Matterhorn Read online

  The kids lay on the ground, rifles in front of them, sweating, some taking nervous sips of water and Kool-Aid from their canteens. The artillery stopped. They heard the rest of Delta Company coming in on choppers, which were met with only desultory rifle fire. Still, Mellas felt frightened. He watched the hill anxiously. The artillery had been useless against the fortified positions. Nice work on those bunkers, he thought ruefully. Now it all depended on whether or not fixed wing could take them out with napalm and 250-pound or maybe even 500-pound bombs.

  They waited. Nothing happened. Mellas’s fear overcame him, and he reached for the hook. “Bravo Six, this is Bravo Five. Where’s the fucking fixed wing with the snake and nape? Over.”

  “It’s supposed to be on its way. They’re having trouble with the weather. Can’t see the fucking hill and going too fast to risk coming in lower.”

  “Fuck,” Jackson whispered.

  Mellas radioed Hamilton, who had continued westward to position his squad to stop any NVA reinforcements or to kill any NVA retreating from Matterhorn. The going was terribly slow. “Get your asses moving,” Mellas said fiercely.

  Hamilton rogered.

  Mellas lay in close to Jacobs and Jackson. They waited. Mellas wanted to shit again. His bowels felt like they were full of wet tissue paper.

  Jackson felt the radio pressing his chest into the earth. This made it uncomfortable to breathe, but at the same time he felt good to be pressed so close to the ground. A strange insect walked in front of his nose. It occurred to Jackson that in the insect’s world the events of the day would go unnoticed. His mind flipped back to the world, to his family, to his neighborhood in Cleveland. Bringing lunch to his dad at Moe’s Tire and Retread. His mother laughing with the customers as she styled their hair at Billie’s Cut and Perm. Like the insect, they too lived in a separate world.

  Mellas checked on Hamilton again. He was still several hundred meters from his destination. This irritated Mellas, and he let Hamilton know it. He checked in with Fitch. “Goddamn it, where’s our fucking airplanes?”

  “I don’t know, Five. Out,” Fitch said curtly.

  Mellas crawled backward. Jackson followed him. They moved in a slow crouch behind the long line of Marines. “We’re waiting for snake and nape,” Mellas would say, touching kids on their shoulders. “We’re waiting for the fixed wing. They’re going to napalm the shit out of the hill with snake-eye bombs.” The kids grew less jittery.

  He and Jackson reached Cortell. Cortell looked up at Mellas. “I’m crazy, Lieutenant. I’m a crazy cotton-pickin’ idiot.”

  “I think so, too,” Rider said, grinning.

  “Hey, man,” Cortell replied, “I do the thinkin’ ’round here. I think you bein’ squad leader went to you head.”

  Rider smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

  Jackson knelt beside Cortell and the two of them touched fists in the hand dance, looking at each other solemnly.

  “Hey, brother, we in a real nightmare,” Jackson finally said.

  “You just trust in Jesus,” Cortell said. They both knew these might be the last words they would exchange. “But keep you fuckin’ rifle out of the mud, too.” They touched hands again and Jackson turned to follow Mellas down the line.

  Mellas and Jackson returned to their original spot next to Jacobs. The hill was deadly quiet. No air stirred. The thinning artillery smoke tinted the blasted mud gray.

  Jacobs opened a packet of Choo-Choo Cherry, poured the dark red crystals into his hand, and popped them into his mouth. His hand ran red where the sweat on his palm dissolved the crystals. He handed the package to Jackson, who also took some. Jackson’s lips turned reddish purple.

  The radio hissed. “Foxtrot Whiskey coming in. Get your fucking heads down. Over.” The word passed along the line. Then a rushing scream filled their ears and the huge bulk of a Phantom fighter-bomber slashed so closely above their heads that they felt the wake turbulence. It disappeared across the top of the hill. As this sound died away, it was replaced by the chatter of a lone automatic weapon.

  “How come they didn’t drop nothing?” Jake asked. He had taken out his Instamatic camera.

  Mellas shrugged.

  A second jet came in above them. Snake-eye bombs—four tiny eggs, dark against the gray sky—popped out of its belly. The bombs suddenly blossomed four-petaled tails that arrested their rapid movement, allowing the jet to roar safely out of danger before they hit.

  The bombs exploded harmlessly on the other side of the hill. Mellas was on the radio instantly. “Those stupid motherfuckers are bombing the wrong place. Tell them to drop five hundred. Over.”

  “I hear you, Bravo Five,” Fitch replied. “We’re telling. Out.”

  Another Phantom thundered overhead. Mellas watched in disbelief as four more snake-eyes floated harmlessly out of sight.

  “Goddamn it, Skipper, they’re missing the fucking hill!” Mellas shouted.

  Goodwin was on the radio, too. “Please, for God’s sake, please tell them they’re hitting the wrong target. If they don’t hit those bunkers we’re going to get creamed. Over.”

  Mellas sank back into the ground. Again the jets passed overhead, with a shattering noise. Again they wasted their precious cargo on the jungle.

  Jake turned around and looked at Mellas, his eyes wild with frustration and fear.

  “What the fuck can I do?” Mellas nearly shouted at him.

  Fitch was pleading with Captain Bainford’s radio operator. Bainford eventually came up on the hook. “I tell you one of the pilots reported a secondary. Over.”

  “I don’t care if he reported hitting the Glorious Revolution Ammunition Factory, you’re missing the fucking target. Over.”

  “Look, Bravo Six, you have to try and see things from their perspective. They’re going five hundred miles an hour and it’s foggy. It’s a hell of a job. Over.”

  “You get them on fucking target or I’ll open up on them, so help me God. Over.”

  “We’ll see what we can do. Big John One Four out.”

  A single jet came in, only a few hundred feet above them. Two long sausage-shaped cylinders tumbled out. These were the napalm.

  The cylinders fell out of sight, moving at 500 miles an hour across the top of the hill, uselessly searing the jungle with the flaming jellied chemical. A second jet followed. One of its canisters caught the top of the hill just inside the circle of bunkers. Orange flame mixed with intense black smoke washed across the dark earth of Matterhorn’s LZ. But there was nothing to burn there.

  Mellas grabbed the hook. He switched off the company frequency. He came up on the battalion frequency and started shouting. “Goddamn it, you tell those stupid motherfuckers to drop two hundred meters. I say again. Drop two hundred meters!”

  “Bravo Five, this is Big John Three. You clear the fucking nets. We’re controlling the fixed wing. They said the last drop looked right on. Now get off the net. That’s an order.”

  “Goddamn it, I tell you they can’t fucking see. I’m right here! They’re hitting the wrong fucking target!” Mellas rolled over and moaned.

  The two planes came in again, and again the napalm sprayed uselessly several hundred meters to the northwest of the hill. Then they didn’t come in any more.

  Fitch’s crisp voice came in over the company net. “That’s it. The weather’s closed them out. We had another flight on station, but Big John says they won’t be able to run them. It’s too dangerous in this weather.”

  There was a pause.

  “Too dangerous,” Mellas said to no one.

  Fitch came up again. “OK, that’s it. No more air. Show’s over. Let’s go. Over.”

  “Bravo One, roger,” Mellas said, handing the receiver to Jackson. Goodwin rogered and so did Hawke.

  And then Mellas stood up.

  His hands were shaking. The blood pounded so hard in his throat that each heartbeat hurt. His thighs felt too weak to keep his knees from folding. His empty insides still churned with the desire to eliminate watery feces. He gave the signal and walked forward into the nakedness of the hillside. The others walke
d with him, emerging from the trees in a single quavery line.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The long line of Marines moved forward in silence, breaking and bending on the blasted ground, wavering around shattered stumps, forming up again. Their breathing became labored as they climbed the steep slope.

  “Keep walking,” Mellas was saying to himself. “Don’t run. Keep walking.”

  Twenty meters. He glanced over his shoulder to see if there were any stragglers. The jungle behind the Marines already looked, as usual, impenetrable. Twenty-five meters. A kid stumbled momentarily, pitching forward. He caught himself. The line moved upward. Twenty-eight meters. Maybe no one was up there. Thirty meters. Only the sound of breathing could be heard as they walked up the hill.

  The bunkers seemed miles above them.

  Mellas slipped backward on the slope but caught himself. He was still thinking: Keep walking. Don’t panic. Maybe no one’s there. Don’t run. Keep it all until you need it. Maybe no one’s there.

  The tension was like a balloon being filled to its bursting point. With every step more air was forced in. Until the agonized rubber burst.

  The bunkers winked light, and the ground around the Marines seemed to come alive. The air was split by bullets and by the sound of AK-47s, SKS rifles, and Russian-built RPD 7.62 machine guns. Almost immediately, Fitch gave the signal for Delta Company on Helicopoter Hill to open up. There was a mind-numbing roar as Delta poured bullets above the heads of the advancing Marines of Bravo Company. Mellas heard the bullets cracking and snapping over his head and watched them hit all along the line of bunkers. Adrenaline surged through him. Then he became aware of the cries of those who were being hit.

  Mellas tried to shout above the roar: “Let’s go, goddamn it. Let’s go!” He churned forward, Jackson scrambling to his left. A rush of machine-gun bullets hit the mud in front of them, and they both dived for the earth and clawed their way to a log. Out of the corner of his eye Mellas saw Robertson dive for cover in a shell crater. One of Robertson’s squad members, however, was left kicking on the earth behind him. Another Marine grabbed the kid’s legs and started to pull him to safety, but the advancing machine-gun bullets cut the second kid down. He curled over in a fetal position, holding his abdomen. Then he lay still.

  Mellas raised his head above the log to start forward. Bullets kicked mud and rock fragments into his face and cracked and snapped over his head. Mellas pushed his face into the ground. It was suicidal to go farther.

  The attack, barely started, came to a complete halt.

  Another of the new kids from Robertson’s squad darted from cover and tried to reach the two others lying in front of him. He was shot through the chest. Jacobs raced out after him, and Mellas yelled for a corpsman. Doc Fredrickson came running across an open space and dived behind the shelter of the log while Jacobs brought the kid back in behind it. The entire sequence took approximately five seconds. The kid Jacobs had pulled in was dead.

  There were now four of them and a body huddled behind the log. Mellas was mumbling and praying aloud, although no one could hear him: his face was pressed into the ground. Why, God, why didn’t they drop the napalm? Why didn’t they hold off until the weather cleared and just burn the fucking hill down? Why are we doing this now? Why doesn’t somebody move?

  The air was alive with noise, bullets, and madness. They had now lain behind the log for more than thirty seconds.

  Jermain came running across to the group behind the log. Bullets ripped past him. “There’s no fucking room for you, Jermain,” Mellas shouted, but Jermain ignored him and kept coming. Jermain piled on top of Mellas and Jackson, knocking the air from Mellas’s lungs.

  He made it, Mellas thought.

  Jermain’s chest was heaving and his eyes were darting back and forth wildly. But he had made it without being hit. That thought kept picking at Mellas’s mind. Mellas started to turn his own face toward the earth again, trying to ignore the firing, and letting the noise and confusion immobilize him, but Jermain shouted, “I know where the fucking gun is, Lieutenant.”

  Mellas wanted to shout back at him, So fucking what? I’m not going up there. I’m not going up there so some fucking colonel can get a fucking medal. Instead, he said, “Well, shoot at the motherfucker,” and pressed his face down into the wonderful earth.

  Jermain rolled off Mellas’s and Jackson’s backs to the end of the log. He fired a grenade, then ducked down again as the earth in front of the log and several hundred meters behind it exploded with machine-gun bullets.

  Fitch was shouting over the radio. Jermain popped up and fired a second round, and then a third. Mellas couldn’t hear, above the noise, what Fitch was saying. He covered one ear. Fitch’s voice said, “What the fuck’s going on over there? Two is pinned down. They can’t move. Three’s run into at least five positions on the finger. The whole front of the goddamn hill is laced with fucking machine guns. What the fuck’s happening over there? Over.”

  Mellas was panting. He didn’t know how to answer. He heard a sharp cry and turned around. Jermain, shot through the shoulder, reeled and fell on top of Jackson, blood running from beneath his flak jacket. Jackson shoved him off, and the blood spattered on Mellas. Fredrickson reached across and stuffed a wad of battle dressing into the exit hole in Jermain’s back while Jacobs grabbed the M-79 and, enraged, started to fire at the machine gun Jermain had taken on.

  Mellas looked at the blood on his arms and hand, and at Jermain’s contorted face. Suddenly he seemed to be floating above the scene, watching the entire company. Everything was in slow motion and fuzzily quiet.

  Jermain was probably going to die.

  An explosion from Goodwin’s area rocked the hill.

  They’d now been behind the log slightly more than a minute.

  Mellas floated high above the hill. He saw the line of Marines stretched out below him, some kicking or contorted in pain, some lying still. He saw the people he knew, still alive, trying to stay alive, behind logs, in small defilades, many lying flat on the ground and attempting to merge with the earth. He studied the bunkers. He saw the interlocking fire as if in a drawing. He saw the machine gun Jermain had attacked—and he knew. He floated back to a tactics class at the Basic School where a redheaded major said that junior officers were mostly redundant because the corporals and sergeants could take care of just about anything. But there would come a time when the junior officers would earn every penny of their pay, and they would know when that time came.

  Mellas came back to the hill. His time had come.

  He saw the smoke from the burning napalm. He saw what would open the door through the interlocking fire, and it was right in front of him, shooting at him.

  Mellas keyed the handset. “Bravo Six, this is Bravo Five. Over.” As if from behind his own shoulder, Mellas watched himself telling Fitch the situation calmly over the radio. He seemed to be reading lines. He was no longer there but somehow directing the scene from above or beside it.

  Mellas didn’t wait for an answer. He handed the receiver to Jackson. Why Jermain? Why the one who volunteered while the shit-birds stayed in the rear? Why were his friends dying? There seemed only one way out of the nightmare. The single machine gun was the way.

  “Gun up,” Mellas yelled. “Get a fucking gun up here.” Somehow he had to draw the machine gun’s fire.

  A new kid ran forward with an M-60; an ammo humper scrambled after him with the heavy steel boxes of ammunition belts. The gunner’s eyes were wild with fear and pain. He had been shot in the left calf. Mellas could see flecks of blood coming off his soaked trouser leg. Still he came lurching forward, running hard. He lunged in on top of Fredrickson, then rolled over just as the ammo humper piled on top of them. His eyes were very white against his black face. It occurred to Mellas that if this kid weren’t here he would probably be hotdogging on his high school’s basketball court.

  “You start shooting that fucking bunker. That one right there,” Mellas shouted, pointing straight ahead. “Don’t let up.” The new kid nodded. He move
d, leaving blood behind. Mellas could see it spurting rhythmically. An artery, he thought abstractedly. Maybe the kid had three or four more minutes of consciousness.

  The kid leaned the M-60 over the log, cradling it against his shoulder. The machine gun barked. Then it settled into the disciplined, barrel-saving short bursts of the trained gunner. Mellas felt relief. He silently thanked some instructor at Camp Pendleton.

  The NVA gunner answered. The duel grew in intensity. The roar increased. The two new kids just kept firing, eyes squinted almost shut, as if squinting could protect them from the bullets.

  Mellas redirected Jake’s M-79 fire to a second bunker just to the left of the NVA machine gun. He intended to use the projectiles to blind the people inside with smoke and mud. “You keep firing at the fucking entrance. No place else, no matter what I do,” he said. Jacobs nodded and loaded another projectile. Mellas pulled a grenade from his suspenders and whispered, “Dear God, help me now.” He felt that this was possibly his last moment of life, here behind this log with these comrades, and knew it was indescribably sweet. A longing sadness arose with the fear, and he looked one more time at his comrades’ intent faces. He wet his lips and said good-bye, silently, not wanting to leave the safety of the log and their warm bodies.

  Then he stood up and ran.

  He ran as he’d never run before, with neither hope nor despair. He ran because the world was divided into opposites and his side had already been chosen for him, his only choice being whether or not to play his part with heart and courage. He ran because fate had placed him in a position of responsibility and he had accepted the burden. He ran because his self-respect required it. He ran because he loved his friends and this was the only thing he could do to end the madness that was killing and maiming them. He ran directly at the bunker where the grenades from Jake’s M-79 were exploding. The bullets from the M-60 machine gun slammed through the air to his right, slashing past him, whining like tortured cats, cracking like the bullwhip of death. He ran, having never felt so alone and frightened in his life.