Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War

by Karl Marlantes

  “That’s him there,” Fredrickson said. Sheller, who like all company corpsmen went by the nickname Senior Squid, came huffing down the hill, his new jungle boots still black like Mellas’s, his utilities not yet bleached pale by the constant rain and exposure. His face was round and he wore black-rimmed Navy-issue glasses and a new bush cover on his head. He looked conspicuously out of place among the thin, rangy Marines.

  “What’s the problem?” he asked cheerily.

  “It’s Fisher,” Fredrickson replied. “He’s got a leech inside his urethra.”

  Sheller pursed his lips. “Doesn’t sound good. No way of getting to it, I suppose. Can he urinate?”

  “No,” Fredrickson said. “That’s how we found out.”

  “If he could piss we wouldn’t need you,” Bass growled.

  Sheller looked briefly at Bass and then quickly shifted his eyes to the ground. “Where is he?” he asked Fredrickson.

  “He’s down there packing his gear.”

  Sheller headed toward where Fredrickson pointed. Fredrickson turned to Bass and Mellas and shrugged his shoulders as if to say “You tell me” and turned to follow him. Bass snorted in disgust. “Fat fucker.”

  Sheller had Fisher drop his trousers again. He asked how long it had been since he last urinated and then glanced up at the sky and down to his watch. He turned to Mellas. “He’ll have to be medevaced. Emergency. I’ll go see the skipper.”

  “Move it, Fisher,” Bass said. “You’re getting out of the bush. Get your ass up to the LZ.”

  Fisher grinined and started back toward his hooch, pulling on his trousers as he went. Bass turned toward the holes and shouted through his cupped hands. “Any of you people got mail to go out, give it to Fisher. He’s getting medevaced.” A general scurry took place immediately. Bodies disappeared into hooches and fighting holes, digging into the packs and plastic bags the men used to keep their letters dry.

  “Jacobs,” Bass shouted, “tell that goddamn Shortround, Pollini, to change shirts with Fisher. He looks like Joe Shit the ragpicker. And tell Kerwin in Third Squad to trade trousers.” Jacobs, grateful for something to do, moved off and began collecting the most worn-out clothing in the squad to replace it with Fisher’s less worn-out clothing.

  Sheller came back up to Bass and Mellas and dropped his voice. “He’s going to be in a lot of pain. I can dope him up, but I don’t know what will happen to his bladder or kidneys.”

  “Well, we don’t either,” Bass said, “but we ain’t been to no fancy Navy medical school.” Sheller looked at Bass and started to say something but changed his mind. Bass’s perpetual scowl, broad shoulders, and thick arms didn’t invite back talk.

  “Do what you can for him,” Mellas said quickly, trying to ease the tension between the two of them. Mellas turned to Bass. “You going to finally put that novel of yours in the mailbox?”

  Bass laughed. He had fallen in love with Fredrickson’s cousin, a high school senior, from a yearbook photograph. He had been writing a letter to her for several days and it was already fifteen pages long. The two of them headed back to Mellas’s hooch.

  “I can’t believe it,” Mellas said. “Almost Staff Sergeant Bass, hard-ass, falling in love by mail.”

  “Just ’cause you ain’t got nobody to write to except your mother,” Bass fired back.

  The dart hurt. Mellas remembered Anne, that last night when she turned her back on him in bed. He remembered a trip they took to Mexico, her crying on a village square, pushed beyond her limit by his drive to explore the next place. He had watched her in confusion, loving her, not knowing what to do.

  Mellas crawled into the hooch and rummaged for some stationery and a pen. He decided to try to write to her. The letter came out as a cheery “Here we are in a place called Matterhorn. I’m fine, etc.” He pasted together the gummed parts of the special envelope. In the jungle there was so much moisture that normal envelopes would stick together before anyone could use them, and in the summer water was so precious that people absolutely loathed licking anything.

  “Hey, Mr. Mellas.” Every so often Bass used the formal, traditional naval form of address, to emphasize that Mellas was still a boot lieutenant.

  Mellas could make no objection. Bass was perfectly correct. “Yes, Sergeant Bass.”

  “If the bird doesn’t make it in and Fisher can’t piss, then what happens? Does he just fill up and bust?”

  “I don’t know, Sergeant Bass. I suppose something like that.”

  “It’s a pisser,” Bass muttered. “I got to go see if Skosh is still awake.”

  Mellas didn’t smile at what he knew was an unconscious pun. He crawled after Bass into the dark interior of his hooch, where Bass’s eighteen-year-old radio operator, Skosh, was on radio watch. He was so slight that Mellas wondered how he managed to pack the heavy radio on patrols. Skosh had a dark green towel wrapped around his neck and was reading a pornographic book that looked as if it had passed through the hands of every radio operator in the battalion.

  “Find out what’s the word on the medevac,” Bass said. He moved to the back of the hooch. Mellas followed him, crawling over smelly quiltlike nylon poncho liners, his knees hitting hard ground as they sank into Bass’s rubber air mattress.

  Skosh didn’t answer but picked up the handset and started talking. “Bravo Bravo Bravo, Bravo One.”

  “This is the Big B,” the radio hissed out. “Speak.”

  “What’s the story on the medevac? Over.”

  “Wait one.” There was a brief pause. Mellas watched Skosh, who was reading his book again and listening to the faint hiss of the receiver. There was a burst of static as someone on the other end keyed the handset. A new voice came over the air. “Bravo One, this is Bravo Six Actual. Put on your actual.” Mellas knew that Six Actual was the skipper, Lieutenant Fitch, and he was asking to speak to Mellas personally—to First Platoon’s actual commander, not just anyone tending the radio.

  Mellas took the handset from Skosh and keyed it, a little nervous. “This is Bravo One Actual. Over.”

  “It looks dim for your bird. The valley’s souped in from Fire Support Base Sherpa on out. They had one bird try to get out and couldn’t find us. Since we’ve got a couple of hours before your character Foxtrot gets too bad, they’ll wait at Sherpa to see if it clears. Over.”

  “I thought it was an emergency medevac,” Mellas answered. “Over.”

  “We sent it in as a priority. It won’t be upgraded to an emergency until it gets so bad he’ll die unless they get him out. Over.”

  Mellas knew they didn’t want to risk the bird and the crew when they could hold on for a couple of hours and maybe get better weather. “Roger, Bravo Six. I got you. Wait one.” Bass had been signaling Mellas. Mellas released the transmit key on the handset.

  “Ask him if we got an order in for any class six,” Bass asked.

  “What’s class six?”

  “Just ask him.”

  Mellas rekeyed the handset. “Bravo Six, One Assist wants to know if we’re getting any class six in. Over.”

  When Fitch rekeyed the handset Mellas heard laughter dying out. “Tell One Assist we got it on order.”

  “Roger. Thanks for the info. Out.”

  Mellas turned to Bass. “What’s class six?”

  “Beer, sir.” Bass’s face was stonily innocent.

  Mellas felt foolish and unprofessional. His jaw muscles tightened in anger. He’d looked bad in front of the whole command post group.

  Bass simply looked at him and smiled. “You’ve got to keep reminding them, Lieutenant, otherwise they forget about you.”

  Hawke watched Corporal Connolly, leader of Mellas’s First Squad, struggling up the hill through the mud and blasted stumps on his short powerful legs. He guessed that Connolly would put out that much effort for only one thing: beer.

  Connolly stopped to catch his breath and then shouted, “Hey, Jayhawk. You just get to stand around now that they made you XO?”

  Hawke smiled at hearing his own Boston accent. He let out a deepthroated growl and raised his right hand, curling his fingers over like talons in what everyone i
n the company knew as the hawk power sign, a parody of the black power fist or the antiwar protesters’ peace sign, depending on which political movement Hawke wished to satirize at the time. He roared, “Conman, I can do anything I want. I’m a second lieutenant.” He started shadowboxing and then raised both fists above him like a winning prizefighter and shouted, “I’m Willy Pep. I’m in round thirteen of my famous comeback fight.” Then he went into a dance, arms above his head, first and second fingers still curved like talons.

  A few Marines on the lines down below him turned their heads. Once they saw it was Jayhawk doing the hawk dance they went back to staring over their rifle barrels at the wall of jungle, quite used to him.

  Hawke stopped his antics. His eyes went blank. The bluegrass tune came back to him: “Men have tried and men have died to climb the Matterhorn.” The five-string banjo would come on strong behind the wailing fiddle and the high-pitched Appalachian voices would rise in an east Tennessee lament, “Matterhorn. Matterhorn.” Hawke wanted out of the bush. He wanted to hold a girl who smelled nice and felt soft. He wanted to go home to his mom and dad. He knew, however, that he wouldn’t leave Fitch and the rest of Bravo Company with three boot butterbars until they were safely broken in or dead, the only two possibilities for new second lieutenants in combat.

  Connolly finally reached Hawke and, gasping for air, asked, “Hey, when we going to get in some class six?”

  “Conman, I knew it. Do I look like a fortune-teller to you?”

  “The chopper going to make it in?”

  “You must really think I do look like a fortune-teller,” Hawke answered. “And if your squad could do something besides litter the jungle with Kool-Aid packages and Trop bar wrappers, maybe we’d find that gook machine gun so the zoomies will fly us in some Foxtrot Bravo.”

  “I don’t want to find no gook machine gun.”

  “I could hardly have guessed.”

  “Hey, Jayhawk.”

  “What?” Hawke never minded being called by his nickname, as long as they were out in the bush.

  “Troops got to have mail.”

  “Thanks. You fucking Dear Abby or something?”

  “I wish I was fucking Dear Abby.”

  “She’s too old for you. Get back to your herd, Connolly.”

  “You get your ass promoted to XO and suddenly we’re cattle.”

  “Suck out.”

  “How come they didn’t make you skipper? You got more time in the bush than Fitch.”

  “Because I’m a second lieutenant and Fitch is a first lieutenant.”

  “That don’t cut no ice with me.”

  “Well, you’re not Big John Six, so no one cares what you think. And you won’t be Big John Bravo One-One Actual if you don’t quit pestering me.”

  “So relieve me of my command and send me home in disgrace.” Connolly turned away, heading downhill, hitching his too-large trousers up around his waist. The dragging cuffs were ragged and filthy from being stepped on.

  Hawke smiled affectionately at Connolly’s back. But then he thrust his hands into his pockets, and the smile turned to a wince as the pocket edges scraped the jungle rot. He watched Connolly heading back to the lines in the gloom, passing Mellas, who was climbing up toward him. He sighed and, methodically but very firmly, began to smash the stick against a log until it broke. What he really wanted to do was crawl out of his wet, filthy clothes and curl up into a small unconscious ball. Then the song came back.

  Mellas knew Hawke had seen him coming up to talk, but Hawke had turned away to climb the short distance to the flattened landing zone, the LZ, without him. He felt a twinge of anger at the unfairness with which guys like Hawke and Bass treated him, just because they’d gotten here before he had. Everyone had to be new sometime. Feeling like a kid trying to catch up with his older brother, he continued to climb. He saw Hawke join the small group of Marines who had gathered around Fisher and someone he thought he recognized as the company gunny: Staff Sergeant . . . somebody. God, the names. He should be putting them in a notebook to memorize.

  When he reached the LZ, panting for breath, Mellas could see that Fisher was in severe pain. Fisher would sit on his pack, then lie on his side next to it, then stand up, then repeat the motions again. Hawke was telling a story and had everyone laughing except Fisher, though Fisher was smiling gamely. Mellas envied Hawke’s ease with people. He hesitated, not sure how to announce his presence. Hawke solved his problem by greeting him first. “Hey, Mellas. Just had to see how Fisher managed to get himself medevaced without getting a scratch on him, huh?” Fisher forced a smile. “I know you’ve met the gunny, Staff Sergeant Cassidy.” Hawke indicated a man who Mellas thought must be in his late twenties, given his hard-used face and rank. Cassidy had cut himself, and the infected cut was oozing watery pus. Putting together the pepperish red skin tone, the name, and the hillbilly accent, Mellas pegged him as redneck Scots-Irish.

  Cassidy simply nodded at Mellas and looked at him with narrow blue eyes, obviously appraising him.

  Hawke turned to the others. “For those of you not in First Herd, this is Lieutenant Mellas. He’s an oh-three.” When Mellas’s request to be an air traffic controller with the air wing had been turned down he’d been assigned his military occupational specialty, or MOS: 0301, infantry officer, inexperienced. If he was still alive in six months he would be anointed 0302, infantry officer, experienced. All Marine infantry specialties were designated by zero-three followed by different pairs of numbers: 0311, rifleman; 0331, machine gunner. Zero-three, called “oh-three,” was dreaded by many Marines because it meant certain combat. Every other MOS was designed to support oh-three. It was the heart and soul of the Marine Corps. Few attained senior command who didn’t hold it.

  There were polite murmurs of “Sir” and “Hello, sir” and obvious relief that Mellas was an infantry officer and not another supply or motor transport officer. General Neitzel, the current commanding general, had decided that since every Marine was a trained rifleman, it followed logically that every Marine officer should have experience as a rifle platoon commander for at least ninety days. The flaw in the general’s logic was that after a non-infantry officer had made the inevitable mistakes of any new officer in combat, all of which were paid for by the troops under his command, he would be transferred back to his primary military occupation in the rear, subjecting the troops to breaking in yet another new officer and dying because of the new officer’s mistakes.

  Mellas knew that Hawke had done him a favor by telling the group that he was a grunt like them. Some of his earlier annoyance at Hawke dissipated. He was beginning to learn that this was a typical reaction to Hawke; people just couldn’t stay mad at him very long.

  Mellas joined Hawke and Cassidy, looking down at Fisher. Hawke went on talking quietly, but now only to Mellas and Cassidy, even though everyone, including Fisher, could hear him. “I just sent Fredrickson down to ask for an emergency medevac. If we don’t get him out in a couple of hours I don’t know what will happen.” Fisher was watching Hawke and Mellas intently.

  Mellas turned to Fisher. “Hang in there, Tiger.” Mellas was trying to be jolly but couldn’t repress a feeling of annoyance that he was losing an experienced squad leader.

  “I’m hanging, Lieutenant. I sure would like a piss, though. At least I’m finally getting Lindsey here out to Hong Kong.” Fisher was referring to a forlorn-looking Marine from Third Platoon, also clothed in rotting castoffs.

  Lindsey smiled at Fisher. He had been sitting on the landing zone for three days, waiting for a helicopter to take him on his R & R. “You’d have to have your insides shot out and a will made out to the pilot before one of them would come out to this cocksucking mountain.”

  “There it is,” Fisher replied. The phrase was much-used by stoic grunts everywhere. He’d bitten off the last word in a spasm and now he began to moan. Mellas turned away. Lindsey watched Fisher. It was clear he’d seen pain before.

  Hawke squatted down next to Fisher. “You’ll be OK, man. Hurts, doesn’t it? We just put you down for an emergency. They’ll get a
bird out here now. You don’t think one of those zoomies would miss his movie back at the airfield in Quang Tri, do you?”

  Fisher smiled and then arched his back in an uncontrollable spasm, trying to take the pressure off.

  “Why the hell did they take so long calling in an emergency?” Mellas asked.

  Hawke looked at him, a slight smile on his face. “Whoa. Peevish this afternoon.” He softened. “You call in too many emergencies and you get a reputation for crying wolf. The dispatcher turns your emergencies into priorities and the priorities become routines. Then when you really do have an emergency, you don’t get any birds. If you think I’m kidding just stick around awhile.”