Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War Read online

  The actuals assembled in the twilight outside First Lieutenant Fitch’s hooch. A light mist obscured the distinction between their shadowy silhouettes, further intensifying Mellas’s discomfort in not being able to remember their names.

  Mellas had barely spoken to the Third Platoon commander, Second Lieutenant Kendall, recently of the Fifteenth Motor Transportation Battalion. This was not by any choice of his own: there simply had been no time to talk. Kendall had sandy curly hair and wore yellow-tinted wraparound glasses that he kept touching as he talked. Mellas noted that he wore a simple gold wedding band.

  Second Lieutenant Goodwin, who had been with Mellas at the Basic School and had come in with him on the chopper, was jostling up against his platoon sergeant, Staff Sergeant Ridlow, muffling a guffaw about something. Goodwin was wearing a bush cover on his head. Mellas felt a small pang of envy. The first day Mellas and Goodwin had drawn their gear in Quang Tri, Goodwin had exchanged his stateside billed cap for the floppy camouflage bush cover and looked as if he’d worn it all his life. Mellas had put one on, too, stared at himself in the mirror, and, feeling he looked foolish, stuffed it in a seabag to take home as a souvenir if he made it back. Several days later, just moments after they had arrived at Matterhorn, Mellas again confronted his envy of Goodwin. It happened when the skipper, Lieutenant Fitch, crisply announced that Mellas would go with Sergeant Bass. Fitch added that Bass had done a hell of a job running the platoon in the interim between Hawke’s moving up to executive officer and Mellas’s arrival. Fitch then assigned Goodwin to Second Platoon with Staff Sergeant Ridlow, whom he described as competent but a little lax. Mellas knew instantly that Fitch thought Goodwin was the better officer because he’d given Goodwin the tougher assignment. Fitch hadn’t even asked about their Basic School records, where they went to college, or anything else. It seemed unfair.

  Mellas was brought back to the present when he noticed a pale ash-colored German shepherd with odd reddish ears that was lying in the mud panting, head up, and staring at him. The dog’s handler, a lean Marine with a large drooping mustache like that of an ancient Celtic warrior, was asleep next to the dog, a camouflage bush cover pulled over his eyes. Others in the CP group—the enlisted forward air controller, always called FAC-man; the senior squid, Sheller; and the enlisted artillery forward observer, Daniels—were sitting in a small group, eating C-rations, just close enough to hear what was going on in the actuals meeting but far enough away to not be part of it.

  “All right, let’s get going,” Hawke said. “The weather forecast is more of the same shit.” Hawke paused. “Again.” People laughed. “We still don’t know what the fuck Alpha and Charlie companies are doing in the bush, or when Delta and us are supposed to flip-flop with them. You’ve all probably got the word that Alpha did take four Coors.” Coors was radio code for dead. “Don’t know any names yet. Word is they got hit strung out in a river.” Hawke hurried on, paging through a pocket-size hard-covered green notebook. “No word on R & R quotas yet. Who’s got palace guard tomorrow? I nearly got drowned in the trash when the wind picked up this afternoon.”

  Kendall raised his hand.

  “OK, Kendall. Police it up. We’ll have rats if we don’t.” Hawke looked up at the sky, squinting against the drizzle. “Correction. More rats. It’s already Rat Alley up here.” He looked down at his notebook, sheltering it close against his damp sweatshirt. “I hear battalion wants to set up here once we get the cannon cockers in, so get everyone shaved and looking decent before they show up and start screaming.”

  Goodwin’s platoon sergeant, Ridlow, exploded. “If they’d fly in some fucking water maybe we’d be more likely to clean up.” His gravelly voice faded off into a mutter about how fucked up it was to always be short of water in a fucking monsoon, and how fucking fucked up the fucking country was. He spat at the ground and wiped a week’s growth of beard with the back of one large hand. His other hand rested on his hip next to his Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum revolver. The first thing Goodwin had done when they’d been introduced was ask to see it; they’d hit it off immediately.

  Hawke was looking at the sky, letting Ridlow get it out of his system. “Well,” he said, “since there’s no pertinent comments, I guess that’s about all I’ve got. Oh, yeah, get your needs lists in to Gunny Cassidy so when the birds do start bringing in the arty battery we can get some supplies. Gunny Cassidy?”

  “Nothing, sir,” Cassidy said. “Just you people give me your head count before you leave.”

  “Senior Squid?” Hawke asked.

  “Uh, no, sir. Just make sure the platoon corpsmen get their medical supply needs down on your lists so I can get the battalion aid station to put them on the chopper.”

  Bass snorted. “They do that automatically.”

  Sheller looked at Bass and pressed his lips together tightly. In the moment of hesitation Hawke cut in. “OK, any bitches, gripes, grievances, needs, or solicitations before the skipper goes?”

  “Mallory wants to request mast again,” Bass said. “Says he’s got a headache that won’t go away and the squids are fucking with him by keeping him in the bush.”

  “If the puke didn’t play that goddamned jungle music so loud he wouldn’t have a sore head,” Cassidy muttered.

  “That’s Jackson with the music,” Bass said. “From my herd. He’s a good Marine.” Cassidy looked steadily at Bass, and Bass looked steadily back at Cassidy. Cassidy said nothing more but gave an almost imperceptible nod that said, If you say it’s so, Sergeant Bass, then it’s so. Mellas, his antennae up, knew instantly that these two men were cut from the same green cloth.

  “Maybe we ought to just do Mallory a favor and break his head all the way for him,” Ridlow muttered. He looked quickly at his platoon commander, Goodwin, and then broke into a cackle. The other sergeants and Goodwin did as well. Mellas smiled, although he didn’t like the overtones.

  Fitch sighed, realizing he’d have to deal with it. “I’ll talk to Mallory,” he said. “But you warn him, Mellas, that he’d better have a good story.”

  “Mallory’s already up for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction with his last story,” Hawke said. Hawke looked around. “Anything else?” No one said anything. He turned to Goodwin. “Try and keep your machine gunner, China, busy. OK? The less visiting time he has the better.”

  Cassidy snorted. “They want to see black power? Tell them to look down the black barrel of my fucking Smith & Wesson Model 29.” Ridlow cackled again.

  Hawke looked wearily at Cassidy and Ridlow. “China may be a dumb kid, but I’d take him seriously.” Ridlow glanced sideways at Goodwin, then over to Cassidy. No one said anything. “It’s all yours, Skipper,” Hawke said.

  “Right.” Fitch’s head came up. He’d been sitting on a log, dangling his feet. His small, handsome face looked tired. “Big John Six went bugfuck over the radio again about the gook machine gun.” Big John Six was Lieutenant Colonel Simpson, the battalion commander and Fitch’s boss. He’d promised his own boss, Colonel Mulvaney, the regimental commander, that Mulvaney could move a howitzer battery to a secure zone. Losing the supply chopper after he said the zone was safe was embarrassing enough, but he’d then promised he’d fix the problem pronto and it was now two full days after the promised date and the zone was still not secure.

  “What’s he going to do?” Ridlow boomed out. “Cut your hair off and send you to Vietnam?”

  Fitch laughed politely at the standard retort, looking down at his swinging feet. “I suppose he could banish me to Okinawa.” Okinawa was universally known as the worst possible place to get for R & R. Relations with the Japanese had gotten so tense that the brass had forbidden nearly every activity for which anyone went on R & R. When the laughter died down, Fitch pointed into the fog that swirled over the trees to the southwest and said, referring to the enemy, “I think Nagoolian is going to head over to that ridgeline tomorrow. He used it on the first day, and he’s never used the northwest one, so he probably figures we’ll be looking on the northwest one for him. Bass, you were down there. What’s that southwest finger look like?”

  “It’
s like the rest of the fucking place. Took us three hours to make eight hundred meters. Had to use machetes to get through. Pretty goddamn hard to sneak up on someone like that.”

  “That’s why he’ll be there. Mellas, send a baseball team over the top of the ridge and look around. If you don’t find them, at least it’ll move them out away from the main approach path.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper.” Mellas was jotting down notes in his own green notebook and mentally reviewing the current company radio code, which was often used for direct conversation. A baseball team was a squad of twelve men, a basketball team was a fire team of four men, a football team a platoon of forty-three men. “Can I get some maps for my squad leaders?”

  Everyone burst into laughter. Mellas reddened.

  “Mellas,” Hawke said, “it’d be easier for you to date Brigitte Bardot than to get any more maps than we’ve got. You don’t want to know what I had to trade for the one you’ve got, and I don’t want to have to say it in front of the skipper.”

  “It’s true,” Fitch added. “Maps are in short supply. Sorry. Just another inch of the green dildo.” He quickly went on. “Goodwin?”

  “Yeah, Jack?” Mellas winced at Goodwin’s casualness in addressing the company commander as Jack, especially since that wasn’t his name. If Fitch noticed, he didn’t let on.

  “I want one of your baseball teams out on the south finger, then work up the draw between there and the east ridge. I want you to check out the crashed bird on Helicopter Hill on the way back. See if Nagoolian’s been nosing around. You other two platoon commanders send your red dogs out wherever you want,” he said, using the radio brevity code for any squad-size patrol.

  Fredrickson broke in on the circle, breathing hard. “He’s starting to scream. Lindsey’s got a shirt stuffed in his mouth. It’ll be too loud to keep down in a few minutes. We’re going to have to cut.”

  Mellas looked at Fitch and then over at Sheller, whose throat was working underneath his double chin. Sheller rubbed his hands together as if to warm them. Fitch was looking at him, hard, his lower lip over his upper.

  “It’s got to be done, Jim,” Hawke said quietly.

  Fitch nodded, still looking at the senior squid. “How do you feel, Sheller?” Mellas was surprised to hear the senior squid called by his name.

  “I don’t have a catheter, Skipper, and trying to ram something up the urethra to clean out the leech would just make a mess of it. The only thing I can think to do is cut into the penis from the bottom side. Two cuts. You can see where his urethra’s swollen right up to the leech. Cut one is just up from there on the bladder side to relieve the pressure. I’d try to keep it small. Stick in a piece of IV tubing to keep the cut open and keep him drained until we get him out of here.” Sheller fished into his pockets and brought out a freshly cut piece of tubing. “I’ll need to sterilize it and have some floor space to work on, sir. I can grease it with bacitracin to help it slide into the cut.”

  “That’s only one cut,” Fitch said.

  “Yeah. OK.” Sheller swallowed. “Cut two. I’d cut into the leech to bleed it and kill it. We don’t want it moving upstream.” He looked at the silent group, realizing it was all on him. “I’ll use Fredrickson. It’ll make Fisher feel better if it’s a squid he’s used to.”

  Hawke looked grimly satisfied. Bass kept looking at Sheller and then back to the skipper with no emotion on his face.

  “OK, Squid. Go ahead on it.” Fitch spoke crisply with no hint of doubt. He turned to Hawke. “Ted, go up and tell those guys to move Fisher down here.”

  Sheller moved off and crawled into the CP hooch without saying anything. He started to clear it out. The others, except Mellas, Hawke, Fitch, and Cassidy, returned to their positions.

  The entire hill was quiet, on the 100 percent alert that happened every dusk and dawn. Mellas watched Fredrickson and Lindsey talking to Fisher as they began to move him off the landing zone on a stretcher made by wrapping a poncho between two tree limbs. Fisher suddenly cried out and Lindsey cursed quietly. Hawke, who was walking alongside the stretcher, quickly stifled Fisher’s cry by placing his hand over his mouth. Mellas walked beside them, figuring it was better to say nothing.

  When they reached the CP they pulled Fisher inside the small hooch. Sheller was laying out his kit and lighting candles. Fredrickson removed Fisher’s filthy trousers and folded them carefully. Outside the hooch the two radio operators huddled next to their equipment while Fitch tried to make the entrance lightproof. Hawke and Cassidy sat on the ground, quietly talking.

  Inside, Doc Fredrickson looked at Sheller, whose chin was trembling slightly underneath the fat. Fisher was writhing in pain and trying not to scream. Fredrickson crawled behind Fisher, putting his knees on each side of Fisher’s head. He then leaned over and put his hands and full weight on Fisher’s shoulders. The candles flickered in the draft, casting shadows across the draped ponchos.

  “It’s going to be OK, Fisher,” Fredrickson whispered, bending close to Fisher’s face. “It’s going to be OK.”

  “Oh, fuck, Doc, stop it. Stop it from hurting.”

  “It’s going to be OK.”

  Fredrickson was looking intensely at Sheller, willing him to do it. The senior squid finished lubricating the IV tube, switched it to his left hand, and looked back at Fredrickson across Fisher’s body. He picked up a small knife in his right hand and, using his elbows, he spread Fisher’s legs and crawled between them. He looked up at Fredrickson again. With anguish on his face he silently mouthed, “I don’t know if I’m right.”

  Fredrickson nodded his head in encouragement. “Do it,” he mouthed silently. “Do it.”

  Fisher started moaning again, arching his back, trying to get his bladder and kidneys off the floor. The senior squid put the knife in the candle flame. Then he poured alcohol on it. There was a slight hiss and the alcohol smell filled the hooch. He lifted Fisher’s penis back, pushing it firmly against his stomach. Even that pressure made Fisher scream.

  Fredrickson leaned his whole body over Fisher’s face, muzzling him, pressing down on his shoulders and upper arms.

  Sheller pushed the blade into Fisher’s penis. Fisher screamed and Fredrickson put all of his weight on him to keep him from rolling. Blood and urine streamed over the knife blade, the initial burst spraying Sheller’s hands and chest. Then Sheller pushed the makeshift catheter up the smooth side of the knife into the incision and quickly slipped the blade out. Urine coursed out of the catheter, flowing over Fisher’s hips and crotch, filling the tent with its hot smell, running onto the mud, soaking the nylon poncho liners under Fisher’s body.

  “Goddamn. Goddamn. Oh, goddamn,” Fisher cried, but each “goddamn” lessened in intensity with the lessening force of the coursing urine, until all that could be heard was Fisher’s ragged panting and the deep breathing of Fredrickson and Sheller.

  Fisher broke the silence. “What would I say if this was a movie?”

  Fredrickson shook his head back and forth and snorted a laugh. “Shit, Fisher,” he said. Sheller, still breathing hard, merely nodded at Fisher.

  Fisher winced and took in a shaky breath. He held it, then let it out all at once and turned his head to the side, looking at the floor of the hooch. “Kind of a mess.”

  Sheller nodded. “Yeah. Kind of a mess,” he said. He was covered in blood and urine. He flicked a glance at Fredrickson, who nodded very slightly. Then Fredrickson suddenly bore down on Fisher with his full weight. Senior Squid took Fisher by surprise and quickly punctured his penis again, this time to pierce the leech and kill it.

  Fisher bucked his hips upward, screaming. “Jesus Christ, Squid. What the fuck?” Fredrickson kept his full body weight on him, trying to keep him still.

  “Sorry,” Sheller said. Blood from the swollen leech was running along the flat of the knife. He pulled it out and took a deep breath. Dark blood oozed from the second cut, mixing with the redder blood and urine from the first.

  Sheller sat back on his haunches, his knees under him.

  “You fucking done?” Fisher asked.

  Sheller nodded
yes.

  The small hooch, filled with the three young men, the light from the candles, and the warm smell of urine, was quiet.

  From outside they could hear FAC-man, the forward air controller, shouting. “Get him up to the LZ. The bird’s coming in.”

  “Now what?” Fisher asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sheller answered. “They get you to Charlie Med. The usual repair work. Infection’s the main problem around here. We don’t know what got carried in by the leech or on the knife for that matter.”

  “No, I mean . . .” Fisher hesitated. “You know, later. Back home.”

  FAC-man poked his head through the ponchos. “I’ve got the fucking chopper. Get him up on the LZ. What the fuck you waiting for?” He ran off into the dark with his radio on his back, talking to the pilot.

  Sheller rolled out of the way as Fitch and Hawke came through the opening of the hooch and grabbed the stretcher. He didn’t answer Fisher, using the interruption as an excuse. What would scar tissue do? Infection? Had he cut tubes he didn’t even know about? He honestly didn’t know what would happen and was fully aware he might have doomed Fisher to be not only childless, but impotent.