Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War

by Karl Marlantes

  Kendall heard the handset keying furiously and knew that he’d been caught doing something terribly wrong. He immediately stopped. The word passed up in low whispers.

  “We’re going the wrong fucking way.”

  Kendall, crushed by a sense of failure, groped backward along the column. His radio operator followed. They met Samms, and there was an intense flow of barely audible words. “What the fuck are you doing? I ought to shoot you right here. Now, goddamn it, you are going to follow me until we reach the fucking wire, and if I hear so much as a fucking sound you’re going to get blown away.” Kendall dropped back into the center of the platoon. Samms led the way, retracing their steps.

  Dawn would arrive in minutes. The Marines of First Platoon were lying in the mud, trapped between the wire and the enemy bunkers, waiting. Fracasso was frantic. Kendall was supposed to begin the attack. What the fuck was Kendall doing? He looked at his watch, holding it so close to his eyes that the dial was blurred. In a few minutes the light would start coming.

  All along the line, there was anguished perplexity. What happened to Third Herd? Why were they waiting in this fucking death trap?

  Fracasso wanted to cry. He wanted to turn around and crawl back through the wire, but he knew that the platoon would never make it out before daylight. Halfway in, halfway out, he’d lose most of them.

  Then Fracasso noticed the faint white of the dial of his watch, mingling with the glow of its phosphorescent hands. Daylight had not waited.

  “Holy Mary, pray for us now,” he whispered. And at the hour of our death. He lurched to his feet and roared as he threw the grenade he had been holding in his right hand. All along the line, the platoon threw their grenades as hard as they could, aiming for their former bunkers. Explosions ripped across the hill, lighting fierce and frightened faces. Fracasso, firing his M-16 on full automatic, ran screaming up the hill, covering the short distance between them and the bunkers in about five seconds.

  “They’re fucking empty!” he shouted as he approached the first one. “They’re fucking empty!” The entire platoon surged along beside him, and everyone felt a great weight lift from his back.

  Then, from the new holes just above the old bunkers where the NVA unit, reduced in size, had moved during the night, bright fire blazed out of the gloom. Fracasso, singled out by at least five riflemen as the leader, went down instantly.

  When the fire erupted from above the empty bunkers everyone wanted to crawl underground. Several kids, in fact, went down on their knees. Had the others done the same, the attack would have stopped, and the outcome would have been a disaster. But the attack went on—not because of any conscious decision, but because of friendship.

  Jackson went running forward, more to see if Fracasso was alive than for tactical reasons. Vancouver saw Jackson heading for the lieutenant and decided that even if the platoon were in a hopeless shit sandwich he’d be goddamned if he’d let Jackson run forward alone. So he kept going. Connolly, seeing Vancouver charging forward, did exactly the same, although his mind cried out to him to merge with the great welcoming earth beneath his feet. He wouldn’t abandon a friend to go it alone. Neither would any of the others.

  Jackson, who’d been nicked on the arm by the concentration of fire on Fracasso, saw Vancouver surging ahead, shell casings flying from his machine gun. Jackson couldn’t let him go alone, nor did he see any advantage in trying to crawl back through the wire. He kept running forward, though forgetting to fire his weapon.

  A man in good condition can run 100 meters in about twelve seconds. Uphill, with rifles and ammunition, a flak jacket, a helmet, water, grenades, heavy boots, and maybe a last can of pecan roll, the run takes a lot longer. There were approximately twenty-five meters between the old bunkers and the new fighting holes from which the NVA soldiers were firing. It took approximately five seconds to cross that deadly ground. In that time, one-third of the remaining thirty-four in the platoon went down.

  Then attackers and defenders joined together and bellowing, frightened, maddened kids—firing, clubbing, and kicking—tried to end the madness by means of more madness.

  Vancouver jumped into a hole with two small NVA soldiers, firing his machine gun right up against their chests, his muzzle blasts lighting the three of them as if by strobe lights. One of them, before he died, put a bullet through Vancouver’s left arm, shattering the bone above the elbow. Vancouver clawed his way out of the hole, mad with pain but trying to reach the top of the hill. When he emerged from over the lip of the flattened top of Matterhorn, he saw the commander of the NVA unit shouting his men across the LZ to aid those defending the east approach.

  Vancouver saw the NVA officer look at him in surprise. Even in the predawn gloom Vancouver could see that the officer was no older than Mellas or Fracasso. The young man reached for his pistol, which was tied with a lanyard around his neck and rested in a shoulder holster. Several others, seeing the large Marine, his arm dripping blood, turned their AK-47s on him.

  Vancouver, unable to raise his machine-gun barrel because of his crippled arm, went to ground beneath the lip of the LZ. He rolled to the left, freeing the ammunition belt to enter the gun’s receiver. He rested the barrel of the gun on the lip of the LZ and pulled the trigger. The officer went down, wounded, and a knee of one of the soldiers firing at Vancouver was shattered. Vancouver began to pump short steady bursts across the flat LZ, forcing the NVA reinforcements to work their way around the hill the long way.

  The NVA officer, shouting, crawled to reach a former artillery pit. Soon two soldiers carrying a drum-canister machine gun joined him. The officer directed their fire against Vancouver. A burst of bullets tore the earth around Vancouver’s eyes, forcing his head down as the bullets sucked across the flat table between them. As Vancouver’s head went down the officer shouted something and a group of his men rushed across the LZ.

  Vancouver suddenly understood the game.

  As long as he could keep firing, the reinforcements were slowed, giving the platoon time to break through the line of holes. He looked behind him and saw Connolly running for a fighting hole with a grenade, and two other Marines on their knees firing at the hole to keep its occupants’ heads down. A minute was all that was needed. The defenses would be pierced. If Third Platoon made it in time, they’d overrun the enemy lines.

  The five NVA soldiers were now halfway across the LZ.

  Vancouver poked his head above the rim of earth and emptied his belt at them. Two went down wounded. Two hit the earth voluntarily and crawled for another empty artillery pit. One turned back to join the officer and the machine-gun crew, who continued firing at Vancouver.

  Vancouver’s left shoulder was torn apart by one of the gun’s bullets. His arm, already wounded, became a bloody, floppy, uncontrollable appendage.

  One-handed, he fumbled awkwardly to reload his machine gun. Large spots of gray-black obscured the feed tray and cover. He shook his head, trying to clear his vision. His single hand wouldn’t work right. It felt clumsy and slow. He heard Bass screaming at him but couldn’t understand the words. He heard Connolly’s grenade go off and saw Connolly rise from next to the hole and fire a burst into it. Muzzle blasts winked in the gloom along the line of holes.

  The NVA officer shouted again. The two soldiers in the other gun pit rose once more to move toward Vancouver. Another group emerged from the same pit as the officer.

  Just a few seconds were all Bass and Connolly needed.

  Vancouver pulled his sword from his side. He had never really expected to use the damn thing. He’d had fun joking with the new boot lieutenant and Bass and the gunny about it. He slipped out of his gun harness and emerged over the lip of the flat ground of the LZ snarling, his face black, his helmet fallen off, blond hair matted with blood. His left arm hung helpless, but in his right hand he held the sword raised above his head. He would run and scream for thirty seconds, and then it would all be over, one way or the other.

  The NVA soldiers at the machine gun couldn’t turn it on Vancouver, be
cause he was already between their two comrades who’d started running across the LZ toward him. Both of them were now going down under his hacking sword.

  A short, thickly built sergeant from the second group of NVA soldiers ran straight for where Vancouver and the two others were fighting and then stopped short. Vancouver finished the second soldier off and turned to attack the sergeant. The sergeant pointed his rifle and fired three quick shots. Two went into Vancouver’s stomach. He sank to the ground. The sergeant fired again. Vancouver shuddered and crumpled over. The man waved his squad forward, running for the edge of the landing zone. One of the two NVA soldiers whom Vancouver had attacked cried weakly for help. Vancouver, his face in the mud, heard him and knew they would die together. That felt appropriate somehow.

  The small group of NVA reached the edge of the LZ just as Samms fought his way through the wire on the south slope. Wild with despair and shame at having left First Platoon to go it alone, he hurled himself against the wire, not bothering to find the gate. Bullets churned the dirt around him; the dim light was foiling the NVA’s aim. Samms tore at stakes, pulled the wire up, and shouted to his men through the gloomy fog. Finally, he tore free. Bleeding from his arms and legs, he rushed past the empty bunkers, heading for the line of new holes above him. Miraculously, bullets slammed past him.

  Samms saw the NVA reinforcements silhouetted against the gray dawn light. Lunging to the earth, he fired two quick bursts, watching the flight of the tracers he had interspersed after every five bullets. He quickly adjusted his aim, sending the bullets into the small group of reinforcements. Luckily for Bravo Company, Samms thought, the NVA were thirty seconds too late.

  The rest of Third Platoon went swarming past him as he emptied his magazine. His radioman, also bleeding after being torn by the wire, flopped down beside him. Samms, heedless of the radio operator, ran forward, heading toward the fire coming from First Platoon.

  Some NVA soldiers were backing up the hill, firing as they went. Others stayed in their holes, fighting until the last.

  Samms scrambled over the top of a small acclivity on the side of the hill and came into full view of First Platoon. One of the new kids snapped his rifle around and fired a quick burst.

  Cortell jumped on the newbie, shouting, “Friendlies! Friendlies on the left!”

  Samms stared at the two of them. Two bullets were in his chest, one stopping his heart. “You dumb fucking numby,” he said calmly as sick blackness swirled into his brain and his hands and forearms started to buzz. He sank to his knees and curled over in a ball like a child going to sleep.

  The rest of Samms’s platoon came storming around the shoulder of the hill. Some stopped when they saw him lying there. Bass shouted at them, pointing at the breach in the NVA lines with his short-timer’s stick. The kids from Third Platoon, feeling disgraced at having let First Platoon down, charged through the gap, firing as they ran. They surged across the LZ, which was deserted now, and descended on NVA holes from above and behind. Whistles shrilled. Within seconds the NVA were retreating in an orderly fashion down the west slope of Matterhorn toward Laos.

  Bass ran after Third Platoon, knowing he’d have to stop them from chasing the enemy all the way down the hill and exposing themselves to counterattack. Skosh, with a rib broken by a nearly spent bullet, struggled to follow Bass. Kendall, not knowing what to do, was following his platoon.

  “Get them set up for a counterattack!” Bass yelled at him.

  Kendall nodded and started shouting at them to stop and set in. Bass ran back to First Platoon to try to set up a defense, directing people with his stick, waving it in the air, pointing with it to weak spots. He saw Vancouver’s body and the bloody sword. He turned Vancouver over quickly, saw the familiar face of the dead, and ran on, calling to Hamilton and Connolly to link up with Kendall’s platoon at both ends.

  Skosh, his chest still heaving, stopped to pull the sword from Vancouver’s hand. Vancouver looked like a dog that had been run over. “You big dumb gunjy fucking Canadian,” Skosh said. He keyed his handset. “Bravo, this is Bravo One Assist.”

  Pallack answered immediately. “Go, One Assist.”

  Skosh keyed the handset. “The big Victor’s dead. Over.” He let up on the handset.

  Pallack quietly repeated the message to Fitch and Mellas. It was as if the company’s soul had been taken away.

  A minute later they heard the ominous sound of distant mortar rounds firing out of tubes. Then the NVA mortar rounds came whistling down out of the luminous gray sky.

  The wounded lay exposed along the east side of Matterhorn. The mortar shells walked with fiery feet among them, occasionally stumbling on one, leaving a meat-red footprint. Some of the wounded tried to crawl for cover. Others, unable to move, watched the sky in numb terror or simply shut their eyes, praying for a friend to reach them and drag them to safety. Their friends came.

  With insufficient personnel to man the company’s original perimeter, Bass moved everyone into the NVA’s holes. There, the kids huddled against the earth and waited for the shelling to stop, and then, perhaps, for the counterattack to start.

  Bass had another concern beyond the counterattack and evacuating his wounded. If attacked, they would be firing on their own dead who lay on the slope of the hill. Even dead, they were still Marines. He remembered Jancowitz giving his life to break the ring of interlocking fire that stopped the first assault on Helicopter Hill. He knew what Vancouver had done for them. The dead, for Bass, were not dead.

  “Fuck it,” he said to Skosh. “If they attack now we’ll fight ’em down there.”

  He rose from his hole just as three NVA shells erupted in a quick series. Shrapnel and dirt tore through the fog. “Everyone up! Everyone up! We’re not done yet. We got work to do, Marines. Get up!”

  Frightened kids peered at him from their holes. He was waving his short-timer’s stick. “Get up! We’re going to get the bodies. Get up!” He ran down the slope. They all rose from their holes, even Skosh with his broken rib.

  It looked like an assault in reverse. Through the exploding shells they called to each other, some with rebel yells, some shouting, “Fuck it! Fuck it all!” They ran for their dead. Some fell to the flying shrapnel. They were picked up, having barely touched the earth, and dragged back up the hill with the dead bodies. In one minute the slopes were cleared.

  Then, as if God had pulled a curtain, the fog lifted completely. The Marines on Helicopter Hill saw Matterhorn standing naked before them. Little figures in camouflage green scurried here and there, dragging other little figures in camouflage green behind them or walking with others hanging on to their shoulders.

  “Get those fucking birds, Snik,” Fitch shouted gleefully.

  Mellas could see Bass clearly, on the top of Matterhorn, pointing his short-timer’s stick at something, shouting at someone.

  With the fog gone, however, NVA on the ridge north of Matterhorn began laying automatic weapons fire in with the mortar explosions. All movement on the LZ was stopped.

  Fitch and Mellas looked at each other hopelessly. The birds couldn’t come in unless the weather was clear. But if it was clear, the NVA had the Marines pinned down with automatic weapons.

  Then a cry went up from those on Helicopter Hill. “Tubing! Tubing!” The Marines had been digging a second perimeter inside the first—they no longer had enough men to defend the outer one—but they stopped and began burying themselves in the dirt. They waited for the time it took between the sounds of the tubing, which went in a direct line to their ears, and the time it took the rounds to complete their high arcs. The mortar rounds crashed harmlessly, far down the hillside. Then the Marines were up again, digging furiously to complete the new perimeter.

  Mellas felt a sickening dismay. The sounds of the tube pops had come from a different direction from the first ones.

  Mellas ran down to the lines, diving into Goodwin’s hole, from which he hoped to hear the second set of tubings and help Daniels with a cross bearing.

  “You’ve got to hand it to th
em little fuckers,” Goodwin said to Mellas, waiting for the next volley of mortars. “They’re fucking pros. Too bad they ain’t on our side.”

  “Just wait a while,” Mellas said. “They were on our side twenty-five years ago.”

  “No shit. Who switched sides, us or them?”

  “I think it was us. We used to be against colonialism. Now we’re against communism.”

  “I’ll be goddamned,” Goodwin said matter-of-factly. “Whatever we’re against, Jack, they’re fucking pros.”

  Mellas held up his hand, listening intently for the next sounds of tubing. As soon as they came, he took a bearing and radioed it back to Daniels on Goodwin’s radio. Then he waited for the mortar shells to complete their slow, high trajectory. He watched the top of the cloud bank that swirled beneath the two hilltops and obscured the valleys below them. Matterhorn seemed unattached to the earth, an ugly bulb rising out of silvery gray. Then the shells hit—all over and inside the perimeter. The Marines curled down, hands over their ears, and tried to squeeze inside their helmets.