Matterhorn (47 page)

Jancowitz gave him the information he wanted and walked away. Vancouver came to join him, but Janc told him to go back and
watch the movie. He felt like being alone.

As Jancowitz walked down the dark road toward the tents he thought of Susi, feeling that somehow he’d sacrificed her, or some
part of her in him. Behind him he heard the movie start. He turned to see, on the screen, an unshaven man wrapped in a Mexican
poncho, his arms at his sides near a pair of six-guns, a thin cigarillo clamped tautly in his mouth. The music rose in pitch
as the man walked toward the corral fence, where other men were seated, all with weapons ready to use. The screen burst into
violence as the man pulled his pistols and shot all the men on the fence. A mocking cheer rose from the Marines. Jancowitz
turned around in disgust and continued walking. He’d been right—another fucking cowboy show.

China, his mouth slightly open in reflection and wonder, watched Jancowitz disappear into the darkness. He realized he’d seen
something very brave and wise. “Fucking Janc, man,” he kept saying to himself in his mind. “Fucking Janc.” It occurred to
him that he and Janc had been in the bush together ever since he had arrived in the Nam but he’d never really talked to Janc.
He suddenly wished Janc were his friend, but he knew it was impossible. He looked over to where Henry was sitting with a group
of blacks, basking in their admiration. Henry seemed to grow in stature while China himself got nowhere. China’s face began
to burn again at the memory of Henry’s disdain for the weapons, and of how his friends had chuckled. China knew that for now
it was Henry’s game
and he himself had to play ball. He’d lost way too much ground and didn’t know how he could recover it.

While Jancowitz was walking away from the movie, Pollini was standing on a crate washing a huge aluminum pot in steaming water.
Wick, the Marine from McCarthy’s platoon, was working next to him. Their heads were at the same level, although Wick’s feet
were on the ground.

“Never thought I’d love scrubbing pots,” Wick said.

“Not me,” Pollini said. “The lieutenant told me I only had to do KP for a month.”

“Only a month?” Wick shot back. “You get a whole fucking month? McCarthy only gave me a week. I only got two days left and
if Alpha ain’t out in the pucker weeds by day after tomorrow, I got to go with them. How come you get a whole month?”

Pollini shrugged and grinned—his response to any situation he felt he couldn’t handle.

“I’ll tell you why you get a whole fucking month,” Wick said, clearly angry at the injustice of the situation. “It’s because
they don’t want your ass out there with them, that’s why.”

“It was my turn,” Pollini said hotly.

“Fuck. Your turn. Nobody gets KP for a fucking month. Ain’t nobody can kiss enough ass to pull that one off.” Wick started
cleaning the huge pot again. “Shortround,” he said, “you got it made. Everyone else begging to get to the rear and you got
people trying to get you there. Man, you got it made.”

Pollini kept grinning. “Yeah. I guess I do,” he said.

“Why’d you up and join the Marine Corps anyway, Shortround?”

“My father was a Marine,” Pollini answered proudly. “He fought in Korea.”

“That explains it.”

“That explains what?”

“Why we lost the fucking war in Korea. I bet you’re a chip off the old block, ain’t you?” Wick laughed again, enjoying himself.

There was no response from Pollini. If Wick had looked, he would have seen that Pollini was gritting his teeth in pain and
fighting to hold back tears. In Pollini’s hands was a large steel serving ladle. He whipped it around with both hands, catching
Wick across the left cheek and the bone above the left eye. Wick screamed in pain, his hands reaching for his face, and Pollini
picked up the pot full of hot water and threw it at him. Then he ran out of the mess tent into the darkness, swinging the
heaving ladle at another Marine who was running in.

Wick was standing up, blood and soapy water running down his face.

“Jesus Christ,” the Marine said. “What happened to you?”

“Shortround hit me with a fucking ladle.”

“Sweet Jesus,” the Marine said, awed. “I’ll get the squid.”

“I don’t want any goddamned flap over it. I’ll get my own squid to look at it.”

“If you say so. What the fuck happened?” Other Marines on KP had crowded into the tent where the pots were washed.

“Nothing,” Wick said angrily. “Just clear the fuck out of here and let me finish the goddamned pots.”

“Sure.” The others left Wick alone, staring at the overturned pot that lay on the muddy floor. He reached down for it. “Sorry,
Short-round,” he said quietly.

Mellas and Goodwin decided to go to the new officers’ club at Task Force Oscar. They went to get Hawke, but Hawke had just
bought a case of beer. They decided to have one warm-up drink together outside Hawke’s tent, avoiding a couple of new officers
who had just arrived from Quang Tri.

An hour later the three of them had not moved. The case was now three-quarters gone. “Can you beat that,” Hawke was saying,
staring into his beer.

“Can you beat what?” Mellas asked. His tongue was beginning to get in the way of his words.

“I mean can you beat the fucking Three getting a medal for hanging out in a Huey when we got into that shit sandwich by Co
Roc?”

“Fucking insanity.” Mellas spat, and it landed in the half-empty case instead of nearby, where he’d aimed. “I still haven’t
gotten any word on Vancouver’s and Conman’s medals.”

“They’re snuffs. It takes longer.”

“There it is, Jack,” Goodwin said.

Hawke opened another can of beer and Mellas watched the foam spill satisfyingly over the sides and onto his hands. “The medal
was for rallying a demoralized company and risking his life to coordinate its extraction under fire. Captain Black didn’t
get zip for going in and pulling Friedlander’s ass out of the shit.”

“Shit is right, Jack,” Goodwin said.

“The war’s run by a bunch of assholes,” Mellas said.

“How do you know?” Hawke asked.

“We get fucking killed and they sit in Paris and argue about fucking square tables and round tables.”

“Those are diplomats, not assholes,” Hawke said.

Goodwin popped open another can of beer and lay back on the ground. A light mist fell on his face.

“They’re in charge of the fucking war, aren’t they?” Mellas said.

“Right, right,” Hawke said, nodding.

“And the war is so fucked up it has to be run by a bunch of assholes. Right?”

“That’s fucking right, Jack,” Goodwin said. Hawke agreed.

“So …” Mellas said.

“So what?” Hawke asked.

“So …” Mellas finished his can of beer. “I can’t fucking remember what I was trying to prove, but the people that run this
fucking war are a bunch of assholes.”

“I’ll drink to that. Goddamned right.” Hawke leaned back, chugging the remainder of his beer.

“I’ll drink to anything,” Goodwin said fuzzily.

A silence followed. The damp wind moved gently through the dark, rippling tent walls, causing an occasional light leak to
flutter briefly.
Mellas let out a long contented burp, his head spinning happily, not really aware of where he was except that he lay in some
wet grass in a light drizzle.

The sustained heavy slapping of an AK-47 on full automatic sent the three of them flat on their stomachs, their beer cans
thrown aside. People came piling out of the tents around them, running for the bunkers, some hopping as they struggled into
trousers. The AK opened up again and a ricochet spun over the three lieutenants’ heads with an almost lazy hum. Hawke was
clutching the case of beer, protecting it from possible damage from the bullets.

Shouts arose from the battalion area.

“What do you think?” Mellas asked, his head spinning. Hawke shrugged and popped open three more cans of beer. “If it’s fucking
sappers, they’re after the fucking helicopters. And I ain’t a fucking helicopter. But I don’t ever remember sappers doing
one-man attacks.”

The three of them sat up, watching the confusion. Blakely went sprinting across to the COC bunker, head bent close to the
ground, shouting directions to people. He disappeared into the bunker.

“Hey, Jayhawk,” Goodwin said.

“Uh?”

“What kind of medal you think the Six and Three will get for this one?”

“Navy Cross,” Hawke said, “or possibly higher.” Hawke raised his hand to his lips and gave a jeering raspberry of a bugle
call.

A small figure came creeping up behind the BOQ tent. They all froze, realizing they were without rifles; the bravado of the
beer was gone. The man, his back to them, was creeping up on the tent.

Goodwin moved very slowly, motioning to Hawke and Mellas, indicating that they should roll in his direction. He pointed into
some high grass behind him.

The figure continued to creep along the back of the tent. “Hey, Lieutenant Hawke,” the figure whispered to the tent. “Hey
Lieutenant Jayhawk, it’s Pollini, sir.”

“Shit, Jack,” Goodwin moaned.

“Shortround, you fucking numby,” Hawke hissed. “Get over here.”

Pollini turned around. “What are you guys doing in the bushes?” he asked loudly. He groped his way toward them. He was carrying
the AK-47 Vancouver had brought back from Mellas’s aborted reconnaissance.

“Over here, Pollini,” Mellas whispered fiercely. “Where the hell do you think you are, Central fucking Park? Get your ass
down before someone sees you.”

“Oh, Lieutenant Mellas, sir,” he said aloud. He walked over and sat down. Hawke grabbed the AK-47 from Pollini, who smelled
like a grape factory on strike in a heat wave. His eyes were clouded over and a little drool was forming at the side of his
mouth.

Mellas was furious with him. “This stunt could land you in the brig for months. What do you think you’re doing?”

Pollini scratched his head and then said brightly. “Just shooting up the place.”

“Why, Pollini?” Hawke asked.

“Wasn’t that right?” he answered. “Isn’t that what a shit bird does?” He stood up, weaving badly. “Oh, here, sirs.” He dug
into his pockets. Out came a loaded magazine. “Here’s what makes the little fucker go bang.” He started laughing.

Goodwin pulled him to the ground.

Pollini suddenly broke into sobs, the start of a crying jag. He curled up in a ball, sobbing, “I don’t want to be a shit bird.
I wanted to be a good Marine. I want my father to be proud of me.”

“Who said you were a shit bird?” Mellas asked, feeling suddenly awkward about all the times he’d poked fun at Pollini. “Hey,
you can’t cry like that,” he said softly. “Hey, Pollini, don’t cry.”

Through the sobs came the story.

Mellas had a hand on Pollini’s back. He didn’t know what to do. He turned to Hawke. “But why would he get so upset? To go
after a guy with a fucking soup ladle?”

“His father was killed in Korea.”

Mellas moaned. “Isn’t the shit of this war enough? We still have to deal with shit from Korea?” He shook his head slowly.
Did it have to go on and on and on?

Pollini eventually fell into a stupefied sleep. The three lieutenants finished the case of beer, watching the battalion area
return to normal. Long after it was quiet, Goodwin threw Pollini over his shoulder, Mellas took the rifle, and together they
walked toward the landing zone and put Pollini to bed.

The next day Mellas took him off KP.

The same day, the Bald Eagle was launched into combat. But not without complications.

The battalion surgeon, Lieutenant Maurice Witherspoon Selby, USN, was sick and tired of the mud, the lack of ice, the unsanitary
conditions, and the monotonous round of malaria, dysentery, ringworm, infected leech bites, jungle rot, crotch rot, sore backs,
sore legs, and sore heads. He was particularly tired of PFC Mallory’s sore head. Mallory had just returned from an examination
by the lone psychiatrist at Fifth Med in Quang Tri with a note saying he had a passive-aggressive personality and he’d have
to learn to live with his headaches. He also had a note from the Fifth Med dentist, who had put on temporary caps and said
that Mallory was fit for duty but should see about getting a bridge when he got back to the States.

“Look, I’m busy,” Selby said to Hospitalman First Class Foster. “Just give him some more Darvon and get him out of the sick
bay.”

“He seems pretty riled up, sir.”

“Goddamn it, I’ve looked at his ugly head until I’m blue in the face. I was training to be a surgeon, not a psychiatrist.”
Selby reached for a bottle of aspirin and slugged down four, not bothering to take any water. “Now you tell him that sick
bay goes at oh nine hundred, and let me do some work. You got that, Foster?”

“Yes, sir.” Foster paused as Selby sat down behind the crude desk, his hands over his face. “Sir?”

“What, Foster?”

“Will you see him at oh nine hundred? I don’t think he’s going to take one of us squids giving him more Darvon. He’s eating
the stuff like candy anyway.”

“What do you want me to do, hold his fucking hand? I’ve got a bunch of people out there that I
can
cure, and I’m sick of seeing him. No. I won’t see him.”

“Yes sir.” Foster walked to the entrance of the tent. Mallory was sitting on a bench, his forehead in his hands, gear strewn
beneath his feet. His flak jacket and .45 lay across his pack.

“PFC Mallory,” Foster said.

“Yeah.”

“I talked with Lieutenant Selby and he said there wasn’t really anything he could do for you.”

“That’s what they all say. What’s going down around here, huh?”

Foster sighed. “Mallory, I don’t know what else to tell you. If there’s nothing they can do in Quang Tri, there’s sure not
anything we can do here.”

“My fucking head hurts.”

“I know that, Mallory. All I can do for you is give you—”

“Fucking pills.” Mallory stood up, screaming, “I don’t need fucking pills. I need help. And that motherfucking doctor is fucking
me over and I’m tired of it. I’m tired, you hear me?” He began to whimper. “I’m so fucking tired.”