Matterhorn (17 page)

“Yes sir.”

“When you get dead gooks, you collect everything. Wallets, shoulder patches, letters, everything. You empty their pockets.
You bring in their weapons, their backpacks. You smell their fucking breath to see what they’ve been eating for lunch. You
following me, Lieutenant?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good. I don’t want any more intelligence lapses.”

“Yes sir.”

“I’m glad to see you finally got that fucking gook machine-gun team. How many patrols you running a day?”

“Three, sir.”

“Not enough, was it? Two fucking weeks.”

“Sir. We were trying to put in a firebase and build up the lines at the same time.”

“Everyone has problems, Skipper.”

“Sir, we did
get
the machine gun. And didn’t lose anyone doing it. We also brought it in along with an AK and an SKS.”

“And what unit were they from?”

Fitch licked his lip. “I don’t know, sir,” he finally answered. He knew that since the battalion had turned in Mellas’s one
probable as a confirmed, there would be no sense telling Simpson there was no body to search. On the other hand, Goodwin had
definitely killed three, but he’d come back in with weapons and trading material—crowing like a rooster, the kids calling
him Scar—and no intelligence. Fitch almost smiled at the memory, in spite of the fact that he was getting dressed down for
it now. Fuck, he thought, they’re all from the 312th fucking steel division anyway and everyone knows it, including you, Simpson.

“You see, Lieutenant, you not only failed to be aggressive in your patrolling, you neglected your defenses.”

“Sir?”

“Your lines, Lieutenant. Your lines. They’re totally exposed to artillery attack.”

“Sir, uh. The closest gook artillery is at Co Roc, as far as we know. That’s even farther than our own was at Eiger.”

“You’re the one who found all the fucking 122s.”

“I know, sir. But the gooks don’t usually waste those on small infantry positions. They’re for taking out bigger stuff.”

“You read Giap’s mind now?”

“No sir. I wasn’t trying to say—I mean, I know nothing is for sure, but—”

“Exactly. Nothing is for sure. It takes you fucking forever to find that machine gun that has Bushwhacker Six all over my
ass, and I get
out here and your fucking lines are a shambles and totally exposed to an artillery attack.”

“Sir, are you saying we should put covers on the fighting holes?”

“Well, Blakely,” Simpson said, turning to his Three and smiling. “It appears the Basic School still teaches standard infantry
defense tactics.”

“Yes sir,” Blakely said.

Simpson turned back to Fitch. “That’s right, Lieutenant Fitch. I want those lines prepared for an artillery attack.
Artillery
, Lieutenant. And rockets, not just mortars. You’ve got three days.”

“Sir, the troops are right at the edge. We don’t have chain saws, big shovels, any steel matting. Hell, even sandbags are
hard to come by. I mean with you people and the arty people using them—”

“That’s right. Preparing for an artillery attack.” Simpson looked out at the valley again through his field glasses. “In Korea
the gooks always hit us with artillery before they attacked. Don’t worry about sandbags, Lieutenant. We’ve got them on order.
I’m sure you can figure some way to put in the roofs.”

Fitch knew he was being dismissed, but he made one last try. “Sir, if I might say. I mean, I know you’re right about arty.
We’d be a lot safer with overheads, but … Well sir, the men in the company get a little spooked if they can’t see and hear,
and we sort of feel, I mean, even when Captain Black had the company before me, we always chose to maximize the hearing and
sight and take the small risk of getting hit by arty. It’s sort of SOP, sir.”

“Standard operating procedure just changed, Lieutenant. I’m not going to lose good fucking Marines to artillery because of
laziness.”

“Sir?”

“What?”

“Sir, they’re not lazy. They’re tired.”

“I wasn’t talking about the snuffys, Lieutenant.”

“Yes sir.”

“Now I want to see those fucking fighting holes covered. Three days, Skipper.”

“Yes sir.”

Halfway through his second-to-last cigar, Hawke saw Fitch sliding his way down the side of the hill. “How’d it go?” he asked.

Fitch told him.

“Did you argue with him?”

Fitch hesitated, looking down at the ground. “Sure.”

“Ah, fuck, Jim. Not hard enough. Why don’t we build the fucking Siegfried Line? No, the Pyramid of Cheops. We’ve got all the
slave labor.”

Hawke left Fitch squatting alone in the drizzle and stalked off to find Cassidy.

Cassidy’s hooch was neat and orderly. His rifle and ammunition were hung on carefully whittled pegs stuck into the wooden
ammunition crates that formed one wall. Cassidy was gazing at a picture of his wife and three-year-old son when Hawke stuck
his head into the entry. He waved him in and Hawke filled him in on the bunker problem.

Cassidy didn’t answer right away. He showed Hawke the picture. “Think he’ll be a Marine someday?”

“Sure, Gunny.” Hawke knew he should say something more, but he couldn’t think of anything. There was an awkward silence. Hawke
broke it. “So I wondered if maybe you couldn’t go see the sergeant major. I hear he’s been in combat. Maybe he can talk to
the colonel about it.”

Cassidy grunted. “I don’t want to go looking like no fucking crybaby, Lieutenant, not in front of the sergeant major.”

“But that’s what he’s for, isn’t he? Doesn’t he represent the enlisted man’s point of view? Cassidy, these kids are fucking
tired
.”

“Yeah, but …” Cassidy rolled over on his rubber lady and stared at the poncho, which was ruffling in the damp breeze. “You
get the reputation for a crybaby and you’re fucking finished.” He looked at Hawke, almost pleading. “If I make E-7, we can
have another kid, maybe a piano.”

Hawke was disappointed in Cassidy. “OK, Gunny, I see your point. Just thought I’d see what you thought of the idea.” He backed
out of the hooch.

Cassidy lay there a long time listening to rain spattering against the poncho. He was an acting company gunny in a combat
outfit, while
only a staff sergeant, E-6. That meant a lot toward promotion to gunnery sergeant, E-7. His wife would be proud. His son.
But if he complained to the sergeant major … A staff sergeant on the wrong side of the battalion sergeant major would stay
a staff sergeant for a very long time.

“Fuck!” he finally shouted, and crawled out of the hooch.

Cassidy found Sergeant Major Knapp supervising the building of the command bunker. Knapp’s utilities were clean, his boots
shiny and black. He looked like a business executive doing weekend reserve duty. Yet Cassidy knew that as a teenager the sergeant
major had been at Tarawa.

After the usual small talk, Cassidy said he had a problem. “It’s about the order to cover the fighting holes with roofs.”

“I hadn’t heard about that.”

“The colonel told the skipper that we had three days to cover the fighting holes with roofs. Wants them sandbagged, leave
slits for the rifles and M-60s. You know.
Guns of Navarone
.” The sergeant major sat there, watching him. Cassidy fidgeted. “Well, goddamn it, Sergeant Major, it’s a stupid fucking
order. You got to hear and see and you can’t do either in a fucking cave, not with rain beating on the roof. Fucking gooners
can crawl right around and hit us blind on our backsides if we can’t hear them. Our men are fucking exhausted. We’ve been
patrolling the shit out of this place, building the fucking LZ, laying goddamned wire, clearing fields of fire, and all we
get to work with is our fucking K-bars and E-tools. Our goddamned hands are full of pus.”

“You’re talking about your commanding officer, Staff Sergeant Cassidy,” Knapp said quietly.

Cassidy swallowed. “Yes, Sergeant Major.” He felt his face burning. “If we get hit, it’s going to be by sappers sneaking up
on us at night. The gooks won’t hit us with artillery. They ain’t going to waste ammo that they hauled through air strikes
over four hundred miles at night on a fucking hill like this.” The sergeant major listened impassively. Listening to junior
NCOs was part of his job. Cassidy’s voice intensified as he saw Knapp’s indifference. “They sneak up on you, goddamn
it. You’ve got to listen for the little bastards. I don’t see why these men got to build their own fucking coffins.”

“So what do you want me to do about it?”

“I ain’t no fucking crybaby, Sergeant Major, and we got a good fucking company of Marines. We can do what we’re told, and
no griping, but I think the colonel don’t understand the situation, that’s all. This ain’t fucking Korea. Maybe you could
talk to him.”

“Why doesn’t Lieutenant Fitch do that?”

“I guess he tried.”

“Then what can I do?”

Cassidy could see that the sergeant major wasn’t about to use up chits to help out a young staff sergeant who felt overworked
and underpaid.

Knapp patted Cassidy on the shoulder. “Tell you what, Staff Sergeant Cassidy, I’ll see if I can’t spare you some men to help
after we get done setting up the CP area. I might even be able to secure a chain saw or two. My God, anything we can do to
help. Just ask.”

Cassidy walked wearily down the hill, knowing he had damaged his standing with the sergeant major and failed the kids in the
company as well. He cursed his temper.

By the next morning a full storm was hurling itself against the hill. The platoon moved in slow motion all day, buffeted by
the wind, hampered by cold hands that made grasping E-tools and knives even more difficult than normal. It seemed cruelly
unnecessary to Mellas to have to return to the backbreaking work of digging and chopping just when they had reached the point
where they could start working on their own living quarters. Yet they dug and chopped, finding the meaning of their actions
within the small prosaic tasks, casting from their minds the larger questions that would only lead them to despair.

Vancouver and Conman alternated filling sandbags, one holding a bag open while the other one shoveled in the sticky clay.
To Vancouver each sandbag was just that, nothing more—one filled sandbag to be followed by the next. The small E-tool burned
his blisters and sores. He
watched the blood and pus from the jungle rot on his fingers and wrists smear in with the mud and rainwater. He paused occasionally
to wipe his hands on his trousers, not even thinking that he had to sleep in them. Everything soon had the same greasy consistency
anyway, mixing in with the urine that he couldn’t quite cut off because he was so cold, the semen from his last wet dream,
the cocoa he’d spilled the day before, the snot he rubbed off, the pus from his skin ulcers, the blood from the popped leeches,
and the tears he wiped away so nobody would see that he was homesick. Except for his size and the role that he’d taken on,
or fallen into, Vancouver was no different from any other teenager in the platoon. He knew that the role gave the others heart
and he had to admit that he liked playing it, because of what it did for his friends and for himself. He liked the respect—hell,
he was almost a celebrity. But he was not ignorant of what it cost. Being on point scared him every time he took it, yet something
compelled him to take it every time.

Broyer figured he needed sixteen of the small logs to complete their bunker. He knelt before the first one, squinting at it
through his glasses, not wanting to start. His hand was swollen. He’d cut it on razor grass two days earlier and it had become
infected. He’d seen the squid about it, but all Fredrickson could do was paint it with some red shit and give him some Darvon
for the pain. When he touched the handle of his K-bar the pain made him want to pull his hand away and hold it under his armpit,
nursing it with the warmth of his body.

He hacked at the log with the knife. The pain was intense. The K-bar bounced back from the hard wood, leaving only a small
nick. He stared at the nick. He took his left hand and tried again. He was ineffectual left-handed; the K-bar merely bounced
off the wood instead of biting at it.

“You’ve got to get mad at it,” Jancowitz said, coming up behind Broyer unexpectedly. “Like this.” He took the K-bar from Broyer’s
hand and attacked the log, cursing it. He smashed the large knife against the wood again and again. He screamed filthy language.
Small chips began to come out of the wood. Janc suddenly stopped and smiled. He threw
the K-bar into the wood, point first, and left it there quivering. “Eight fucking days until I see Susi in Bangkok,” he said.
He walked off down the line.

When Second Squad returned from patrol, Jacobs immediately noticed how far behind his squad was in building the bunkers, even
though Lieutenant Mellas and Sergeant Bass both had promised him that the squads not on patrol would work equally hard on
the entire platoon sector. Hippy’s machine-gun position did have the beginning of a wall around it, as well as some rather
crooked logs, which Jake guessed were rejects from the other squads. He sat down heavily in the mud, legs dangling inside
the hole.