Matterhorn (49 page)

Pallack jumped into the jeep and spun down the road, slinging mud and water behind him.

Fracasso, Goodwin, and Kendall were already moving in on Mellas and Fitch, their notebooks out. Mellas pulled his own notebook
out. His hands were sweating. Jesus Christ, please just make it another false alarm. Mellas felt as if he were on a conveyor
belt that was slowly moving him toward the edge of a cliff.

Fitch spread his map out on the ground. “Here,” he said, pointing to a spot circled in red. “A recon team, call sign Sweet
Alice, is in contact right now with a company-size NVA unit. Scar, you patrolled this valley. You too, Mellas. What’s it like?”

“Thick as shit, Jack.”

Mellas nodded agreement. “Elephant grass and bamboo,” he added.

Fitch licked his lips. “If we get the word to launch we’re going in hot, take them on their flank from the west. Right here.”
His finger was almost on the red line of the circle. “We’ll have gunships but arty is probably out. Extreme range.”

“We went in first last time,” Ridlow said.

Fitch ignored him. “What do you think, Scar? Can we get a bird in?”

“Yeah.”

“We went in first last time,” Ridlow said again.

“Shit, Ridlow, I know. I also know why fucking platoon sergeants don’t usually attend the actuals meetings.”

Ridlow smiled. “Just looking out for my men’s best interests.”

People laughed and Fitch grinned.

Mellas looked at the tableau of friends around him. Some of them would very likely be dead in an hour. Fracasso, who was barely
old enough to drink, really showed his fear. He was writing everything he could in his notebook, bouncing up and down in a
crouch, his teeth bared in a tense grin. Goodwin, the hunter, was nervous, like a runner before a race, possessing some primitive
ability to lead men into situations
where death was the understood payoff. Kendall, worried sick, his face pallid, his helmet already on his head, was leading
a platoon that didn’t trust him. Fitch, at age twenty-three, had already worn responsibility that most men only debated about.
He was now taking 190 kids into battle, and his decisions would determine how many came back. The kids: dreaming of R & R,
or remembering the R & R from which they’d just returned, some savoring a memory of smooth brown skin pressed against their
own, a few remembering wives left behind at antiseptic airports. And Mellas: in less than an hour there could be no Mellas.

The radio crackled to life.

“It’s a go, sir,” Relsnik said gravely.

Everyone looked at everyone else.

T
he kids filed quietly to the edge of the strip to wait for the helicopters. Other Marines stopped to watch them, wanting to
say an encouraging word yet not daring to break into their private world—a world no longer shared with ordinary people. Some
of them were experiencing the last hour of that brief mystery called life.

Pallack skidded the company jeep to a stop and he and China ran for their packs and weapons. They trotted heavily to where
the company waited.

China came up to Mellas, his machine gun on his shoulder. “Jayhawk said he’d do the best he could. If the pistol wasn’t loaded,
he’d get him out.”

Mellas really didn’t care. “Good,” he said. He was trying to figure out from which side they should come in on the gook company
and whether or not they’d have any choice, not knowing the wind conditions.

“Sir,” China said. “Lieutenant Hawke told me to tell you this too.” China stopped.

“Well, what the fuck did he say?”

“He said, sir, to make sure I tell you both things. That you ought to solve you own fuckin’ problems and not dump them on
other people.” China paused. Mellas kept his lips compressed. “And that you’d better get you ass back here when the shit’s
over so he can kick it for you.” Mellas broke into relieved laughter.

China snorted. Mellas noticed that he didn’t have his pistol, which all machine gunners carry for protection. “China, where’s
your fucking forty-five?”

“It got ripped off, sir.”

Mellas and China looked at each other a moment.

“Goddamn it, China, why lie now?” Mellas said sadly. He’d heard the rumors about the blacks sending parts back to the States.
He pulled his own pistol and holster off his belt and threw it to China. China looked at it and started strapping it on. He
turned without saying anything.

Sergeant Ridlow, who had just returned from a final check of his platoon—tightening loose straps, saying a gruff, encouraging
word—had watched the last part of the exchange with China. “He’s not chickenshit,” Mellas said, watching China checking out
his machine gun.

“None of them are, Lieutenant,” Ridlow said.

Mellas looked down the rows of heli teams, feeling cut off from his old platoon as he watched Bass and Fracasso making sure
everyone was ready. Just days before, he had been their platoon commander, lifting off from Sky Cap. War made a mockery of
his previous concept of time. He watched the leaden sky for the arrival of the helicopters. Anne’s face floated into his memory.
He knew she never wanted to see him again, but here she was, perhaps the last good thing on his mind.

“Here they come,” somebody shouted.

Suspended in the sky were tiny black dots. The sight sent a trembling, sick dread into Mellas’s guts. His knees wanted to
collapse and his body wanted to run. The black dots peeled off as they came closer, turning into twin-rotor CH-46s, coming
around in a single line to land from the south. Mellas wanted them to crash, to fall out of the sky. They were coming to kill
him. For no reason. And he was going to step aboard. Again he felt the conveyor belt carrying him toward the cliff.

The first chopper settled in on its rear wheels. Kendall and the first heli team jogged across the mud and disappeared into
the tailgate. A second chopper dropped its ramp and another heli team from Kendall’s platoon ran aboard. Then a third chopper
pulled up, and a fourth, and the choppers kept coming and the kids kept disappearing. Then there
were no more heli teams left but Mellas’s and one other, and then Mellas was running, the weight of his pack thumping against
his back. He ducked his head beneath the rotor blades, pounded past the crew chief, and settled on the metal deck. It was
still cold from the altitude.

The chopper shuddered with increased power and became clumsily airborne. That moment of false security, waiting on the airstrip,
was cut off forever.

It was about thirty-five kilometers northeast to the red circle on Fitch’s map. Mellas watched the Rock Pile and the Razorback,
two towering rock formations that dominated the landscape around VCB, slip behind them. He kept taking compass readings, trying
to keep his bearings straight. He wondered what would happen if he just refused to get off the helicopter. They’d have to
fly him back to Quang Tri. He’d be tried and convicted. But he’d be alive. He worried anxiously about whether or not the LZ
would be hot.

The chopper lurched sideways. Mellas pushed himself to his knees, fighting against the acceleration of the turn and the slanting
deck. He stumbled to one of the shot-out portholes and stuck his head out, squinting against the rushing air, trying to see
why the pilot was making such fast turns. The machine gunner on the starboard side was leaning out into space, the big .50-caliber
pointing downward. The crew chief was on the port side on a second machine gun, craning his neck to see, but tilted too far
above the horizon to do any good. The bird suddenly righted itself, then went into a sickeningly fast descent. The roar increased.
Then Mellas heard the whiplike sound of bullets snapping through the air. The starboard .50-caliber opened up. Then the gunner
spun backward, the plastic of his helmet shattered, his face a mess. He slumped to the floor, his throat tangled in his intercom
wire.

Everyone wanted out of the chopper, including Mellas.

The bird hit the deck and the ramp swung down. The Marines started to hurtle out. The pilot panicked and took off before all
of the Marines were on the ground. When Mellas reached the exit the bird was already six feet off the ground and gaining speed.
He was shouting at the crew chief, “Keep this fucker on the ground, goddamn you. Keep this fucking bird on the ground.” He
leaped off into space and hit the
ground hard. The bird continued roaring for altitude behind him. The last kid on the chopper looked anxiously behind him,
gulped, and hurled himself into space to join his friends. He and his pack, which weighed almost 100 pounds, hit with a sickening
thud. Mellas watched the leg bone give way and bulge out beneath the trouser leg. The kid’s scream could be heard above the
roar of rifle and machine-gun fire.

Mellas shouted. “You bastard, you fucking bastard.” He lifted his rifle to fire a burst at the disappearing helicopter, but
some inner strength froze his finger before he pulled the trigger. He ran instead to the hurt kid, shouting for a corpsman,
and began to drag him and his gear away from the landing zone. Another Marine came up to Mellas and together they pulled the
writhing kid into the relative cover of some elephant grass. They left him and ran on ahead, catching up to the advancing
platoon, which Goodwin had spread out on line. He was moving it in quick squad rushes toward the enemy.

The firing stopped. Two Huey gunships that had been laying down machine-gun fire just to their north looped up in a curve
and roared over their heads. There were a couple of desultory shots from M-16s. An M-79 grenade launcher fired. Then came
another random burst of fire. Then silence, except for occasional shouts. Mellas went running behind Goodwin’s platoon, crouching
low, fighting his way through the thick elephant grass. Everyone had stopped, waiting, sweating, panting. Mellas met Goodwin
coming the opposite way. There was a burst of M-16 fire, but nothing answered it.

“Everything’s OK back there, Scar,” Mellas said. “One Oley with a broken leg.” Mellas had automatically shifted into radio
code.

“Fitch stopped us,” Goodwin said. “I think the little fuckers dee-deed.”

It was over.

Mellas kept jogging along parallel to the company’s line. Everyone lay tensely on the ground, M-16s and machine guns pointed
ahead. As he reached the left end of the line, he started passing his old platoon. They smiled at him. He ran past. Chadwick
was on his back, blood covering his chest. He gave Mellas a thumbs-up and grinned, knowing he was on his way home. Mellas
ran past him. He came upon Doc Fredrickson,
who was working on a new kid Mellas had never even met. Mellas kept running. He reached Fitch, who was on the radio.

“They pulled out. Over. No, I can’t tell which way, Stevens, goddamn it. We can’t see shit in this stuff. Over. To the north.
I understand that. It would be suicide chasing them in this shit. Over. They’re not
running
, goddamn it, they’re
retreating
. They’ll be laying on the ground and we’ll be standing. They’ll chew us up.”

There was a pause. Mellas heard another voice come on the radio but couldn’t understand what it was saying. Then Fitch said,
“My mission priority is to get that team out safely and our wounded medevaced. We can’t chase them, sir, if we have to carry
bodies with us. Over. Aye, aye, sir. Bravo Six out.” He turned to Daniels. “You got the fucking fire mission going yet?” Daniels
was talking on the hook and just nodded. “We got to circle them up, Mellas,” Fitch said. “The recon team has five Oleys. That’s
out of six and the other one is Coors. I’m sending Scar to pick them up. We’ll lift them out of the zone. Big John Six is
going bug fuck. How’s it look down there?”

“OK. I didn’t see any Coors. A couple of bad Oleys.”

Fitch grunted, relieved.

Mellas set the company in around the LZ and soon had everyone digging holes. Goodwin took two squads and reached the reconnaissance
team in ten minutes. It took them twenty minutes to make it back to the zone, struggling under the weight of the dead body
and one kid who was shot through both knees. The rest of the team managed to walk out under their own power. The leader, a
big lieutenant, had grenade fragments in his left leg. He came up to Fitch and Mellas.

“Thanks,” he said. “I thought I’d kissed my ass good-bye.”

“It’s OK,” Fitch said. “What the fuck happened?”

“It was my fault.” The big man let out a long quivering sigh. He started shaking, the pressure off.

“Want a smoke?”

The lieutenant shook his head. “Up there.” He pointed to Matterhorn, its base looming above the valley, the top hidden by
clouds. “I spotted some movement two nights ago. I thought I could work in closer to see what it was.”

“Tubing! Tubing! Incoming!” The cry resounded throughout the circle. People scrambled for cover.

“Oh, fuck,” Fitch said. The three of them lay flat on the ground, none having had time to dig a hole.

Six explosions, almost simultaneous, rocked the area just outside the perimeter.

“They’re up there, all right,” the lieutenant said. “I saw two machine guns. They’re dug in on that hill to the right. There’s
a burned-out helicopter on it. With that many heavy machine guns my guess is we may have a company up there. I wanted to check
out the other hill, but—”

“Incoming!” someone shouted.

Mellas was digging furiously. Six more explosions walked across the interior of the company perimeter. The NVA gunners had
the range. There was no doubt in his mind that there was a company. No smaller unit would hump the mortar ammo.

“Get the fucking fire mission going, Daniels!” Fitch shouted. “They’ve got our fucking number.” Fitch immediately switched
to the two circling gunships and directed them to find the mortars if they could.

“We can’t get a mission going if the choppers are in the way,” Daniels shouted, frustrated. “And the rate of fire will be
slow because of the range. They’ll burn their barrels up if they shoot too fast with max charges.”

“I don’t give a fuck about their barrels. You call in the goddamn mission.”