Matterhorn_ A Novel of the Vietnam War Part 12

Mellas laughed but knew what Jackson meant. Somehow the ca.s.sette was foreign-j.a.panese-or futuristic. A forty-five record was probably as near to home as anyone could get in the jungle.

Corporal Arran walked by with Pat tagging just behind and to his right, obviously not on heel, sniffing at whatever was of interest to him, turning his head, panting happily in response to the various greetings of the Marines. He sniffed at Mellas's trouser leg, then trotted over to where Williams was sitting against his pack, his large rancher's hands cradling the back of his head. Williams sat up and reached out to tousle the dog's reddish ears, smiling, obviously pleased that Pat had singled him out. 'I like dogs,' he said to Mellas. 'They seem to know it.' He turned back to the dog, grabbed the loose skin on Pat's neck, and gently wagged the dog's head back and forth. 'Hey, big fella. Hey. What you doing in Vietnam?' The dog licked Williams's hand and then his cheek and Williams giggled. 'You don't know why you're here any more than me, do you, big guy?'

Arran gave a quick low whistle and Pat trotted off after him. Mellas continued down the line of Marines, stopping when he reached Pollini, who was retying his mortar rounds to the top of his pack. He reminded Mellas of a mouse busily trying to set things right in a cluttered nest.

Pollini looked up at him. 'h.e.l.lo, Lieutenant Mellas, sir.' He had his big grin on. His face was smeared with grime.

'Pollini, don't you ever wash?' Mellas asked quietly.

Pollini reached a grimy hand to his face, rubbed it down his cheek, then looked at it, but of course the hand showed nothing new. His hands were the large ones of an old carpenter, with big yellow nails, yet his face under his mop of curly black hair looked like that of a choirboy who'd fallen in the mud. He looked up at Mellas, grinning again. 'I washed this morning, sir, and shaved too.'

Jackson had walked over, mild annoyance showing on his face because Pollini wasn't ready to go. 'Shortround, you didn't shave this morning.' Jackson said. 'You ain't never shaved.'

'I did too.' Pollini stood up. 'Ask Cortell.' He turned to Mellas. 'I did shave.'

Jackson knelt down beside Pollini's mangled pack and started tightening wire and tying down objects. 'Shortround, G.o.dd.a.m.n it,' he said, pushing a wire into place. 'Lieutenant, I swear he was all wired up about three minutes ago.'

'I had to get a . . .' Pollini said.

Jackson stopped tying. 'You had to get a what?'

'Just something.'

'Shortround, you eating your food?'

Pollini grinned. Grinning was his main defense against all bigger and more competent people. 'Well, just a can of peaches. I was on LP last night and missed breakfast.'

'Why did you miss breakfast?' Jackson turned to Mellas. 'I gave him twenty minutes while we were taking down our trip flares and claymores, sir.'

'It's all right, Jackson.' Mellas turned to Pollini. 'You know you're going to need all the food you can carry. Why didn't you just go get some out of the boxes lying around the area?'

'I don't know, sir.'

'You don't know because you're f.u.c.king stupid,' Jackson said.

'Now get your gear back together. Where are the peaches?'

Pollini dug into a large pocket. His size-small jungle utilities fit him like a clown suit. He pulled out the can and handed it to Jackson, who stuck it back in Pollini's jammed pack, angrily making room for it.

Pollini suddenly looked as though he was going to cry. 'I'm not stupid,' he said.

'You're f.u.c.king stupid,' Jackson said.

'That's enough, Jackson,' Mellas said.

He turned to Pollini. 'Shortround, you're just going to have to learn to think about things. The choppers are due in about five minutes and here you are farting around and eating up your food besides.'

'I didn't get any breakfast.' Pollini was getting stubborn, his back to the wall.

Mellas felt his nerves, already jangling, begin to fray despite the enforced coolness. 'Make sure he's ready to go, Jackson,' he said, deciding it would be better to drop the subject. He walked away and settled back on the ground. He shut his eyes, hoping to look as if he'd gone to sleep. He gradually became aware of a plane droning overhead, lost above the clouds. He knew it was an airplane and not a helicopter because of the smoothness of the drone and the absence of the flat slapping thud a helicopter's rotors made against the air. He looked up from where he lay, seeing nothing, scanning the area where the sound was coming from with the interest of any bored person in a distraction. For a moment he caught a glimpse of a large plane, a quick leaden flash amid the cloud cover. Then it disappeared again. It seemed to be circling in lower. When it finally broke out of the cloud cover, it was far off to the northeast, over the valley into which they were to be dropped. It was a large propeller-driven aircraft.

'Looks like a transport plane,' Mellas said to Hamilton. 'What do you think he's doing?'

'f.u.c.ked if I know, sir.' Hamilton didn't even bother to look. He was memorizing radio frequencies and codes.

The plane turned in a lazy circle, gaining alt.i.tude up above the ridgeline that extended from Matterhorn to Helicopter Hill and into the east. When it swung around again it was directly in line with the ridge, heading straight toward them. It kept coming. Quite a few people were watching it by now. A fine faint plume fell from behind it, a darker grayish silver cloud, hardly distinguishable from the overcast backdrop. The drone grew louder. The plane continued straight on. A few more Marines rose to their feet.

'What the h.e.l.l?' said Mellas. He too stood up.

The plane roared overhead, its U.S. Air Force markings clearly visible, the sound of its four turboprops deafening. Within seconds they were enveloped in a chemical mist. People were coughing, wheezing, shouting obscenities. Mellas could see Fitch, tears running from his eyes, shouting over Relsnik's radio to battalion, demanding to know what was going on and trying to get battalion to stop it. The plane was dwindling into a speck to the southwest, climbing for alt.i.tude over the Laotian border until it was lost in the clouds. The only evidence of its pa.s.sing was that the whole hill reeked, as if covered with mosquito repellent.

Hamilton raised an imaginary gla.s.s to the air. 'Here's to the f.u.c.king Air Force.'

Mellas, his eyes still tearing, walked over to where the company CP group was sitting. Fitch was holding on to the hook, clearly waiting for a reply from battalion. 'I've got Bainford, the battalion forward air controller, on it,' he said when Mellas got within speaking distance.

About a minute later the handset squawked and Mellas could hear a tinny voice saying, 'It's a defoliant. We put an order in for it for tomorrow, but it looks like we got a f.u.c.kup someplace. Sorry about that. It won't hurt you. It's just to kill plants. It's called Agent Orange. It's so the trees won't give any shelter to the enemy. The Air Force has used it a lot, and it won't bother humans.'

'Well, it bothers me,' Mellas said loudly. Fitch ignored him.

'Roger that. Bravo Six out.'

Fitch turned to Mellas. 'You heard him-it's for killing plants. Zoomies. G.o.d d.a.m.n them.' Fitch kept muttering curses as he wiped his eyes.

Hawke walked up and handed Fitch his pear-can cup, steaming with coffee.

The sound of the birds coming in from the south finally broke the nervous lethargy. Mellas rushed into his gear, rechecking ammunition and weapons, then realized that Goodwin would be going in first and sat down again.

The first bird came in fast. Its roar filled the air and its blades lashed the puddles of water in the muddy clay. Goodwin rushed across the open ground with his heli team. He slapped their backs, counting them, as he moved them into the opening jaws of the chopper's rear. The tailgate closed and he was gone. Almost immediately a second bird flew in, and then a third. Mellas saw Sergeant Ridlow, his big .44 strapped to his hip, run across the LZ. Then Mellas too was running across the LZ, Hamilton scrambling beside him, his radio buried under all his other gear. Mellas counted his team into the bird. He gave a thumbs-up to the crew chief, and they were swallowed and sliding off into s.p.a.ce, the chopper dropping down from the hilltop to pick up airspeed. Mellas had his compa.s.s out, continually checking directions so that when they hit the ground he'd be oriented immediately.

Off to their right the looming black ridgeline that had been their constant companion on the hill, and had required a full day's effort to reach, slid by in seconds. Below it were steep jungle-covered slopes carved by large streams. The jungle stopped when it hit the valley floor and elephant gra.s.s took over. The map was a confused series of contour lines. In several places the contour lines didn't even join-the mapmakers had given up.

The deck tilted and the pitch of the blades changed. The roar of the engine increased. Mellas's throat was throbbing again. The gra.s.s rushed up toward them, changing from its illusory smoothness to its ten-foot-tall reality. The chopper hit with a crash, throwing everyone back on his rear end. The doors opened and they scrambled out, hitting the mashed gra.s.s beneath their feet at a full run. Mellas immediately headed to the left and began placing everyone in his a.s.signed place in the zone.

Nothing happened. Smiles broke out over rifle barrels pointing outward into the gra.s.s. A few minutes later Mellas saw Fitch and Hawke running across the LZ toward the Charlie Company CP group. Mellas walked over to join them. As he did, he saw that the kids of Charlie Company were nearly exhausted and their clothing, dark and wet, was clinging to their bodies. Their jungle rot was even worse than what Mellas had seen at Matterhorn.

Mellas saw a radioman and walked toward someone who was lying on the ground but looked like a platoon commander. He looked up at Mellas wearily. His face was wide and he had a short thick mustache. There was no way of identifying rank except by intuition, but this man seemed to be in charge. 'h.e.l.lo. I'm Lieutenant Mellas. First Platoon Bravo Company. You guys look tired.'

The man scratched his ear and grimaced. He reached out a beefy hand. 'I'm Jack Murphy. Charlie One. We died two days ago and I'm having post-death hallucinations about sitting on an LZ waiting to get out of this f.u.c.king place. This is Somerville.' He indicated the radioman. 'He's not really here either.' Then Murphy's face twitched and his head gave a brief jerk. He seemed unaware of it, as did his radio operator.

'They f.u.c.king humped us to death,' said Somerville.

'What's the terrain like?'

'Awful,' Murphy said. Again there was the quick sideways jerk of the head and the facial twitch. 'f.u.c.king mountains. Cliffs. Covered in f.u.c.king clouds.'

Mellas pretended not to see the tic. 'Hard resupply, I suppose.'

'No. It was easy.'

'Oh?'

'There wasn't any.'

'Oh.' Mellas decided Jack Murphy didn't feel like talking. But Mellas wanted information. 'I heard you got hit.'

'Yeah.'

'What happened?'

Murphy grunted and raised himself to a sitting position. He brought his pack up with him as if it were simply part of his body. Then he lurched to his feet. He was about two inches taller than Mellas. He pointed into the elephant gra.s.s, indicating something unseen. 'Out over that way the country gets real steep, lots of f.u.c.king streams and s.h.i.t. You got ropes?'

'Yeah. We carry one per squad.'

'Good,' Murphy said. 'Well, about four days from here, maybe less if you follow where we went and risk getting ambushed, there's a steep f.u.c.king hill. The gooks have dug steps out of it, so they've obviously had plenty of time to prepare bunkers. The point man and one other started up and all s.h.i.t broke loose. The gooks got both of them and two others.'

'You get any?'

'Who the f.u.c.k knows?' Murphy told Mellas the story. They had been strung out along a river that ran just below a hill. The terrain wasn't suitable for goats. Under the cover of their M-79 grenade launchers, they pulled the bodies back and didn't go any farther. They had to build a landing zone quickly in order to get the wounded medevaced in time. They were socked in by the monsoon and there was no good place in that impossible terrain anyway, so they humped downhill as fast as they could to get out of the cloud cover. One more died on the way down.

Murphy suddenly sat down again, worn out. 'Save your f.u.c.king food.' He twitched two times.

'Thanks,' Mellas said. Murphy only grunted in reply.

Mellas moved on. He joined Fitch and Hawke and someone he guessed was Charlie Six, Charlie Company's commanding officer. The man wore a battered pair of gla.s.ses with tape wrapped around them. His utilities were black with water and rotten elephant gra.s.s. They clung to his body. He kept glancing nervously at the sky.

'Mellas,' Fitch greeted him, unfolding his map, 'just who we want to see.'

'Your enthusiasm is hardly contagious,' Mellas answered. Fitch didn't smile.

Hawke broke in, imitating W. C. Fields, 'My boy, you do learn fast.'

Fitch laughed nervously.

The conversation with Murphy had left Mellas on edge, and the W. C. Fields imitation, a form of humor he had always considered low-brow, grated on his nerves.

'Enough, Jayhawk,' he said.

'Yes, sir sir.'

Mellas immediately regretted having said anything.

Fitch, licking his lips nervously, was oblivious of the exchange. He pointed to the map that he had laid out on the ground, and they all knelt over it. 'This is about where the ammo cache is,' he said. 'Captain Coates here figures it's about three days if we follow their trail and risk ambush. Four or five if we take the safer way up along the ridgeline here.' He bit his lip, suddenly silent. Then he looked up at Mellas. 'I want First Platoon on point. We're going to make our own trail so I need someone who's good with a map. Right now we've got to clear out of the LZ fast. The gooks are probably already setting up their mortars. Follow Charlie Company's trail until I say otherwise.' He licked his lips. 'Tell your point man that Alpha's coming down the f.u.c.king trail with a body so don't get trigger-happy.' Fitch's voice trailed off, and he gazed uncertainly into the damp rustling elephant gra.s.s. Mellas could feel Fitch's uneasiness. It was his first major operation commanding the entire company.

Captain Coates was sound asleep, slumped on his pack next to his radio operator, who was also asleep.

Mellas felt a stirring of hope. Here were two company commanders, one unsure of himself, the other giving in to exhaustion, yet both had received commands. Then why not himself? He saw himself telling people back home he had commanded a company in action, 212 men. No, 212 Marines. He looked over at Hawke, feeling Hawke's presence as an impediment, knowing the company would go to Hawke and not himself unless a captain showed up when Fitch rotated, in which case it still wouldn't go to him. He simply needed more time.

Hawke, mistaking Mellas's look for a silent question, nodded toward the sleeping commander of Charlie Company and began to fill in Fitch's instructions. 'Charlie Six could only describe the cache area. He couldn't actually locate it on the map, because the map's inaccurate. So where the battalion says it is ain't necessarily so. Coates says the map is a good six hundred meters off in some places. Tonight we're going to try to make an old gook base camp they found, up here.' Hawke circled his finger around, indicating a broad area. 'The jungle's so thick he wasn't sure exactly where he was, but it sounds like a good defensive position. Your first sign will be brush cuttings. Either that or you'll hit Charlie's trail from the uphill side. You start seeing signs, stop and give Jim a call and he'll come up and take a look. I'll be humping way way in the rear with Staff Sergeant Samms.' Mellas knew that Samms, Third Platoon's platoon sergeant, was regarded as competent. But Samms was saddled with Lieutenant Kendall's poor map-reading skills until they could get Kendall over his mandatory ninety days in the bush and get him back to his motor transportation unit. in the rear with Staff Sergeant Samms.' Mellas knew that Samms, Third Platoon's platoon sergeant, was regarded as competent. But Samms was saddled with Lieutenant Kendall's poor map-reading skills until they could get Kendall over his mandatory ninety days in the bush and get him back to his motor transportation unit.

'What about the Kit Carsons?' Mellas asked, referring to the scouts a.s.signed to the company for the operation, former NVA soldiers who had deserted and taken better pay with the Americans.

'They're on f.u.c.king strike,' Hawke said. 'They'll just hump along with the CP group.'

'You want me to pull out now?' Mellas asked.

Fitch came back to the present and told Mellas to take his platoon about 200 meters up Charlie's and Alpha's trail and then wait for the rest of the company to wind out of the landing zone. Mellas was surprised when Fitch told him that it took about half an hour for a company to snake single file out of a zone.

'Where you walking?' Hawke asked Mellas.

'Number five.' The point man would lead, followed by the dog, Pat, and Corporal Arran; another rifleman and the squad leader were at positions three and four; and then came Mellas, followed by Hamilton and the radio.

'Good. I don't want the company going off on a f.u.c.king bear hunt because some squad leader can't read his compa.s.s. You'd better know where the f.u.c.k you are all the time.'

'Yes, sir. sir.' Mellas said, smiling and trying to understand why Hawke was suddenly so testy.

'Just keep on your f.u.c.king toes.' Hawke wasn't smiling. 'And keep your f.u.c.king compa.s.s hidden when you check it. Man with a compa.s.s is a dead giveaway for a leader.'

'Sure, Hawke.'

Mellas rejoined the platoon. Everyone stood up, anxious to get out of the zone, feeling exposed to enemy mortars attracted by the helicopters. Ba.s.s and all three squad leaders pointed out with some pa.s.sion that First Platoon had had point at the end of the last operation. Mellas stopped the argument by saying Fitch had ordered First Platoon on point because of the critical need to navigate to the NVA base camp. They all knew that with the possible exception of Daniels, Mellas was the best one with a map and compa.s.s and accepted their fate.

There was no argument among the squads that it was Conman's squad's turn to have point for the platoon. Vancouver was eating a package of Kool-Aid powder, waiting for the go-ahead. Everyone had given up trying to argue Vancouver out of taking point for the squad.

Mellas radioed Fitch. 'Bravo Six, this is Bravo One. We're ready to roll. Just follow in trace of my Bugs Bunny Grape. Over.'

'One, Bravo,' Pallack answered. 'Skipper says to make hat. Over.'

'Roger. One out.' Mellas looked at Vancouver and pointed into the elephant gra.s.s. Vancouver, who had purple smeared all around his mouth, took a last pull at the torn package and handed the remainder to Mellas. He chambered a round into his sawed-off machine gun and walked into the tall gra.s.s, following Charlie Company's path. Mellas looked at the package, purple powder smeared on the torn edges, wet from Vancouver's saliva. He shrugged, downed a mouthful, and made a face at Hamilton. 'G.o.d, how do you stand this s.h.i.t?' His eyes squinted at the tartness, and then he felt saliva gushing into his mouth. He shook his head and moved out, Hamilton following.

Almost immediately the hubbub of the landing zone was cut off from view and hearing. The tall gra.s.s whispered around them. Soon they pa.s.sed Charlie Company's two-man outpost. One bedraggled kid called out, 'I hope they don't hump you like they humped us.'

'Me too,' Mellas called back to him. 'Here, I hate this flavor.' He tossed the Bugs Bunny Grape to him and the kid smiled, holding it up in the air. Then he was lost to view.

There was no sun, just gray drizzle and the wet sighing elephant gra.s.s towering above them, its lower portions already rotting, making more soil to grow more elephant gra.s.s. As they twisted and turned along the trail of smashed gra.s.s, Mellas continually checked his compa.s.s. He kept it close to his hip.

Ba.s.s, with the tail-end squad, radioed that he was just now pa.s.sing Charlie's outpost. Mellas was both surprised and disconcerted by how slowly they must be going, and the platoon was less than a third of the company. He went on farther, trying to estimate how far he'd have to go in order to put enough trail behind him to accommodate the entire company. Eventually he told Connolly to stop. Word pa.s.sed up to Vancouver, who was on point, and Mellas motioned everyone down, alternating directions inboard-outboard to watch both sides of the trail. He waited for Fitch's word that the company had gotten its tail out of the zone and he could move forward again. He felt isolated, seeing only one person on the trail ahead of him and no one behind him because of the elephant gra.s.s, taking it on faith that the company was indeed still there. The drizzling rain and the wet elephant gra.s.s soaked his clothes through.

The radio hissed faintly. 'Move it. Over.'

'Roger. Moving,' Hamilton answered. 'Out.' Hamilton motioned to Connolly, and everyone climbed to his feet without any word from Mellas. A good radioman and squad leader functioned without the need of a lieutenant, and Hamilton and Connolly had been together for months. Mellas was occupied with a leech he'd picked up. He kept kicking at his left leg with his right foot, hoping to kill it or knock it off without having to stop and squeeze insect repellent on it.

The company jerked forward, the radio alternately telling it to stop and go. It moved like an inchworm, slowly building up a contraction somewhere in the middle, then slowly stretching out until one kid lost sight of another. Word would then pa.s.s forward or back to the nearest radio. 'Break in the column.' Then the radioman would call forward to the point platoon: 'Hold it. We lost you.' Everyone would stop. People would fume.

Then the whole rear of the column would pile up on the kids who were stopped. Word would pa.s.s up and down until it reached a radio. 'We're back in contact.' Then the front of the inchworm would move blindly off. Slowly each part would feel the tug of the one in front of it and each Marine would start walking again, boots barely lifted from the mud of the trail, steps short and slow. Meanwhile the back would still be piling up and stopping. By the time the back of the column would get unpiled and moving, there would be another break in the front.

'Bravo One, Bravo.' The radio's curt message ended in a burst of static as Pallack's transmitter key was let up. 'Alpha figures dey're four hundred to five hundred meters from d' zone, so you ought to be close. Over.'

'Roger. Bravo One out.'