Matterhorn (19 page)

The watch officer brightened. “Bif Stevens, arty liaison, Twenty-Second Marines.” He held out his hand and Mellas took it,
noticing how soft and clean it was. They chatted, Mellas asking intelligent questions, Stevens responding, apparently glad
to see that at least one of the grunts actually cared about what he did for them. Mellas thought about asking, as his own
private joke, if Stevens had any booze, just to make it look as if that was the real reason for showing interest, but he decided
against it. He kind of liked the guy.

“Are there many guys like Fitch?” Mellas eventually asked. “I mean, lieutenants running companies?”

“Not a lot,” Stevens answered. “Maybe one to a battalion for the line companies. Some mustangs for headquarters and supply
companies. It’s all luck.”

“How’s that?”

“You know. Right place at the right time. Being the company executive officer when the CO gets killed or transferred. That
sort of thing.”

“You think Hawke will get Bravo when Fitch goes?”

“Like I said, it’s timing—and if he’s crazy enough to want to stay in the bush. He’s overdue now for the rear. Policy is to
get as many lieutenants exposed to combat as possible. They’ll rotate Hawke someplace soon as we get some. Same policy for
captains. Of course we’re short of captains.”

“Yeah, they all got killed when they were lieutenants,” Mellas quipped.

Mellas stored Stevens’s information about transfer and command policy in the part of his mind that dealt with power. This
was as automatic
for him as it would be for a farmer to store the morning’s weather report and the smell of the air, and then to harvest a
week early and beat the unseasonable rains.

Two men pushed through the blanket over the entrance, spilling light and cold air inside. One was neat and good looking, even
handsome, and wore the gold leaves of a major. The other was small, wizened, and tough, his face both young and old, marked
by lines and the strain of a body that had seen extreme use and maybe too much alcohol. Silver leaves gleamed from a neatly
starched collar. Mellas felt excited. It was Lieutenant Colonel Simpson, Big John Six.

Simpson gave Mellas a puzzled look. Major Blakely, on the other hand, returned Mellas’s smile. “Who do we have here, Stevens?”
he asked.

“Lieutenant Mellas from Bravo Company, sir,” Stevens replied.

“Ahhh. One of our new tigers. I’m Major Blakely, the battalion Three. Meet Lieutenant Colonel Simpson, our commanding officer.”
Blakely shook Mellas’s hand. Mellas felt dirty and unkempt.

Simpson reached out a small hand. His grip was surprisingly strong. He grunted. “Welcome aboard, Mellas. You an oh-three?”
he asked, referring to the military occupational specialty, or MOS, for infantry.

“Yes sir,” Mellas replied, laughing. “Looks like you’re stuck with me a lot longer than ninety days.”

“Good,” Simpson said with a grunt, satisfied. “You a regular?”

“No sir, not yet.” Mellas paused, giving a “young man at a crossroads” look. “I’m thinking about it, but I’m also thinking
about law school.”

“High-paid fucking clerks,” Simpson said. “Pussies, too.” He walked over to the map and started asking Stevens about the disposition
of Alpha and Charlie companies in the valley to the north.

“The Marine Corps needs lawyers, too,” Blakely said.

“I know, sir. But for me there’s only one reason to stay in the Marine Corps—to lead men. That’s why I’m an oh-three.” Mellas
noted that Blakely wore a Naval Academy ring and Simpson wore no ring. “Of course, most of my friends from Princeton are going
to law school,” he added, knowing Blakely would pick up on it.

“Jesus Christ,” Simpson said with a snort, “how’d we ever let someone with a fucking communist education into the Marine Corps?”
Blakely and Mellas both gave the expected laugh, as did Stevens.

“Well, sir,” Mellas said, “you know how low standards have slipped since you joined.”

“Jesus, don’t I,” Simpson said.

Mellas knew he’d connected. He also knew that this moment was the perfect time to leave, but he wasn’t through. He turned
to Blakely. “I don’t know how law school could compare with having a platoon. Being a platoon commander has to be the greatest
experience of my life. I suppose only running a company could have it beat.” Blakely nodded. Mellas could see that he was
anxious to be with the colonel. “I was really lucky to get Lieutenant Hawke’s old platoon. He’s one of the best. We’ll really
miss him when he gets out of the bush.”

Blakely raised his eyebrows. “He due out soon?”

“Overdue. And is he
ready
.” Mellas laughed. “He’s been in the bush nearly ten months. It’s a pisser, though, losing all the experience so new lieutenants
like myself can pick it up. It’s hard on the men.” Mellas paused, then brightened. “You must snap up guys like Hawke as soon
as you can.”

Blakely smiled smugly. “We manage to hang on to our good ones.” He and Mellas were dancing, but as far as they were concerned
it was just chatting. Like most good dancers, they made it look easy.

At the three-day deadline the bunkers were only half finished. Because the battery now offered a much more tempting target
to the NVA, the security patrols had to be pushed out farther from the hill, and so they took much more time and effort to
complete. The Marines would return, already exhausted, to start blasting trees into logs with C-4 and hacking at the logs
with their K-bars. Unremitting physical effort combined with the monsoon rains, the mud, and the ceaseless hammering of the
artillery battery left them nearly in a stupor.

But they kept at it, digging their fighting holes deeper into the root-bound clay. The bunker roofs had to be raised high
enough above the
fighting holes so a man could stand on a ledge and fire above the hole’s parapet. The roofs had to be set on supporting walls
formed from sandbags filled with clay. These walls, and their new exits and entrances, were eventually several feet high on
the downhill side and barely aboveground on the uphill side.

The defensive lines grew more distinguishable. No longer were they made up of holes that blended in with the earth and the
mass of torn limbs and brush. The holes had been transformed into naked, angular structures, stark against the denuded hillside,
looking like sturdy little boxes poking out from the slope.

Mellas worked hard like the rest of them, learning from Jancowitz the subtleties of bunker construction. Don’t use rocks,
because they splinter into deadly shards. Dig pits and shelves to keep feet and ass free of standing water. Interlace hard
material with soft to absorb blast energy. Soon Mellas was not only helping with the hacking and hauling but enjoying the
intricate planning of the total defense. He carefully walked the ground from the jungle upward, finding how the lay of the
land channeled attackers into natural avenues of approach. Then he set the bunkers so that the avenues of approach would be
filled with machine-gun bullets. Pegs were carefully driven into the ground so that the swing of the machine-gun barrel would
be limited and the fire would be directed into the avenue of approach even in total darkness. More barbed wire came in by
chopper, and the exhausting, hand-bloodying work of stretching it tautly below the bunkers continued.

Hawke and Fitch both recognized a natural defensive engineer in Mellas and soon had him coming with them whenever they toured
the perimeter. Solving the intricacies of setting bunkers so that each bunker was defended by at least two others was an exercise
in iterative geometry that came naturally to Mellas. Move one bunker, and all the bunkers around it had to be moved. Getting
it right before the bunker was built was the trick, because if one fire team finished a bunker without considering all those
around it, a critical weakness could be created in the interlocking system. Mainly because of Hawke’s natural feel for the
probable pattern of assault and Mellas’s ability to figure out placement, only three half-finished bunkers proved to be misplaced
and had
to be destroyed and rebuilt just a few feet from their previous positions, to the exasperation of those who had built them.

Every hand in the company ran with pus from jungle rot. Bacteria invaded the cuts and open blisters. Old gloves—even gloves
with holes in them—brought more cash than had been paid for them originally. Eventually, though, these transactions dwindled.
Any gloves, with or without holes, became as precious as mail and no market price could be struck. Going out on patrol, which
used to be a dreaded duty, became a longed-for holiday.

It took six spirit-breaking days to finally complete the bunkers. No one celebrated. On the seventh day the kids rested by
doubling the patrols. That evening, Fitch opened the actuals meeting with a terse announcement. “We’re heading into the valley
at first light. The battery and the battalion CP group will start pulling out simultaneously. Charlie Company will be where
they drop us and take the same choppers back here. They’ll provide security for battalion staff and the artillery during the
shift. Then they’re all heading for the lowlands. Some big fucking operation around Cam Lo.”

“We just finish the bunkers and they’re pulling everyone off?” Mellas grabbed a lone surviving plant and savagely uprooted
it, flinging it down the hill. “Jesus Christ,” he hissed, his teeth clenched. “Just like that. We’re pulling out.” He had
grown proud of the job they’d done—of himself, his platoon, all of them—in spite of the fact that it made them more vulnerable
at night. Given enough ammunition, he felt they could hold off a regiment.

“We and Delta flip-flop missions with Alpha and Charlie,” Fitch continued slowly. “Relsnik has it from a battalion radio operator
that regiment gave Big John Six one last chance to prove he’s got lots of gooks out here. We’ve also got responsibility for
blowing the ammo cache Charlie Company uncovered. They ran out of C-4.”

“You mean we’re going out in the jungle just to look around?” Mellas asked. “A whole damned company?”

“Two damned companies,” Hawke corrected.

“Well, I’m not telling those guys down on the lines that we’re leaving after what they’ve been put through. You get the colonel
or that
goddamned Three down there to explain why we whipped their asses into the ground so we could pull out the second we built
the goddamned Rock of Gibraltar in the middle of goddamned nowhere.”

“Look, Mellas,” Fitch said tightly, “simmer the fuck down. We leave at first light. You just get your platoon ready to move.”

The rest of the actuals were silent. Kendall fiddled with his wedding ring and his wraparound yellow sunglasses. Goodwin,
looking drawn and haggard, squatted on his heels toying with a stick. His constant clowning had been a source of relief during
the construction. He had said nothing during the entire meeting.

After the meeting, Mellas made his way slowly down the hill, wondering how he’d break the news that they’d built the bunkers
for no purpose. It also surprised him, after all the days of looking into the valley, wondering what it was like down there,
worrying about going, that now it was time to go, just like that. His entire world had been instantly transformed at the word
of a man he barely knew. The platoon could be ready to go in half an hour. All they needed was to pack their food and ammunition.
But he felt there should be more time, some ritual of getting ready, before they plunged into that dark valley.

When Mellas reached his hooch, everyone was already there. It was obvious that everyone knew. Jackson, now leader of the Third
Squad, had his pocket notebook out and his pen ready; he looked very serious. Bass had presented Jackson with the decision
to make him acting squad leader in Janc’s absence and had given no alternatives, just telling Jackson he was it. This was
the best they could do to alleviate the problem of Jackson’s worrying about reactions from the brothers. Connolly, the leader
of the First Squad, was looking down at Mellas’s C-ration box, his legs apart and his hands on his hips. He kept spitting
into the box, seemingly unconscious of what he was doing. Occasionally he would look out at the valley and curse; his Boston
twang was just loud enough to be heard. “Fuckin’ A, man, the fuckin’ Crotch. There it is.” Then he’d spit into the box again,
making Mellas cringe because he’d probably have to open one of the packets that Connolly had spat on. He said nothing, however,
feeling this wasn’t the time. Jacobs, who had taken Second Squad from Fisher, was also staring into the fog below
them. He turned to look at Mellas, his eyes flashing. “F-fucking bunkers. F-for nothing.” Then he turned again to the fog,
saying nothing more. Mellas knew the company history as well as any of them. Bravo Company had never been on an op without
at least three deaths.

“There it is, you unhappy motherfuckers,” Jancowitz crowed. “Another inch of the green dildo. I’m going to Bangkok and Susi’s
going to screw my brains out. Hee hee.”

“You were screwed brainless when you extended your tour,” Connolly said.

Mellas quickly opened his notebook. “That will do, Conman.” He began to pass on all the information he’d received at the actuals
meeting.

“Who’s going into the zone first?” Bass asked. He was notching another day into his short-timer’s stick.

“Scar,” Mellas replied, chagrined that Fitch had chosen Goodwin over him for the important task of securing the landing zone
in the valley. He’d wanted to volunteer to go first, even though he was afraid, just so Fitch would know he was a decent guy.

“Good,” Bass grunted. “We had it last time.”

Mellas went on handing out coordinates, call signs, changes in radio brevity codes, all the minutiae that make up the day-to-day
operation of an infantry unit.

Bass immediately organized work parties in the darkness at the top of the LZ where the company’s 60-millimeter mortar squad
was set in. There he passed out the mortar shells, each weighing a little over three pounds. The Marines tied two each to
their packs. Even the radio operators slung one beneath their radios. That gave the company more than 400 mortar rounds, making
it a formidable small artillery force.