Matterhorn

Matterhorn Page 57

by Karl Marlantes

  “It’s different this time,” he said. “I know what I’m in for.” He swallowed, looked up, and then exhaled briefly. “I’m afraid to go back.” He looked at her, worried that he may have overstepped a boundary, revealed too much. He ran his open palm over his unbandaged eye, shutting out the soft light of the wardroom. Images flooded in: stiff twisted bodies, the terror on Jacobs’s face, a leg pumping blood.

  “Remember that feeling you got picking blackberries?” he asked. “You know, with friends, and maybe somebody’s grandmother who’s come along and she’s going to make pie when you get home, and the air’s so warm it’s like Mother Nature is baking bread.”

  She nodded, smiling. “I remember.”

  “There used to be a great patch,” Mellas continued, “near the garbage dump of this little logging town where I grew up.” He smoothed the tablecloth. She waited for him to continue. “It’s like a car suddenly roars down on you with six beefy guys in it. You stand there next to this old kind woman with your berry bucket in your hand and you’re suddenly a little scared. All the guys have been drinking. Their faces are covered with masks. They have rifles. One takes the berry buckets and throws them down on the side of the road. They shove you around. Then they take you to the dump, laughing a little, as if they’re expecting some fun. You’re instructed that you’re all going to play a game. Here’s the rules.” Mellas carefully pressed a butter knife into the white tablecloth. “The men, that is the boys, have to crawl through the dump from one end to the other. Whenever we come across a can whose lid we cannot see, we must pick it up and show it to the men with the rifles. If the can turns out to be empty, we can continue. If it turns up unopened, then we get killed. We get down in the garbage. The dump always has a fire smoldering. The smoke makes you puke and cough. The old grandma’s job consists of bringing water to any of us who come up with a pleasing or clever way of revealing the can. We even get ribbons if we’re particularly clever. Of course, if we refuse to pick up any cans, then we have to stay crawling in the garbage forever, or at least until the strange men get tired of their fucking game.”

  Mellas had to force the last sentences out between clenched teeth. He was bending the butter knife against the table, his knuckles white. “And one by fucking one”—the knife bent slowly—“the guys you picked berries with get killed. And you just keep being clever.” He rocked forward with each word. “And the game goes on and on and on.”

  He looked up at her, the knife in his hand. The same rage that had caused him to whip out his K-bar and slash plants rose inside him. He wanted to lash out and cause pain. He pushed the knife’s point into the tablecloth and with both hands bent the blade ninety degrees.

  This clearly scared her. She rose. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” she said. “Maybe I—” She started to say something more, but stopped.

  Mellas was bewildered at what had just happened. “I’m the one who should say sorry,” he said. He nervously placed the bent knife next to a plate, wanting it out of his hand. It looked very odd there. “It just spills out. I feel really stupid.”

  She reached across the table and put her hand on his. “Don’t be hard on yourself. It might be what gets you through.” She pressed his hand quickly a couple of times. “God knows we all need something.” She looked at him for a moment. “You take care of yourself out there.” Then she walked rapidly through the hatch.

  Mellas was alone with his pounding heart and his inexplicable rage. He knew that he’d destroyed the one chance he had to talk with the one woman who’d offered him what all the others were afraid to give. He wanted to run to her, grab her, talk with her about love and friendship. Instead he grabbed a handful of the polished silverware from the white tablecloth and hurled it against one of the plushly upholstered couches that lined the bulkhead. A Filipino mess man stuck his head out from the swinging doors of the galley. Seeing Mellas standing there, fighting for control, he quickly pulled back inside.

  Mellas finished his coffee in silence. He could see his reflection in the polished wood paneling. It was obscure, a little distorted, but it was him, as he was now, alone.

  Mellas wanted off the hospital ship.

  Mellas was afraid to go back to the bush.

  Mellas had no place to go.

  His orders arrived in the morning. He was to return to his unit by 2000 hours the next day. So, with the arrival of this mimeographed sheet with his name on it, his feet had touched the ground. Time flooded back into his life like an unexpected but inevitable tide. He’d been on the ship five days.

  He set out to get back his rifle and Vancouver’s sword.

  The sailor at the weapons locker looked bored. His weapon? His M-16? It must have been sent on to Fifth Marine Division. Here it is on the list. A sword? No idea. They don’t do swords here. They’re not considered weapons.

  Mellas raged. The sailor sympathized. Mellas demanded to see someone. The sailor turned him over to the chief. The chief turned him over to the supply officer. The supply officer called up the records from the files. The records showed no sword. Don’t worry, it’s probably gone to Fifth Marine Division with the rifles. Did he have a receipt? Here, fill in this missing equipment form. After all, it is a weapon.

  Mellas returned to the ward dejected, feeling powerless.

  At dinner that night he was subdued. Everyone at the table knew he was going back to the bush the next morning. He would soon cease to be a problem. Everyone was polite. The red-haired nurse wasn’t there.

  Around midnight Mellas gingerly pulled his clothes on over the bandages and went to look for her. He stepped into the faintly trembling steel passageway. The gradual swell of the South China Sea, along with the vibration of the engines, came up through the soles of his boots. He headed into the interior of the ship, through a labyrinth of passageways, down ladders that led to unknown spaces.

  During the past few days, just as he’d watched girls disappear down strange streets and into unknown houses in high school, he’d watched where the nurses disappeared to when they went off duty. Also he remembered that the red-haired nurse was Lieutenant K. E. Elsked.

  Now, in the heat and stillness of the echoing decks and passageways lit by dim red lights, Mellas quietly worked his way closer to the center of officers’ country. He knew that the area where the nurses lived was off-limits to him. Nevertheless, he nervously pushed ahead. A corpsman and then a sailor passed him. Both looked at him but said nothing, because he was an officer. Mellas continued down the passageways. His boots, pliable from hours in water, whispered softly against the metal beneath them. He turned a corner in the passageway and went by an open door. Inside he glimpsed an older, gray-haired officer, bent over a small desk. With a start, Mellas realized that this was the captain of the ship. He hurried by and worked through a bewildering maze of turns, not certain where he was, trusting to instinct that he’d eventually find Lieutenant Elsked’s quarters, with her name over the hatch.

  Eventually he did.

  His heart was thumping in his throat. If she reacted badly, he would be in serious trouble. He looked up and down the empty passageway, swallowed, then knocked.

  After a moment there was a muffled question to someone else, then a louder “Who is it?”

  Mellas didn’t know how to answer. He’d never actually told her his name. Would she remember it from the operating room?

  “Who is it?” a second, harsher, voice repeated.

  “Uh, it’s me.” Mellas felt lame. “The Marine lieutenant.” He paused, then quickly added, “T. S. Eliot.”

  There was a muffled, annoyed, “Who?” from the second voice, then a responding “It’s OK. I know him.” There was a pause. “I’m afraid you do, too.”

  The door opened. Lieutenant Elsked, clutching a white terry-cloth bathrobe around her, peered out.

  “What in the world are you doing here?” she whispered.

  “I got to talk to you about something.”

  “What?” she whispered. “You’re going to get in real trouble.”

  “Let me in, then.”

  She tightened her grip on
the robe, closing it more firmly.

  “Please,” Mellas whispered. He looked at her, pleadingly. “It’s not what you think. I need help.” He saw her fingers relax slightly. “I need someone who knows the machinery around here. I mean the social machinery.”

  She paused a moment. “OK.” She opened the hatch. “God, the things I do for my country.”

  Mellas slipped in.

  She turned on a desk lamp. “Sorry, Kendra,” she said.

  Mellas looked over to see the nurse from Triage on the lower bunk. She looked back, her jaw tight.

  “I believe you two know each other,” Lieutenant Elsked said impishly. “Second Lieutenant Mellas, United States Marine Corps.” She nodded her head slightly toward Mellas. “Reserve, correct?” She had a hint of a smile. “Meet Lieutenant Dunn, United States Navy.” She pulled a chair out from under the desk. “Now that you’ve been introduced, maybe you could both relax.” She sat down and pulled her bathrobe tighter around her knees. She leaned back and put her hands in the bathrobe pockets, clearly amused. “Neither of you is as bad as the other one thinks,” she added.

  Dunn glared at Mellas. She pulled her blanket up around her shoulders and turned her back on him to face the bulkhead.

  Mellas looked at Lieutenant Elsked, who gave a little shrug as if to say that she’d given it a try. She looked down for a moment at her bare feet. Mellas couldn’t help following her gaze. His eyes lingered a split second on her calves before resting on her red toenails.

  “Well, T. S.?” Elsked said, looking up warmly. “Or can I call you Waino? Funny name.”

  Mellas felt himself blush with embarrassment, because she obviously had been told all about his encounter with her roommate—and with happiness, because she knew his name.

  “Waino’s fine,” he said.

  “Mine’s Karen. Bet you didn’t know that.”

  “No I didn’t, Lieutenant Elsked.”

  “You can call me Karen when I’ve got a bathrobe on.”

  There was a pleasant, awkward pause, broken by the decidedly noisy shifting of Elsked’s roommate.

  Mellas plunged in. “Somebody’s stolen my sword.”

  Dunn threw back the covers from her head and turned to face Mellas. “I’m sick and tired of that damned sword. Now turn your ass around and walk out of here. If it wasn’t for Lieutenant Elsked, I’d have you arrested.”

  Mellas felt his usual rage begin to uncoil, but this time he controlled it. He turned to Elsked. “I need your help. I’ve gone to everyone I can think of. It’s disappeared. I don’t have a receipt. There’s no way of tracing it. An HM-1 named Bell was the last one I saw it with.”

  “What’s Lieutenant Elsked supposed to do about it, Lieutenant?” Dunn said.

  Mellas took a deep slow breath. He kept his eyes fixed on Elsked’s. She watched him clinically. “I thought maybe you’d know how to find it,” he said. “If you asked around—you know, asked some of the corpsmen—maybe they’ve seen it. Somebody’s got to have it.”

  “OK. I’ll ask around on my shift tomorrow.”

  Mellas shook his head. “It can’t wait. I’ve got orders for tomorrow.” Fear made his stomach plunge.

  Elsked looked at him carefully. “How much longer have you got to go?”

  Mellas’s mind stopped. “What day is it?”

  Elsked laughed. “Thursday, April third, unless it’s after midnight. This Sunday’s Easter.”

  Mellas was looking at his right hand and moving his fingers. “Three hundred four days and a wake-up,” he finally said. It was like a life sentence. “If I stay awake all night. Otherwise it’s two wake-ups.” He forced a smile.

  Her face showed kindness. “That’s a long time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The eye OK?”

  He nodded.

  “Legs?”

  He nodded again.

  The light in her eyes grew warmer. She looked down at her legs again. Mellas’s eyes followed. Her legs were very well shaped.

  “Why is the sword so important?” she asked.

  “Somebody died . . .” Mellas stopped. He saw Vancouver breaking up the ambush, probably saving his life. How many lives were owed to this warrior? “I don’t know. It just is.” He paused. “You had to be there.”

  “Jesus, it’s a souvenir sword,” Dunn said. She had been putting on a blue bathrobe beneath the covers. Now she got out of the berth, her body rigid beneath the robe.

  “It’s sort of hard to explain,” Mellas said. It angered him that Dunn thought the sword was trivial, but he held it back.

  “You better believe it’s hard to explain,” Dunn said. Her small eyes were narrowed even further. She grabbed a set of utilities and a pair of small black shoes with thick rubber soles. “Come on, Karen.”

  “Where are you going?” Elsked asked her.

  “To get the duty officer.” Dunn turned her back and put her pants on underneath her bathrobe. She turned around, holding together the opening of the robe.

  “He hasn’t done anything wrong,” Elsked said quietly but firmly.

  “Just off-limits, is all. Not to mention disobedience of a direct order and disrespect for a superior officer.” Dunn sat on the bunk and pulled on a pair of khaki socks and her shoes, fumbling to hold her robe closed. She rose to her feet.

  “Kendra, hey, he just asked for some help. What’s the big deal?”

  “Maybe I don’t like swords. Maybe I don’t like him. He’s off-limits and way out of line.” She moved toward the hatch.

  Mellas put his hand on the hatch, almost as if to bar Dunn’s way. His insides quivered. He tried to make his voice controlled and calm. “Please, Lieutenant, ma’am.” He held one hand out to her, palm up, fingers spread, as if to ward her off. “Believe me, I didn’t come here to cause trouble. I admit I’m off-limits. Look, I can’t explain why it’s so important. Please. I just came here to ask Karen—Lieutenant Elsked—for help, and I think it’s up to her. If she says no, I’ll leave. I’ll even leave if she says yes. I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ll be out of your life. I might even be out of mine.” He turned back to Elsked and blurted out, “Karen, I’ve got to have that sword.” If throwing himself at Dunn’s feet would have helped, he would have done it.

  Elsked saw this, and compassion flashed across her face. She slowly nodded. She got up and reached for her uniform. “Go wait in the wardroom,” she said to Mellas. “There’s always some coffee brewing there. I’ll meet you as soon as I can.” She turned to Dunn, who’d been watching them with compressed lips. “So relax, already. OK? He’s harmless.” She looked back at Mellas. “At least to us.”

  Mellas reached the safety of the officers’ mess without incident, but his heart was still thumping. He poured himself a mug of coffee and began to wait. An hour passed. He drank two more mugs. He read magazines distractedly. Nurses and doctors filed in as the watches changed. Some nodded or said hello. The room emptied. He started on a fourth mug. Another hour passed.

  Then Elsked walked into the paneled room. She had the sword in her hand. Her eyes were shining and she was breathing hard, her breasts noticeably moving up and down.

  “You got it!” Mellas cried. He rushed up to hug her, then slowed and stopped.

  She handed it to him, almost formally, as if in a presentation. He took it. “God, Karen. Thank you.” Mellas grabbed it by the hilt and squeezed it hard, his eyes wet with triumph and gratitude. He held the sword up in front of both of them. “I feel like Sir Francis Drake,” he said, suddenly self-conscious.

  She laughed. “Well, if you really want to, I’ll touch you on both shoulders with it, but I didn’t exactly feel like Queen Elizabeth when I knocked on the hatch of the good doctor who bought it off of HM-1 Bell.” She laughed. “But I was Bloody fucking Mary when it came to getting the deal reversed.”

  “I’ll bet you were,” Mellas said and laughed. He looked down at her and realized that she was a good six inches shorter then he. “It belonged to a guy in my platoon named Vancouver. He died with it, running across an LZ trying to take out some gooks coming across from the other side. He saved the assault. He . . .” Mellas, to his own surprise, started to choke up.
“He . . .” He wanted to go on, but the choking sadness filled his lungs and eyes and stopped his tongue. He couldn’t speak.

  “It’s OK,” Karen said. She touched him lightly on his forearm. “He was a friend. You miss him, like the others.” She gently grasped his forearm and held on.

  Mellas could only nod, tears streaming down his face.

  “I knew it was important. You don’t have to explain it. I’m glad I could find it.” She held him in her gaze and then released his arm.

  Mellas smiled. The choke hold was gone. “I don’t think you know what you did,” he said.

  “Actually,” she answered. “I think it’s just the opposite.”

  Mellas looked at the sword. “Yeah. It’s like I think we’re going to need it someday or something. Crazy, I guess.”

  “No. Healthy.”

  He looked directly into her eyes, and they looked back, clear and warm.

  “I probably won’t see you again,” he said.

  “Let’s hope not.” She tried to smile but managed only a shaky twitch. “God knows you’re better off if you can stay clear of here.” She bit her lower lip. “Will you be all right? I mean . . .” She faltered. “You know what I mean—not physically.”

  Mellas nodded several times. “I will now,” he finally managed to say. She reached out for him and kissed him quickly on the cheek. He grabbed her with his left arm and squeezed her to him, the sword still in his right hand, caught between them. He wanted to merge with her. He tried to bury his head against her soft red hair. She pushed him away gently but firmly. He saw that her eyes were moist as she turned and walked quickly away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The day Mellas had been medevaced, Bravo Company filed off Matterhorn and climbed back up Helicopter Hill to be evacuated. All the holes they’d dug were taken by Delta Company and battalion headquarters.

  Fitch looked around nervously. The kids sat down. Some saw friends of theirs and went over to try to slip into their holes, but most of the company just remained exposed, lying on their backs in the wet clay.

 

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