Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War

by Karl Marlantes

  Two hours later Mellas was leading a map-reading class for Third Squad, feeling good about being in his own element.

  “All right,” he said, “who knows the contour interval?” A couple of hands shot up. Mellas was pleased; the kids seemed to enjoy the class. “OK, Jackson.”

  Jackson looked around shyly at his friends. “Uh, it’s twenty meters, sir.”

  “Right. If you went across three contour lines, then how far would you have walked?”

  Parker, not to be outdone by Jackson, raised his hand. “That’d be sixty meters.” He smiled, pleased with himself.

  Jackson snickered. “You got no brain whatsoever. Sixty meters, shit. Man, you are a stupid individual.”

  “What is it then, smart-ass?” Parker shot back.

  “No way you can tell. Contours go up and down. You maybe went up sixty or maybe down sixty, but you maybe walked to fucking Hanoi before you did.” The rest of the squad was laughing, and Parker finally joined in.

  Mellas envied Jackson’s natural ability to blunt the harshness of his words simply by the way he delivered them. How could you get mad at someone who neither needed to attack nor was at all worried about being able to defend? It was like getting mad at Switzerland. Mellas watched Jackson throughout the rest of the class, seeing that the blacks gravitated toward him for more than his portable record player.

  Later that afternoon, Mellas crawled into Bass’s hooch. Skosh was reading Seventeen magazine by candlelight and wearing an Incredible Hulk sweatshirt. Bass was lying on top of his air mattress, generally called a rubber lady, writing another long letter to Fredrickson’s cousin.

  “Heavy stuff, Skosh,” Mellas said.

  “Hey, Lieutenant, look at her,” Skosh said quietly, showing Mellas a teenage girl modeling winter fashions, her face glowing beneath tossed-back satin hair. “You think if I wrote the magazine they’d tell me who she was?”

  “Are you shitting me, Skosh? Every horny bastard in the United States would be writing to those girls if magazines did that.”

  Skosh withdrew the magazine and continued to look at the girl. “Maybe if they knew we was over here in Vietnam and couldn’t do no harm or nothing . . .”

  “Skosh, they don’t give a shit where you are,” Mellas said softly. He thought about Anne.

  “I suppose not. Before I quit high school last year there was this girl looked just like her. Of course she was a senior, and me a junior, so I couldn’t ever really, you know,” his voice trailed off, “get to know her or anything.”

  “Hang in there, Skosh,” Mellas said, “You’ll be home—”

  “In a hundred eighty-three fucking days and a wake-up,” Skosh said quietly.

  Mellas settled himself cross-legged on the end of Bass’s rubber lady. The luxury of having one of the rare air mattresses was reserved for those with more rank or time in-country. Everyone else slept on the ground. “Class went pretty well today,” he started off. “They seemed interested.”

  “Even fucking grunts get tired of digging holes.”

  Mellas nodded, smiling. “Hey, I’m thinking of Jackson for squad leader when Janc goes on R & R.” He felt he might as well come to the point right away.

  “I don’t like it, Lieutenant. I don’t want him and his fucking buddies all buddy-buddying each other around their jungle music all the time. He’s too buddy-buddy, sir.”

  “You mean he’s a brother.” Mellas looked at Bass closely to see how he would react. There wasn’t a flicker on Bass’s face.

  “Yes, sir, but not like you think. There ain’t one color in the Marine Corps but green, and I believe that. I don’t think Jackson does. I mean, I think he’d favor the splibs.”

  “Yeah, but he’s smart. People like him. Chucks and splibs both.”

  “You don’t want a squad leader people like,” Bass said emphatically.

  “Bullshit, Sergeant Bass. You get a squad leader they don’t like and you’ve got a shitty squad.”

  “People didn’t like me too much when I became a platoon sergeant.”

  “You’re different.”

  “He’s a fucking lifer,” Skosh put in.

  Mellas laughed.

  “You stick to your fucking radio or I’ll volunteer your ass for CAG,” Bass retorted. “You’ll wish you had some fucking lifers around when the fucking gooks desert you.”

  Skosh hunched his shoulders and went back to his magazine. “I should be so lucky,” he mumbled. Radio operators had it easier in set positions, mainly because they were able to stand their night watches inside whatever shelter they managed to build. The longer they were in a set position, the better their shelters. On the patrols and operations, however, they more than made up for that comfort. Not only did they have to pack the heavy radios in addition to the ammunition and equipment that everyone else packed, but they were primary targets because they were the communication links and walked next to the leaders, the other primary targets.

  “What’s CAG?” Mellas asked.

  “Some harebrained cluster fuck thought up by some asshole civilian in an air-conditioned office in Washington.”

  Mellas waited. Skosh wasn’t listening.

  “It means combined action group, sir,” Bass continued. “Good fucking Marines are supposed to fight with South Gook militia and defend the villages. Only what happens is good Marines end up fighting all by themselves when the South Gooks dee-dee on them.”

  “I heard that tagging Marines alongside the villagers was working. Or had been, anyway,” Mellas said. He suddenly felt very far away from his government; he had a gnawing suspicion that he, too, could be out in the jungle, abandoned like those Marines.

  He forced the qualm down and assumed a “let’s get back to business” tone of voice. “Anyhow, what do you think about Jackson, Sergeant Bass?” He rushed on without letting Bass reply. “I don’t think he’d be too buddy-buddy. You can talk to him about it. Besides, who else have we got? With Fisher gone I’ve got to use Jake to fill in for him at Second Squad. Vancouver won’t do anything but walk point, you know that.” Bass nodded. Everyone knew that Vancouver, a big kid who’d actually left Canada to volunteer for the Marines, was probably the best fighter in the company. He just always refused leadership roles, preferring to be the first man in the column, the most dangerous job in any rifle company. Everyone else reluctantly took point only when it was their turn. Mellas made one more effort. “Jackson already knows everyone.” He stopped. He could see that Bass wasn’t really listening. He was just politely waiting for Mellas to finish.

  “Lieutenant, I think a lot of guys are going to think you put him there because he’s a brother.”

  “What do you think?” Mellas asked.

  “I think it entered your mind.” Bass looked at him, waiting for Mellas’s reply.

  “All right, it did. I don’t want China having any footholds,” he said, almost mumbling the last words.

  Bass looked at him a moment. “I don’t like this fooling around with people because of their color. We could get in deep shit over it.” He looked down at the half-finished letter and sighed, as if wishing himself home. “But maybe you’re right. It ain’t like it used to be, that’s for damned sure. When I signed on in ’sixty-four it was protecting American citizens and property. This shit . . .” He suddenly became aware of Skosh and broke off. “Skosh, get on the hook and see if any Class Six is coming in.”

  “I asked them this morning, Sergeant Bass.”

  “Ask—them—again,” Bass said, enunciating each word very clearly.

  Skosh began raising the CP and Mellas looked at Bass. “You agree on Jackson, then?”

  “Yeah, I agree. But no fucking buddy-buddy.”

  Mellas laughed, more out of relief than humor. “OK. No buddy-buddy.”

  Mellas slipped back outside into the drizzle. The faint sounds of James Brown doing “Say It Loud” floated from the lines. He saw Hawke coming down the hill with a cigar in his mouth. Hawke’s red mustache looked incongruous beneath his wet black hair. Mellas waited for him.

  “Whatever you were about to do,” Hawke said, “don’t.”

  “Why not?”
/>
  “Now that the arty battery’s here, the battalion CP group won’t be far behind. Fitch wants your lines cleaned up.”

  Mellas flared. “My lines are cleaner than anybody else’s. What am I supposed to do, put out a goddamned red carpet so the colonel can promenade on it?”

  “Hey, cool it down.” Hawke looked sideways at Mellas. “You really do have a temper, don’t you?”

  “I’m just tired. I usually don’t.”

  “You mean you don’t usually show it. All Fitch wants is the fucking gumball wrappers and Kool-Aid packages put in one spot so it doesn’t look like a garbage dump down here. And nobody said anything about you being better or worse than anyone else.” Hawke took a long pull on his cigar. “In fact, if you must know, your lines are probably cleaner than the other platoons’.” Mellas smiled. “But then you’ve got Sergeant Bass.”

  Mellas laughed. “Get back, Hawke. Is that what you came to tell me?”

  “Well, not all of it.” Hawke closed one eye and looked sideways at Mellas, tasting the tobacco on his lips. “I thought you might want to hear how Fisher came out. Or have you been too busy?”

  “How is he?” Mellas said enthusiastically, but he felt his face reddening. He hadn’t thought about Fisher in any way except as leaving a hole to fill.

  “They sent him to Japan for more surgery.”

  “What’s the prognosis?”

  “Don’t know. Worst case, I guess, is he’ll never get it up again.”

  “It’s the shits,” Mellas said. He looked away from Hawke down toward Second Squad’s fighting holes. “I still have to replace him.” He said it to himself as much as to Hawke.

  Hawke surveyed Mellas coolly. “If you don’t relax, Mellas, you’ll never learn to love it out here.”

  The joke broke Mellas’s mood, and he laughed.

  “Who you got in mind?” Hawke asked, blowing a careful cloud of smoke.

  “Jackson.” Mellas looked for reaction. None came. “He’s got some brains.”

  “Might be all right, and then again it might not be.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s a brother. He’s fucking black, Mellas.”

  “So.”

  “All the brothers in Third Squad look up to him, right?” Hawke said.

  “Yeah, that’s why I picked him.”

  “So he sells out to the man and what do all his brothers think of him then?”

  “Shit.” Mellas said flatly. “Shit.” He felt hemmed in by a force like a magnetic field. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it tightening.

  A voice shouted down from the CP. “Hey, Five, we got a bird coming up the valley.”

  Hawke ran up the hill, leaving Mellas alone.

  When Vancouver heard the chopper coming up the valley, he stuck the machete in the earth and left it quivering as he ran up the hill.

  “Vancouver, where the fuck you going?” Conman yelled. He was pulling on the end of a roll of razor wire.

  “My fucking gook sword’s come in,” Vancouver shouted, still running. “I know it has.”

  “What the fuck good is it to be a squad leader with someone like that around?” Conman muttered under his breath. He couldn’t follow Vancouver, because he was supplying the tension for Mole—a black machine gunner from Conman’s squad—to stake in the razor wire. “Hurry the fuck up, Mole, goddamn it. I got better things to do than get the fuck cut out of me by this shit.” The wire had indeed cut through several of the scabs that formed over the jungle rot on Conman’s hands, and the blood and pus were slowly oozing over the wire, making it difficult to hold.

  Mole gave Conman the finger and continued staking in the wire as methodically as he cleaned his machine gun. “I ain’t gonna fuck up this wire job ’cause you want to go read you fucking mail.” Mole looked up the hill at the chopper that was now settling down on the LZ, the roar of its turbines nearly drowning out his last words. The chopper touched earth, bouncing slightly on its big wheels. A few new kids ran out carrying the red mailbags.

  Vancouver reached the LZ just as the chopper began to shudder and whine for its takeoff. He towered over a new kid and reached for the bag the kid carried. “This First Platoon’s mail?” he shouted. The sound was lost in the chopper’s takeoff and the mad whirl of air. The kid clutched at the bag. He’d been told in no uncertain terms its value and what would happen to him if he failed to deliver it.

  “Give me that fucking thing,” Vancouver shouted. He grabbed the bag and started opening its drawstrings.

  “Vancouver, what the fuck are you doing?”

  Vancouver looked over his shoulder and saw Staff Sergeant Cassidy’s red face. He stood up and looked down at him. “Oh, hi, Gunny. I’m looking for my gook sword. I ordered the fucking thing two months ago.” The new kid slowly took back the mailbag, his glance vacillating between Vancouver and Cassidy.

  “Vancouver,” Cassidy said in mock weariness, “go back down to the lines and let me take care of the mail, OK? Because if you don’t, and if I ever see that fucking sword of yours, I’ll break it over your fucking head. Is that clear?”

  “You wouldn’t really do that, would you, Gunny?” Vancouver asked.

  “Try me.”

  Vancouver turned and headed down the hill.

  Cassidy watched him go with obvious affection. He had intercepted the sword with its ornate scabbard and complicated straps three weeks earlier and hidden it in Bravo Company’s supply tent in order to keep Vancouver from getting killed trying to use it. He turned to face the five new kids who had come in on the chopper. “What the fuck you staring at?” Cassidy asked, his smile suddenly gone. “Do I look pretty to you?”

  While most of the platoon was reading the mail for the third time, Mellas was preparing supper. He told himself it would be a while before his mail caught up with him. He was adding Tabasco sauce, grape jam, and powdered lemon tea to his can of spaghetti and meatballs when he became aware of Doc Fredrickson watching him.

  “Can I talk to you a minute, Lieutenant?” Fredrickson asked.

  “Sure. Beats eating.”

  “It’s about Mallory, sir.”

  “Ahh, fuck. I thought you and Bass took care of that.”

  “He’s still complaining about headaches,” Fredrickson said. “I give him all the Darvon he can handle and he keeps coming back for more.”

  “Is that shit addictive?” Mellas asked.

  “I don’t know, sir. It’s just what they give us. I think it’s fucking useless.” Fredrickson leaned over and looked into the can of spaghetti. “Maybe you ought to put some of that fake coffee cream stuff in it. It’d smooth it out.”

  “You stick to medicine.”

  “Anyway, I ain’t sure Mallory even has headaches. But I’ve been watching him close, and on patrol yesterday he looked like he was hurting.”

  “Him and everyone else. I’ve got headaches too.”

  “Maybe you ought to talk to him. I talked to the senior squid, and he says sometimes people get psychosomatic stuff and it really does hurt them even if it’s all in their heads anyway. It’s also possible that there’s really something wrong with him.”

  “What—you want me to decide?”

  “You’re the platoon commander. If you think he’s telling the truth, maybe we ought to send him back to VCB to see a doctor. Just in case something really is wrong with him.”

  “OK.”

  “He’s over in my hooch now.”

  Mellas looked at Fredrickson out of the corner of his eye. “All right.”

  Fredrickson left and returned with Mallory, a small-boned kid with narrow hips, a thin graceful neck, and a rather large head.

  “Hi, Mallory,” Mellas said, trying to be friendly. “Doc says you’re still having trouble with headaches.”

  “My fucking head hurts,” Mallory said. “I eat all that Darvon and it don’t do shit.”

  “How long you had the headaches?”

  “Ever since they humped us without water on the DMZ operation. I think I got heat-stoked or something.” Mallory looked quickly over at Fredrickson to see how the corpsman was reacting. Fredrickson had his poker face on.

  Mellas took a
spoonful of spaghetti and chewed it while he thought. “Well, shit, Mallory, I don’t know what it is. Doc’s stumped. You have them all the time?”

  “I tell you my fucking head hurts,” Mallory whined.

  “I believe you, Mallory. It’s just that there’s not much we can do about it. I suppose we could send you back to VCB for a checkup.” Mellas watched for a reaction, but Mallory only bent his head over his knees, holding it in his hands.

  “My fucking head hurts.”