Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War

by Karl Marlantes

  “Yeah. Real happy ensigns.”

  Mellas laughed, took another sip, and then handed the cup back to Hawke.

  Hawke took a sip of coffee and eyed Mellas shrewdly over the brim of the tin can cup. “You know, I bet you’re thinking you’re going to run for fucking Congress as an ex-Marine.”

  At the actuals meeting that night, Fitch told everyone about the plan to move the battalion headquarters group to Matterhorn as soon as possible. Bravo Company’s part of the plan was nailing the NVA machine gun.

  Goodwin spoke voluntarily for the first time. “Hey, Jack. I got this hunch I want to try out tomorrow.”

  “Have at it,” Fitch said. He handed Goodwin his map.

  “This fucking gook machine-gun team,” Goodwin said. “Both times they fire from the east side, right? And when Mellas runs into them, they dee-dee south. But south is downhill and nothing but bamboo and elephant grass. North is cliffs and shit. That means they work around the south side of the hill and are over there.” Goodwin pointed west. “Between us and Laos, but not too far, because they’d lose too much altitude. They ain’t no dumber than we are and I sure as shit wouldn’t want to hump a machine gun up this fucking mountain every day just to get a chance to shoot at a chopper. But I wouldn’t be so high I had to hump for water either.”

  Mellas envied Goodwin’s practical logic.

  “OK, Goodwin,” Fitch said, “turn in your route and we’ll prep it for you just before you go.”

  “No prep, Jack.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I don’t want no tip-offs. I’m going right where they are, Jack.” Goodwin pulled Fitch’s map over a little. He squinted at it, then his large finger pointed to a small offshoot of a larger ridge. “Right here.”

  Everyone looked at the spot. Mellas looked questioningly at Hawke. Hawke shrugged.

  Goodwin left before dawn with one of his three squads, heading west toward Laos. Mellas went south with Jacobs and Second Squad from his platoon, down a long finger that led onto the valley floor below them.

  They were moving slowly in thick jungle along the crest of the finger when they heard the firefight start. Even though they were a good two kilometers south of Goodwin, the noise of the M-16s was so loud that everyone hit the dirt.

  Mellas grabbed the hook from Hamilton and listened.

  “. . . Goddamn it, I don’t know how many there are, Jack. I’m busy.”

  “Bravo Two, Bravo Two, this is Bravo Six. Big John’s got to have your position report. Over.”

  Nobody answered. Suddenly there was complete silence.

  “Bravo Two, you get back on this fucking net. Over.”

  Firing erupted again, and the sound rolling over them was now intermingled with the thump of hand grenades.

  Mellas pulled out his compass and took a bearing on the sound. It was an endless ear-shattering explosion that set his heart racing. Mellas keyed the handset. “Bravo Six, this is One Actual. I’ve got a bearing on the sound of three four zero. My pos is six seven one five one niner. Over.” Mellas and Fitch both knew that Mellas had just risked exposing his own unit to NVA mortar or artillery fire by revealing his position over the radio in order to give Fitch the second compass bearing that would pinpoint Goodwin’s location.

  Fitch’s voice returned. “I copy three four zero.” There was a brief pause. “He’s just where he said they’d be. You know the spot? Over.”

  “I’m on my way.” Mellas suddenly felt useful, important, rushing to help his friend.

  The rush soon turned to frustration as the Marines cursed and hacked at the indifferent jungle. Mellas pushed them, swinging the machete himself when his turn came. The firing died down. Then it stopped altogether.

  They linked up about an hour later. Both squads were exhausted, but Goodwin’s squad was carrying one SKS rifle, an AK-47, and a longbarreled Russian DShKM .51-caliber machine gun, plus several steel boxes of linked cartridges and a heavy, spider-legged tripod. They also had the usual belt buckles, water pipes, helmets, and military insignia and buttons, useful for trading. One of the kids had been hit seriously enough to have to hobble between two friends, but he wasn’t in any real danger. Goodwin himself had been creased across the right ear with a bullet. It had taken out a small piece of flesh and cartilage and left a thin bloody track down his neck.

  “Hey, Jack,” he boomed out to Mellas, pulling on his ear. His voice was unnaturally loud because of the temporary hearing loss. He was tugging on his bloody earlobe. “Look at this. A fucking Purple Heart.” He laughed with delight and adrenaline. “Two more and I’m out of this fucking hole.”

  Mellas forced a smile. It was well known that after three wounds the Marine Corps considered the recipient too nervous, too unlucky, or too stupid to remain effective in combat. The kids in both squads laughed. Those from Second Platoon couldn’t stop talking about how Goodwin had taken the small machine-gun team by surprise, crawling up on their position, firing, throwing grenades over their crude log barrier. They’d killed three. The rest had fled.

  By the time they reached the perimeter all the kids were calling Goodwin Scar.

  Mellas was aware of how plain and ordinary, perhaps even hesitant, he must look next to Goodwin. He couldn’t quite use the word chickenshit, but deep down inside, unnamed, the fear of it was there.

  The next day, the battalion staff flew into Matterhorn.

  Lieutenant Hawke stood outside Fitch’s hooch, his hands in the pockets of his field jacket. He felt invaded. Bravo had walked to Matterhorn through virgin jungle and had pushed the jungle back to form a crown of open space around Matterhorn’s crest, all under the constant harassment of the machine-gun team. Now the battalion CP group was flying in on choppers, trundling in bag after bag of gear, canned goods, radios, alcohol, and magazines. Hawke wanted to believe it was coincidental that they came the day after Goodwin had bagged the gook machine gun.

  The enlisted men, mostly radio operators and supply clerks, were digging out large bunkers and filling sandbags. Hawke knew that they were all just doing what they were told, but he resented them. Even more, he resented the way Fitch had combed his hair and shaved a second time that day to meet the colonel and the Three, Blakely.

  “Shit,” he said out loud and crawled back inside the hooch to find a cigar. Relsnik and Pallack were both there, playing gin and monitoring the radios.

  “Anything new on our red dogs?” Hawke asked, automatically shifting his frame of reference to the map in his head, where he constantly knew the positions of the company’s security patrols.

  “Naw,” Pallack answered. “Except fucking Lieutenant Kendall turned in a pos rep that was about a klick off d’ one Daniels turned in just after him, so I put ’em where Daniels said.” He turned back to his hand.

  This wasn’t the first time that Kendall had made a mistake reading a map, and Hawke knew as well as Pallack that Daniels was probably right. He also knew that Daniels had probably turned in the position report to show Kendall up. He decided not to pursue the discrepancy on the radio. He’d talk to Kendall and Daniels about it separately. He crawled back outside into the gray afternoon and lit his second-to-last cigar. He took a long slow puff, savoring every sensation, especially the warm dryness of the smoke. “Shit,” he said again, thinking of the constant rain. Then it occurred to him that with the battalion moving in, there ought to be someone up there he could buy cigars from. He smiled, his eyes roving over the lines, taking in the terrain and thinking about the positions of the patrols at the same time.

  Fitch had previous patrols, not current ones, on his mind. As he made his way slowly up the slope he was rehearsing his arguments about why it took so long to get the gook machine gun. He lifted his stateside utility cover from his head, pushed down his hair, and replaced the cover neatly. When he saw Simpson and Blakely conferring over a map and occasionally looking down into the valley, he gave a short sigh and walked across the LZ to join them.

  “You wanted to see me, sir?” he asked, saluting both of them.

  “No salutes, Lieutenant,” Simpson sai
d jauntily. “We don’t want Blakely here picked off by another gook machine gun, do we?” Fitch lowered his hand and Blakely laughed. “It’s good to be out in the bush,” Simpson said almost absently. He put his field glasses to his eyes and scanned the valley.

  “You doing OK, Tiger?” Blakely asked.

  “Yes sir,” Fitch said.

  Finally the field glasses came down and Simpson turned toward him. “You know what to do when you kill gooks, Lieutenant?”

  Fitch was at a loss for an answer. “Sir?”

  Enunciating each word as if speaking to a child, Simpson repeated, “What do you do when you kill gooks, Lieutenant?”

  “I, uh, sir?”

  “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Uh, no, sir. I mean, I’m not sure what the colonel is asking.”

  “I’m asking about fucking intelligence, Lieutenant. Fuck-ing in-telli-gence. You know what that is?”

  “Yes sir, I do. Sir.”

  “Well, it doesn’t look like it.” Simpson turned to Blakely as if sharing a secret. Blakely nodded, and Simpson went on: “Let me help you out. You know, you don’t always have Marine Corps photographers to record your after-action reports for you.” He smiled, but apparently not with good humor. Blakely did the same. Fitch smiled back uncertainly. “Intelligence, Lieutenant,” Simpson went on, “is built up by the fastidious collection of minutiae. You understand that, don’t you? It isn’t the result of spectacular finds. It’s the result of hard work, constant attention to detail—to minutiae. Mi-nu-tiae.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “When you get dead gooks, you collect everything. Wallets, shoulder patches, letters, everything. You empty their pockets. You bring in their weapons, their backpacks. You smell their fucking breath to see what they’ve been eating for lunch. You following me, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Good. I don’t want any more intelligence lapses.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I’m glad to see you finally got that fucking gook machine-gun team. How many patrols you running a day?”

  “Three, sir.”

  “Not enough, was it? Two fucking weeks.”

  “Sir. We were trying to put in a firebase and build up the lines at the same time.”

  “Everyone has problems, Skipper.”

  “Sir, we did get the machine gun. And didn’t lose anyone doing it. We also brought it in along with an AK and an SKS.”

  “And what unit were they from?”

  Fitch licked his lip. “I don’t know, sir,” he finally answered. He knew that since the battalion had turned in Mellas’s one probable as a confirmed, there would be no sense telling Simpson there was no body to search. On the other hand, Goodwin had definitely killed three, but he’d come back in with weapons and trading material—crowing like a rooster, the kids calling him Scar—and no intelligence. Fitch almost smiled at the memory, in spite of the fact that he was getting dressed down for it now. Fuck, he thought, they’re all from the 312th fucking steel division anyway and everyone knows it, including you, Simpson.

  “You see, Lieutenant, you not only failed to be aggressive in your patrolling, you neglected your defenses.”

  “Sir?”

  “Your lines, Lieutenant. Your lines. They’re totally exposed to artillery attack.”

  “Sir, uh. The closest gook artillery is at Co Roc, as far as we know. That’s even farther than our own was at Eiger.”

  “You’re the one who found all the fucking 122s.”

  “I know, sir. But the gooks don’t usually waste those on small infantry positions. They’re for taking out bigger stuff.”

  “You read Giap’s mind now?”

  “No sir. I wasn’t trying to say—I mean, I know nothing is for sure, but—”

  “Exactly. Nothing is for sure. It takes you fucking forever to find that machine gun that has Bushwhacker Six all over my ass, and I get out here and your fucking lines are a shambles and totally exposed to an artillery attack.”

  “Sir, are you saying we should put covers on the fighting holes?”

  “Well, Blakely,” Simpson said, turning to his Three and smiling. “It appears the Basic School still teaches standard infantry defense tactics.”

  “Yes sir,” Blakely said.

  Simpson turned back to Fitch. “That’s right, Lieutenant Fitch. I want those lines prepared for an artillery attack. Artillery, Lieutenant. And rockets, not just mortars. You’ve got three days.”

  “Sir, the troops are right at the edge. We don’t have chain saws, big shovels, any steel matting. Hell, even sandbags are hard to come by. I mean with you people and the arty people using them—”

  “That’s right. Preparing for an artillery attack.” Simpson looked out at the valley again through his field glasses. “In Korea the gooks always hit us with artillery before they attacked. Don’t worry about sandbags, Lieutenant. We’ve got them on order. I’m sure you can figure some way to put in the roofs.”

  Fitch knew he was being dismissed, but he made one last try. “Sir, if I might say. I mean, I know you’re right about arty. We’d be a lot safer with overheads, but . . . Well sir, the men in the company get a little spooked if they can’t see and hear, and we sort of feel, I mean, even when Captain Black had the company before me, we always chose to maximize the hearing and sight and take the small risk of getting hit by arty. It’s sort of SOP, sir.”

  “Standard operating procedure just changed, Lieutenant. I’m not going to lose good fucking Marines to artillery because of laziness.”

  “Sir?”

  “What?”

  “Sir, they’re not lazy. They’re tired.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the snuffys, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Now I want to see those fucking fighting holes covered. Three days, Skipper.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Halfway through his second-to-last cigar, Hawke saw Fitch sliding his way down the side of the hill. “How’d it go?” he asked.

  Fitch told him.

  “Did you argue with him?”

  Fitch hesitated, looking down at the ground. “Sure.”

  “Ah, fuck, Jim. Not hard enough. Why don’t we build the fucking Siegfried Line? No, the Pyramid of Cheops. We’ve got all the slave labor.”

  Hawke left Fitch squatting alone in the drizzle and stalked off to find Cassidy.

  Cassidy’s hooch was neat and orderly. His rifle and ammunition were hung on carefully whittled pegs stuck into the wooden ammunition crates that formed one wall. Cassidy was gazing at a picture of his wife and three-year-old son when Hawke stuck his head into the entry. He waved him in and Hawke filled him in on the bunker problem.

  Cassidy didn’t answer right away. He showed Hawke the picture. “Think he’ll be a Marine someday?”

  “Sure, Gunny.” Hawke knew he should say something more, but he couldn’t think of anything. There was an awkward silence. Hawke broke it. “So I wondered if maybe you couldn’t go see the sergeant major. I hear he’s been in combat. Maybe he can talk to the colonel about it.”

  Cassidy grunted. “I don’t want to go looking like no fucking crybaby, Lieutenant, not in front of the sergeant major.”

  “But that’s what he’s for, isn’t he? Doesn’t he represent the enlisted man’s point of view? Cassidy, these kids are fucking tired.”

  “Yeah, but . . .” Cassidy rolled over on his rubber lady and stared at the poncho, which was ruffling in the damp breeze. “You get the reputation for a crybaby and you’re fucking finished.” He looked at Hawke, almost pleading. “If I make E-7, we can have another kid, maybe a piano.”

  Hawke was disappointed in Cassidy. “OK, Gunny, I see your point. Just thought I’d see what you thought of the idea.” He backed out of the hooch.

  Cassidy lay there a long time listening to rain spattering against the poncho. He was an acting company gunny in a combat outfit, while only a staff sergeant, E-6. That meant a lot toward promotion to gunnery sergeant, E-7. His wife would be proud. His son. But if he complained to the sergeant major . . . A staff sergeant on the wrong side of the battalion sergeant major would stay a staff sergeant for a ve
ry long time.

  “Fuck!” he finally shouted, and crawled out of the hooch.

  Cassidy found Sergeant Major Knapp supervising the building of the command bunker. Knapp’s utilities were clean, his boots shiny and black. He looked like a business executive doing weekend reserve duty. Yet Cassidy knew that as a teenager the sergeant major had been at Tarawa.