Matterhorn_ A Novel of the Vietnam War Part 51

Leaving the lid to the trunk open, Henry simply smiled at China. He coolly walked over to the matching dresser, removed the false bottom in the drawer, and pulled out a small plastic bag of marijuana. Then he took a diamond-inlaid silver cigarette lighter from the top drawer. Still smiling, he turned to face China. 'You the one give him you gun. He cut off you f.u.c.kin' b.a.l.l.s, the way I see it.'

China rose to the bait, but not in the way Henry wanted. 'You think I'm not ready to roll on them suckers? You think I don't see they a bunch of sick motherf.u.c.kers?' China turned to the other brothers, not even addressing Henry. 'What you people think this is, some sort of gang bulls.h.i.t? We not about just goin' out and doin' violence to cut up some people for the h.e.l.l of it. We about stoppin' things at the source of the evil. The source source. We got to overturn a racist society. If it come to a fight, it gonna be a real real motherf.u.c.ker. We can't let them get us one at a time.' motherf.u.c.ker. We can't let them get us one at a time.'

He turned to Henry, who'd sat on his cot and was carefully building a joint with the ornate roller. 'You think I'm not souped up for a motherf.u.c.ker over this? You think that I don't know payback gonna be a motherf.u.c.ker for that racist cracker? But payback gotta come right. All that happen wit'chew is they throw you black a.s.s in another conex box just like Mallory. They do worse for you. They throw you upside down in one of those f.u.c.kin' punishment holes like they do the gooks, and you be in so deep they have to pump sunshine to you all the way from Texas.' That got a laugh from the other brothers, and China started to feel better. 'They send you so far out in the bush they gonna use rock apes to carry you mail.' Then China pounded his fist on his palm. 'We got to get power. One dead Georgia cracker a drop in the bucket over here. I left dead Georgia crackers all over that f.u.c.kin' hill. And dead brothers too. Dead people ain't worth s.h.i.t. They just big nothins.'

'Power,' Henry sneered. 'Sheeit.' He licked the glue on the joint and smoothed the paper into place. 'You and you jive f.u.c.kin' talk, China. Mao say power come from the barrel of a gun. That dude know where it's at. Wha'chew gonna do? Go back to the world and sing We Shall Overcome'?' Now Henry got the laughter.

'Spare me,' China said.

'Well, wha'chew gonna do?' Henry coolly licked the cigarette paper along the seam, sealing it shut, watching China through narrowed eyes. 'I can just see China singing We Shall Overcome' as he walks in for his cyanide shower.'

Henry's friends now chimed in.

'Hey, Henry. You tell him.'

'Yeah, China. How come you not runnin' with us no more?'

'Hey, come on, brother. What's into you? Huh, man?'

'Nothin' into me,' China fired back at them. 'I been out in the f.u.c.kin' bush tryin' straighten s.h.i.t out while you jive-a.s.sed mothers in here talkin' about revolution. I workin' workin' revolution.' revolution.'

'You spare spare me, me, brother,' Henry said. 'Just 'cause you ain't figured a way get you a.s.s out of the jungle.' He laughed. 'If you really workin' revolution, then you better start right here. You frag the motherf.u.c.ker. That way we teach those f.u.c.kin' bigots that payback start right away. They gonna f.u.c.k with us, we gonna f.u.c.k with them worse.' He put the joint in his mouth and started striking at the flint of the lighter. brother,' Henry said. 'Just 'cause you ain't figured a way get you a.s.s out of the jungle.' He laughed. 'If you really workin' revolution, then you better start right here. You frag the motherf.u.c.ker. That way we teach those f.u.c.kin' bigots that payback start right away. They gonna f.u.c.k with us, we gonna f.u.c.k with them worse.' He put the joint in his mouth and started striking at the flint of the lighter.

China, his senses heightened from months in the bush, smelled the lighter fluid. It annoyed and slightly nauseated him. 'I told you there's no point. He just a little cog in the works. Besides, we get our own point across without killin'. We need to arm the black man for de defense. We ain't about murderin' people. We maybe pop a smoke under his a.s.s some night or maybe put a note on it like we did for the colonel.'

'You gonna write another note?' Henry asked. He blew out a long exhalation of smoke. The others laughed. 'Later for that, huh. Way Way later.' He handed off the joint and then turned his back on China and reached under his cot. He pulled out a fragmentation grenade. 'This ain't no smoke,' he said, tossing it lightly up and down in his palm. He tossed it over to China. 'I think you chickens.h.i.t to use it.' later.' He handed off the joint and then turned his back on China and reached under his cot. He pulled out a fragmentation grenade. 'This ain't no smoke,' he said, tossing it lightly up and down in his palm. He tossed it over to China. 'I think you chickens.h.i.t to use it.'

n.o.body laughed.

China knew in a flash of insight that once again Henry had him coming or going. If he did what Henry wanted, Henry was the leader. If he didn't do it, he was disgraced, and Henry was still the leader.

'We see who's chickens.h.i.t,' China said. He pulled the pin of the grenade and everything seemed to go in slow motion for him. He was so weary of slaughter that his own didn't matter any more. It was the same tired suicidal feeling he had walking off the hill in the mortar fire. He was only dimly aware of people shouting, running, scrambling for the door of the tent. 'He's f.u.c.kin' crazy, man! A f.u.c.kin' frag goin' off! Jesus Christ!' China, his tongue on his lips, concentrating on the count, tossed the grenade back to Henry and watched the spoon fly off toward the side of the tent.

Henry, his eyes wide, tossed the grenade back to China and dived out of the door for the wet ground.

China threw the grenade into Henry's open trunk, slammed down the heavy lid, and threw a flak jacket on top of it. He dived for the far side of the tent behind a pile of seabags, flinging himself down, rolling off the runway matting of the floor, facedown onto the dirt just beneath it at the edge of the tent, covering his head with his hands and arms.

The explosion pounded his ears and body.

He lay on the damp dirt. The silence and darkness were gradually filled by painful ringing in his ears, then by the smell of TNT. His head ached. But he was unharmed. He heard the excited babble of voices outside the tent. He stood up. Someone opened the now ragged flap of the ruined tent.

Henry walked in. He struck the lighter and coolly looked at the splinters of his once solid ebony trunk, at his shrapnel-pitted dresser, the ripped seabags. 'You gonna pay for this, China.'

China knew Henry wasn't talking about the furniture. He also knew that although Henry's image had taken a hit, power always trumped image-and, he was beginning to learn, ideology. Power was the ability to reward and punish. Henry could reward with money and drugs. He could punish by withholding money and drugs. A nice combination. Ultimately, however, Henry wielded the power of punishment held only by a self-selected few. He was willing to murder. China knew that if a man could kill some someone, everyone knew that he could kill any anyone. The only way to stand up to that kind of power was to be willing to die.

China walked back to the company area, uneasy and apprehensive.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

A helicopter carried Mellas the thirty miles from the hospital ship back to reality, dropping him to the ground at the Dong Ha airfield. From there, he hitched a ride on an Army truck thirteen kilometers south, across a dreary wasteland of abandoned rice farms, to Quang Tri, the location of the division's administrative rear. Mellas could tell that the Army driver was curious about him. After all, Mellas had a patch over one eye, several boxes of cigars under his arm, and a sword hanging from a complicated strap over his shoulder. helicopter carried Mellas the thirty miles from the hospital ship back to reality, dropping him to the ground at the Dong Ha airfield. From there, he hitched a ride on an Army truck thirteen kilometers south, across a dreary wasteland of abandoned rice farms, to Quang Tri, the location of the division's administrative rear. Mellas could tell that the Army driver was curious about him. After all, Mellas had a patch over one eye, several boxes of cigars under his arm, and a sword hanging from a complicated strap over his shoulder.

Finally the driver could contain himself no longer. 'Where'd you get the sword?' he asked.

Mellas was amused. 'Out in the bush,' he said.

'Ah.'

There were some things he couldn't tell the uninitiated. For them, the bush should, and would, remain a mystery.

In Bravo Company's unpainted plywood office a clerk was pecking at a typewriter. He had his shirt off and sweat glistened on his broad back, which also bore the scar of a bullet exit wound. Cigarette smoke curled limply upward in the humid coastal air. Above the clerk, covering the entire back wall, was a blown-up picture of a beautiful model in a girdle and bra.s.siere advertis.e.m.e.nt. A note had been handwritten by the model on the large poster in neat round script. 'To the men of Bravo Company, First Battalion, Twenty-Fourth Marines. You're doing a great job. Love, Cindy.' It was dated February 1967-just two years earlier but in some ways a bygone era.

The clerk told Mellas that Fitch was leaving for Okinawa in the afternoon and filled him in on the staged fragging, the note wrapped around the grenade, and Simpson's disarming the company. He also said that Ca.s.sidy had come to the rear, ostensibly to say good-bye to Fitch but more to drink himself into oblivion after having to be the one who actually took the weapons. Then the clerk said that the company would be skying out tomorrow for Eiger, and that Hawke had been given command. According to scuttleb.u.t.t, Mulvaney himself had given Hawke the job. Mellas said he was glad. Then he walked over to supply to get new gear for the bush. There he was told he'd have to sign for a deduction from his paycheck in order to pay for his old rifle before they would issue him a new one.

'The f.u.c.king Navy has the G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing.'

'I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but I'm not paying for the f.u.c.king thing. If you ever want to go home you better have all your f.u.c.king bills paid. They ain't paid, we don't endorse your orders. I don't care if you stay here the rest of your life.'

Mellas paid $127.

He left with his new rifle and trudged over to another supply tent to rummage around for his seabag. When he found it he went through the contents, looking for items he'd want to take to the bush. He smiled as he held up several of the green T-shirts and boxer shorts his mother had dyed, remembering how he had asked Goodwin about whether or not to wear underwear in the bush. He threw the underwear into a trash can and headed for the staff club to forget where he would be in twenty-four hours.

The staff club had improved since he and Goodwin had last been there, drowning their fears. A fancy Akai tape deck was now sitting on the bar. The bar itself had some nice new inlay work, and several new beer signs rolled, sparkled, and advertised sky-blue waters from out of the gloom. Newly installed, high on the wall behind the bar, was Vancouver's sawed-off machine gun. It was flanked by two captured Russian machine guns.

Staff Sergeant Ca.s.sidy sat alone at a table, a bottle of Jack Daniel's Black Label in front of him. No one else was in the club. Gunny Klump, the manager, had gone out to do errands, leaving Ca.s.sidy to mind the store. Mellas said he could use a beer, and Ca.s.sidy disappeared behind the bar. He emerged with an armload of cold wet cans, which he set ceremoniously on the table in front of Mellas. 'No sense in getting up and down except to p.i.s.s,' he said. He was already well along on his own mystery tour.

Mellas reached for one of the cans, punched two holes in it, and chugged the beer down. Then he opened another can and leaned back in the chair. He noticed an air conditioner half installed in the plywood wall. 'Air-conditioning,' he mused. 'Not bad.'

'Yeah,' Ca.s.sidy muttered. 'Klump figured he'll get people in from the other battalions once the spring heat hits. It'll help the profits.'

'Here's to f.u.c.king profits,' Mellas said, lifting his can. He chugged it, thinking of both Hamilton and the $127.

'I guess you heard about the skipper,' Ca.s.sidy said.

'I'm sure it all looked nice and voluntary.'

'You can't fool the f.u.c.king troops,' Ca.s.sidy muttered. He took another drink of whiskey, and his grip tightened on his shot gla.s.s until his knuckles showed white through his jungle-rot scars. 'I should have been up there with you. It was when you needed me worst.'

Mellas was tempted to tell Ca.s.sidy who had gotten him transferred, so that he wouldn't feel so bad. He saw that Ca.s.sidy was looking up at Vancouver's machine gun, polished and oily, displayed beneath a large fleur-de-lis imposed on crossed rifles, the emblem of the Twenty-Fourth Marines: Les Braves des Bois Belleau Les Braves des Bois Belleau.

'I've had to do a lot of s.h.i.tty jobs since I've been in the Corps, sir,' Ca.s.sidy said. He brought his gaze back to Mellas. 'But the worst thing I ever had to do was go from man to man and collect their rifles. Twenty years ago anybody try and take a Marine's rifle he'd been f.u.c.king plugged. s.h.i.t, five years ago.'

'Times change,' Mellas muttered. He thought about the girl in the girdle and bra.s.siere advertis.e.m.e.nt.

'I had to go from man to man. Some of them I'd been with on Wind River and Co Roc and the DMZ op. And I had to search them like f.u.c.king prisoners.' Ca.s.sidy turned his watery blue eyes on Mellas. 'Well, I did it, because it was my job. But I didn't like it, Lieutenant. I could feel them hating me.' He stopped, noticed that he was clenching his fists, and slowly straightened his fingers. 'I guess that's why I had to get the f.u.c.k away from there.'

Mellas and Ca.s.sidy got drunk.

It was just after noon when Mellas left Ca.s.sidy pa.s.sed out at the table and dragged himself back to the company office. He pulled himself wearily up the back stairs to where two cots were separated from the rest of the office by a hanging wool blanket. He knew he would have a pounding headache as the day wore on-unless he could keep drinking. Could he keep drinking forever? He threw himself onto a cot. The wool blanket felt hot and scratchy beneath his sweaty cheek. His mind, and the floor beneath him, whirled. He again felt as if he were on a conveyer belt heading for a cliff. Every minute brought him one minute closer to tomorrow, and tomorrow he'd be back in the bush. His mind, unwilling to face the thought, closed down.

At VCB the newbies' tension about the coming operation was already palpable. The old hands, like China and Mole, talked quietly to each other or simply cleaned their rifles and machine guns over and over-they had learned how to keep disturbing feelings at bay. They ate. They drank beer. They elaborately concocted cups of coffee. They tried to get on KP duty. They smoked marijuana. They joked. They thought of girls back home. They m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed.

The new black kids were especially drawn to the two black machine gunners, taciturn G.o.ds of the bush who wore dark green hangman's nooses around their necks. China would hold court, engage them, talk a little politics, laugh off any fears they expressed. Mole spoke only to China and the other old hands. The items on his personal agenda did not include making new friends.

China and Mole were cleaning their machine guns near the opening of a large ten-man tent with a packed mud floor, which they shared with eighteen other black Marines. In the front of the tent, when the flaps were pulled fully back onto the roof, they could get enough light to see what they were doing and still be out of the rain. But the rain had become less constant. The Vietnamese spring was coming, and it would be followed by the relentless dry season.

They had their guns completely broken down and were meticulously cleaning each component. The air smelled of Hoppe's No. 9 powder solvent, sent from home in response to many anxious requests, the combination of burning diesel fuel and s.h.i.t from the latrines and mothb.a.l.l.s from the tent canvas. Mole looked up from his gun and chuckled softly. 'I'll be G.o.dd.a.m.ned, China. Looky what we got coming up the road.'

China looked and smiled, seeing Arran and Pat. Pat was at a loose heel, padding along silently, as always, tongue out just slightly, looking as if he were on a Sunday stroll. His red ears flicked forward when he heard Mole's voice. Arran, noticing the ear flick but unable to hear anything, followed the direction of the ears. He saw Mole and China and raised his shotgun high in the air with one hand, grinning.

Arran touched fists with China and Mole. Pat sat down, still in heel position.

'I thought you was out in the f.u.c.kin' Au Shau or some bada.s.s place like that,' China said.

Arran grinned. 'All over. Coming back to you guys. I hear we're skying out tomorrow.'

The two gunners nodded but said nothing.

Pat started whining, wanting to break heel. He had tuned in on a figure coming up the road. It was Hawke. Pat whined again. Arran laughed and released him. Pat bounded down the road to greet Hawke. Soon the two of them were roughhousing together, Hawke hugging the dog's strong neck, cradling it in his arms and moving Pat's head back and forth, while Pat kept trying to nuzzle into Hawke's crotch and at the same time rub his own sides, catlike, against Hawke's thighs.

Hawke, still laughing at Pat's antics, reached the three Marines. He motioned for China and Mole to remain seated.

'Enough, OK,' Arran said to the dog. 'Show the skipper some respect.' His tone then altered just slightly. 'Sit.' Pat immediately was on his haunches, panting happily. 'He sure as h.e.l.l likes you, Skipper,' Arran said. 'Not everyone gets a greeting like that.'

Hawke was rubbing Pat's head and ears. He looked up at the three Marines. 'Yeah. I'm real glad to see you two back,' Hawke said. 'Feel blind out there without you.' Then he put a hand on Mole's shoulder and sidled between Mole and China, poking his head into the interior of the tent without saying anything to them. He pulled his head back and turned to the two gunners. 'I got word you chased some chucks out of the tent.'

'I'm out of here,' Arran said, grinning. He snapped his fingers softly and Pat stood.

'Oh-four-thirty in the supply tent,' Hawke said.

'Aye, sir. Nice to be back.' Arran left, Pat padding along at his left side as usual.

The three watched for a moment as the dog and handler walked away.

'Well?' Hawke asked.

'n.o.body chased no one, Skipper,' China said.

Hawke looked at him for a while. 'Uh-huh.'

'No, honest Injun, sir. They just left on they own.'

Hawke thought about it for a while. 'You know, China, I don't give a f.u.c.k about congregating congregating. Never did. Everyone's going to turn green when we board those choppers tomorrow.' He unconsciously looked skyward. 'You guys ready?'

They both c.o.c.ked their heads to the side, and Mole shrugged his shoulders.

'I need you to keep the newbies steady. OK?'

'We can do that, sir,' China said.

Hawke looked at them, nodding almost imperceptibly. 'Good. Thanks.'

The two gunners watched him walk away down the road. 'He's decent,' Mole said.

'Yeah,' said China. 'He is. We got lucky for once.'

'China, you think we should tell him?' Mole said in a low murmur.

China shone the beam of his smile on his friend. 'Say what? Tell him what?'

'Get real, China. About Henry offing Ca.s.sidy.'

'That be old s.h.i.t. They ain't doin' nothin'.'

'I don't know,' said Mole.

'Hey, man. No way, brother. I been talkin' to those guys, and they see what I mean 'bout the Panther brotherhood. We startin' here in the Nam and we bringin' the true grit back home. We be tested in the fire, and tested under fire-'

Mole cut him short. 'Just you stop, China. Just for once dispense with the revolutionary country preacher bulls.h.i.t. Henry don't give a s.h.i.t 'bout you Black Panther mumbo jumbo. He just need the brothers to be retailing while he wholesaling. If he have to kill Ca.s.sidy to stay in charge, he gonna do it.'

China looked down on the parts spread out on Mole's poncho. 'He just don't get it,' he said softly.

'You just don't get it.' just don't get it.'

Mellas was awakened by the slight sc.r.a.ping of a boot on the plywood floor. His heart started pounding. He was covered in sweat and his head ached. Fitch, who was looking down at Mellas, sadness on his face, had deliberately sc.r.a.ped the boot so he wouldn't put Mellas into combat overdrive by waking him too abruptly.

'Hi, Jim,' Mellas said.

Fitch sat down on the opposite cot. 'You f.u.c.ked up, Mellas?'

'Naw. Just had a few beers with Ca.s.sidy is all. What time is it?'

Fitch looked at his watch. 'One o'clock.'

'You're already on civilian time.'

'Never left it,' Fitch said.

Mellas swung his feet to the floor. His head was hot and pounding. He ran his hands through his hair, feeling sweat in it. He wiped them on his new stiff trousers. 'I did manage to save my f.u.c.king boots,' he said, looking at their familiar whiteness.

There was an awkward silence. 'I guess then you heard I was leaving,' Fitch finally said.

'Yeah.' Mellas didn't know how to go on talking about it. He saw Fitch flush slightly, probably taking the silence as condemnation, so he said, 'I'm real glad you're getting out.'