullshit, he thought. Goddamn, did it fuck things up. He wasn’t exactly sure what Blakely had just said, but he was certain he didn’t want to submit a plan to division that involved moving artillery batteries that would be firing into Laos. The recon team was already rescued, and its leader just thought there was a company around. That wasn’t good enough. It would look stupid and it wouldn’t go. Goddamn these fucking politicians. He knew the fucking gooks were right where he’d always figured. Now he couldn’t do anything about it. He slammed the empty shot glass down on the plywood. “Fuck!” he said. “We’ll have to just fly ’em back home, won’t we?” He looked at Blakely but saw no dismay or anger. “Or don’t you think so?” he asked, looking at his operations officer through narrowed eyes.

  “Like I said, sir, a reason for needing it when we want it.”

  “Go on.”

  “Mulvaney’s an old grunt. Nothing but an overweight platoon commander with birds on his shoulders. He’d leap at a chance to get in there and kick ass if he had any excuse at all. But he’s not about to take any major plan in to division. You know the scuttlebutt as well as I do. He’s none too popular up there. On the other hand, our job is to kill gooks. If we let an opportunity like this go by, we could look pretty chickenshit. You’ve got complete tactical control. You don’t need to talk to anyone to do something that doesn’t commit other forces you don’t control or screw up your current mission. Your log shows fifty gooks. You’ve got a fresh company, and you know Fitch is probably overestimating the number anyway. It’s more like twenty-five or thirty. On the record you’ve got a three-to-one superiority, and probably a five-to-one. We’ve got all we need to take them. If we find out there are more and we already have a company in action? Then you’ve got a story you can take to Mulvaney.”

  Simpson was pacing back and forth, nodding nervously as he listened to Blakely. “Yes, goddamn it, I see,” he kept saying.

  “I say we commit Bravo now, a perfect exploitation of the success you had this afternoon. If we’ve got gooks up there, like you’ve been telling everyone, then we’ll find out for sure when Bravo hits Helicopter Hill. If things get too tight, we’ll just walk them back to that LZ Fitch told us about and yank them out.”

  Simpson stopped pacing and looked at the map.

  “If we wait around,” Blakely went on, “we’ll end up watching Nagoolian fade across the border. You’ll never prove your case. Commit Bravo and prove your point. Then Mulvaney’s got to let you commit the rest of the battalion to support them. Once Bravo’s engaged, it’ll be just what Mulvaney needs to get his ass off the dime: a bunch of grunts fighting like hell and a bunch of grunts waiting to wade in and help them. Otherwise he’s liable to back off, worry about patrolling his fucking firebases. He’s still in Korea taking hills. It’s attrition that counts in this war. Turf doesn’t mean jack shit.”

  Simpson felt the nervous chill that men feel when faced with decisions that they know can bring the fulfillment, or the ruin, of their dreams and ambitions. He paced back and forth. He kept looking at the map. He wanted a drink but knew he couldn’t take one in front of Blakely.

  “Sir, the sensor reports confirm what you’ve suspected all along as well. Your case is airtight.”

  “Goddamn it, Blakely, let me think.”

  Blakely kept silent.

  After about three minutes Simpson leaned over, his knuckles on the plywood table, and looked up at Blakely. “All right, by God, we’ll do it.” His eyes were shining with excitement. Then he reached for the glass.

  After making the decision to attack, Blakely and Simpson both grew concerned that sending Bravo in right away might be too hasty. It would require a platoon to move the wounded to a safe LZ. This could entail an assault with only two platoons, which would look bad if it failed. They could, of course, take the risk of guarding the wounded with only a squad, but if the squad was overwhelmed, and they had evidence from Sweet Alice that a company was in the area, that would be even harder to explain. If they tried to medevac the wounded they risked losing a chopper, and that wouldn’t look good either. They both knew that bold moves might have been all right for Stonewall Jackson or George Patton, but this was a different kind of war. They played safe.

  The first frag order told Fitch to send a platoon to the LZ with the wounded. Fitch sent Mellas off with Fracasso, who was jumpy after having gone into a hot zone on his first day of command. Mellas humped along in the rear with Bass, shooting the shit, happy to be back with his old platoon. He watched with satisfaction as Fracasso led the platoon to the LZ, accomplished the medevacs, and guided the platoon back by a different route to link up with the rest of the company, now in position closer to the ridge. There, Fitch had set the company in on a small rise of ground, fifty meters inside the protective cover of the jungle. The jungle edged a broad patch of elephant grass on the valley floor immediately below the approaches to Matterhorn.

  This all took until nightfall, giving the NVA plenty of time to dig in on Helicopter Hill.

  The second frag order came at twilight. Long before Relsnik finished decoding the order it was apparent that an assault was being ordered.

  Goodwin saun
tered up to the CP group. He was eating a can of spaghetti and meatballs mixed with a package of Wyler’s lemonade powder. “What’s up, Jack?” he asked Fitch.

  “We’re going to take the hill at first light.”

  “Matterhorn?”

  “No. Helicopter Hill.”

  Goodwin whistled. “Just like in the movies,” he said.

  “Let’s hope so,” Fitch replied, spreading his map.

  Looking at Matterhorn and Helicopter Hill as an attacker, Mellas wondered how he could have been so frightened when he was defending it. Steep fingers led up to the top, divided by deep, heavily jungled gullies. To stay in contact as they advanced, they would have to move in single file. But to move the entire company single file would take hours, exposing them to mortar attack and a possible flanking movement. To attack from the west, north, or south exposed them to automatic weapons fire from the bunkers on Matterhorn. To attack from the east would mean channeling their attack into a narrow front, perfect for defensive machine-gun fire and mortars. Then there was the support problem. They’d have to rely on air.