Matterhorn (2 page)

Mellas and Hamilton left Fisher at Second Squad’s line of holes and slowly climbed up a slope so steep that when Mellas slipped
backward in the mud he barely had to bend his knee to stop himself. Hamilton, bowed nearly double with the weight of the radio,
kept poking its antenna into the slope in front of him. The fog that swirled around them obscured their goal: a sagging makeshift
shelter they had made by snapping their rubberized canvas ponchos together and hanging the ponchos over a scrap of communication
wire strung only four feet above the ground between two blasted bushes. This hooch, along with two others that stood just
a few feet away from it, formed what was called, not without irony, the platoon command post.

Mellas wanted to crawl inside his hooch and make the world disappear, but he knew this would be stupid and any rest would
be short. It would be dark in a couple of hours, and the platoon had to set out trip flares in case any soldiers of the North
Vietnamese Army—the NVA—approached. After that, the platoon had to rig the claymore mines, which were placed in front of their
fighting holes and were command detonated by electric wire; they delivered 700 steel balls in a fan-shaped pattern at groin
height. In addition, the uncompleted sections of the barbed wire had to be booby-trapped. If Mellas wanted to heat his C-rations
he had to do so while it was still daylight, otherwise the flame would make a perfect aiming point. Then he had to inspect
the forty Marines of his platoon for immersion foot and make sure everyone took the daily dose of dapsone for jungle rot and
the weekly dose of chloroquine for malaria.

He and Hamilton stopped just in front of Bass, the platoon sergeant, who was squatting outside the hooches in the rain making
coffee in a number-ten can set over a piece of burning C-4 plastic explosive. The C-4 hissed and left an acrid smell in the
air but was preferred to the eye-burning stink of the standard issue trioxane heat tabs. Bass was twenty-one and on his second
tour. He emptied several small envelopes of powdered C-ration coffee into the boiling water and peered into the can. The sleeves
of his utility jacket were neatly rolled into cuffs just below his elbows, revealing forearms that were large and muscular.
Mellas, watching Bass stir, set the M-16 he had borrowed from Bass against a log. It had taken very little coaxing from Bass
to convince Mellas that it was stupid to rely on the standard-issue .45 pistols the Marine Corps deemed sufficient for junior
officers. He pulled off the wet cotton ammunition bandoleers and let them fall to the ground: twenty magazines, each filled
with two interwoven rows of bullets. Then he shrugged out of his belt suspenders and dropped them to the mud, along with their
attached .45 automatic, three quart-size plastic canteens, pistol ammunition, his K-bar, battlefield compresses to stop bleeding,
two M-26 fragmentation hand grenades, three smoke grenades, and his compass. Breathing deeply with relief, he kept watching
the coffee, its smell reminding him of the ever-present pot on his mother’s stove. He didn’t want to go check the platoon’s
weapons or clean his own. He wanted something warm, and then he wanted to lie down and sleep. But with dark coming there was
no time.

He undid his steel-spring blousing garters, which held the ends of his trousers tightly against his boots as protection against
leeches. Three leeches had still managed to get through on his left leg. Two were attached and there was a streak of dried
blood where a third had engorged itself and dropped off. Mellas found it in his sock, shook it loose onto the ground, and
stepped on it with his other foot, watching his own blood pop out of its body. He took out insect repellant and squeezed a
stream onto the other two leeches still attached to his skin. They twisted in pain and dropped off, leaving a slow trickle
of blood behind.

Bass handed him some coffee in an empty C-ration fruit cocktail can and then poured another can for Hamilton, who had dumped
his
radio in front of his and Mellas’s hooch and was sitting on it. Hamilton took the coffee, raised the can to Bass in a toast,
and wrapped his fingers around the can to warm them.

“Thanks, Sergeant Bass,” Mellas said, careful to use the title Bass had earned, knowing that Bass’s goodwill was crucial.
He sat down on a wet, rotting log. Bass described what had happened while Mellas was out on patrol. FAC-man, the company’s
enlisted forward air controller, had once again not been able to talk a resupply chopper down through the clouds, so this
had been the fourth day without resupply. There was still no definitive word on the firefight the day before between Alpha
Company and an NVA unit of unknown size in the valley below them, but the rumor that four Marines had been killed in action
was now confirmed.

Mellas tightened his lips and clenched his teeth to press back his fear. He couldn’t help looking down onto the cloud-covered
ridges that stretched out below them into North Vietnam, just four kilometers away. Down there were the four KIAs, four dead
kids. Somewhere in that gray-green obscurity, Alpha Company had just been in the shit. Bravo’s turn was coming.

That meant his turn was coming, something that had been only a possibility when he had joined the Marines right out of high
school. He had entered a special officer candidate program that allowed him to attend college while training in the summers
and getting much-needed pay, and he had envisioned telling admiring people, and maybe someday voters, that he was an ex-Marine.
He had never actually envisioned being in combat in a war that none of his friends thought was worth fighting. When the Marines
landed at Da Nang during his freshman year, he had to get a map out to see where that was. He had wanted to go into the Marine
Air Wing and be an air traffic controller, but each administrative turning point, his grades in college, his grades in Basic
School, and the shortage of infantry officers had implacably moved him to where he was now, a real Marine officer leading
a real Marine rifle platoon, and scared nearly witless. It occurred to him that because of his desire to look good coming
home from a war, he might never come home at all.

He fought back the fear that surged through him whenever he realized that he could die. But now the fear had started his mind
churning
again. If he could get into Hawke’s position as executive officer, then he’d be safe inside the perimeter. There would be
no more patrols; he’d handle admin and be next in line for company commander. For him to get Hawke’s position, the current
company commander, Lieutenant Fitch, would have to rotate home and Hawke would have to take Fitch’s place. That was actually
quite likely. Everyone loved Hawke, up the chain of command and down. Still, Fitch was new to the job. That meant a long wait,
unless of course Fitch was killed or wounded. As soon as this idea went through his head, Mellas felt terrible. He didn’t
want anything bad to happen to anyone. He tried to stop thinking, but he failed. Now it occurred to him that he’d have to
wait for Hawke to rotate home, unless something happened to Hawke. Mellas was amazed and ashamed. He realized that part of
him would wish anything, and maybe even do anything, if it meant getting ahead or saving his own skin. He fought that part
down.

“How’s the wire coming?” Mellas asked. He didn’t really care about the task of stringing the barbed wire in front of the holes,
but he knew he should appear interested.

“Not bad, sir,” Bass said. “Third Squad’s been working on it all day. We’re close to finished.”

Mellas hesitated. Then he plunged into the problem he’d avoided that morning by going out on patrol. “That kid from Third
Squad come to see you about going to the rear again?” He was still overwhelmed, trying to remember everyone’s name.

“Name’s Mallory, sir.” Bass snorted. “Malingering fucking coward.”

“He says he has headaches.”

“And I’ve got a pain in the ass. There’s two hundred good Marines on this hill want to go to the rear, better ones than that
piece of shit. He’s had a headache ever since he came out to the bush. And don’t give me any of that ‘Watch out ’cause he’s
a brother’ shit, because there’s a lot of good splibs out here that don’t have headaches. He’s chickenshit.” Bass took a long
drink and then exhaled steam into the cool damp air. “And, uh,” Bass added, a slight smile on his lips, “Doc Fredrickson has
him up by his hooch. He’s been waiting for you to get back.”

Mellas felt the hot sweet coffee move down his throat and settle into his stomach. He wriggled his water-wrinkled toes to
keep from nodding off. The warmth of the coffee through the can felt good against his hands, which were beginning to run pus,
the first symptoms of jungle rot. “Shit,” he said to no one in particular. He placed the cup against the back of his neck
where the strap of the magazine bandoleer had rubbed it raw.

“Drink it, Lieutenant,” said Bass. “Don’t make love to it.” Bass took out his pocketknife and began carving another elaborate
notch on his short-timer’s stick. Mellas looked at it with envy. He had 390 days left to go on his own tour.

“Do I have to deal with it now?” Mellas asked. He instantly regretted asking the question. He knew he was whining.

“You’re the lieutenant, sir. RHIP.” Rank has its privileges.

Mellas was trying to think of a witty comeback when he heard a scream from Second Squad’s area. “Jesus! Get the squid! Get
Doc Fredrickson!” Bass immediately threw down his stick and ran toward the voice. Mellas sat there, so stupid with exhaustion
he couldn’t will himself to move. He looked at Hamilton, who shrugged and finally took a sip of his coffee. He watched Jacobs,
the fire team leader with the stutter from Second Squad, run up the hill and disappear inside Fredrickson’s hooch. Mellas
sighed and started pulling his bloody socks and wet boots back on as Jacobs and Fredrickson, the Navy medical corpsman, went
sliding and skidding back down the hill. Several minutes later, Bass came walking slowly up the hill, stonily impassive.

“What is it, Sergeant Bass?” Mellas asked.

“You’d better go have a look, Lieutenant. It’s the damnedest thing I ever saw. Fisher’s got a leech right smack up the hole
in his cock.”

“God,” Hamilton said. He looked up at the clouds and then back down at the steaming coffee in his hands. He raised the coffee.
“Here’s to fucking leeches.”

Mellas felt revulsion, but also relief. No one could hold him responsible for something like that. Without lacing the boots,
he headed down the hill toward Second Squad’s position, slipping in the mud,
worrying about how he would replace a seasoned squad leader like Fisher when he knew hardly anyone in the platoon.

An hour earlier, Ted Hawke had also been worrying about replacing an experienced leader. But Hawke was worrying about Mellas,
who had replaced him as First Platoon commander when Hawke had been moved up to the company’s number two spot, executive officer.
Hawke had been in-country long enough to be accustomed to being scared—that came with every operation—but he was not used
to being worried, and that worried him.

He picked up a splintered stick and began to doodle absentmindedly in the mud, tracing the pattern of a five-pointed star
over and over again, a habit from grade school days that he fell into when he was trying to think. The stick was one of thousands,
all that remained of the huge trees that had once stood on this jungle hilltop, just three kilometers from Laos and two from
the DMZ. The hill, one of many similar unnamed hills in the area, all of them over a mile high and shrouded by cold monsoon
rain and clouds, had the misfortune of being just a little higher than the others. For this reason, a staff officer sitting
fifty-five kilometers to the east at Fifth Marine Division headquarters in Dong Ha had picked it to be flattened and shorn
of vegetation to accommodate an artillery battery of 105-millimeter howitzers. The same officer had also named it Matterhorn,
in keeping with the present vogue of naming new fire support bases after Swiss mountains. The orders soon worked their way
down through regiment to the First Battalion, whose commanding officer selected the 180 Marines of Bravo Company to carry
them out. This decision dropped Bravo Company and its weary second in command, Lieutenant Theodore J. Hawke, into an isolated
valley south of Matterhorn. From there it took a three-day slog through the jungle to reach the top of the hill. Over the
course of the next week they turned it, with the help of nearly 400 pounds of C-4 plastic explosive, into a sterile wasteland
of smashed trees, tangled logging slash, broken C-ration pallets, empty tin cans, soggy cardboard containers,
discarded Kool-Aid packages, torn candy bar wrappers—and mud. Now they were waiting, and Hawke was worrying.

There were smaller worries than the competence of Lieutenant Mellas. One was that the hill was at the extreme range of the
lone 105-millimeter howitzer battery at Fire Support Base Eiger, over ten kilometers to the east. This problem was somewhat
related to the waiting, because before they could be dropped into the valley to the north of Matterhorn, they had to await
the arrival of Golf Battery, the artillery unit that was supposed to occupy Matterhorn’s now bald hilltop in order to cover
infantry patrols operating beyond the protective cover of the howitzers on Eiger. It was all very simple back at headquarters.
Alpha and Charlie companies go into the valley first. When they get beyond the artillery cover from Eiger, Golf Battery moves
to Matterhorn. Bravo and Delta companies replace Charlie and Alpha companies down in the valley, but they are now under the
cover of artillery on Matterhorn. All of this allows the First Battalion to push farther north and west, continuing its mission
of attacking the intricate web of roads, trails, supply dumps, and field hospitals that support the NVA’s 320th and 312th
steel divisions.

What wasn’t in the plan was the NVA unit that shot down, with the accurate fire of a .51-caliber machine gun, the first CH-46
supply chopper that tried to reach Matterhorn. The chopper crashed in flames on an adjacent hill that the Marines in Bravo
Company immediately named Helicopter Hill. The entire crew died.