Matterhorn (24 page)

Mellas looked around at everyone. Mallory was trying to look as though he was inspecting his .45. “I don’t care what happened
right now,” Mellas said. “We’ll deal with it later. We got an ambush to set up in about twenty minutes.”

Pollini stifled a groan. He had his rifle in two pieces. “You able to go on the ambush, Shortround?” Mellas asked.

“Yes sir.” Pollini suddenly grinned at Mellas and held up the two muddy halves of the rifle. “I thought I’d get it real clean
so it’d open right up when we sprang the ambush, sir.”

“That was good thinking, Pollini.”

“Yeah, Shortround, he a real sharp dude.”

“Knock it off, Parker,” Mellas said. “You’re in enough trouble.” He turned to Jackson. “I want this squad ready to go in ten
minutes. Get the shine off their faces.”

When Mellas returned, Cortell was rubbing unnecessarily large amounts of mud and charcoal onto Pollini’s face. Mellas wanted
to say something right away but was reluctant to show favoritism.

Pollini was trying to be a good sport. “Hey, Lieutenant,” he said, “make him stop.”

Mellas couldn’t help laughing. Pollini was just funny to look at. “Go a little easy on him, Cortell,” Mellas finally said.
Cortell stopped rubbing it in so hard.

Jackson arrived.

“Don’t look so worried,” Mellas said to him. “It’s bad enough with me looking worried.”

Jackson smiled, but his anxiety was clear to Mellas, who hadn’t really thought about the ambush yet. Suddenly Mellas realized
he still didn’t know what he was doing. His mind started to churn through all the relevant points he’d been taught about ambushes:
front and rear security, assembly points, initiating signals, communications wire or string to tug on for silent signals,
kill zones. The mechanics of sudden death were as complex as they were violent.

The Marines of Third Squad collected around Mellas, waiting nervously in silence. Mellas began figuring. “I’m guessing the
trail will take a bend somewhere. We’ll set up an L-shaped ambush. Mallory, you’ll be on the little end of the L with the
M-60 and shooting straight down the trail so if you miss someone in front, you’ll hit someone behind him. Just make sure you
get the gun pegged in so you don’t shoot off the trail in the dark and hit one of us.” Mallory nodded.

“Tilghman, you’ll be next to me with shotgun rounds. We’ll need two men each, for front and rear security. You got a team
for that, Jackson?”

Jackson thought a moment. “Yeah. Cortell, you can lay out in the boonies for a while.”

Cortell groaned. His friend Williams cleared his throat and looked into the jungle. Cortell spoke up. “Shit, Jackson, you
get some power and you turn on you friends just like that.” He snapped his fingers. Jackson nodded his head in affirmation
and smiled at him. Cortell looked at Mellas. “What can I say, sir?”

“Nothing.” Mellas waited a second. “Who you want in front and who you want in back?” It was Cortell’s fire team—it was his
choice.

“I’ll take Williams up front with me. Parker and Chadwick can go behind.” Mellas was relieved. For a moment he feared that
Pollini was in Cortell’s team with Parker. Then he remembered—Pollini was with the team headed by Amarillo, the kid who kept
doggedly telling everyone that if they had to nickname him something that meant yellow in Spanish, the least they could do
was pronounce it correctly. Of course no one did. It had become a running joke.

“OK, then. No one makes a move or fires a shot until I do. If the unit is too big for us to handle, I’m going to just put
my head down and hope like hell they walk on by.” Mellas turned to Cortell. “The warning will be three tugs on the comm-wire.
We’ll give three back. Then you give a pull for every man you count going by you. Same for you, Parker. Everybody got it?”
They all nodded. “OK. I’ll select the assembly area, about twenty meters off the trail. We’ll move into position from there.
Everyone meets there afterward. If you get separated, we’ll wait ten minutes. If you don’t make it back by then, we’ll assume
you’re hit. Don’t move. We’ll get you if it takes the whole company.”

Jackson spoke up. “The code word tonight is Monkey-Cat, so if any of you dudes gets lost, make sure you holler Monkey before
you try and come home.” He grinned. Williams and Amarillo let out brief bursts of air, just short of laughter. With night
encroaching, voices all around the perimeter were dropping to whispers.

Mellas looked around at the group. They were all carrying poncho liners, ammunition, and grenades. Their faces were black,
and their bush covers were pulled down low or crumpled. Helmets weren’t used on ambushes, because the profile was too easily
recognizable.

As the squad filed past the holes in the twilight, the rest of the company was still digging in. Mellas selected an ambush
site about 200 meters down the trail and located the assembly area, and they moved into position quietly, stringing wire from
hand to hand and out to the security teams. Mellas chose a very dense part of the jungle on a slight downhill slope, figuring
that anyone coming uphill bearing a load would probably have his head down and be breathing hard, making it harder to see
and hear. The trail curved sharply, and at the bend Mallory and Barber, the A gunner, set up the machine gun. Mellas took
the middle of the long side, next to Jackson, who had taken the radio. They settled in to wait.

It got dark: black, sightless dark. Mellas could no longer see the trail in front of him. The darkness seemed to push down
on him from the clouds. He heard Jackson breathing next to him. His own wristwatch sounded like an alarm clock. He tried to
stuff it under his belly, but the effort itself made noise, so he stopped.

It occurred to him that if the NVA could hear his wristwatch, they deserved to live. But did they deserve to die if they couldn’t
hear it? It was a zero-sum game. One side won only if the other side lost. Mellas was starting to nod off.

He struggled to alertness and gave one tug on the wire. Everyone awake? There was a tug back from both sides. Everyone was
awake. Mellas shivered. Goddamn the cold and the dark. Impenetrable blackness. He was blind. He felt the fog settle in low
through the thick jungle, whispering about them. The radio, set on the company frequency at its lowest volume, made a quiet
hiss. “If you’re all secure, key your handset two times.” It was Bass, back inside the company’s position, on the radio. Mellas
keyed twice, having taken the handset from Jackson, who was lying close enough to pass it back and forth. It was so dark that
Mellas felt suffocated. He couldn’t see Jackson even though he could touch him. Mellas leaned his head on the cold dewy top
of his rifle, the steel feeling cool and comforting against his forehead. The rest of his body ached with cold and damp. Only
six hours until daylight. He wished he were back on the hill or back home in bed with the trees rustling outside the window.
The school bus will be here pretty soon. Mommy will have breakfast ready.

An anguished scream jerked Mellas awake, but it choked off immediately. It had come from the forward security post.

“What the hell?” Mellas whispered. The entire squad was tense. He could feel the others, but no one could see a thing. They
heard a grunting sound, a gruff cough that chilled Mellas through, and then the sound of brush crackling. Then nothing. Suddenly
the wire on Mellas’s wrist was being tugged furiously again and again; there was no order, just wild tugging. Then they heard
Cortell’s voice. He was nearly hysterical, but he was still careful to whisper. “I’m comin’ in. I’m comin’ in. Oh, Jesus Christ.
Oh, Lord Jesus.” They could hear him crawling along, hitting bushes in the dark. He was trying to follow the trail. “Oh, my
Lord Jesus. Lieutenant? Jackson? Where are you?”

“Over here, Cortell,” Mellas said in a normal voice, trying to control his fear. The radio net burst into activity. The whole
company had heard the scream, and Fitch was trying to determine what was happening.

Mellas answered. “It was us. I don’t know what’s happening yet. We’re aborting the rampage. Over.”

“Roger that.”

Someone reached out and pulled Cortell in. He was panting in short gasps. Jackson and Mellas crawled toward the sound, Mellas
holding on to the handset and Jackson leading the way, the radio on his back. Both still had their poncho liners wrapped around
them.

“Hey, man,” Jackson said, “what’s the matter?”

“Oh, Jesus, Jackson, it’s Williams,” Cortell gasped out. “A tiger got him.”

“He all right?”

“He ate him, man. He jumped him and dragged him off and ate him. Lord God, we was just layin’ there and all a sudden there’s
Williams screamin’ and I hear this tiger bat him, like across the neck or somethin’, and then crunch him right through the
head.” Mellas couldn’t see Cortell as he talked, but Cortell’s voice conveyed his horror. “Oh, Lord God, sweet Jesus.”

Jackson moved over, held on to Cortell, and talked to him in low tones. “Hey, man, it’s all right. There’s nothin’ you can
do. Hey, man, take it easy, huh? Be cool.”

Mellas keyed the handset. “Bravo, this is Bravo One Actual. Our security was attacked by a tiger. We think he’s dead. Can’t
see a goddamned thing. Over.”

“Jesus Christ,” Fitch’s voice answered. “See if you can find him. Maybe he’s just mauled. Over.”

“I tell you we can’t see shit out here. I can’t even see my radio and I’m using the goddamned thing. Over.”

“Roger that. Wait one.”

Mellas waited, sightless. “Jackson, tell everyone to set in tight and keep their ears open. Get Parker and Broyer in.”

“Right, sir.” Jackson slipped off the radio and crawled away, using the wire to guide him.

“You all right, Cortell?” Mellas asked into the blackness.

“Yes sir,” Cortell’s voice came back. “I’m OK now. Jesus, sir, I hope he ain’t dead, but I heard his head go. I think it just
popped open, sir.”

The radio hissed a static burst. Fitch’s voice came out of the handset. “We can shoot you some illumination rounds. Maybe
it’ll scare the cat off and you can find your man. Over.”

“Sounds fine. Go ahead on it. Over.”

“Roger that. Out.”

Routine procedures like talking on radios seemed out of place to Mellas. Yet they didn’t change, even if a tiger attacked.
Mellas couldn’t have been sure that anyone was still around him if it hadn’t been for the sound of breathing. “Well,” he whispered
into nothingness, “nothing to do but wait. No sense getting all split up.”

They waited five minutes. Then Fitch said “Shot” over the radio.

“Shot. Out,” Mellas repeated. Soon they heard the funny whiffling noise of the illumination shell. There was a pop high in
the air to their south as the tiny parachute deployed. Then they could hear the hiss of burning phosphorus. The trail and
jungle were cast into eerie quavering relief. Jackson’s and Cortell’s faces shone through the mud and
charcoal covering them. Jackson slipped back into the radio’s carrying straps and Mellas rose.

“Let’s go. Cortell, you lead.”

Cortell led off, rifle at the ready, Mellas directly behind him, followed by Jackson and the rest.

They came to where Cortell and Williams had lain. The ground was slightly depressed, and both of their poncho liners were
there as well as Williams’s rifle. There was a dark stain of blood on the grass.

They heard another illumination round, whiffling unseen with the sound of a small Fourth of July rocket. Everything grew brighter
again. As the round fell, vague diffuse shadows changed position.

They came across Williams’s bush cover almost immediately. It was wet and stained with blood. It was also torn through. Mellas
wondered if tigers defended their food and how far they dragged it to eat it. They kept looking, occasionally seeing a bit
of blood. They fired off some rounds to frighten the tiger away. They had covered 100 meters when they came on Williams’s
body. His legs and backside had been ripped open and partially eaten. It looked as though he’d been killed with one quick
blow to the skull, breaking his neck. Puncture wounds from long sharp teeth were sunk deeply into his face and temples.

They wrapped the mess in Williams’s poncho liner and moved back up the trail toward the company, sweating and stumbling through
the eerie light.

U
ntil dawn, Fitch pleaded for a helicopter. No choppers were flying. The rain and fog had shut down operations all over northern
I Corps. It would be suicidal to try to find Bravo Company in the mountains. The order to blow the ammo cache stood.

The squad threw fingers to divide up Williams’s food and ammunition. Pollini won the throw for his poncho liner.

Fredrickson and Bass wrapped Williams’s body with comm-wire to keep the torn pieces together. The body looked like beef in
a cold storage locker, hardened blood mixed with pale skin and exposed meat. They tied the ankles, knees, elbows, and wrists
closely together and then wrapped the torso in a poncho, leaving the arms and legs out. They tied the arms and legs to a long
pole so they could carry the body, swinging, beneath it. Fredrickson wired Williams’s head, which had been lolling loose inside
the poncho, next to the pole so it wouldn’t throw the carriers off balance.

As the platoon sat waiting for Kendall’s platoon to wind out of the perimeter, taking point, followed by Goodwin’s platoon,
Hawke came and sat quietly next to Bass and Mellas. The executive officer always walked with the last platoon in the column,
tail-end Charlie, lowering the risk that both he and the skipper would be killed at the same time. They were all aware of
Williams’s body in the olive drab cocoon.

“Why couldn’t it have been one of the worthless fuckers?” Bass asked. His jaw began to tremble. He stood up quickly and started
shouting at Skosh to get his ass in gear.

Mellas looked at Hawke. “Because the world’s not fair,” he said quietly.

“There it is,” Hawke answered.

Eventually First Platoon’s own point men began to move, falling in behind Goodwin’s last fire team. Mellas set off numbly,
thankful not to have any responsibility for finding their way.