Matterhorn_ A Novel of the Vietnam War Part 44

'Only if the f.u.c.king gooks have invented a bullet that shoots underground.'

Hawke had the kids laughing at death.

Pallack's voice came over the PRC-25s. 'OK, Bravo One, Two, and Three. Kickoff time.'

The company walked off into the black jungle as the artillery shrieked above them and exploded into Matterhorn, shaking the ground. The light from the exploding sh.e.l.ls was reflected and softened by the fog and came to their eyes as pale glimmers.

They pa.s.sed Cortell and Jermain, Jacobs's M-79 man, sitting on a log watching them.

'Good luck, you guys,' Cortell said sincerely. Jacobs said thanks. So did a few others. n.o.body thought badly of them. Jermain watched his friends file by, silently shaking his head, as if telling himself, 'I won't go. Not this time. This time it's crazy.'

Jermain and Cortell watched the last man disappear. They said nothing for at least three minutes. Then Jermain spoke up: 'I feel kind of s.h.i.tty.'

'Me too,' Cortell said. There was another silence.

'You think we go to heaven when we die?' Jermain asked.

'I don't think nothin'. I believe believe Jesus take care of us when we die.' Cortell looked at Jermain. 'Believin's not thinkin'.' Jesus take care of us when we die.' Cortell looked at Jermain. 'Believin's not thinkin'.'

Jermain took that in for a while. 'What if you're wrong?'

Cortell laughed. 'What if you you wrong? You been worse off than me all you life. I got the safe bet, not you.' wrong? You been worse off than me all you life. I got the safe bet, not you.'

'I didn't say I didn't believe.'

'No, you just playing it safe and not choosin'. Jesus don't want you to play safe. You don't get anyplace if you don't choose.'

'I don't want to go nowhere but back to the world.'

'Yeah, I be right there with you,' Cortell said. He was silent for a moment. Then he said, 'Ever'one here think it easy for me. I be this good little church boy from Mississippi with my good little church-goin' Mammy, and since I be this stupid country n.i.g.g.e.r with the big faith, I don't have no troubles. Well, it just don't work that way.' He paused. Jermain said nothing. 'I see my friend Williams get ate by a tiger,' Cortell continued. 'I see my friend Broyer get his face ripped off by a mine. What you think I do all night, sit around thankin' Sweet Jesus? Raise my palms to sweet heaven and cry hallelujah? You know what I do? You know what I do? I lose my heart.' Cortell's throat suddenly tightened, strangling his words. 'I lose my heart.' He took a deep breath, trying to regain his composure. He exhaled and went on quietly, back in control. 'I sit there and I don't see any hope. Hope gone.' Cortell was seeing his dead friends. 'Then, the sky turn gray again in the east, and you know what I do? I choose all over to keep believin'. All along I know Jesus could maybe be just some fairy tale, and I could be just this one big fool. I choose anyway.' He turned away from his inward images and returned to the blackness of the world around him. 'It ain't no easy thing.'

The platoon was well into the jungle when Mellas saw Jermain, holding an M-16, break past him. Jermain handed the rifle to Jacobs and took back his M-79 grenade launcher and the vest filled with grenades without saying a word. Jacobs turned around and grinned at Mellas, his face lit by an illumination round. Jermain kept moving forward, refusing to turn around.

'Hey, Jermain,' Mellas finally whispered during a halt.

Jermain turned around, looking chagrined.

'Don't look so f.u.c.king hangdog,' Mellas said gently. 'Did Cortell come too?'

'Yeah. Crazy motherf.u.c.ker started praying and shoved off without asking me if I'd come or not. So I shoved off, too. Crazy motherf.u.c.ker.'

'You or him?' Mellas asked.

Jermain laughed. 'f.u.c.ked if I know, sir.'

'Well, I'm glad you guys came. I hope you make your R & R.'

'Me too, sir.'

They kicked off again. Mellas put Robertson on point with Jermain and three new kids, knowing that Robertson and Jermain had scaled Sky Cap together and were tight. Between them, they could probably handle the green ones.

The newbies were starting at every little sound. The artillery barrage grew louder as they neared Matterhorn. Robertson slowed to one pace at a time, inching toward the edge of the jungle. The entire line waited as Robertson's squad inched forward, feeling for the dangerous open fields of fire that Bravo itself had cleared.

Gradually the fog turned gray with the coming of dawn. Then Robertson held up his hand. He turned and whispered something that Mellas couldn't hear through the roar of the artillery. Mellas knew they'd reached the edge of the trees. He scrambled forward in a crouch. Robertson was on his belly, peering out just a meter short of the cleared ground.

Before them stood Matterhorn, now ugly and barren, swathed in the sweet-sick smoke of the artillery. Mellas could see the large gaps torn in the wire during and after their previous a.s.sault. He could also see First Platoon's former bunkers. He moved the platoon into a long a.s.sault line just inside the jungle and radioed Goodwin to link up. When Goodwin radioed that he had contact with Mellas's right flank, Mellas radioed Fitch. He told Fitch they were at the final line of departure.

The kids lay on the ground, rifles in front of them, sweating, some taking nervous sips of water and Kool-Aid from their canteens. The artillery stopped. They heard the rest of Delta Company coming in on choppers, which were met with only desultory rifle fire. Still, Mellas felt frightened. He watched the hill anxiously. The artillery had been useless against the fortified positions. Nice work on those bunkers, he thought ruefully. Now it all depended on whether or not fixed wing could take them out with napalm and 250-pound or maybe even 500-pound bombs.

They waited. Nothing happened. Mellas's fear overcame him, and he reached for the hook. 'Bravo Six, this is Bravo Five. Where's the f.u.c.king fixed wing with the snake and nape? Over.'

'It's supposed to be on its way. They're having trouble with the weather. Can't see the f.u.c.king hill and going too fast to risk coming in lower.'

'f.u.c.k,' Jackson whispered.

Mellas radioed Hamilton, who had continued westward to position his squad to stop any NVA reinforcements or to kill any NVA retreating from Matterhorn. The going was terribly slow. 'Get your a.s.ses moving,' Mellas said fiercely.

Hamilton rogered.

Mellas lay in close to Jacobs and Jackson. They waited. Mellas wanted to s.h.i.t again. His bowels felt like they were full of wet tissue paper.

Jackson felt the radio pressing his chest into the earth. This made it uncomfortable to breathe, but at the same time he felt good to be pressed so close to the ground. A strange insect walked in front of his nose. It occurred to Jackson that in the insect's world the events of the day would go unnoticed. His mind flipped back to the world, to his family, to his neighborhood in Cleveland. Bringing lunch to his dad at Moe's Tire and Retread. His mother laughing with the customers as she styled their hair at Billie's Cut and Perm. Like the insect, they too lived in a separate world.

Mellas checked on Hamilton again. He was still several hundred meters from his destination. This irritated Mellas, and he let Hamilton know it. He checked in with Fitch. 'G.o.dd.a.m.n it, where's our f.u.c.king airplanes?'

'I don't know, Five. Out,' Fitch said curtly.

Mellas crawled backward. Jackson followed him. They moved in a slow crouch behind the long line of Marines. 'We're waiting for snake and nape,' Mellas would say, touching kids on their shoulders. 'We're waiting for the fixed wing. They're going to napalm the s.h.i.t out of the hill with snake-eye bombs.' The kids grew less jittery.

He and Jackson reached Cortell. Cortell looked up at Mellas. 'I'm crazy, Lieutenant. I'm a crazy cotton-pickin' idiot.'

'I think so, too,' Rider said, grinning.

'Hey, man,' Cortell replied, 'I do the thinkin' 'round here. I think you bein' squad leader went to you head.'

Rider smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

Jackson knelt beside Cortell and the two of them touched fists in the hand dance, looking at each other solemnly.

'Hey, brother, we in a real nightmare,' Jackson finally said.

'You just trust in Jesus,' Cortell said. They both knew these might be the last words they would exchange. 'But keep you f.u.c.kin' rifle out of the mud, too.' They touched hands again and Jackson turned to follow Mellas down the line.

Mellas and Jackson returned to their original spot next to Jacobs. The hill was deadly quiet. No air stirred. The thinning artillery smoke tinted the blasted mud gray.

Jacobs opened a packet of Choo-Choo Cherry, poured the dark red crystals into his hand, and popped them into his mouth. His hand ran red where the sweat on his palm dissolved the crystals. He handed the package to Jackson, who also took some. Jackson's lips turned reddish purple.

The radio hissed. 'Foxtrot Whiskey coming in. Get your f.u.c.king heads down. Over.' The word pa.s.sed along the line. Then a rushing scream filled their ears and the huge bulk of a Phantom fighter-bomber slashed so closely above their heads that they felt the wake turbulence. It disappeared across the top of the hill. As this sound died away, it was replaced by the chatter of a lone automatic weapon.

'How come they didn't drop nothing?' Jake asked. He had taken out his Instamatic camera.

Mellas shrugged.

A second jet came in above them. Snake-eye bombs-four tiny eggs, dark against the gray sky-popped out of its belly. The bombs suddenly blossomed four-petaled tails that arrested their rapid movement, allowing the jet to roar safely out of danger before they hit.

The bombs exploded harmlessly on the other side of the hill. Mellas was on the radio instantly. 'Those stupid motherf.u.c.kers are bombing the wrong place. Tell them to drop five hundred. Over.'

'I hear you, Bravo Five,' Fitch replied. 'We're telling. Out.'

Another Phantom thundered overhead. Mellas watched in disbelief as four more snake-eyes floated harmlessly out of sight.

'G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Skipper, they're missing the f.u.c.king hill!' Mellas shouted.

Goodwin was on the radio, too. 'Please, for G.o.d's sake, please tell them they're hitting the wrong target. If they don't hit those bunkers we're going to get creamed. Over.'

Mellas sank back into the ground. Again the jets pa.s.sed overhead, with a shattering noise. Again they wasted their precious cargo on the jungle.

Jake turned around and looked at Mellas, his eyes wild with frustration and fear.

'What the f.u.c.k can I do?' Mellas nearly shouted at him.

Fitch was pleading with Captain Bainford's radio operator. Bainford eventually came up on the hook. 'I tell you one of the pilots reported a secondary. Over.'

'I don't care if he reported hitting the Glorious Revolution Ammunition Factory, you're missing the f.u.c.king target. Over.'

'Look, Bravo Six, you have to try and see things from their perspective. They're going five hundred miles an hour and it's foggy. It's a h.e.l.l of a job. Over.'

'You get them on f.u.c.king target or I'll open up on them, so help me G.o.d. Over.'

'We'll see what we can do. Big John One Four out.'

A single jet came in, only a few hundred feet above them. Two long sausage-shaped cylinders tumbled out. These were the napalm.

The cylinders fell out of sight, moving at 500 miles an hour across the top of the hill, uselessly searing the jungle with the flaming jellied chemical. A second jet followed. One of its canisters caught the top of the hill just inside the circle of bunkers. Orange flame mixed with intense black smoke washed across the dark earth of Matterhorn's LZ. But there was nothing to burn there.

Mellas grabbed the hook. He switched off the company frequency. He came up on the battalion frequency and started shouting. 'G.o.dd.a.m.n it, you tell those stupid motherf.u.c.kers to drop two hundred meters. I say again. Drop two hundred meters!'

'Bravo Five, this is Big John Three. You clear the f.u.c.king nets. We're controlling the fixed wing. They said the last drop looked right on. Now get off the net. That's an order.'

'G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I tell you they can't f.u.c.king see see. I'm right here! They're hitting the wrong f.u.c.king target!' Mellas rolled over and moaned.

The two planes came in again, and again the napalm sprayed uselessly several hundred meters to the northwest of the hill. Then they didn't come in any more.

Fitch's crisp voice came in over the company net. 'That's it. The weather's closed them out. We had another flight on station, but Big John says they won't be able to run them. It's too dangerous in this weather.'

There was a pause.

'Too dangerous,' Mellas said to no one.

Fitch came up again. 'OK, that's it. No more air. Show's over. Let's go. Over.'

'Bravo One, roger,' Mellas said, handing the receiver to Jackson. Goodwin rogered and so did Hawke.

And then Mellas stood up.

His hands were shaking. The blood pounded so hard in his throat that each heartbeat hurt. His thighs felt too weak to keep his knees from folding. His empty insides still churned with the desire to eliminate watery feces. He gave the signal and walked forward into the nakedness of the hillside. The others walked with him, emerging from the trees in a single quavery line.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

The long line of Marines moved forward in silence, breaking and bending on the blasted ground, wavering around shattered stumps, forming up again. Their breathing became labored as they climbed the steep slope.

'Keep walking,' Mellas was saying to himself. 'Don't run. Keep walking.'

Twenty meters. He glanced over his shoulder to see if there were any stragglers. The jungle behind the Marines already looked, as usual, impenetrable. Twenty-five meters. A kid stumbled momentarily, pitching forward. He caught himself. The line moved upward. Twenty-eight meters. Maybe no one was up there. Thirty meters. Only the sound of breathing could be heard as they walked up the hill.

The bunkers seemed miles above them.

Mellas slipped backward on the slope but caught himself. He was still thinking: Keep walking. Don't panic. Maybe no one's there. Don't run. Keep it all until you need it. Maybe no one's there.

The tension was like a balloon being filled to its bursting point. With every step more air was forced in. Until the agonized rubber burst.

The bunkers winked light, and the ground around the Marines seemed to come alive. The air was split by bullets and by the sound of AK-47s, SKS rifles, and Russian-built RPD 7.62 machine guns. Almost immediately, Fitch gave the signal for Delta Company on Helicopoter Hill to open up. There was a mind-numbing roar as Delta poured bullets above the heads of the advancing Marines of Bravo Company. Mellas heard the bullets cracking and snapping over his head and watched them hit all along the line of bunkers. Adrenaline surged through him. Then he became aware of the cries of those who were being hit.

Mellas tried to shout above the roar: 'Let's go, G.o.dd.a.m.n it. Let's go!' He churned forward, Jackson scrambling to his left. A rush of machine-gun bullets. .h.i.t the mud in front of them, and they both dived for the earth and clawed their way to a log. Out of the corner of his eye Mellas saw Robertson dive for cover in a sh.e.l.l crater. One of Robertson's squad members, however, was left kicking on the earth behind him. Another Marine grabbed the kid's legs and started to pull him to safety, but the advancing machine-gun bullets cut the second kid down. He curled over in a fetal position, holding his abdomen. Then he lay still.

Mellas raised his head above the log to start forward. Bullets kicked mud and rock fragments into his face and cracked and snapped over his head. Mellas pushed his face into the ground. It was suicidal to go farther.

The attack, barely started, came to a complete halt.

Another of the new kids from Robertson's squad darted from cover and tried to reach the two others lying in front of him. He was shot through the chest. Jacobs raced out after him, and Mellas yelled for a corpsman. Doc Fredrickson came running across an open s.p.a.ce and dived behind the shelter of the log while Jacobs brought the kid back in behind it. The entire sequence took approximately five seconds. The kid Jacobs had pulled in was dead.

There were now four of them and a body huddled behind the log. Mellas was mumbling and praying aloud, although no one could hear him: his face was pressed into the ground. Why, G.o.d, why didn't they drop the napalm? Why didn't they hold off until the weather cleared and just burn the f.u.c.king hill down? Why are we doing this now? Why doesn't somebody move?

The air was alive with noise, bullets, and madness. They had now lain behind the log for more than thirty seconds.

Jermain came running across to the group behind the log. Bullets ripped past him. 'There's no f.u.c.king room for you, Jermain,' Mellas shouted, but Jermain ignored him and kept coming. Jermain piled on top of Mellas and Jackson, knocking the air from Mellas's lungs.

He made it, Mellas thought.

Jermain's chest was heaving and his eyes were darting back and forth wildly. But he had made it without being hit. That thought kept picking at Mellas's mind. Mellas started to turn his own face toward the earth again, trying to ignore the firing, and letting the noise and confusion immobilize him, but Jermain shouted, 'I know where the f.u.c.king gun is, Lieutenant.'

Mellas wanted to shout back at him, So f.u.c.king what? I'm not going up there. I'm not going up there so some f.u.c.king colonel can get a f.u.c.king medal. So f.u.c.king what? I'm not going up there. I'm not going up there so some f.u.c.king colonel can get a f.u.c.king medal. Instead, he said, 'Well, shoot at the motherf.u.c.ker,' and pressed his face down into the wonderful earth. Instead, he said, 'Well, shoot at the motherf.u.c.ker,' and pressed his face down into the wonderful earth.