Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War

by Karl Marlantes

  Just before dark a single platoon from Delta Company arrived and took a position between Mellas’s and Goodwin’s platoons. That evening, while friendly artillery fire plastered Matterhorn and Daniels laid down protective fire that surrounded Bravo Company and the Delta Company platoon like smoky armor, the kids drank Kool-Aid and Pillsbury Funny Faces and ate C-rations, happily throwing occasional dirt clods at one another. As far as they were concerned, it was fucking over.

  For General Neitzel, however, it wasn’t over, and time was running out. He radioed Colonel Mulvaney at VCB, urging him to move even faster.

  Mulvaney, however, knew that the window of opportunity was closing. The NVA command must have recognized its vulnerability by now, and the gook regiment was probably heading for Laos as fast as it could go. Neitzel’s prayer that the weather would remain bad and give him one extra day hadn’t been answered. The fog had lifted too soon. Mulvaney chuckled. Too many of those goddamned kids in Bravo Company had been praying against Neitzel, he thought proudly. No, the NVA would see the advantage gone and scatter to regroup in Laos, as always. The NVA could wait for years if they had to. It had been chancy all along. “Risk,” the general had said, hoping Bravo would slow things up enough to get the entire Twenty-Fourth Regiment engaged. It would have been a hell of a fight. But with the choppers grounded the Marines just couldn’t move fast enough.

  The NVA were putting a rear guard on Matterhorn to keep the high ground as they pulled back, but otherwise the northern part of the operation was over. With their northern flank exposed, the two units moving down the Da Krong and Au Shau valleys to the south would also be called back. No need to push when time was on your side, Mulvaney mused. That was the problem. The NVA had forever. The Americans had until the next election. Still, it had cost only half a company of Marines to fuck up a major thrust. Since the entire division had been involved, all the casualties and deaths in Bravo Company would be compared with a full division, and the daily briefing would simply say “light casualties.” The action wouldn’t even get into the newspapers. Thwarting a major enemy offensive before it got going just wasn’t news. Reporters cared about hot stories and Pulitzers, neither of which resulted from battles that involved only light casualties. Heavy casualties made hot stories and supported antimilitary politics. Over time, continual bad news will discourage any civilian population, and Americans had the lowest tolerance on the planet for bad news. Mulvaney grunted. He had to hand it to the gooks. They have us coming and going, he thought.

  He left for evening chow, knowing there would be a lot of backpedaling in the morning. Neitzel had his dick hanging out all over Quang Tri province and not a goddamned thing to show for it. Mulvaney chuckled again. He’d probably have to do some quick backpedaling himself.

  In Lieutenant Colonel Simpson’s tent, no one wanted to chuckle. Both Simpson and Blakely felt the opportunity trickling away, like sand trickling through their fingers. “Hawke was right,” Simpson growled. “The place to be is in the fucking bush, not sitting on our cans moving goddamned artillery around. Hawke was right to go up there.”

  “I think he ought to be reprimanded for abandoning his duty station, if not fucking court-martialed,” Blakely said quietly but firmly.

  “You’re just an old woman, Blakely,” Simpson said. He poured himself another bourbon and tossed it down quickly. “I say we move the CP to Helicopter Hill. Direct the operation from right smack in the middle.”

  Blakely immediately thought how that might look to an awards review board. He dismissed the idea as foolish, then thought about it again. He knew, even if the old buzzard didn’t, that the show was just about over. With a high chance of fixed-wing air, escape to the DMZ blocked, two battalions of Marines moving in from the south and east, and a reinforced company sitting right smack on the NVA’s line of supply, Nagoolian would be heading back to Laos. The gooks weren’t idiots—at least, not the North Gooks. But they probably would defend Matterhorn to cover their withdrawal. Some value might be squeezed out of that.

  “Maybe you’ve got a point, sir,” Blakely said.

  “Goddamned right I do,” Simpson said, pouring himself another bourbon. He offered the bottle to Blakely.

  Blakely was looking at his empty glass, not at the bottle, and thinking quickly. He began talking, still staring at the glass. “Given the casualties from Bravo Company,” he said carefully, preparing his case, “the poor kill ratio, falling asleep on the job—the list goes on—it would look almost imperative that a good battalion commander personally take control of a leadership situation as badly out of hand as that.”

  Simpson looked at Blakely, still holding the bottle of bourbon out to him. Then he slowly withdrew it.

  Blakely let him think.

  “Major Blakely,” Simpson said after a long silence. “I want the CP group ready to move to Bravo Company’s position tonight.”

  “Tonight, sir?”

  “You heard me. Tonight. Get Stevens to gin up a bunch of arty illumination and tell Bainford we’ll only need one chopper.” He touched the top of the bottle as if it were a talisman. “And I want an assault prepared for Matterhorn first thing in the morning.”

  “By who, sir?”

  “By Bravo Company. They need to redeem their honor and get their pride back.”

  The battalion CP group arrived on the hill around 2200. They immediately occupied Fitch’s bunker, moving Fitch and his CP group into an open hole near the LZ.

  Around 2300 Mellas led a reconnaissance. He moved the squad slowly and silently until he felt he was close to the enemy positions. He called in an illumination round. In the swaying greenish light he saw the line of abandoned holes that the enemy had dug all around Helicopter Hill. The NVA had probably withdrawn to the bunkers on Matterhorn as soon as the weather cleared, knowing the jets would be coming.

  Mellas was back by 0100. “They’ve fucking dee-deed and we’ll be out of here tomorrow,” he told Fitch and Goodwin. Goodwin grinned. Fitch, however, was tight-lipped. He’d just crawled back from his former bunker, now occupied by Simpson and Blakely.

  “What’s the matter?” Mellas asked when he noticed Fitch’s mood. “Those cocksuckers didn’t relieve you, did they?” He was suddenly afraid his friend would be leaving. “Hawke told me about the packs . . .”

  Fitch shook his head. “Nothing so good as that.” Goodwin and Mellas looked at each other, puzzled. Then Fitch said in despair, “We’ve been ordered to take Matterhorn. Daylight assault at first light.”

  Mellas, fearful, took a breath. “We can’t take these guys up there again,” he whispered. Goodwin stood up, outlined against the faint light of the night sky. He was looking in the direction of Matterhorn, even though it could not be seen.

  “The colonel says we’ve lost our pride, getting kicked off that hill,” Fitch said, “and now we’re going to get it back.” He was trembling again.

  “He’s insane,” Mellas said. “We’re still way under strength, even counting the new guys.”

  Fitch tried to think of something to say to his two lieutenants. “We’re supposed to get fixed wing.”

  Mellas and Goodwin just stared at him.

  He tried again. “Maybe it’s not so insane. I mean to keep the initiative someone has to move into attack position in the dark. The rest of Delta isn’t here yet. So it’s up to us.”

  “Fuck that shit, Fitch,” Mellas said. “The only reason they can’t wait a day is because they’re afraid the fucking gooks will leave.” He filled his lungs with damp cool air and then let it out, trying to control his temper. “Fuck ’em and their goddamned body counts. I’ve counted enough fucking bodies.”

  Goodwin backed Mellas up. “These guys have come through too much shit to be killed by a fucking madman.” He rubbed his hands on his bloody trousers. He’d been hit that morning but had said nothing. “Listen,” he added, “this is no joke. I know I like to joke around, but this is serious.” He paused to make sure Fitch and Mellas understood he wasn’t kidding. “I say we kill the motherfuckers. We wait until the shit starts coming in and then toss in a couple of frags
. They can both die fucking heroes. I’ll write them up myself.”

  “I’ll help you,” Mellas said.

  Fitch shook his head. “You know you can’t do that, Scar. It’s murder.”

  “Murder,” Scar said bitterly. He waved his arm in an arc, indicating the hill and its remains. “What’s the difference?”

  Fitch, suddenly overwhelmed, put his face in his hands and bent almost double over the map before him. “I don’t know the difference,” he muttered. “Just don’t fucking bother me.” His hands were shaking again.

  After a moment of quiet Mellas said, to no one in particular, “We can blame war on orders, which means we can blame it on someone else. You have to take personal responsibility for murder.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck that means, Mellas,” Goodwin said.

  “I didn’t until a few days ago,” Mellas answered. He thought of Pollini and the dead soldier above his hole, both killed—or murdered—by his hand.

  Fitch raised his head. “There’s no way around it unless you want to commit mutiny,” he said. “I’m not about to do that. When I get out of here I want to screw my brains out. I don’t want to go to jail.”

  Mellas picked at the calluses on his hands. He kicked softly at the mud and sighed. He knew Fitch was right. “All right,” he said, “let’s see what kind of fucked-up plan you come up with this time, Jim.” He and Fitch looked at each other and started laughing.

  Goodwin shook his head and then joined them. “It ain’t going to be the flying fucking wedge, Jack.”

  Once again they worked over the bleak options. By 0300 they had a plan. Goodwin would go up the narrower east side with Second Platoon. Mellas, with a platoon made up of the bulk of the replacements and the remnants of First Platoon, a squad from Third Platoon, and the mortar squad, which was now carrying only rifles, would take on the broader south slope. They’d attack together, the southeast shoulder of the hill shielding them from one another’s fire. Conman would take the remaining Marines from Kendall’s platoon, now not much larger than a squad, and six of the replacements, and secure the northern finger. That was to stop the sniper fire they’d taken on the previous assault and, in particular, the machine gun that had given away its position to shoot at the choppers. The back of Goodwin’s assaulting platoon would be exposed to its fire. Cortell would take over Connolly’s squad. Fitch and the company CP group would set between Mellas’s and Goodwin’s platoons, and advance behind them so that Fitch could at least have a chance of seeing what was going on. Delta Company would fly in to protect the battalion CP group and lay down a base of fire. Third Squad of First Platoon, now under Hamilton, along with Mole and his A gunner, would circle around to the west and kill the NVA who ran off the hill or prevent reinforcements from arriving if the assault bogged down.

  Mellas made Jacobs his platoon sergeant and gave Jacobs’s squad to Robertson, who had been the leader of his first fire team. Then he called all of the squad leaders together and repeated the plan. He felt it would be better to keep the squads intact, even if they were all about half their former size. That, however, gave him and Jacobs five squads to control instead of three.

  Connolly gulped at being given the responsibility for what remained of Third Platoon and taking out the machine gun on the ridgeline. He wished he had been a bad squad leader instead of a good one. He wished Vancouver were still with him to help. He wished he didn’t have so many totally green kids. He wished he were back home.

  Mellas noticed his reaction. “Conman, I know you can do it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have given it to you.”

  Connolly stopped gulping, but Cortell spoke up after Mellas had finished the brief. “I’m not goin’,” he said. “I won’t take over Conman’s squad.”

  Everyone looked at him silently.

  “Call me a chickenshit motherfucker, but I ain’t goin’ up no hill ’cause some crazy honky out to make general over my black ass. I ain’t goin’, man, and I won’t be the only one.”

  Nobody blamed him. He had been wounded in the head and could have jumped on the bird that brought the battalion CP group in that afternoon, but he had stayed.

  “OK, Cortell,” Mellas said. “Who do you want to take the squad?”

  Cortell had expected a different reaction. He was taken aback. He looked around. No one spoke.

  “Rider,” he finally said.

  “Go get him.”

  Cortell hesitated. Then he whirled angrily and headed toward the lines.

  Mellas felt the fear of those huddled near him in the darkness. “Anyone else who’s got an excuse that’ll get him off the hill can take it,” Mellas said.

  People shuffled their feet, looking at the ground. Jacobs spoke up. “J-Jermain’s got an R & R and his arm is f-fucked up from that scrap metal in it.”

  “Please, Jake,” Mellas said. “Before I get killed, just once call it shrapnel.” The others laughed softly. “You have someone else who can handle the M-79?” Mellas asked.

  “I’ll carry it myself,” Jacobs replied.

  “OK.” Mellas looked around. “Anyone else?”

  No one spoke.

  Rider crawled up to the group, looking worried. His hair was scorched, his eyebrows were burned off, and he had salve all over his face. “Lieutenant, I hear we’re going to make the assault tomorrow. Cortell says everyone’s going crazy and he’s going to get medevaced.”

  “There it is, Rider,” Mellas said.

  Waiting for the coming assault was different from waiting for the previous ones. It was as if they’d already thrown their lives away.

  Mellas kept thinking about girls he wished he’d known better. He remembered a dance thrown by the Boston Rugby Club. He’d gone up to Boston from Princeton with two friends from the rugby team. They both had girlfriends at Radcliffe, one of whom had fixed Mellas up with her roommate. They’d worn tuxedos; the girls, long dresses. It was snowing, soft gentle snow. After the dance they’d gone to a house on a lake and curled up before a fire. The other two couples drifted off to bedrooms, leaving Mellas alone with the girl. He could tell that she was afraid he was just another animal from the rugby team. Mellas himself was afraid she’d think he was clumsy because he didn’t know what to do. They had sat there, nervous, unable even to talk to each other, and had wasted that precious moment.

  Mellas wanted to reach out across the Pacific and apologize. He didn’t remember her name. She didn’t know he was in a hole about to die. War was breaking life apart and splintering it, so there were no second chances and all the first chances were wasted. Mellas also saw Anne crying. She had turned her back on him their last night together. How could she be the one crying? But now he’d never be able to explain how he felt, explain how it hurt, find out why she did it, apologize for his lack of understanding, or cry out at her for hers. They were torn apart and separate, with no second chances.

  He saw himself rolling down the hill with Pollini; he saw the neat hole in Pollini’s head. Then he remembered Bass whittling on his shorttimer’s stick, and Vancouver leaning over him and Scar in the empty bunker and saying, “Nagoolian went thataway.”

  Once, later that night, Mellas whispered, “You all right?” He meant Bass, Vancouver, and Pollini. Jackson thought Mellas meant him and answered that he was. Mellas wondered why Jackson had said that.

  The radio whispered with the sound of Goodwin checking an LP. Even before an assault, war’s tedious tasks went on uninterrupted.

  The fog hung thick and heavy as the kids formed into a single line on the south side of Helicopter Hill. Mellas felt as if the clouds above him were slabs of slate. The kids were fatigued and filled with despair at the insanity of it all. Yet they were all checking ammunition, sliding bolts back and forth, preparing to participate in the insanity. It was as if the veterans of the company, succumbing to this insanity, had decided to commit suicide. Mellas, sick with exhaustion, now knew why men threw themselves on hand grenades.

  He silently inspected his platoon. Many of the kids were strangers to him, but others were familiar friends. He’d pull on someone’s loose canteen, tug a hand grenade tha
t was carelessly placed, going through the routine of inspection as a mother tidies her children before they leave for school.

  Mellas heard someone trudging down the hillside toward them. A ghostly figure came out of the dark fog, an M-16 on his shoulder, full bandoleers of magazines across his flak jacket. “Well, Mel,” Hawke said, “where’s my fucking platoon?”

  Mellas could only shake his head. Words failed him. Finally he said, “You take Third Herd, Hawke, with Conman. It’s not much more than a squad. The idea is to hold down the sniper fire on Scar’s rear from that northeast finger. There’s a machine gun there.” He pulled out his map and the flashlight with the red lens. “I think it’s right here,” he said, pointing at the place he’d calculated. “You’ll probably have to clear some bunkers.” He looked up at Hawke’s intense dark eyes. “Thanks for coming, Jayhawk. I hope you don’t get fucking killed.”