Matterhorn (3 page)

Since then the clouds had lifted only one other time, four days earlier, when another helicopter from Marine Air Group 39,
struggling in the thin mountain air, worked its way up to Matterhorn’s landing zone from the valley to the south. It arrived
with some food and replacements and departed with a number of new .51-caliber holes and a wounded crew chief. Soon afterward,
word came down that MAG-39 wanted the gook machine gun eliminated before Golf Battery was brought in, particularly since the
operation would entail dangling ponderous howitzers on cables beneath choppers already straining because of the altitude—choppers
that would hardly be able to dodge bullets. This problem, along with another of Hawke’s worries—the monsoon rain and
clouds that had made air support impossible and resupply almost impossible—had thrown off the operation’s timetable by three
full days and brought down the wrath of Lieutenant Colonel Simpson, radio call sign Big John Six, First Battalion’s commanding
officer.

Hawke stopped doodling and stared down the steep hillside. Wisps of fog obscured the gray wall of jungle just beyond the twisted
rolls of barbed wire at the edge of the cleared ground. He was standing just behind the line of fighting holes that belonged
to First Platoon, which he had just turned over to the main source of his worry, Second Lieutenant Waino Mellas, United States
Marine Corps Reserve. One of the company’s outposts had radioed in that Mellas’s patrol had just passed it on the saddle between
Matterhorn and Helicopter Hill and would be coming in shortly. Hawke was here to get some feel for Mellas when he was exhausted
after the adrenaline-pumping tension of a patrol that hadn’t found anything. Hawke had learned long ago that what really mattered
in combat was what people were like when they were exhausted.

Hawke was twenty-two, with freckled skin and thick dark hair with an undertone of red that matched his large red mustache.
He wore a green sweatshirt, turned inside out so the nap showed matted and dirty, like old fustian. It was stained with sweat
and had dark smudges from his armored flak jacket. His trousers were caked with mud and had a hole in one knee. He wore a
billed cap, eschewing the floppy camouflage bush hats as being pretentiously gunjy. He kept scanning the tree line, his eyes
darting back and forth in the search pattern of the combat veteran. The hillside was steep enough that he could see over the
trees to the top of a dark layer of cloud that hid a valley far below him. That valley was bounded by another ridge of high
mountains to its north, just like the ridge to Matterhorn’s south. Somewhere in that valley to the north, Alpha Company had
just taken four killed and eight wounded. It had been too far from Eiger for effective artillery support.

Hawke sighed heavily. Tactically, the company was out on a limb. It was a long way from help and was about to go into combat
with all three of its platoons being led by corn-fed rookies. Very quietly he said, “Fuck it,” whirled, and launched the splintered
stick into the mass of
pushed-over trees and brush that separated the landing zone from the line of holes protecting it. Then the bluegrass tune
that had been invading his mind all day came back again. He kept hearing the Country Gentlemen—high harmonies, Charlie Waller’s
fast wrists flat-picking his guitar—singing about an entire expedition that had died in an early attempt to climb the Matterhorn
in Switzerland. When Hawke put his hands to his ears to stop it, pus from an open jungle rot sore on his hand got smeared
on his right ear. He wiped his hand on his filthy trouser leg, blending new pus with old pus, blood from squashed leeches,
grease from a spilled can of spaghetti and meatballs, and the damp clay and greasy plant matter that coated the rotting cotton
of his camouflage jungle utilities.

The patrol emerged one by one from the jungle, the Marines bent over, drenched with sweat and rain. Hawke gave a silent snort
of approval when he saw that Mellas was right behind Corporal Fisher, where he was supposed to be until Lieutenant Fitch,
the CO, said that Mellas was ready to take the lead. Hawke didn’t know how to react to Mellas. He was someone you expected
to be in the wrong place, but here he was in the right place. Top Seavers, the company first sergeant, had passed the word
over the battalion radio net from Quang Tri that Mellas had gone to some fancy private college and graduated second in his
class at the Basic School. The fancy college fit with the good grades from the Basic School, but it made Hawke worry that
they might have inherited someone who thought that school smarts trumped experience and heart. More worrisome was Top Seavers’s
comment that when Mellas had first shown up at division personnel on New Year’s Day, just six days ago, he had asked for a
weapons platoon instead of a rifle platoon. Seavers had concluded that Mellas was trying to avoid going out on patrols, but
Hawke wasn’t sure. He read Mellas not as a coward but possibly just as a politician. The commander of the weapons platoon,
which traditionally had the three 60-millimeter mortars and the company’s nine machine guns, lived with the company command
group. So he had constant contact with the company commander—unlike the rifle platoon commanders, who were isolated down on
the lines. But there weren’t enough lieutenants to cover even the rifle platoons now, and with most of the
action involving only a platoon or a smaller unit the machine guns were permanently farmed out to the rifle platoons, one
to a squad, leaving only the mortars, which could be handled by a corporal. But Mellas didn’t fit the stereotype of an ambitious
officer. For starters, he didn’t look any older than the kids he was supposed to command. Also, he didn’t look particularly
squared away, everything in its proper place, sails at perfect right angles to the wind, cultivating what an ambitious officer
would call command presence. On the other hand, looking careless could just be privileged give-a-shit Ivy League attitude,
like wearing duct tape on loafers and jeans with holes in them, knowing all along that they were headed straight to Wall Street
or Washington and three-piece suits. Mellas was also handsome to the point of bearing what Hawke’s Irish uncle, Art, would
have called the marks of God’s own handiwork, a plus in civilian life but almost a handicap in the Marine Corps. Moreover,
he stood in marked contrast to the other new second lieutenant, Goodwin, a much easier read. Goodwin’s record at the Basic
School was undistinguished, but Hawke knew he had a natural hunter on his hands. That judgment had been made during the first
ten seconds he’d seen the two new lieutenants. The chopper that delivered them to the hill had taken machine-gun fire all
the way into the zone. Both lieutenants had come barreling out of the back and dived for the nearest cover, but Goodwin had
popped his head up to try to figure out where the NVA machine gun was firing from. Hawke’s problem with Goodwin, however,
was that while good instincts were necessary, in modern war they weren’t sufficient. War had become too technical and too
complex—and this one in particular had become too political.

Doc Fredrickson had Fisher flat on his back with his trousers pulled down, in the mud in front of Fisher’s hooch. Those Marines
from Second Squad who weren’t on hole watch were standing in a semicircle behind Fredrickson. Fisher was trying to joke but
his grin was very tight. Doc Fredrickson turned to Jacobs, Fisher’s most senior fire team leader. “Go tell Hamilton to radio
for the senior squid. Tell him we’ll probably need an emergency medevac.”

“E-e-emergency,” Jacobs repeated, his stutter more pronounced than usual. He immediately started up the hill. Fredrickson
turned to Mellas, his eyes serious and intent in his narrow face. “Fisher’s got a leech in his penis. It crawled up the urethra
during the patrol and I don’t think I can get it out.”

Fisher was lying back with his hands folded behind his head. Like most bush Marines he wore no underwear, in order to help
stave off crotch rot. It had now been several hours since he had peed.

Mellas looked up at the swirling fog and then down at Fisher’s wet smiling face. He forced a laugh. “You would have to find
a perverted leech,” he said. He checked the time. Less than two hours until dark. A night medevac this high up and in this
weather would be impossible.

“You might as well put your trousers on, Fisher,” Fredrickson said. “Don’t drink any water. It’d be a bad place to have to
amputate.”

Jacobs came slipping back down the hill, breathing hard. He was stopped by Bass, just outside of the immediate circle of Fisher’s
curious friends. “I p-passed the word, Sergeant Bass.”

“OK,” Bass said. “Get Fisher’s gear packed up. Split up his ammo and C-rats. Give the lieutenant his rifle so he doesn’t have
to keep borrowing mine. Did he have a listening post tonight or anything?”

“N-no, we had the p-patrol today,” Jacobs said. His long but normally tranquil face now had a worried look and his broad shoulders
had slumped forward. He’d been a fire team leader a few seconds before; now he had the squad.

Mellas opened his mouth to say that the decision about who would temporarily take over the squad was up to him, but he could
see that it had already been made by Bass. He shut his mouth. Mellas knew that if he pulled rank he’d lose what little authority
he seemed to have.

Fredrickson turned to Mellas. “I think we ought to move him up to the LZ. He’ll be starting to feel it pretty soon. No telling
when the chopper’s going to make it in.” He looked up at the dark swirling mist. “If it don’t get here quick, I don’t know
what’s going to happen. I guess something inside’s got to give and if it screws up the kidney or busts loose inside of him
…” He shook his head and looked down at his hands. “I just don’t know that much about people’s insides. We never got it in
Field Med.”

“What about the senior squid?” Mellas asked, referring to Hospital Corpsman Second Class Sheller, the company-level corpsman,
Fredrickson’s boss.

“I don’t know. He’s an HM-2 but I think he worked in a lab the whole time. He’s only out here because he pissed someone off
at the Fifth Med. He’s been out here a week longer than you.”

“He’s worthless,” Bass spat.

“Why do you say that?” Mellas asked.

“He’s a fat fucker.”

Mellas made no reply, wondering what it took to get on Bass’s good list. On the first day Mellas had arrived, desperately
wanting everyone to like him, Bass hadn’t made it easy. Bass had been running the platoon for close to a month without any
lieutenant, and he was quick to point out that he had been doing his first tour in Vietnam when Mellas was starting college.

“That’s him there,” Fredrickson said. Sheller, who like all company corpsmen went by the nickname Senior Squid, came huffing
down the hill, his new jungle boots still black like Mellas’s, his utilities not yet bleached pale by the constant rain and
exposure. His face was round and he wore black-rimmed Navy-issue glasses and a new bush cover on his head. He looked conspicuously
out of place among the thin, rangy Marines.

“What’s the problem?” he asked cheerily.

“It’s Fisher,” Fredrickson replied. “He’s got a leech inside his urethra.”

Sheller pursed his lips. “Doesn’t sound good. No way of getting to it, I suppose. Can he urinate?”

“No,” Fredrickson said. “That’s how we found out.”

“If he could piss we wouldn’t need you,” Bass growled.

Sheller looked briefly at Bass and then quickly shifted his eyes to the ground. “Where is he?” he asked Fredrickson.

“He’s down there packing his gear.”

Sheller headed toward where Fredrickson pointed. Fredrickson turned to Bass and Mellas and shrugged his shoulders as if to
say “You tell me” and turned to follow him. Bass snorted in disgust. “Fat fucker.”

Sheller had Fisher drop his trousers again. He asked how long it had been since he last urinated and then glanced up at the
sky and down to his watch. He turned to Mellas. “He’ll have to be medevaced. Emergency. I’ll go see the skipper.”

“Move it, Fisher,” Bass said. “You’re getting out of the bush. Get your ass up to the LZ.”

Fisher grinned and started back toward his hooch, pulling on his trousers as he went. Bass turned toward the holes and shouted
through his cupped hands. “Any of you people got mail to go out, give it to Fisher. He’s getting medevaced.” A general scurry
took place immediately. Bodies disappeared into hooches and fighting holes, digging into the packs and plastic bags the men
used to keep their letters dry.

“Jacobs,” Bass shouted, “tell that goddamn Shortround, Pollini, to change shirts with Fisher. He looks like Joe Shit the ragpicker.
And tell Kerwin in Third Squad to trade trousers.” Jacobs, grateful for something to do, moved off and began collecting the
most worn-out clothing in the squad to replace it with Fisher’s less worn-out clothing.

Sheller came back up to Bass and Mellas and dropped his voice. “He’s going to be in a lot of pain. I can dope him up, but
I don’t know what will happen to his bladder or kidneys.”

“Well, we don’t either,” Bass said, “but we ain’t been to no fancy Navy medical school.” Sheller looked at Bass and started
to say something but changed his mind. Bass’s perpetual scowl, broad shoulders, and thick arms didn’t invite back talk.

“Do what you can for him,” Mellas said quickly, trying to ease the tension between the two of them. Mellas turned to Bass.
“You going to finally put that novel of yours in the mailbox?”

Bass laughed. He had fallen in love with Fredrickson’s cousin, a high school senior, from a yearbook photograph. He had been
writing a letter to her for several days and it was already fifteen pages long. The two of them headed back to Mellas’s hooch.

“I can’t believe it,” Mellas said. “Almost Staff Sergeant Bass, hard-ass, falling in love by mail.”

“Just ’cause you ain’t got nobody to write to except your mother,” Bass fired back.

The dart hurt. Mellas remembered Anne, that last night when she turned her back on him in bed. He remembered a trip they took
to Mexico, her crying on a village square, pushed beyond her limit by his drive to explore the next place. He had watched
her in confusion, loving her, not knowing what to do.