Matterhorn

by Karl Marlantes

  “Simpson,” he said. “I’m going to have to disappoint you. We’ll have to abandon the Matterhorn area for good. I can’t afford to give up any of Mutter’s Ridge. Lookout and Sherpa keep me covered in the Khe Sanh region. Division wants a new fire support base opened at Hill 1609 just beneath Tiger’s Tooth. We’ll have to bring in those two companies in the Matterhorn area and then send one of them out close enough to open 1609.”

  “But, sir.” Simpson stood up, excited, already believing the numbers he’d “estimated” for his report. “We’re just beginning to find what’s really up there.” He turned to look to Blakely for support.

  Blakely didn’t miss his cue. “I’m sure the regimental commander realizes,” Blakely began, “that with the latest findings of Bravo Company, combined with the intelligence estimates of division, there’s a high probability that the NVA is becoming quite active in the far northwest. It would be a real shame after having given those reports to division to have no follow-through on them.”

  Mulvaney almost exploded. The last goddamned thing on his mind was following up on some fucking report he’d turned in to division. Then he remembered his wife. He counted to five. Then he counted five more.

  His mind went back to that night at Camp Lejeune—it must have been 1954 or 1955; he was still a captain in any case; he had Alpha Company, Second Marines. Maizy had come back from bridge with Neitzel’s wife, Dorothy, and some of her cronies. Neitzel was already a major and was heading for Amphibious Warfare School and a big staff job. Mulvaney had been painting the living room, little James slung in a beach towel hanging from his neck.

  “My God, Mike,” Maizy said. “You’re getting paint all over him—and the fumes. The girls’ bedroom must be full of them.” She was smiling and shaking her head, at the same time removing her impeccable white gloves and placing them where they always resided, in her grandmother’s crystal bowl, the only thing she had ever inherited. She grabbed the apron that always hung on the kitchen door hook, and tossed it over her shoulder to protect her only suit. She took the baby from him. “Wouldn’t sleep again?” she asked.

  “Eeyep.”

  “Girls go to bed on time?”

  “Eeyep.”

  “Can you put the roller down?”

  “Uh-oh. Serious scuttlebutt.” He put the roller in the tray and watched her watching little James so that she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye. He knew that she never wanted to hurt his feelings, but he also knew that she didn’t shirk from delivering bad news if it meant a better life for her kids. That same drive had her memorizing bidding rules, with him quizzing her from a book while she ironed clothes so she “wouldn’t make a damned fool of herself in front of the other wives.” That same anxiety had also had her agonizing with her sister at Christmastime about what suit to buy when she had first been invited to the bridge table, as if her sister knew more about suits than Maizy did because she worked in a real office.

  “Dorothy Neitzel did it as a favor, so I don’t want you to take it in the wrong way. She really is trying to help.”

  He watched her glance up at him and then quickly back down at James. “Help how?” Might as well get it over.

  “You know, what do you guys call it, back-channel communication.”

  “Gossip.”

  She laughed. “That’s what we call it.” Then she looked at him seriously. “Oh, Mikey,” she said, her eyes pleading. “Dorothy says you stood up for that awful alcoholic First Sergeant Hanford who got caught trying to divert base water to some sort of . . . some sort of swimming hole or something that he’d dug out with a bulldozer that he’d, what do you call it, requisitioned, from the engineering battalion without asking them for it. We call that stealing.”

  “It gets goddamned hot in those stupid squad bays, and those kids loved it. I told the colonel that all Hanford needed was an off-the-record chewing out. Instead they busted him. He’s got four kids. All he was doing was looking out for the troops. You know what I told you that day you picked me up from the hospital.”

  “Yes, I know. That you’d always take the side of the bush Marine.” She sighed. “Mikey, of course you’re right, but on that very same day, in my father’s 1939 Chevy—I was driving because your leg still wouldn’t work from Okinawa—I told you that there might be times that you could be a little more circumspect. You can do a lot more good for your bush Marines as a colonel than as a captain.”

  He took a quick God-help-me look at the ceiling. “Hanford did the right thing the wrong way. No harm, no foul.”

  “The harm, Michael, was telling the colonel that if he ever got his fat ass out of his air-conditioned office he’d understand what Hanford was trying to do.”

  Mulvaney tightened his lips and folded his arms across the chest.

  “Don’t you get stubborn with me, Michael Mulvaney. You were wrong to do it. Can’t you think of your own family, your own kids, for once?”

  “That’s unfair.”

  She breathed, softened. “Yes, it was.” She reached out to touch his arm. “But Mikey, please, you’ve got to hold your temper.” His temper had been an issue ever since he’d gotten back from the Pacific. She moved her hand back to the baby. “Do you want to know what else Dorothy told me?”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “She is doing us a favor, Mikey, for God’s sake.”

  Mulvaney sat down on the tarp-covered couch and looked up at her. “Go ahead. All ready on the firing line.”

  She sat down beside him, scrunching sideways, her tight skirt riding up to show the welt of her stocking, something that always distracted Mulvaney. She tugged, unsuccessfully, at the skirt with her right hand, trying to keep James on her shoulder with her left and Mulvaney on task. She solved both problems by putting the baby and the apron across her lap. She pointed a finger at him, eyes merry. “You are always horny.”

  “So? I’m on the firing line anyway. Shoot me.”

  “Later.” She smiled down at the baby and said in a quiet singsong, “Daddy wants to make you a little sister.” Then she looked up at Mulvaney, her large green eyes suddenly serious. “Dorothy says that they all think you’re . . .” She hesitated.

  “Go on.”

  “That you’re some kind of a throwback to World War II. The word is that Mulvaney will never get out of the jungle, but he’s good in a fight.”

  “That’s bad?”

  “Oh, Mikey, don’t be deliberately dense. You know as well as I do that it’s the planners that get ahead, not the fighters.”

  “And the politicians.”

  “Yes!” She stamped one black pump on the floor and rose to her feet. Putting the baby back on her shoulder, she walked quickly into their bedroom where the crib was next to the bed, her two-inch heels punctuating every step.

  He had watched the way her tight wool skirt beautifully molded her rear end.

  The briefing room swam back into consciousness, a layer above the memory of his home and his wife. God, how he missed her now. He saw everyone waiting for him to say something.

  He knew Blakely was right. With promising reports coming in from Bravo Company, it would look foolish not to follow through. “But where in hell am I supposed to get the men to follow up on your fucking reports?” he asked. He was uncomfortably aware that his strangled anger at Blakely and the ARVNs made his voice sound petty and whining.

  Blakely thought quickly. “Why not let Bravo Company sweep the area and move up to 1609 on foot, sir.”

  Mulvaney looked at the map. It looked like a little over twenty kilometers as the crow flies, but the small squares were almost completely brown with the thick mass of twenty-meter contour intervals. They could barely fit next to each other and still be distinguishable. He remembered parts of Korea that looked like this, and he shuddered—there hadn’t been any jungle there. “What’s their condition?” he asked Simpson. “They’ve been out in the bush a long time, if I remember.”

  “Top-notch, sir. They could be there in four days.”

  If Simpson said four days, then it would probably take eight. “Food? Power sources for the radios? Ammo? With this Cam Lo op, you know
I’m short on birds for resupply.”

  “No problem, sir,” Simpson replied, enjoying the chance to show the other battalion commanders how ready his battalion was.

  Blakely paled and swallowed. He hadn’t bothered to tell Simspon that Bravo had given half its food to Delta almost a week ago to cover the error of pushing Delta off inadequately supplied.

  “What do you think, Major Blakely?” Mulvaney asked.

  Blakely didn’t hesitate. “One Twenty-Four can do the job, sir. You know what they say about the impossible.”

  “Yes,” Mulvaney said quietly, turning to look at the map. “It takes a little longer.” Sick, frostbitten Marines crowded into his memory, struggling up frozen hills, their backs bent under mortars and ammunition, the wounded strapped on litters bound to fenders and in the backs of jeeps and small trucks, clenching their teeth at each painful jolt. Then his mind contrasted that image with one of thin, sore-ridden bodies with barely enough energy to fight the jungle, let alone fight the Japanese. He forced his mind back to the brightly lit briefing room and the map in front of him. He figured it would be a fucking hump at that. Still, he could live with it. They had ten days before 1609 had to be secured. That left Bravo two real days of wiggle room. Something, however, nagged at him. It was like a lump beneath a sleeping bag that he couldn’t quite flatten. But with that much ammo in that dump, and if he didn’t follow through on it as Blakely had suggested . . . He knew he had a reputation for being too impetuous. In this new Marine Corps of careful staff work and covering your ass with paper, it just wasn’t the same. His old friend Neitzel had blended right in with the new Corps; that was why Neitzel had a division and Mulvaney didn’t. If they hit pay dirt, it couldn’t hurt his chances of becoming a general. He smiled, imagining his wife pinning on his stars. “Oh, hell,” he growled at himself.

  “Sir?” Major Adams responded.

  “Nothing, Adams. OK, Simpson, you’re on. Don’t let me down.”

  The frag order that appended their original order to destroy the supply dump reached Bravo Company one hour after the regimental briefing broke up. It consisted of a series of checkpoints and times of arrival, nothing more, some in deep draws, others high on ridges. The line of march took no heed of the wild terrain.

  Hawke began the actuals meeting. “Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to our new leader, Captain Meriwether Lewis. My name is Clark, but you can call me Wm for short. We won’t be skying out for a while.”

  Fitch explained the frag order. “We’ve got about three hours of daylight left, so we might as well get a couple of hours humping. Otherwise there’s no chance of making checkpoint Alpha.”

  “Shit,” Mellas said. “We just dug in. That body stinks and my platoon’s out of food.”

  “You ain’t the Lone Ranger, Mellas,” Hawke said, “but you might be Sacajawea. You still got point.”

  Mellas gritted his teeth and took his map out of his pocket, but he had to smile at Hawke’s joke. “I don’t see any point in it, that’s all,” he said. People groaned and Mellas felt better. “What about this funny-looking three-cornered hill for a position for tonight?” he said. “We might make it before dark. Jesus, though, the river looks like it runs right through a fucking canyon.”

  They discussed it briefly and Fitch gave the go-ahead. He ordered the food redistributed but would allow anyone to keep one C-ration can if he had one, mitigating any resentment on the part of those who had saved their rations. Most of the kids, like Mellas, had already eaten all the food they had. The platoon sergeants collected everything that remained. The redistributed food, now held in common, equaled about three-quarters of a can per person. Twenty minutes after redistributing the food, the company wound out of the ammunition dump, Jacobs’s squad leading, Jackson’s struggling with Williams’s body.

  They moved slowly northeastward, following a rushing stream, higher into the mountains, closer to the DMZ. The terrain grew wildly beautiful, with steep jungle-covered peaks and rushing torrents of water from the monsoon rains. Occasionally, someone would slip on a glassy, water-smoothed rock and his entire body would be covered in swift white water that immediately soaked into his pack, wetting his poncho liner. Unable to regain his feet against the force of the stream because of all his heavy gear, he would be pulled up by laughing companions. Those who got soaked, however, knew that they’d be fighting the cold all that night, trying to use body heat to dry their clothes and poncho liners.

  The trees grew larger and the forest darker as they gained altitude. At one point a large flat outcropping of rock opened the jungle enough to afford them a view of their line of march. Directly in front of them was a dark, narrow valley filled with clouds, which hung close to dark peaks of barren rock. The peaks guarded a narrow, twisting river. Each Marine who passed that open viewpoint made some nervous gesture: tightening his equipment, pausing to spray repellent on a leech, whistling aloud. The rain, which up to now had been falling in a misty drizzle from high clouds, suddenly intensified. It pounded the earth, bringing a rush of cold air.

  By the time they reached the three-cornered hill, Mellas had an intense headache because of his depleted blood sugar. His body had been drained by onslaughts of adrenaline, hunger, and the constant sucking cold of wet clothing. Feeling like a sick animal, he dragged himself along by will alone.

  The hill rose impossibly high in the gloom.

  Jacobs looked upward. “Who the f-fuck p-picked this?” Water from the stream at the base of the hill was dripping from his trousers.

  Mellas closed his eyes. “I did, asshole.”

  The point man sighed, then started crawling up the slope, pushing his rifle in front of him, grabbing roots and rocks.

  Partway up Mellas heard a commotion behind him. He turned to see Hippy looking helplessly up the hill as he slid backward, his heavy machine gun held in front of his face. He started knocking into people behind him, who in turn starting to slide and knock into others. The whole slow-motion scene came to a halt against a tree and everyone untangled himself, cursing Hippy. They started upward again.

  It took Mellas’s platoon an hour to reach the top while the rest of the company waited in the rushing river, freezing, exposed to attack, as the light faded completely. Mellas, as the first officer in, was responsible for setting in the defense for the company and guiding the Marines into positions as they arrived. He thrashed his way through the dark jungle with a machete, outlining the perimeter. It was all he could do to keep from falling to the forest floor, never to move again. Tangled growth slapped his face, tore at his exposed skin, hid the terrain from his eyes. He kept trying to remember all the rules about placing his machine guns. His E-tool, the small folding entrenching shovel attached to his pack, caught on a branch, and the sudden imbalance with the immense weight of his pack almost pulled him over backward. He struck out at the limb, breaking it, hurting his hand and opening the scab over a jungle-rot sore on his arm. In a frenzy, he took out his K-bar and hacked the bush to pieces. Afterward his face felt hot and flushed but his back was damp and cold. His hands were swollen, and his fingers did not want to move. He pulled down his trousers and shit watery feces that spattered on his bare legs and boots. He retched at the smell, unable to throw up because his stomach was empty.

  He headed back down the hill to guide his weary platoon in. It took the rest of the company an hour to get to the top because First Platoon’s trail had turned into a mudslide. When Mellas finally was able to return to his own position, he found Hamilton with the dry heaves from exhaustion and lack of food, retching painfully over the beginnings of a shallow hole.

  Mellas watched him, realizing that he’d have to dig the entire hole himself. “Here, give me that,” Mellas said bitterly, taking the small entrenching tool. “Why don’t you go see if you can rig our ponchos up for some sort of hooch?” he said more gently.

  Hamilton tried to smile but began retching again. “I’ll be OK in a while, sir,” he gasped. “Don’t worry, I’ll help with the hole.”

  “Forget it,” Mellas said. He started diggin
g. When Hamilton turned away, Mellas began silently crying, hacking at the damp earth in impotent fury.

  Fitch had said there would be a full moon that night, and indeed the monsoon clouds had lightened just enough to permit an eerie glow above the trees when Mellas did his first hole-check. He found Hippy sitting silently on the edge of his hole. His bare feet dangled into the darkness below him and his ragged bleached-out boots sat next to the hole. “You’d better cover those boots, Hippy,” Mellas whispered. “I homed in on them like an airport beacon.”

  “Thanks, sir,” Hippy replied. He took his boots and put them in the hole. “Just trying to let them air a little. Thought maybe it’d keep the gooks away if they was downwind.”

  Mellas laughed and sat down beside Hippy. “Anything going on?” he whispered.

  “Here? You shitting me, Lieutenant?”

  Mellas smiled. He kicked his boot out to adjust his position and hit Hippy’s foot. Hippy winced. “Hey. You got foot trouble, Hippy?”

  “Naw. Nothing serious, sir.”

  “Let me see them.”

  “It ain’t nothing, sir. Just some blisters.”

  “Uh-huh,” Mellas replied. “Let’s see one, Hippy.”

  Hippy drew his left foot up to the edge of the hole. Even in the ghostly light, Mellas could see that it was grotesquely swollen and discolored. It repelled him. He took a deep breath. The other foot was no different. “The squid seen these?”

  “No sir.”

  Mellas exploded. “Why the fuck not?”

  Hippy hung his head.

  “Hippy, you’re a fucking cripple. Shit.”

  “I can make it, Lieutenant,” he answered.

  “Shit.” Mellas stood up. “Sure you can, if you extend six months.” Mellas took a breath and tried to cool down. Where in the fuck was he going to find another gun-squad leader as good as Hippy? “There must be some way we can get a bird to get your ass out of here.”