Matterhorn (37 page)

Five hours later they were still climbing, surrounded by fog. Robertson and Jermain from Second Squad were now on point, with
Jacobs close behind them, stuttering encouragement. Jermain had the squat M-79 loaded with fléchettes so he could at least
spray anyone looking down at them and fire the weapon one-handed without having to aim. Robertson, who as a fire team leader
could have ordered someone else to take point, hadn’t had the heart to give the job to anyone but himself. He was now separated
from his team by Jacobs, who himself had moved closer to the point position from his normally safer one behind the first fire
team. Robertson was wondering whether to keep the safety of his M-16 off or on. If it was on and he fucked up, he’d be very
likely to kill Jermain, who would certainly fall off the cliff, and, being roped into Robertson, take Robertson with him.
On the other hand, if the enemy peered over the edge and Robertson didn’t fire instantly on full automatic, because again
he’d be one-handed, he might as well not even be
carrying the damned weapon. He resolved the dilemma by nervously switching the safety on and off every minute or two.

Moving up the steep face of the cliff made silence impossible. If the NVA were waiting, Robertson thought, the two of them
for certain—and probably the entire squad, including the lieutenant and Hamilton—would have to be written off in order to
get the company out. Compared, however, with the constant draining pull against gravity and hunger, and the obstinate rock
face the jungle now presented to them, death didn’t seem so bad.

He saw that Lieutenant Mellas had reached a flat spot below him and was looking up. Robertson heaved himself and his heavy
pack over a large rock formation. He stopped, breathing hard, perched precariously next to Jermain, who was sitting with his
back against the cliff, looking upward, holding his M-79 above his head. Clearly, the small space was safe for only one of
them. There seemed no place he could move. His face was flushed and felt hot and full. He knew that he was crying, because
he had to keep wiping tears away to look for his next handhold.

The lieutenant pointed a thumb upward, nodding encouragingly. God knows how the guys behind us with the machine guns and mortars
are doing, Robertson thought. Or the poor fucker with the broken leg and the ones carrying him. He turned to look upward into
the fog. The cliff stood above him, unmovable, impossibly steep, its unseen top seemingly beyond reach. Slowly, with each
breath, his anger grew: at the cliff, the bullshit, the hunger, the war—everything. He erupted in a frenzy of activity. He
pumped his legs madly against the side of the cliff, scrambling for all he was worth on friction alone, moaning as he half-suppressed
an angry scream. When he took off, he nearly shoved Jermain off the cliff, and Jermain actually raised the M-79 to club him
but must have realized that he had Robertson on belay and didn’t. Jermain paid out rope so that Robertson wouldn’t be jerked
short and fall. Robertson reached safety, just a few meters above Jermain, and apologized. Both of them were crying openly,
like small children who needed to be fed and tucked into bed.

They reached the summit just before dark. It was a narrow razorback ridge of solid limestone, just wide enough for a single
person to step along carefully, balanced between sheer drops on both sides. Obviously, no one had bothered to recon it. There
was no possible place for a helicopter to land, much less an artillery battery.

Mellas, too, was crying with exhaustion and frustration when he radioed Fitch that there wasn’t room for the rest of the company
on top. Fitch regrouped the company on a small saddle just below the final cliff, packing it into a space that would normally
have been occupied by a platoon. The company dug in and spent the night there. The next morning they climbed the trail blazed
by First Platoon, using the ropes that had been tied in place—just as tired, but more confident, knowing First Platoon held
the summit.

It took the entire day, using every piece of explosive the company had left, to blast a small niche for an LZ out of the solid
rock edge of the massive sweeping cliff that plunged more than 2,000 feet into a river canyon on the north side of the mountain.
They blew their final bars of C-4 just as darkness closed out any possibility of resupply.

The next morning they were hacking away at the rock with their E-tools. At around midday the fog temporarily cleared and Fitch
radioed to VCB. Thirty minutes later they all silently watched a CH-46 come chundering up the long valley they’d taken days
to get through. The perch they’d blasted and scraped from the limestone was just large enough for the chopper to put down
its rear wheels. The front two-thirds of the helicopter hovered dangerously in midair as the pilot fought to hold the machine
long enough to unload its cargo. This maneuver drew murmurs of respect for the pilot’s skill. The tailgate came down, and
a group of Marines ran out holding their helmets in the blast of air. No supplies came with them.

Marines from Third Platoon helped the kid with the broken leg aboard. The tailgate closed and the helicopter simply fell off
the cliff, picking up airspeed until it could fly. It curved away and faded into the mist.

The Marines in the new group were full-fleshed and excited. Their camouflage helmet covers were conspicuously unripped, their
jungle utilities bright green and brown. Hawke and Fitch walked up to them.
They could see pickaxes, power saws, large new shovels, bundles of C-4, even a surveyor’s transit. A stocky first lieutenant,
his silver bars gleaming on his collar, came over and shook hands. “Hi!” he said cheerily. “We’re the Pioneers from Golf Battery.”

Hawke and Fitch stared at him. Finally, Hawke spoke. “Well, if you’re the pioneers, then we’re the fucking aborigines.”

An hour later the same helicopter returned, an external load of C-rations, ammunition, and explosives swinging beneath it
in a net that streamed out behind it on a cable. The helicopter released the net on the tiny LZ, then, as before, looped around
the mountain to hover with its rear end almost touching the LZ and the rest of it hanging in space over the edge of the cliff.
The tailgate flopped down to the ground and another group of replacements came tumbling out, wondering where to run. They
were followed by Jancowitz, who was wearing crisp new camouflage utilities and a red silk scarf that smelled of perfume. He
was holding a case of canned steaks.

“I heard you guys might be hungry,” he said.

Mellas could have kissed him but started stabbing at one of the cans with his K-bar instead.

The next day the choppers delivered hundreds of pounds of explosives, a tiny bulldozer, and three Marine engineers. It took
the engineers several days to correct what the Marines of Bravo Company had thought was the mistake of selecting Sky Cap for
an artillery base. What they didn’t know was that long ago General Neitzel had figured out that he had the raw power to make
the crooked places straight and would put his Marines where he wanted, not where nature would have allowed. The engineers
simply blasted the top of the mountain down with plastic explosive and dynamite until it became wide enough to do the job.

The normal backbreaking routine of providing security for a fire support base was resumed. The long hungry march, now dubbed
the
Trail of Tears Op, faded into the past. Days were filled with the nerve-racking tedium of patrols and nighttime listening
posts, the stupefying work of laying barbed wire, hacking out fields of fire with K-bars, digging holes, improving positions,
eating, shitting, drinking, pissing, nodding off, trying to stay awake. Still, it beat humping.

Sometimes Mellas would find time to sit alone at the edge of the cliff. On days when the peak was out of the clouds, he would
look into North Vietnam. Black clouds moved slowly before him at eye level. Far below, he could see the jungle-covered impression
of a small river that surely joined the Ben Hai River to the north. Along the way it gathered the rainfall from Sky Cap and
Tiger Tooth, the huge mountain that towered above them to the southeast.

Because it took so long for security patrols to get off Sky Cap and back up, they didn’t have time to cover the distance needed
to reach the river, but its possibilities excited Mellas. Its winding path had the fascination of a deadly snake. Days passed,
and Mellas kept coming back to the cliff ’s edge to stare at the river valley and daydream of glory and recognition. Then
one evening he knew what he wanted to do.

Fitch was bantering with Pallack and Relsnik in soft whispers when Mellas poked his head inside the dripping ponchos. It was
too dark to see anyone.

“I’ve got an idea, Jim,” he said.

Fitch’s voice came out of the dark. “OK. What?”

“You know the blue line just north of here that hits the Ben Hai?”

“Yeah,” Fitch said uncertainly.

“Nagoolian’s got to have all sorts of trails there. He had to in order to supply the attack on Con Thien last year. If they
ever want to get Quang Tri, other than come right across the Z in tanks and get fucked up by Navy air and Army tanks and artillery,
they’ve only got two alternatives: hold Mutter’s Ridge, which means resupply via the trails along the Ben Hai, or kick us
out of Vandy and the Rock Pile, barrel-ass down Route 9, hit Cam Lo, and take Quang Tri from the west.”

“Mellas,” Fitch asked patiently, “what do you want?”

“I think we ought to recon that valley. It’s like a warehouse next to a freeway.”

“The Ben Hai’s no fucking freeway, sir,” Relsnik said quietly.

“But it’s got gook tollbooths every fucking klick,” Pallack chimed in, “and dey ain’t asking for no quarters either.”

“I don’t plan on going down the Ben Hai,” Mellas said. He turned toward Fitch’s voice. “It provides a good screening action
in case someone’s coming up the valley to hit us.”

“Yeah, you’d be d’ fucking screen, holes all over you,” Pallack said.

Fitch was silent.

“It wouldn’t hurt to show battalion we’re taking some initiative,” Mellas added.

After another long silence Fitch said, “OK. You got people crazy enough to go with you, be my guest. Take Daniels if he wants
to go. How long you want to be out?”

“I figure three days.”

Mellas dug out his map, and Fitch switched on his flashlight. Faint red light illuminated the interior of the hooch. Mellas
saw Pallack and Relsnik curled up next to their radios in their poncho liners.

The next morning First Platoon had palace guard while squads from Second and Third platoons went out on security patrols.
Security outposts disappeared into the jungle on the south side of the mountain or set up with binoculars on the cliff faces.
Work parties were formed to lay more wire, burn garbage, and dig larger latrines. Mellas asked for volunteers. As he expected,
almost everyone preferred the work parties. Also as expected, Vancouver was the first to say he’d go. He talked Daniels into
coming. Mellas had to send the word out again for an M-79 man. Eventually Gambaccini showed up, saying he was coming only
because Bass had mentioned to him that it was his turn to volunteer. Fredrickson felt honor-bound to go along, since he was
still the only platoon corpsman.

They all took four hours to sleep that afternoon. Then they blackened their hands and faces and tied down their equipment.

In the darkness it took more than three hours to reach the jungle floor, by rope most of the way. Vancouver took point with
an M-16
rather than his M-60 so everybody’s ammunition would be compatible. He was followed by Mellas. Next came Daniels with the
radio and Gambaccini with the grenade launcher. Fredrickson took up the rear, walking nearly backward, his M-16 pointing into
the blackness behind them.

They moved silently beneath towering trees that rustled in the dark above them. Eventually they reached the stream and made
their way north alongside it. They used its sound both to guide them and to mask their movements.

Mellas’s senses were keenly alive. A thrill surged up his spine. He felt wonderfully powerful and dangerous. Vancouver on
point. Four combat-tried Marines. Daniels backed with a battery of howitzers. If the clouds broke, jets from Da Nang or possibly
from carriers in the China Sea might show up to support them. They could even call in the Air Force’s Puff the Magic Dragon
with its fiery streams of 40-millimeter shells from on high. He pictured his small team quietly stalking the enemy. A song
from his college days rose in his memory, Ian and Sylvia, guitars driving, close harmony pushing the wildness, singing about
outlaws:
They were armed. All were armed. Three MacLean boys and that wild Alex Hare.

In the darkness Mellas could sense the stream slowing, indicating that the land had begun to broaden as they left the high
peaks behind them. The underbrush also grew thicker, reducing their own already slow pace. Above, he could just make out the
dark silhouettes of the huge trees against the barely perceptible lighter color of the cloudy night sky.

Suddenly Vancouver sank to one knee. Everyone quickly squatted, rifles outward in assigned sectors.