Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War

Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War Page 34

by Karl Marlantes

  Hawke was looking at the hills, not at Mellas. He fumbled in his shirt pocket. “I can’t find a cigar,” he said.

  “It’s good you can’t find it,” Mellas said. “You want to get your ass out of here and die of cancer a few years later?”

  “You believe that bullshit?” Hawk asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  They looked at each other, both aware they were talking about death. Then Hawke spoke quietly. “I’m an asshole myself sometimes. The colonel’s not the only one who’s ambitious. Sure, I wanted Bravo Company when Jim got it. I had more time in the bush, and Jim made mistakes I’d already made and paid for, and I had to watch it happen all over again.” His eyes went blank. Mellas sensed that he was replaying some terrible scene. Hawke snapped back. “I don’t want it to happen again. You know what that means? What I have to do to play the game?”

  Mellas nodded. “Ted, I don’t want the company. I just want out of the bush.”

  “Let’s at least not lie to each other,” Hawke said.

  “OK,” Mellas said softly, “I want it too.” Then he quickly added, “But I’d gladly hump under you, Hawke. Really. I don’t want it that bad.”

  “I didn’t think I did either.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. “I got to get back,” Mellas said finally.

  “Sure.”

  Mellas walked away, dejected. He wanted Hawke’s friendship in the worst way.

  “Hey, Mel,” Hawke called. Mellas, his hands in his back pockets, turned to face Hawke. “McCarthy and Murphy are both going to be in from the bush. You know the platoon commander who had the dead guy when we flip-flopped with Alpha and Charlie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s McCarthy. Murphy’s the big guy who was on the LZ.”

  Mellas looked a little puzzled.

  “With the tic.”

  Mellas nodded.

  “That’s the mystery tour team. You want to come along? I’ll sponsor you.”

  “Sure,” Mellas said. “But what the hell’s a mystery tour?”

  “It’s a fucking drunk, Mellas.”

  Mellas smiled sheepishly. “What time?”

  When Mellas reached the company, he was greeted with more than a few sarcastic jeers.

  “Lieutenant, you gonna send home for your dress blues for tomorrow night?”

  “You officers getting your nails buffed so you don’t fuck up the silverware?”

  “They gonna start issuing tablecloths with the C-rats, Lieutenant?”

  Mellas had to take the ribbing, and he knew it. Mess night was a dumb fucking idea. He went over to his rubber lady and lay down with a dog-eared copy of James Michener’s The Source, for which he’d traded two Louis L’Amour shit-kickers. He tried to lose himself in ancient Israel.

  He was interrupted by China. “Hey, sir, can we talk to you?” A tall black Marine stood behind China at the opening of the tent.

  Mellas motioned them in. “What’s on your mind?” he asked.

  “Uh, sir,” China said, pointing to his friend, “this is Lance Corporal Walker. We call him Henry. He’s from H & S Company.”

  “Hello, Walker.” Mellas held out his hand and they shook.

  “We got ourselves a little sort of club,” China went on. “We get together ever once in a while. Play some sounds. You know.”

  “Sounds nice,” Mellas said, trying to be casual. He was beginning to feel uneasy, particularly with Walker, who scared him. He decided to be direct. “Cassidy said you had some sort of black power group you were involved in. Is that what he means?”

  They both laughed. “Cassidy.” China spat the name out. “That fuckin’ redneck cracker don’t know shit from Shinola. Black power. Sheeit. That’s a word for a political movement and that’s what it mean. Cassidy just a fuckin’ bigot.”

  There was silence. Mellas wondered if he should tell them he used to be a member of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which organized students to go to the South for voter registration when he was a freshman at Princeton. That was before Stokely Carmichael threw the whites out and Mellas found other things to do with his time, like driving to Bryn Mawr.

  China broke the silence. “We just got this club is all. It ain’t no fuckin’ black power harum-scarum. We got enough fuckin’ violence round here. Besides, black power ain’t about violence. It be about black people gettin’ political and economic power. It be about self-image and leadership and gettin’ the law to treat us the same as whites. That sound scary to you, sir?”

  “Sounds like a good enough thing to me,” Mellas said. He wished China would come to the point but was afraid to push him.

  “Yeah, sir. It is a good thing. See, Henry here and me, we sort of run the meetins an’ make the policy, you know?” China’s husky voice seemed to hide his inner detachment. Mellas could see a twinkle of merriment in his eyes, as if there were another China sitting back from the conversation, watching the three of them and laughing his ass off. “Well, sir,” China added, “we want to try and smooth out some of the differences between blacks and whites right here in our own area. You see, sir, we get a lot of literature from the brothers back home, and a lot of the stuff is hard stuff, man. Hard stuff. I mean they are advocatin’ violence.”

  “I know,” Mellas said. “I’ve seen some of it.”

  “Well, sir,” Henry said, “some of the brothers they’ve had it right up to where they can’t take no more. You know what I mean? Right up to they fuckin’ throats.” Henry’s anger began to show slightly.

  “So Walker and I was talkin’ last night,” China broke in, “that maybe we ought to do somethin’ about it, so’s we’d keep some of the brothers . . .” He paused. “Well, so we could stop somethin’ like fraggin’ from happening.”

  Mellas’s eyes darted from one face to the other, looking for a clue to help him. It had never happened to him before, but he knew the protection racket when he saw it. He decided to play dumb. “You think someone’s going to get fragged?”

  “Us?” Henry said. “Naw. Not us. But then again that might happen. You take a guy like Parker, you know, the one they humped to death and wouldn’t medevac. You remember him, Lieutenant?”

  Mellas swallowed, wishing someone would return from chow to break up the situation. “Parker’s death was an accident. No one knew what he had. We tried to get him out as soon as we could.”

  “As soon as a white boy got sick,” China said. “And white boy, he gets out.”

  “I don’t want to hear any more about it, China.” Mellas said. “Challand barely lived himself, and it had nothing to do with his color. I don’t want to hear anything more about it. I had to watch Parker die.”

  “What China mean, sir,” Walker said, “is we on the edge of things around here. And lots of these guys maybe ain’t so smart. And if they get fucked with enough, they liable do somethin’ that gets themselves into trouble.”

  China said, “I mean, if it’s OK to grease a fuckin’ gook that don’t fuck wit’chew at all, then why not waste some fuckin’ bigot that be fuckin’ wit’chew ever day of you life? That’s fuckin’ common sense.”

  “That’s murder,” Mellas said.

  “Murder,” China said. “Sheeit. We all a bunch of murderers. What difference it make if you kill a yellow man or a white bigot? You explain it to me, Lieutenant. You went to college.”

  “I don’t see what all this has to do with me,” Mellas said.

  “We want to smooth things out before they get too tough,” Henry said with an easy smile. “Maybe we can stop somethin’ from happenin’.”

  “Go on,” Mellas said.

  “China here was tellin’ me that some a the brothers have a thing out for Cassidy. Maybe some of them might lose they tempers and do somethin’ that’d get ’em in trouble. We want to avoid trouble is all.”

  Mellas glanced quickly at the tent opening and waited for Henry to continue. Neither Henry nor China said any more. “Well, that’s part of my job,” Mellas finally said. “Avoiding trouble. How can I help out?”

  “Nothin’ special,” China said. “Maybe just talk to Cassidy and tell him to ease up on harassin’ the brothers. And maybe you ask him
to apologize.”

  “Apologize?” Mellas snorted in disgust. “What the fuck chance do you think I have of getting Cassidy to apologize? And for what?”

  “Try knockin’ a man’s teeth in with a machine-gun barrel,” China said.

  Henry added, “And maybe you slip someone the word about none of the brothers havin’ to serve you dinner like fuckin’ slaves tomorrow night.”

  “Look, Walker, I have nothing to do with that. I disagree with it, and I don’t intend to go.”

  “You the one wanted to know how to help out. Avoidin’ trouble. Sheeit.”

  “Walker, I don’t have to take crap like that from you.”

  “That’s right. You an officer and I a fuckin’ snuff nigger.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Sheeit.” Henry turned to China. “What shit you feedin’ me? He ain’t no different than the rest of them.”

  Mellas’s ears were burning. He looked at China.

  “Reason we come to you, Lieutenant Mellas,” China said, “was because we figured you’d be the only one we could talk to.”

  “I appreciate that, China,” Mellas said. “I’ll try to help. Just don’t push me.”

  “We ain’t pushin’ nobody,” China said. “We just trying to explain the situation is all.” China looked over at Henry, then back at Mellas. “We on the edge, sir,” he added.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Mellas said.

  The two of them left. Mellas picked up his book but found it difficult to read. He stared at the cover, his body buzzing with the electricity of the encounter and the talk of trouble. But at the same time he was also slightly pleased. The brothers had come to him.

  After chow Mellas wandered over to the sagging tent behind the combat operations center. It was already dark, and a soft drizzle was falling. He felt oddly content. Perhaps it was the beef hash he’d eaten and the steaming coffee he’d chased it down with. He tripped across several blown stumps and a couple of guy ropes before he stumbled into the tent. Hawke was alone, sitting on a cot and shining his new boots by the light of a candle. Only three of the six cots had mattresses. Hawke’s old bleached boots were neatly placed beneath his cot.

  “What you polishing your boots for?” Mellas asked. “You just got ’em.”

  “I’m getting a medal,” Hawke said without looking up.

  “Hey, no shit. Fanfuckingtastic. What you getting?”

  “Bronze Star.”

  “Outfuckingstanding, Jayhawk.” Mellas gave the hawk power sign and grinned. The thought of Hawke getting a medal filled him with pride.

  “Yeah,” Hawke said, trying to repress a smile, “I’m sort of proud of it.”

  “What’d you do?” Mellas asked.

  “Oh, that fucking thing where I ran around in the open and called some arty in on some gook arty from Co Roc that was beating shit out of us at Lang Vei.”

  “I’d heard about that, actually,” Mellas said.

  “Really?”

  “First day I got assigned to Bravo Company back in Quang Tri. The clerks were talking about it.”

  “No shit.” Hawke let himself smile. “You know, Mel, I used to think a medal was a bunch of bullshit and I’d never really care. I was wrong. You get caught up in the little values of where you’re at, I guess. So I’m proud of it. And I’m embarrassed about it. I know a lot of guys have done what I did and gotten nothing. Usually snuffs. Then there’s the field grade officer who ran a mediocre supply dump in Da Nang and got the same thing.” He started polishing a boot furiously.

  He finally put the shined boot down and reached under the cot for his old jungle boots. He put them on, smiling grimly, then put his hands on his knees and looked at Mellas. “I’m tired of waiting for those two Irish assholes. I got six six-packs and a bottle of Jack Black. Let’s get fucked up.”

  “OK by me,” Mellas said.

  “Mystery tour!” Hawke shouted at the top of his lungs and did the hawk dance. “Mystery tour!” He pulled the bottle of bourbon from his pack and poured Mellas and himself drinks in two heavy white coffee mugs. He raised his mug to Mellas’s and at that moment the flap of the tent parted and the door was filled by the huge bulk of Jack Murphy. Mellas had last seen Murphy in exhausted sleep on the LZ that Bravo had flown to from Matterhorn. Behind him was McCarthy. Mellas tried to push away the image of McCarthy, shaking and asking for a cigarette, his men stumbling to join him with the body swaying between them. Then he saw Williams. Then Parker.

  “Hey, hey, hey!” McCarthy pushed ahead of Murphy and he and Hawke started doing a noisy jig.

  “You’ve both met Mellas,” Hawke said, stopping to pour whiskey into two more mugs. McCarthy produced a fifth of vodka. Murphy had a half pint of Scotch and several small cans of sardines packed in olive oil, as well as a box of Ritz crackers.

  An hour later they were giggling helplessly as Mellas stabbed at one of the sardine cans with Hawke’s K-bar. Finally, in a rage, he started stabbing it randomly, squirting olive oil on his face and forehead.

  “Fuck, Mellas, give up,” McCarthy said, laughing.

  After some more furious stabbing Mellas grabbed the oily can and smashed it against his forehead. “Aaahhh,” he sighed as the oil ran off his chin. He sat down on the tent floor, his back against Hawke’s rack, and shut his eyes.

  “Goddamn it, Mellas,” Hawke shouted at him, “you can’t go to sleep now, we’re just fucking starting.” He began to slap Mellas lightly on the cheek. Mellas opened his eyes and grinned slowly. Hawke poured beer over Mellas’s head. “We still got thirty-six beers to get through.”

  “Fuck you, Hawke. I was just resting my eyes.” He looked up at the three friends. He knew he’d been let into the group.

  Wonderfully, mindlessly drunk two hours later, the four lieutenants were sneaking in brief rushes up to the regimental motor pool, suppressing laughter. Hawke was leading them with hand signals learned at the Basic School, doing everything exactly to form. Their target was a half-ton truck.

  “Keep your fucking ass down, Murphy,” Hawke whispered.

  Murphy giggled like a child.

  “Fire team in the assault. Ready?” Hawke raised his arm. “Ho!” He pointed at the truck and the four of them rushed it. Mellas and Murphy piled into the back while Hawke and McCarthy scrambled into the cab and kicked over the engine. They roared off down the road toward the regimental officers’ club.

  Half an hour later, the movie at the small officers’ club was interrupted by a wildly gesturing figure who tried to embrace the woman on the screen. The screen came down with a crash. Trying to make his escape in the dark, Murphy tripped over a power cord and pulled the projector off the table. Hawke shouted, “Retreat! Retreat! Abandon ship!” The mystery tour bolted for the door they’d staggered through twenty minutes earlier. Murphy panicked, still tangled in the electric cord. In the darkness and confusion he missed the door by two feet and took out approximately twelve square feet of fine wire insect screen.

  As the four lieutenants piled into the truck, several officers shouted behind them, equally drunk. One of them pulled a pistol out and fired it into the air. He and two other dark figures jumped into a jeep and took off in pursuit.

  The man with the pistol was waving it over his head, laughing and shouting, “Saboteurs! Saboteurs! Rape and pillage in the village!” He was about to fire two more rounds into the air just as the jeep bounced over a rut and the driver swerved violently to the side. The force of the turn and gravity pulled the heavy .45 down as it went off.

  McCarthy, in the bed of the truck with Mellas, groaned and slumped to the floor.

  Mellas immediately got sober—and very frightened. He knew they were in big trouble. He kicked in the rear window of the truck’s cab and screamed at Hawke, who was driving. “McCarthy’s fucking hit. We got to get him out of here.”

  Hawke turned to look at Mellas. The whites of his eyes were prominent. He then looked back to the road.

  “McCarthy’s fucking shot, I tell you.”

  Hawke turned the truck off the road, bouncing up a hill through low shrubs. It smashed against a blown stump, sen
ding Murphy forward against the windshield and slamming Mellas up against the back of the cab. McCarthy came sliding forward, crumpling against Mellas.

  They piled out and dragged McCarthy into the bushes, struggling uphill. The jeep roared past them down the road.

  “Why you guys carrying me?” McCarthy asked suddenly.

  “You ain’t fucking shot?” Hawke asked.

 

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