Matterhorn (27 page)

At the dump, Mellas was bitterly disappointed.

He couldn’t believe that all the reports he’d read about the Air Force and Navy destroying bunkers had referred to what he
saw before him: three large holes dug in the dank ground, covered with logs and earth.

Inside the three bunkers were ten 120-millimeter rockets, several hundred 82-millimeter mortar shells, eighty small 61-millimeter
mortar shells, enough AK-47 ammunition to supply a platoon for one firefight, and a few medical supplies donated by the English
Red Cross.

Hawke seemed strangely happy. He broke into the hawk dance, then climbed on top of one of the bunkers and tossed bandage rolls
in the air like streamers, shouting at the top of his lungs, “The fucking English! I knew it was the fucking English behind
this war!” He laughed and tossed another bandage, looping it in the trees. The whiteness looked out of place against the dark
canopy.

The company mostly shrugged at the Jayhawk’s antics. Cassidy organized a work party, and soon the ammunition was hauled into
a pit where he, Samms, Bass, and Ridlow joyfully collaborated in blowing it up.

Everyone buried his head in the earth and they set off the charge. There was a tremendous explosion, but not even a quarter
of the ammunition went off. The rest twisted skyward, tumbling end over end, and scattered across the area. The kids booed.
Cassidy laughed and immediately put the booers to work collecting the ammunition. The Marines on the work detail grumbled.
“We must have the only fucking lifers in the Crotch that can’t blow up a fucking ammo dump.” They waited for an hour to make
sure there were no cook-offs in the pit and once more set the charges. This time they covered the ammo with rocks and earth
to contain the explosion.

The platoon sergeants themselves were laughing about the incongruity of the situation. Most people would think they couldn’t
light a
match around an ammo dump without setting it off. Basically, everyone was happy. They would probably clear an LZ the next
morning and sky out by afternoon, their mission accomplished with no casualties other than Williams.

Mellas, however, felt a curious malaise, anxiety, and an emptiness beyond hunger—he had been on half rations for five days
and had eaten nothing at all today. Four thoughts kept hammering at him. First, how could the English, seemingly the most
civilized of people, the people with whom they’d fought side by side against the Nazis, be aiding their enemy, the North Vietnamese
Army? Every penny that the North Vietnamese saved by receiving donations could be spent on ammunition that could kill him.
Every life saved was a life that could kill him, too. Mellas felt betrayed. Second, he was still trying to reconcile those
tiny log-covered pits referred to as bunkers with the images in his mind of bombs smashing concrete and steel, the Siegfried
Line, the
Guns of Navarone
. Third, why in hell had they walked all this way, sacrificed Williams, and nearly killed the entire First Squad but for Vancouver’s
uncommon alertness, for no more ammunition than could be hauled off with a couple of trucks?

These thoughts nagged at him as he struggled to dig his hole for the night. When he finished, he sat down to face the fourth
question. Should he make his last cup of coffee now or in the morning? The platoon was just about out of food. He decided
to wait. He went off to find Hawke and Fitch to talk about medals for the action, half hoping that maybe he’d get one, too,
but at the same time realizing that all he’d really done was show up for the party. He also hoped Hawke and Fitch would be
fixing coffee.

Fitch was on the hook with the Three, who had questions of his own—to which Fitch had the wrong answers.

“I was informed that there were three ammunition bunkers in this complex. These numbers you’ve given us just don’t jibe. Over.”

Fitch took a deep breath and looked at Hawke before answering. Pallack rolled his eyes.

“That’s affirmative. Three bunkers. We got them all. The numbers you got are everything that’s in them. They’re
little
bunkers. Over.”

“I copy.” There was a burst of static as Blakely released his transmitting button. Fitch waited nervously. Static burst out
again. “Stand by for a frag order, Bravo Six. Over.”

“Roger your last. Bravo Six out.”

“A fragment order on the original?” Mellas asked, uneasy about any change. “Does that mean we’re not skying out tomorrow?”

Fitch shrugged. “Maybe something to do with Delta Company over the ridge. Hell, we can’t go far with everyone out of food.”

“Not quite everyone,” Hawke said, digging into the side pocket of his utility trousers. He held up a single can of apricots.
Everyone looked at it longingly. “And I ain’t opening it.” Hawke stuffed it back into his pocket. “I got a bad feeling about
that frag order.”

At the regimental briefing that afternoon, Major Adams was particularly snappy.
Whap
. “And at coordinates 768671, elements of Bravo One Twenty-Four destroyed the ammunition dump uncovered by Alpha Company and
believed to be one of the supply sources for elements of the Three Hundred Twelfth steel division now known to be operating
in our TAOR. Approximately five tons of ammunition consisting of one-hundred-twenty-millimeter rockets, small arms and automatic
weapons ammunition, and mortar rounds were destroyed along with approximately one thousand pounds of medical supplies.”

“Better leave the medical supplies out of the report,” Mulvaney said. “No sense getting somebody riled up about destroying
medical supplies.” Somehow the public felt it was OK to kill men with tumbling bullets and flaming jelly, but to kill them
by denying them medical supplies was against some societal notion of decency.

“Aye, aye, sir,” Adams answered.

Mulvaney turned stiffly in his chair to look back at Colonel Simpson and Major Blakely, who were seated behind him. “Maybe
you do have some gooks out there, Simpson,” he said.

Blakely smiled and looked up at Adams, whose face revealed a twinge of jealousy. Mulvaney turned back to face the briefing
officer. He was trying to figure how many men and how long it would take to
haul five tons to such a remote location. Through terrain like that, it was quite an accomplishment. He had to admire the
North Vietnamese Army. But why were they stacking ammunition there? Was it a way station for moving the ammunition farther
south? They could hit Hue again. Now that would be a fucking propaganda disaster. Let the politicians chew on that for a while.
But then they might also be preparing a move in force straight across Mutter’s Ridge, where they’d control Route 9 and then
starve out VCB. Now that they’d abandoned Matterhorn to get enough troops to do the stupid fucking Cam Lo political operation,
that would be what he’d do if he were a gook. He suddenly felt, in the middle of his back, the uneasiness that had saved him
so often in Korea and the Pacific. Then he noticed Major Adams waiting nervously to continue, sighed, and nodded his large
head. He couldn’t cover everywhere.

Whap
. The pointer moved to the left, three-quarters of an inch, the distance it had taken Bravo Company half a day to move. “As
the colonel is aware, Bravo made point-to-point contact with an undetermined-size unit of North Vietnamese Infantry at grid
coordinates 735649 earlier today. Two confirmed kills and three probables with no casualties suffered by Bravo Company. The
bodies were searched with negative findings.”

Mulvaney turned to look at Blakely and Simpson. “Someone must have really been on their toes out there,” he said. “Was it
a point-to-point or an ambush?” In fact Mulvaney already knew that it was the big blond Canadian kid with the sawed-off M-60
who had busted up an ambush. His jeep driver had the story from one of the First Battalion radio operators. Bravo’s skipper
must have been in an awful hurry to be barrel-assing down a trail another company had already been hit on. That young lieutenant
was
lucky. Probably hadn’t learned when to charge and when not to. Mulvaney would have to talk to him about it if he got the
chance.

Simpson cleared his throat, his face reddening. “In answer to your question, sir, Bravo’s point man apparently fired first
and the lead squad pulled back and set up. We called it a point-to-point contact because it seemed the most conservative.”

Mulvaney grunted and turned to endure the remainder of the briefing. Why in fuck Simpson should worry about breaking up an
ambush was beyond him.

After suffering through hearing the Navy doctor tell how many Marines went through his sick bay, the congressional inquiries
officer tell how many letters he’d handled from upset congressmen responding to letters from upset mothers and wives, and
the Red Cross liaison man tell about dependents who were not getting pay allotments, Mulvaney could finally rise from his
chair to address his officers.

“As you already know, gentlemen, the Fifth Marine Division continues to be involved in a combined cordon and search operation
with the First ARVN Division. Our major objective, as you also know, continues to be Cam Lo.” Mulvaney turned to the large
map and began outlining the next day’s plan of the ongoing operation, all the while feeling that somehow he had let his regiment
down. Working with the goddamned gooks wasn’t his idea of fighting a war, particularly when all that would probably happen
was a few old political scores would get settled in Cam Lo. Some SEAL teams had been operating in the villages for several
years now, assassinating “known Vietcong leaders,” but where the fuck did
that
information come from? Supposedly from the CIA, but then none of those spooks were hanging out in the villages. Christ, they’re
all six-foot-two white boys from Yale. So where did the spooks get their information? Probably from one of the damned secret
societies who were just fingering a leader of another secret society over the control of some drug market and getting their
dirty work done courtesy of the United States Navy. Any Vietcong leadership, if the Vietcong existed in any force there at
all after their buddies from the north set them up to be obliterated by American firepower during Tet, would be long gone
by the time all the security leaks from the ARVN trickled down. Yes, Mulvaney mused, power in the secret societies would definitely
shift after Cam Lo, and the spooks would be played for suckers, and his Marines would pay the price. He wanted to kick the
CIA’s ass and break the fucking ARVN’s scrawny necks.

“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.”