Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War

by Karl Marlantes

  Simpson looked up, washing down a mouthful of noodles with coffee. “Fuck, no. Who?”

  “Some mustang lieutenant in Three Eleven. Three or four of the bastards rolled grenades under his rack while he was sleeping. Someone saw them running away. Black radicals. Nothing left for evidence but monkey meat.”

  “Fucking rear-area poags,” Simpson said. “If any of that shit happens around here I’ll string every black power son of a bitch up by his nuts.” Simpson downed the rest of his coffee with a gulp. “We ought to send every black son of a bitch to the bush. That’d stop this shit.” He looked at his empty cup. “How about a little of that pink Portuguese stuff?” he asked.

  Blakely walked over to the cabinet where the colonel’s case of Mateus was kept. He looked through the insect screen to where the enlisted men were eating. He noticed most of the blacks together in one corner. A few fine wrinkles creased his forehead. He broke the wine bottle’s seal, pulled the cork stopper, and poured two glasses.

  “May you be ten minutes in heaven before the devil knows you’re gone,” Simpson said, raising his glass and gulping a large swallow. Blakely was aware that Simpson prided himself on knowing many different toasts in different languages. He smiled appropriately and drank. Simpson drank some more. “Good fucking stuff,” he said.

  Blakely chose not to agree, rather than to disagree. After a moment he said, “Sir, did you ever think about maybe getting someone to watch your quarters at night?”

  “You think I’m chickenshit?”

  “No sir. But that fragging was the third one in the last two months.” Blakely lowered his voice and leaned over the table. “I heard, strictly scuttlebutt, that someone tried to kill Cassidy, the new Area NCOIC we picked up from Bravo Company. That’s why the sergeant major told me he got the idea to transfer him.”

  “Why aren’t we investigating the fucking incident?”

  “Apparently the black that did it was Bravo’s cerebral malaria case. I’m not sure we want to stir that up.”

  Simpson nervously twirled the pink wine in his glass. “I’m glad to see there’s some fucking justice in the world. That was smart of Knapp.” He tossed down the wine. “I think I’ll go check out the situation at the COC.” He rose to his feet, and so did everyone else. He waved the others down with, “As you were, gentlemen.”

  Sitting alone in the tent he shared with his squad, Jancowitz didn’t need to visit the COC to know what was going on in the regiment’s area of operation. In his mind’s eye he could see the units out in the bush setting their trip flares and putting out their listening posts. He watched as furtive figures, two by two, slipped beyond the lines, carrying their poncho liners and radios with them. He knew he could relax for the moment. There would be no “exploitation” by the Bald Eagle unit until daylight. A night helicopter lift took far too much planning. The units were on their own.

  He took out his short-timer’s chart and carefully filled in another day. He’d been in Vietnam twenty-two months. Well, really only nineteen and three quarters if you subtracted the first week of R & R in Bangkok, when he’d met Susi, and the two thirty-day leaves. He took out his wallet and looked at the picture he’d taken of Susi when she was asleep on his bed in the hotel. He tried to remember the smell of her hair, but that was even more difficult than remembering her face. All he could smell was the mothballs and oil of the sagging tent.

  He walked down to the open pit that had been converted to a small outdoor theater. About a hundred people were sitting there on old crates and boxes. A slight drizzle was starting to fall, but it was warm, unlike the drizzle up in the mountains, and Jancowitz hardly noticed it. He put his hands in his pockets and waited for the movie to begin.

  Nothing happened. The projector sat dumbly as the Marines waited for someone to arrive with the film.

  Fifteen minutes later the crowd was becoming restless. Voices became louder. A beer can was thrown and one Marine jumped up to take the challenge, only to be pulled down by his friends. More beer was opened. A group of blacks had formed over to the left side of the theater. A white Marine got up to take a piss and had to walk through or around them. He asked one of them to move. It was Henry.

  “Hey, motherfuck, I don’t move for nobody ’less I want to,” Henry said.

  The crowd grew quiet.

  Henry moved his face inches from the white kid’s. The white kid stepped back but could go no farther because of some chairs behind him. Several white kids stood up and moved closer to him, offering silent support. Some of the blacks rearranged themselves, forming a semicircle to the side of the two who stood staring at each other. Jancowitz noticed that Broyer and Jackson were with the group, as was China.

  Mole stood up on the far side of the open space where he’d been talking to Vancouver. The two of them looked at each other quickly, then averted their eyes. Mole started edging around the outside of the circle, keeping close to the clay wall of the pit.

  Jancowitz had seen it start before. Everyone was scared not to be with his own race. Once fighting began, sides would be drawn and no amount of time together in the bush could break the barrier. Jancowitz had no idea what he would do, but he found himself walking quickly over to where Mole was moving around the outside edge of the circle, getting himself into position. Whites, feeling the same pressure as Mole, were gradually shifting to join their own color, no one wishing to be isolated when it happened. Jancowitz hissed at Mole. “Get the fuck out of here, Mole. You too, Vancouver. Just get the fuck out of here.”

  Mole looked over at the group of brothers forming at the side of the area, then at Janc. He shook his head, sadly, and continued toward the forming sides.

  Jancowitz turned to see what Vancouver was doing. He, like Mole, understood that he was one of the best fighters and he had to support his color when the shit came down. He moved toward the group forming around the white Marine. Jancowitz could see that although they were all friends in the bush, here in civilization friendship was impossible.

  Jancowitz ran up to the projector and jerked the cord of the small gasoline generator. The cough of the engine broke the silence. Marines of both colors looked to see its cause, to see if an officer had arrived, to see if there was some way out of the impending violence. Jancowitz turned on the camera and a brilliant white square appeared on the canvas screen. Then he calmly walked in front of the stream of white light and formed a shadow picture of a bird. A couple of people laughed nervously.

  “All right, Janc,” someone called.

  “Is that all you can make is birds?”

  “Fuck, no,” he answered. He immediately began talking. “I got this girl down in Bangclap. Holy fuck you never seen a girl like this one.” The shadows suddenly became two legs, spread wide apart. “Now I been in the Nam eighteen months and twenty-seven days.” An erect penis, quivering, replaced the legs. “Of course I just got back from thirty days in Bangclap, you sorry motherfuckers.” The penis went limp and there was laughter. “But then this girl.” The legs reappeared and the penis began to slowly rise, fall, then rise again, egged on by the cheers of the Marines. “I’d lay forty miles of wire through the Au Shau Valley just to hear her piss over the phone.” The penis went erect and cheers reverberated through the group.

  The white kid who’d been trying to take a piss continued on his way with only a dark glance from Henry. Soon other kids stuck their hands into the stream of light, making their own figures on the screen, eliciting raucous and sarcastic commentary accompanied by the sounds of cans of beer being opened. Voices began to rise in a murmur of conversation.

  Jancowitz sat down, still filled with adrenaline, feeling an immense longing for Susi, her clear brown skin and long black hair. Vancouver walked up to him and handed him a beer. “That was close, Janc. We’d been in the shit for sure, ay?” Jacobs also walked up and put his hand on Jancowitz’s shoulder.

  Then the screen went dark.

  A groan arose from the crowd and people turned to look into the darkness behind them. A gunnery sergeant from base services was standing next to the projector w
ith two large canisters of film under his arms.

  “All right, who turned on the fucking generator?” The kids who’d been making shadow pictures sank quietly into the crowd.

  There was silence.

  The man spoke again, long years of authority in his voice. “If I don’t get the wise guy that turned on this fucking generator there ain’t going to be no movie tonight.”

  A murmur of discontent rose in volume. The gunnery sergeant shifted his eyes from side to side, surprised at the rebellion in the air, but even more determined to see his job through. “I don’t care how long it takes, ladies, for one of you to come up here and tell me you started this generator, because I’ve seen this movie before. I’ll give you one more minute, and then I’m leaving.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Jancowitz said quietly. He rose, tired, and faced the man. “I started the fucking generator, Gunny. Movies were supposed to go at 1930 hours, so I thought I’d start them on time.”

  “Come up here, Marine.”

  Jancowitz slowly walked up to the gunnery sergeant. He could smell liquor on the sergeant’s breath. The gunnery sergeant took out a notebook and pen. “I want your name, rank, and unit, Marine. And then I want your ass out of the area. Is that clear?”

  Jancowitz gave him the information he wanted and walked away. Vancouver came to join him, but Janc told him to go back and watch the movie. He felt like being alone.

  As Jancowitz walked down the dark road toward the tents he thought of Susi, feeling that somehow he’d sacrificed her, or some part of her in him. Behind him he heard the movie start. He turned to see, on the screen, an unshaven man wrapped in a Mexican poncho, his arms at his sides near a pair of six-guns, a thin cigarillo clamped tautly in his mouth. The music rose in pitch as the man walked toward the corral fence, where other men were seated, all with weapons ready to use. The screen burst into violence as the man pulled his pistols and shot all the men on the fence. A mocking cheer rose from the Marines. Jancowitz turned around in disgust and continued walking. He’d been right—another fucking cowboy show.

  China, his mouth slightly open in reflection and wonder, watched Jancowitz disappear into the darkness. He realized he’d seen something very brave and wise. “Fucking Janc, man,” he kept saying to himself in his mind. “Fucking Janc.” It occurred to him that he and Janc had been in the bush together ever since he had arrived in the Nam but he’d never really talked to Janc. He suddenly wished Janc were his friend, but he knew it was impossible. He looked over to where Henry was sitting with a group of blacks, basking in their admiration. Henry seemed to grow in stature while China himself got nowhere. China’s face began to burn again at the memory of Henry’s disdain for the weapons, and of how his friends had chuckled. China knew that for now it was Henry’s game and he himself had to play ball. He’d lost way too much ground and didn’t know how he could recover it.

  While Jancowitz was walking away from the movie, Pollini was standing on a crate washing a huge aluminum pot in steaming water. Wick, the Marine from McCarthy’s platoon, was working next to him. Their heads were at the same level, although Wick’s feet were on the ground.

  “Never thought I’d love scrubbing pots,” Wick said.

  “Not me,” Pollini said. “The lieutenant told me I only had to do KP for a month.”

  “Only a month?” Wick shot back. “You get a whole fucking month? McCarthy only gave me a week. I only got two days left and if Alpha ain’t out in the pucker weeds by day after tomorrow, I got to go with them. How come you get a whole month?”

  Pollini shrugged and grinned—his response to any situation he felt he couldn’t handle.

  “I’ll tell you why you get a whole fucking month,” Wick said, clearly angry at the injustice of the situation. “It’s because they don’t want your ass out there with them, that’s why.”

  “It was my turn,” Pollini said hotly.

  “Fuck. Your turn. Nobody gets KP for a fucking month. Ain’t nobody can kiss enough ass to pull that one off.” Wick started cleaning the huge pot again. “Shortround,” he said, “you got it made. Everyone else begging to get to the rear and you got people trying to get you there. Man, you got it made.”

  Pollini kept grinning. “Yeah. I guess I do,” he said.

  “Why’d you up and join the Marine Corps anyway, Shortround?”

  “My father was a Marine,” Pollini answered proudly. “He fought in Korea.”

  “That explains it.”

  “That explains what?”

  “Why we lost the fucking war in Korea. I bet you’re a chip off the old block, ain’t you?” Wick laughed again, enjoying himself.

  There was no response from Pollini. If Wick had looked, he would have seen that Pollini was gritting his teeth in pain and fighting to hold back tears. In Pollini’s hands was a large steel serving ladle. He whipped it around with both hands, catching Wick across the left cheek and the bone above the left eye. Wick screamed in pain, his hands reaching for his face, and Pollini picked up the pot full of hot water and threw it at him. Then he ran out of the mess tent into the darkness, swinging the heaving ladle at another Marine who was running in.

  Wick was standing up, blood and soapy water running down his face.

  “Jesus Christ,” the Marine said. “What happened to you?”

  “Shortround hit me with a fucking ladle.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” the Marine said, awed. “I’ll get the squid.”

  “I don’t want any goddamned flap over it. I’ll get my own squid to look at it.”

  “If you say so. What the fuck happened?” Other Marines on KP had crowded into the tent where the pots were washed.

  “Nothing,” Wick said angrily. “Just clear the fuck out of here and let me finish the goddamned pots.”

  “Sure.” The others left Wick alone, staring at the overturned pot that lay on the muddy floor. He reached down for it. “Sorry, Shortround,” he said quietly.

  Mellas and Goodwin decided to go to the new officers’ club at Task Force Oscar. They went to get Hawke, but Hawke had just bought a case of beer. They decided to have one warm-up drink together outside Hawke’s tent, avoiding a couple of new officers who had just arrived from Quang Tri.

  An hour later the three of them had not moved. The case was now three-quarters gone. “Can you beat that,” Hawke was saying, staring into his beer.

  “Can you beat what?” Mellas asked. His tongue was beginning to get in the way of his words.

  “I mean can you beat the fucking Three getting a medal for hanging out in a Huey when we got into that shit sandwich by Co Roc?”

  “Fucking insanity.” Mellas spat, and it landed in the half-empty case instead of nearby, where he’d aimed. “I still haven’t gotten any word on Vancouver’s and Conman’s medals.”

  “They’re snuffs. It takes longer.”

  “There it is, Jack,” Goodwin said.

  Hawke opened another can of beer and Mellas watched the foam spill satisfyingly over the sides and onto his hands. “The medal was for rallying a demoralized company and risking his life to coordinate its extraction under fire. Captain Black didn’t get zip for going in and pulling Friedlander’s ass out of the shit.”

  “Shit is right, Jack,” Goodwin said.

  “The war’s run by a bunch of assholes,” Mellas said.

  “How do you know?” Hawke asked.

  “We get fucking killed and they sit in Paris and argue about fucking square tables and round tables.”

  “Those are diplomats, not assholes,” Hawke said.

  Goodwin popped open another can of beer and lay back on the ground. A light mist fell on his face.

  “They’re in charge of the fucking war, aren’t they?” Mellas said.

  “Right, right,” Hawke said, nodding.

  “And the war is so fucked up it has to be run by a bunch of assholes. Right?”

  “That’s fucking right, Jack,” Goodwin said. Hawke agreed.

  “So . . .” Mellas said.

  “So what?” Hawke asked.

  “So . . .” Mellas finished his can of beer. “I can’t fucking remember what I was trying to prove, but the pe
ople that run this fucking war are a bunch of assholes.”

  “I’ll drink to that. Goddamned right.” Hawke leaned back, chugging the remainder of his beer.

  “I’ll drink to anything,” Goodwin said fuzzily.

  A silence followed. The damp wind moved gently through the dark, rippling tent walls, causing an occasional light leak to flutter briefly. Mellas let out a long contented burp, his head spinning happily, not really aware of where he was except that he lay in some wet grass in a light drizzle.