Matterhorn (35 page)

The two of them stood there, looking at each other, silent for perhaps three seconds. Then Mellas spoke. “You’re the squad
leader and I’m the platoon commander. Whether we like it or not, there it is.”

“Yeah, there it is,” Jackson said. He started toward his squad’s sector and then turned to look back at Mellas. “But when
Janc gets back, I quit.”

“OK, Jackson. It’s a deal.”

Half an hour later they heard the sound of a helicopter. They strained to catch a glimpse. Someone shouted and pointed. The
sound grew to a roar and a dark bulb flitted briefly across the clouds and was then lost. The roar returned. Fitch popped
a smoke grenade and thick red smoke began to coil upward from the foliage. An Army Huey slick flashed overhead, then banked
in a graceful climbing turn to the left.

“Big John Bravo, this is Bitterroot Seven. I’ve got a red smoke next to a blue line. Over.”

FAC-man’s voice came over the radio, assuring the pilot that they were by a river and it wasn’t a trap. “Wind down here is
negligible. Your best approach is from the south. Zone’s secure. Over.”

The helicopter, numbers gleaming, turned to the south, turned again, and made its approach. It set gently down, the air vibrating
with the blades. The whine of the turbine ceased and the blades whiffled to a halt. The pilot, dressed in a crisp flight suit,
stepped out of the bird. Cassidy had a work party ready to receive the supplies. Fitch and Hawke met the pilot at the edge
of the rotor blades. Mellas, unable to hold himself back, walked out for a closer look.

A crew member handed out two boxes of batteries to two of the work party. A third Marine stepped up, waiting for his load
of C-rations. Mellas saw the crew member shrug his shoulders. The Marine turned to look at Cassidy, stunned. Mellas rushed
over to the small group who were just shaking hands with the pilot. “Hey, you got any food?” he burst in.

The pilot, a warrant officer about Mellas’s age, looked at him. “No,” he said puzzled. “Why? You guys out?”

“Well, no,” Mellas lied. “Just wondered if maybe they threw on something.”

The pilot looked around him. He seemed excited about being so far out in the bush and helping out another service. “Jesus,
you guys smell,” he said with a smile. “You been here long?”

“No,” Fitch said. “We just got in this morning.” He looked at Mellas and Hawke, obviously wondering what could have gone wrong
with the resupply.

“This morning?” The pilot looked at Mellas. “Whatever possessed you people to hump down here at night?”

Mellas’s chin was trembling. “We thought we’d avoid the heat,” he managed to choke out. He turned and walked away.

“What’s with him?” the pilot asked Fitch and Hawke.

“He’s a little tired,” Hawke said. “Had point all night. Don’t take it personally.”

“Sure. I can understand that.”

“Say,” Hawke added, “if you could do us another favor, we’d really appreciate a huss.”

“Name it. I got to wait around while the general talks to your guys in Dong Ha. Glad to do something.”

“Well, we got some guys that are due to go on R & R, things like that. Then there’s another guy who’s really overdue to go
home. The company shouldn’t be carrying him. It’d sure help morale if we could get them out.”

“Sure. How many you got?”

“How many can you take?” Hawke asked evenly. “They’re all fairly light.”

The worst cases of immersion foot hobbled up to the edge of the landing zone. They exchanged their better clothing with those
staying behind. By the time they were helped aboard by the crew chief, they looked very bad indeed. Cortell and Jackson struggled
up to the side of the slick with Williams. They looked inquiringly at the crew chief and pilot, who were transfixed by the
bloated discolored hands wrapped around the pole. The crew chief lost control and gagged but managed not to throw up.

“If there’s not enough room,” Cortell said, “we could tie him to the skids.”

“No, it’s not that,” the pilot managed to say, still trying to hold his breath. He waved toward the chopper door. The Marines
who were already aboard pulled the body in.

Corporal Arran carried Pat onto the chopper with him. Pat lay still, his eyes staring blankly, waiting for his handler to
fix the hunger and sickness. He tried to lick Arran’s hand.

The two Vietnamese Kit Carsons walked nervously onto the small zone. Everyone watched them silently. Most of the Marines had
forgotten that they existed. The Kit Carsons crawled into the body of the chopper. The Marines on board ignored them.

Hippy had been waiting with the gun squad in the high grass at the edge of the zone. When the pilot climbed back into the
chopper, he knew for certain that he was going home. He turned and handed Young his machine gun, as if exchanging colors.
Then he grinned to break the solemnity. “Don’t forget you’re the only chuck left in guns,” he said. “Since you can’t wear
a noose, maybe this will help.” He lifted his peace medallion from his neck and handed it to Young.

He shook hands slowly with Mole. “They’re all yours, Mole. Promise me, no Pancho Villa bullshit. You make sure they keep the
fucking ammo in the cans and not all over their chests so it’ll shoot when they need it.” Mole nodded. “You hang in there,
Mallory,” Hippy said, and shook his hand, too. Mallory nodded rapidly.

Jacobs shook Hippy’s hand and then offered to help him out to the chopper. Hippy refused the offer and walked out of the war
one step at a time.

Twenty minutes after the chopper left, the company waded into the river, following Kendall. The clouds had lowered and a steady
rain spattered the water. Within an hour they were moving between steep hills whose tops came into and out of view through
the clouds. In another hour they were moving between low cliffs that got gradually higher as they moved east toward Sky Cap.

Late that afternoon, knee-deep in the rushing water, Parker collapsed, his contorted jaw clamping his teeth together. His
scream echoed up and down the river between the rocky cliffs.

Mellas reached Parker before Fredrickson. Cortell was cradling his head out of the water. Parker’s eyes rolled and blood dribbled
down his chin from his lacerated tongue. Mellas tore off a branch and stuffed it into Parker’s mouth. By the time Doc Fredrickson
got there, the fit seemed to have passed. Parker was sweating heavily, even with the water flowing over his body. “Why didn’t
you tell someone you were epileptic?” Fredrickson asked softly.

Parker just stared at him, “What’s epiletic?”

Fredrickson looked at Mellas, surprise on his face. He started shaking down his thermometer, his forehead creased with worry.
“It ain’t like anything I saw in Field Med,” he said.

Fitch was on the radio asking what was holding things up. He ordered Kendall to push off, and the column began to move past
them. Parker attempted to get up, but Fredrickson pushed him down. His temperature was 105 degrees.

The senior squid, Sheller, arrived. He, Fredrickson, and Mellas talked quietly where Parker couldn’t hear them. Rain fell
steadily, soundless in the river’s roar. The clouds were at the cliff tops. If the whole company went back to the LZ at Checkpoint
Echo, it would delay Sky Cap’s opening by a full day. If Fitch sent Parker back with a single platoon, a single platoon might
get hit in a canyon going back and a reduced company might get hit in a canyon going forward. They couldn’t get Parker back
to Echo before dark anyway, so an evacuation there was problematical before morning. Humping in the dark also increased the
risk of injuries. Mellas suggested getting a bird to work its way up the river. Because the canyon walls blocked the PRC-25s
line-of-sight transmissions, Relsnik couldn’t contact battalion. Daniels managed to contact a forward air observer on a weather
check above the clouds who acted as a relay. The word came back. Flying in a canyon with its erratic winds was risky—a blade
could hit a cliff. Unless it was a clear emergency, they wouldn’t risk a chopper and its crew. With malaria, dystenery, and
many other tropical diseases, temperatures of 105 were
common and not immediately life-threatening. They could medevac Parker when they opened the LZ on 1609.

Sheller asked, “You think you can hump, Parker?”

“What the fuck you think?” Parker spat out. “I got a choice?”

Parker rose shakily to his feet. There was sweat on his face, mixing with the rain. He picked up his pack, shrugged into it,
and stepped off into the river.

“You think he’s faking?” Mellas asked Sheller.

“You don’t fake a temperature like that and a bloody tongue, sir. I think he’s really sick. I’d turn the company around and
medevac him from Echo.”

“Nevah hoppin,” Fredrickson said.

“There it is,” said Mellas.

At dusk Fitch ordered Kendall to climb out of the canyon to find a safe position for the night. It was a difficult, dangerous
climb that took two hours. One of Goodwin’s men fell backward, badly bruising a knee, when a root he was holding pulled loose.
Everyone breathed with relief that the man’s back wasn’t hurt—he could still carry his own gear.

At the top, Mellas met Kendall in the dark. He was guiding everyone to his position. “Nice job today, Kendall,” he said.

Kendall nodded. “Hard to get lost in a fucking canyon,” he said, “even for me.”

Mellas laughed. He wondered why he had been so hard on Kendall. It wasn’t Kendall’s idea to be out here. Was it such a great
failing not to be cut out to be a Marine infantry officer? Maybe in war it was.

Fog set in. They could hear the steady roar of the river far below them, an ominous and frightening noise because it would
muffle the sound of anyone sneaking up on them. It had been their sixth day in a row without food.

Two hours before midnight, someone from Kendall’s platoon screamed for a corpsman. A kid had suddenly gone into a fit, his
temperature shooting
dangerously upward. At two in the morning, Parker went into convulsions again. His choked screaming was that of a man no longer
in control of his mind. When Fredrickson tried to take his temperature, Parker continued to jerk his head violently, saying
“no” to someone who wasn’t present, spitting out the thermometer. Fredrickson stuck it under his armpit. “One hundred and
six, Lieutenant,” Fredrickson said. “That’s outside the body. His brain is cooking.”

Parker started crying, “I don’t want to die. Not here. Not here. I don’t want to die.”

Cortell clasped his hands and prayed. “You believe in Jesus, Parker, I know you do,” he said. He poured water on the soaked
field dressing that Fredrickson had placed on Parker’s forehead.

Sheller arrived and looked into Parker’s eyes with a flashlight. “Challand over with Third Platoon’s got the exact same thing,”
he said. “It’s nothing I ever seen. We don’t get them cooled down, though, they’ll die.” He looked up at Mellas. “We’ll get
an emergency medevac this time for sure. The question is where.”

Mellas’s mind raced. Here above the canyon they were in jungle with 200-foot trees, and the fog came right to the ground.
The canyon had narrowed considerably since Parker’s first episode, but it had been clear of fog. It seemed the only choice.
He remembered a wide spot just before Kendall took them off the river. He radioed Fitch.

Ten minutes later Vancouver was leading the way down to the river. Parker and Challand, the kid from Kendall’s platoon, were
both slung in ponchos. Parker kept moaning, so they stuffed part of his shirt in his mouth.

Mellas and Vancouver emerged from the jungle onto the canyon rim, somewhat ahead of the rest. They were a good forty feet
above the river. Mellas’s heart sank. Was the flat area upstream or down? He looked at his watch. Daylight in another hour.
It had taken them two hours to make it to the river. He knew he was close, but what if he wasn’t? They could be trapped in
the river in the dark and moving in the wrong direction. They’d lose both Parker and Challand. It was his call.

He huddled over his map, hiding the dim red glow of his flashlight. The breeze made his back cold. He squinted into the dark,
trying
to identify any terrain feature that would help him make the right choice.

There was a loud groan and a sound of falling rocks as the litter bearers emerged from the jungle. Jackson came up to him.
“Doc says we got to cool Parker off quick, sir. Parker ain’t even making sense anymore.”

“Get the rope,” Mellas said. “We’ll take him over the edge right here. I think we got to be close to the spot.”

“Here?”

“Here, goddamn it. Get some security set up behind us.”

Jackson put Tilghman, Amarillo, Broyer, and Pollini in an arc behind them to serve as a human trip wire against any NVA who
might have zeroed in on their noise. He looped the rope around a tree, and he and Mellas dangled both ends into the darkness
of the canyon. Mellas pulled it back up, relieved to find both ends wet. That meant that the first rapeller would reach the
bottom safely. It also meant that the river was right next to the cliff, so the wide spot wasn’t here.

Without being told, Vancouver wrapped the rope around his waist, walked out backward over the edge, and disappeared. Mellas
crawled on his stomach, trying to watch Vancouver’s descent in the dark. The rope slackened. Vancouver’s voice floated up.
“It ain’t bad, Lieutenant. We even got some rock up out of the water.”

Three others went over the edge to set up security, two upstream and two down. Then they lowered Parker and Challand to the
water. Soon only a very frightened Broyer and Tilghman were left above to provide security where the rope was tied.

Fredrickson and Cortell undressed Parker except for his boots, leaving only his head out of the water. Challand, his fever
having suddenly abated, sat by the river’s edge, shivering uncontrollably. One of the squad mates took off his flak jacket
and wrapped his arms around Challand, trying to warm him.

Mellas sent Vancouver and another kid upstream, and Jackson and another downstream. Jackson returned first. He’d found the
wide spot.

They lifted Parker to the litter and carried him downstream, whistling for Broyer and Tilghman to come down the rope. Mellas
told them to pull it down and wait there for Vancouver.