Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War

by Karl Marlantes

  Jackson chuckled. “I think that operation got shut down.” He looked out at the fog, his eyes twinkling. “Let’s say by better business practices.”

  “What?”

  “The word among the brothers is that they’re not doing it any more, sir.”

  Mellas wanted to probe but held back. It was sufficient to know that the rumor was true and that no action needed to be taken. After a brief silence Mellas asked,“Is there going to be serious trouble? I mean back home. You know, with serious weapons.”

  Jackson said nothing.

  “I got this feeling that somehow I should be involved, but I can’t do a fucking thing.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Just leave us the fuck alone.” Jackson was looking him right in the eye and had spoken with kindness. Even though Mellas was an officer, and white, at that moment Jackson was just someone close to his own age who shared the same hole. “You really don’t understand it, do you?” Jackson said.

  “I guess not.”

  Jackson sighed. “Shit, Lieutenant. We might be dead in an hour or two, so I guess this isn’t any time for fucking around not saying what we mean. You OK with that?”

  “Not with the being dead in a couple of hours part,” Mellas answered.

  Jackson snorted approval. “OK, sir.” He paused. Then he said, “You’re a racist.”

  Mellas swallowed and looked open-mouthed at Jackson.

  “Now hold on.” Jackson said, obviously marshaling his words. “Don’t get all excited. I’m a racist too. You can’t grow up in America and not be a racist. Everyone on this fucking hill’s a racist and everyone back in the world’s a racist. Only there’s one big difference between us two racists you can’t ever change and I can’t ever change.”

  “What’s that?” Mellas asked.

  “Being racist helps you and it hurts me.” Jackson looked out at the distance. They were both quiet. Then Jackson said, “You know, China’s really got it right. We got to overturn a racist society. No easy thing.” He brightened. “There’s another difference between us racists.”

  Mellas kept quiet.

  “Some of us racists are prejudiced and some aren’t. Now you, I’d say you’re trying not to be prejudiced. Me too, and Cortell, and even Mole, though he’d never admit it. Hawke’s not prejudiced, flat out. Not being prejudiced is the best any of us can do right now. It’s too late about being racist.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “How many black friends you got back in the world?”

  Mellas paused and looked away into the fog, embarrassed. Then he faced Jackson. “None.”

  “Righhht,” Jackson said with a smile. “And me, I don’t have any white friends. We won’t be free of racism until my black skin sends the same signals as Hawke’s red mustache. The way it is now, you can’t look at me without thinking something more, and me, I can’t look back without the same attitude.”

  Mellas was starting to understand.

  “We’ll know we’re free of racism when every white person has a black friend,” Jackson said. Then he laughed out loud. “Hey, you’re the math guy, Lieutenant. That means every black person has to have seven or eight white friends. Ooh-wee. Ain’t no way. We’re a long way from that.” His voice went quiet. “A long way.”

  “You got me good,” Mellas said. He smiled. “So what do we do?”

  He waited while Jackson thought a moment. “It’s like the way you like China,” Jackson said. “You have to stop that shit.”

  “What’s wrong with liking China?”

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with liking China. Everyone likes China. That’s why he’s so good at his organizing shit. What I mean is the way you like China. I mean he’s your nigger.”

  The barb silenced Mellas.

  “You know what an Uncle Tom is, right?” Jackson said, fingering the hangman’s noose around his neck. “A sort of Stepin Fetchit?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, that’s somebody’s nigger.” Jackson’s long fingers began drumming against his dirty camouflage. “That’s some chuck’s idea who lived in Hollywood in 1935. But now we got guys like China. They wear the Afro even when it gets them in trouble. Shit, to get them in trouble. And they throw shit into whitey’s face every chance they get. Well, you know something? You know who they are? They’re the niggers of people like you, that’s who they are. Every time they stand up and tell you to get off their backs, and that the whole fucking society is built up by racists and pigs, little white students living off daddy’s cash in Berkeley or Harvard stand up and say ‘That’s right on, boy, you tell us guilty white pigs what’s happening. I am with you. You are my nigger.’ Only none of them are about to integrate any of our schools. None of them are about to move south and sit on the juries and stand up for the black man. And none of them are getting shipped home in rubber bags either. In fact, soon as this war heated up, all the rich white kids forgot all about civil rights and started worrying about getting their asses drafted.”

  Jackson stopped talking. He was trembling with anger. He took a deep breath and exhaled.

  “Well, I’m nobody’s nigger,” Jackson went on. “I’m not some college student’s fucking nigger and I’m not some movie man’s fucking nigger. I’m going to be my own nigger.”

  “If you’re your own nigger how come you let China talk you into refusing to take over the squad?”

  “He didn’t talk me into it. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. If I take the squad, I’m the system’s nigger. If I stay where I am, I’m China’s nigger. It’s like I can’t stand up or lay down. Anyways I turn I’m someone’s nigger. That’s why I took the radio when Lieutenant Fracasso offered it to me and why I’m packing it now.” He snorted. “So I ended up in between and looking like your nigger.” He snorted again. “Seems it’s the best I could come out and still be my own nigger.” He looked at Mellas, a hint of inquiry on his face. Mellas understood that Jackson was trying to see how he was taking it.

  He stared into the fog, envisioning the many times he’d joked with guys like Jackson. Then he saw Mole, turning his face around to him after cleaning his machine gun on Matterhorn when Cassidy had shaved Parker. And then Jackson, throwing his body against the bamboo to build the useless LZ and then standing in the open with the NVA shells coming in, evacuating the wounded from Matterhorn. And Mole again, staring at the machine-gun bunker where Young was blown away and agreeing to take it alone, frightened, but knowing it was a key point in the defense, now revealed to the enemy. He realized guys like that didn’t need his help at all. All he had to do was get out of their way. “I blew it, Jackson,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

  “Shit, sir. You didn’t blow it any worse than the rest of us. Me and Mole only just figured it out when you and the other lieutenants was up all night making that fucked-up plan to take Helicopter Hill.”

  They looked at each other and started laughing.

  “A fucking sneak attack by Scar,” Jackson said between giggles. “Sheeit.”

  They grew quiet again.

  “So if white people leave you alone,” Mellas said, “where’s that going to leave you guys? White people do control our society. Rich white people in fact.”

  “Yeah,” Jackson said, “and rich niggers, too. Look who’s fighting this fucking war: poor white and poor black. And the occasional goddamned fool like you, begging the lieutenant’s pardon.” He paused and his eyes went to the jungle below them. Mellas let him think. Then Jackson turned to him. “We’ve got to handle our own problems,” he said. “All you got to do is start treating us like everyone else. It’s as simple as that. We don’t need nothing special. Oh, yeah, we got people who are going to fuck us up. Fuck us up good. They’ll be pissed off and throwing shit around and smashing things. And you got ’em too. Look at fucking Cassidy. But we don’t need any special fucking help. We’re people. Just treat us like people. We’re no dumber than you and we’re no smarter.” He looked over at Mellas. “Although we do do better music.”

  Mellas laughed.

  “Let us solve our problems the same way everyone else does,” Jackson went on. “We might even make some mis
takes. We’re people, Lieutenant, just like you.” Then he made a fist and held it out to Mellas. “We’re just treated different.” He was nodding in encouragement. Mellas smiled and tapped Jackson’s fist with his own, and once again they went through the hand dance. Mellas still did it awkwardly, but he laughed with pleasure.

  Two rockets lashed out of the jungle, sending everyone deep into his hole. Goodwin radioed in, reporting one more wounded.

  Daniels brought an artillery mission crashing in from a 155-millimeter howitzer battery. Beautiful rolling volleys of sound washed over them from the jungle. Mellas grunted in satisfaction. He hadn’t known that the 155s had been moved within range. “At least they’re finally doing something for us niggers,” he said.

  Stevens and Hawke had been up all night pushing staff from various organizations to move a 105 battery to FSB Eiger about ten kilometers southeast of Matterhorn. It was at extreme range to support Bravo Company, but it could cover the companies moving to Bravo’s aid from the south and east. They also talked the regimental staff into moving two 155s there. It was these two 155s that Daniels was directing. They’d wanted to move a 105 battery to Sky Cap, but that move was made impossible by the same fog that prevented all helicopter flights to Helicopter Hill. Eiger, at least 2,500 feet lower than Sky Cap, however, was clear of clouds and building ammunition and other supplies rapidly.

  Simpson and Blakely hovered over the shoulders of the radio operators, leaping on every report that came in from Alpha and Charlie companies. They were moving at an agonizingly slow pace. “If they don’t get their asses in gear, Three Twenty-Four will beat us to it,” Simpson muttered grimly. “How are the replacements doing?”

  “They’re on the LZ, sir. Everything’s standing by.”

  On the edge of the muddy landing zone at Vandegrift Combat Base, every new replacement who had come into the battalion was waiting in the slow drizzle. Cardboard boxes, each containing four glass containers of IV fluid in a protective wood carton, were stacked next to the kids, along with boxes of ammunition and C-rations, all covered with rubberized canvas tarps to keep the cardboard from crumbling to mush in the rain. A small water tank on wheels also stood in the rain, wrapped in a cargo net that would be hooked to the underside of one of the choppers. Rumors that Bravo Company was getting slaughtered had grown enormously. The kids were pale with fear and cold, unable to eat.

  At division headquarters at Dong Ha, Colonel Mulvaney was meeting with General Gregory Neitzel, commanding officer of the Fifth Marine Division; Willy White, commander of the Twenty-Second Marines, the artillery regiment; and Mike Harreschou, CO of Fifteenth Marines, another of the division’s three infantry regiments. An aide walked in with a slip of paper. “Excuse me sir,” he said. “Mike Three Twenty-Four is in contact at 743571.” The aide didn’t know the protocol: whether to hand the slip of paper to Mulvaney, whose company it was, or to the general.

  Mulvaney spared him the decision by grabbing the paper from his hands. “Unknown-size force. Goddamn it.” He turned to the aide. “I want an estimate of size as soon as you can get it.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” The aide left.

  The general and the artillery commander quickly moved to the large map on the wall. “Right here, Willy,” the general said, his finger pointing to the coordinates. “Just about where we figured. How’s that battery at Smokey doing?”

  “They ought to be ready to fire within the hour, sir.”

  “Good.” General Neitzel turned to Mulvaney. “Mike, what do you think?” he asked.

  “It’s our gook regiment, no doubt about it.” Mulvaney went to the map and with a thick finger pointed out the locations of enemy contact. There was Charlie Company’s ambush incident just to the south of Matterhorn. Then there were two firefights with Lima and Alpha companies, and Mike Company was in a fight right now. All those fights formed an arc. Mulvaney completed the circle that the arc implied, roughly outlining the area that held the NVA regiment.

  “Willy,” the general said, “if I were to authorize your First Battalion to pile in a few more artillery pieces, could you put them to work anyplace?”

  “Yes sir. If I can get some grunts for security. We could put a battery here on Hill 427, due south of Matterhorn. Eiger could support it, and vice versa, although I’d sure like to get something up on Sky Cap again.” He stopped short of mentioning the decision to abandon all of the artillery bases in the western mountains, like Sky Cap, in order to support the political operation in the flatlands. “It’s mighty close to the goddamned Z, though, and I’d need good security. We’d need air or maybe counter battery from Red Devil to stop getting shelled by the gook artillery across the Ben Hai.” Red Devil was the call sign of an Army eight-inch heavy artillery unit. “Those gook hundred twenty-twos were designed as naval guns and they can reach us, but we can’t reach them with our one-oh-fives.” He paused, stroking his chin. “Assuming we get political clearance to fight back.”

  Neitzel grimaced. “I’ll take care of that.”

  Harreschou and Mulvaney exchanged a look.

  “Maybe a battery of one five fives on Lookout,” White continued. “They’d have the reach. That would take a little longer, though.”

  “How long?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” Neitzel insisted.

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “We’ll get you extra lift capacity with some Army CH-47s out of Phu Bai.”

  “We’ll try it, sir. It’s fast, but we’ll go for it.”

  “It’s crucial,” Neitzel said. He walked to the map and went over the situation with them again, as if reassuring himself about the strategy. The NVA had attacked from out of Laos with three regiments, along three separate corriders, taking advantage of the pullback from the far west that had been necessitated by the political operation at Cam Lo. They had also been encouraged by the fact that just before Christmas the Army’s 101st Airborne Division had been pulled from the area completely because of fierce fighting in the central highlands. What they didn’t know was that the 101st had just been ordered into the Au Shau Valley. That unit could move extremely fast, given its airlift capacity. That left the Fifth Marine Division handling the two northern thrusts: the central one in the Da Krong Valley and the northern one on Mutter’s Ridge. Mulvaney’s Twenty-Fourth Marine Regiment had the northernmost of the three NVA advance routes, by virtue of the fact that it was already there. His Second Battalion, Two Twenty-Four, with four rifle companies, was being moved into the valley north of Matterhorn. The NVA would not want to move north against a Marine battalion that was waiting for them. They’d push up against the Marines like water hitting a dam. They’d concentrate in front of that dam, making themselves vulnerable to artillery, which was indifferent to the weather once it was in place, and to Arc Light attacks out of Guam, whose B-52s flew well above the weather and dropped their bombs using radar. Simpson’s three remaining companies of One Twenty-Four were moving into a mirror-image position on the south side of Matterhorn. That would stop the NVA from moving south, just as Two Twenty-Four would stop them from moving north. Third Battalion’s Mike Company was already in contact with the NVA regiment, and Three Twenty-Four’s remaining companies would be hitting the NVA within hours. This would stop any forward movement east along the ridgeline. The NVA would be forced to retreat west. But Bravo Company, sitting on Helicopter Hill, blocked the only easy route to the Laotian border.

  Neitzel then looked at the situation from the enemy’s point of view. The NVA needed to use the high ground of the ridge. Trying to move through the jungle in the valleys below the ridge would be a nightmare for any infantry unit. If the NVA commander didn’t move fast enough, he risked getting cut off, or cut in two, by a pincer movement from the Marine battalions to his north and south. As long as the NVA commander felt safe from air strikes, he could stay on the ridge, holding the high ground, making the Marines pay dearly for every hill. But he too knew that weather changes. His best option had to be to overrun Bravo Company and clear it from his path. That would be a propaganda vict
ory and would spread all over the newspapers in America, making the whole northern thrust a political success—and political and propaganda victories, not attrition, would win the war for the north. In addition, eliminating Bravo Company would give the NVA control of the western end of Mutter’s Ridge, allowing an orderly withdrawal.

  General Neitzel’s problem was getting everything into place in time.

  He turned to the other infantry commander. “Harreschou, I want Fifteenth Marines to bottle them up in the Da Krong.”

  Colonel Harreschou nodded, trying to imagine how he was going to turn the fucking regiment inside out to get it into position in the Da Krong before the NVA broke out onto the coastal plain. He bit his lower lip. The other two colonels were silent. “OK, sir. You know as well as I do what that’s going to take.”

  “I know,” the general answered. “Like I said, with the 101st involved we think we can get some of their lift capacity. I’ll shift our forty-sixes north to help out Mike and you get the Army forty-sevens.”