Matterhorn (44 page)

M
orning started with the barking cough of a motor and the clank of treads as a tank headed for VCB’s northern gate to escort
the empty supply trucks returning to Quang Tri. Soon the grumble of truck motors vibrated through the ground to the wooden
tent platform, rattling Mellas’s very sore head. Pallack, who had the last radio watch, lit a ball of C-4 to heat coffee.
A white-hot glare filled the tent.

Mellas cursed Pallack and pulled his poncho liner over his head. Fitch rolled onto his back and lay staring at the tent roof.
The others, all completely clothed, including boots, moved stiff limbs and rolled from their air mattresses to the dirty wood
floor.

“Anything happen on the nets?” Fitch asked.

“Naw,” Pallack replied. “Same old stuff. Some super-grunts got in a jam up nort’ of Sky Cap.”

Fitch glanced quickly at Daniels, who pulled out his map. Rescuing reconnaissance teams was a primary mission of a Bald Eagle–Sparrow
Hawk company. “Is that all you know about them?” Fitch asked. Mellas lay there listening under the poncho liner.

“Shit Skipper. Dey don’t tell me what’s happening all over I Corps. Call sign’s Peachstate. Dere’s a bunch of gooks all around
’em and d’ey can’t move wit’out tipping the gooks off where d’ey are. Here’s d’coordinates.”

Fitch and Daniels checked the coordinates on the map. “Right where Mellas guessed,” Fitch said.

“Maybe they’ll use arty and yank them out, Skipper,” Daniels said.

“Fuck,” Pallack said. “Don’t tell me dey’re expecting
us
to get deir asses unjammed.”

“What the fuck you think we’re sitting here for?” Fitch said. “The artys all been pulled back for the Cam Lo op. If they get
in trouble, we launch.”

“Shit. If I’d a known I’d gotten scared last night.”

Mellas moaned, threw back the poncho liner, and disappeared outside the tent.

“What’s with him?” Fitch asked.

“He’s caught Mallory’s problem,” Pallack said.

“Huh?”

“A bad head.”

Fitch went to the COC to keep tabs on Peachstate. Around midmorning the word came down to put the company on standby. Mellas’s
bad head got worse. Everyone sat there. Waiting. Watching the sky. Listening for the sound of choppers. All the spare radios
were tuned to the reconnaissance battalion’s frequency so the company could listen to the team’s progress. Cassidy passed
out the hair clippers to the squad leaders.

At 1300 Peachstate made a break for it. At 1415 they were picked up by a Huey and got out with only one man wounded. By 1500
the Marines from Bravo Company were again filling sandbags at Task Force Oscar, rescuing knights one moment, serfs the next.

Mellas went to see Sergeant Major Knapp at the tent that served as the battalion office. He knocked sharply at the wood-framed
opening and heard Knapp say “Come!” It was more of a command than an invitation.

Mellas entered, taking off his cap. Knapp looked up from a report and quickly rose to his feet. That embarrassed Mellas. The
sergeant major was old enough to be his father.

“Yes, sir. Can I help you, sir?” Knapp asked.

“I hope so, Sergeant Major,” Mellas replied. “Can I sit down?”

“Of course.” They sat and Mellas toyed briefly with his cap, going over the words he’d already worked out. He waited for Knapp
to say something first to break the silence, in this way putting himself at a slight power advantage by establishing an unconscious
obligation on Knapp’s part to make the situation agreeable. Mellas understood clearly that a second lieutenant nominally outranked
but never outpowered a sergeant major. A sergeant major in the United States Marine Corps took shit from no one. This was
going to be tricky.

Mellas could tell that Knapp was scrambling to remember which company he was from. Finally Knapp said, “I thought you folks
were going to have to bail out that recon team. Close.”

“Too close,” Mellas replied. “I’d almost rather get launched right off the bat instead of standing by on that airfield.” Mellas
laughed casually. He’d have stayed on the airfield forever, and he knew it.

“I know what you mean, sir.”

Again, Mellas waited.

“So, how can I help, sir?”

“Sergeant Major, it’s about Staff Sergeant Cassidy, our company gunny.”

“I can’t imagine he’s giving you a problem.”

“Well, I don’t know how to put this exactly, but I’m afraid for his life.”

“How so?” The sergeant major leaned back, squinting slightly at Mellas, obviously not liking where this might lead.

“Can we treat everything I say in complete confidence?”

Sergeant Major Knapp hesitated. “As long as it’s not in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” he said carefully.

“OK.” Mellas paused for effect. “On the last operation an attempt was made on Staff Sergeant Cassidy’s life. The person involved,
PFC Parker, blurted it out the morning he died of cerebral malaria. Cassidy never said a word about it. I never asked him.
There is, therefore, no charge. Since the party involved is dead, I see no reason to make an inquiry. Do you?”

The sergeant major hesitated. “That might be a violation of the code.”

“There would be no witnesses. No formal charge. It would only draw attention to racial unrest between one of your staff sergeants
and a black PFC who died because a medevac bird was refused the day before by a battalion order.”

The sergeant major jerked his head backward, almost imperceptibly. “Yes. I see what you mean.”

Mellas continued. “I have it from certain sources close to radical black elements that Staff Sergeant Cassidy is still in
danger.”

Knapp took a deep breath through his nose, his lips compressed tightly. He exhaled. “Can I ask why, sir?”

“Staff Sergeant Cassidy isn’t exactly tactful in the way he gets his job done.” Mellas smiled. “Particularly with blacks.”

Knapp smiled back. “I know what you mean.”

“I think the best thing would be to transfer him out of the company,” Mellas said. “They’re asking for certain changes and
an apology from Cassidy. I don’t think I need to tell you the chances of that happening.”

“He’d do it if he was ordered to.”

“Yes,” Mellas said. “And what would that mean for the authority of the rest of the staff NCOs?”

“Yes. I see.”

Mellas let that sink in before going on. “Cassidy doesn’t need to know anything about the transfer. It would defuse the situation.
If we investigate, who knows where it will lead us?”

“And Lieutenant Fitch? What does he think of this?”

“You and I are the only ones who know. You can see what a bind that would put Fitch in, and the colonel, too, for that matter.
The colonel would be obligated to start a formal investigation.”

“Yes. I see, sir.” Knapp drummed his neatly trimmed nails on the plywood table. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I could use
someone to handle work parties here in the rear. The lines will probably have to be expanded, bunkers built. There’s a lot
to running a place like this, you know.”

“I can sure see that, Sergeant Major. It’s amazing how much has to get done and fuck all recognition for it.” Mellas laughed
lightly. “I remember
being a guard on my football team and reading in the papers that somehow it was the halfbacks who scored all the points, not
the team.”

Knapp looked pleased by the remark. “Yes, sir. It ain’t any different here either.”

Mellas smiled. “Nope, no different,” he said. “No matter where you go, it’s still high school.”

The sergeant major laughed. Mellas repressed a smile at the irony of Knapp’s laughing at a statement that actually was about
him.

“OK. I’ll see what I can do, sir,” Knapp said. “No promises. But we’d sure hate to have the death of a good Marine on our
hands.”

“That’s the way I feel, Sergeant Major. I knew you’d understand.”

“I appreciate your stopping by, Lieutenant.” He stood as Mellas did, and they shook hands. The sergeant major walked with
Mellas to the door of the tent.

“There’s one other thing, Sergeant Major,” Mellas said.

“Sir?”

“It might be a little awkward if any blacks had to wait on tables at mess night.”

The sergeant major’s smile disappeared. “If they’ve drawn KP, they’ll do what they’re told. We don’t play favorites here.”

“Of course not,” Mellas said. “And I admire that you would accept the responsibility for a fragging rather than compromise
your principles. Any board of inquiry would approve.”

The sergeant major’s breath was coming faster. He swallowed visibly. “I didn’t mean I’d risk a fragging.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Mellas said. “I know that, Sergeant Major. I know you don’t like being put in this jam any more than
I do. It’s a tough place to be. I really do appreciate your help on this. Thank you, Sergeant Major.”

Mellas turned and went out of the tent. He carefully adjusted his stateside utility cover and headed back to the airstrip.
He had no doubt about what the sergeant major would do.

Several hours later Mellas and the other officers were running through the rain to the large chapel tent. Hawke and McCarthy,
the latter apparently none the worse for the glass in his rear end, were standing outside in the drizzle. Hawke shook his
head silently. An enlisted man from McCarthy’s platoon in Alpha Company, wearing a white coat dredged up from Da Nang, trudged
past them carrying a large pot of soup. He managed to work enough of his right hand loose to give McCarthy the finger.

“Suck out, Wick,” McCarthy hissed back at him. The kid disappeared inside.

Candles lighted the interior, casting a flickering yellow glow over everything. Tables were arranged in a large U shape and
covered with white cloths. The battalion communications officer stuck his head out the door. “You better get in and find your
place cards. We’re all supposed to be standing by when the colonel arrives. Blakely’s orders.” He scurried back inside.

Hawke sighed and walked in. The others followed.

The tent’s ventilation flaps had been closed because of the rain, and it was uncomfortably warm inside. Several enlisted men
waited in the rear, standing by their pots of food, sweating beneath their starched white coats. Mellas noted that there were
no blacks among them.

Shortround, at the very end of the line next to a large pot of string beans, grinned broadly when he saw the lieutenants from
Bravo Company enter the tent. Mellas was happy to see him but suppressed a grin and just nodded quickly. Hawke gave the hawk
power sign and Shortround returned it, wiggling his fingers next to his hip, smiling proudly to be included in Hawke’s private
joke.

Mellas found his place card opposite Hawke and between Captain Coates, the skipper of Charlie Company, whom he’d last seen
passed out on the wet LZ, and a new lieutenant from Alpha Company. The new lieutenant and Coates exchanged pleasantries with
Mellas, to which he barely replied. This was Mellas’s way of showing that he was here against his will and was not enjoying
himself. The conversation lagged, and an awkward silence followed.

The tension was released when the Three walked in the tent, calling everyone to attention. Blakely’s jungle utilities were
starched stiff and his major’s leaves shone in the candlelight. He stood ramrod straight and cut an impressive figure. There
was no doubt in Mellas’s mind that the fucking prig would be a general one day.

Simpson strode in, flushed with excitement and pride. “Gentlemen, be seated,” he said crisply. The benches rumbled on the
plywood floor as about thirty officers sat down. Blakely gave a brief talk on the tradition of mess night and raised his glass
in a toast, and the official drinking began.

By the time they were through dessert, they had, for the most part, finished at least a bottle of wine each. Conversation
had risen to a clamor punctuated by outbursts of laughter. No one noticed the colonel rise from his chair to give a toast,
except Major Blakely, who clinked his glass to get the tent quiet.

Just like the fucking Rotary Club, Mellas thought darkly.

All the voices died down except McCarthy’s. He was well into his second bottle of wine and was telling a new second lieutenant
his favorite story about the Three. “‘But we’re fucking
out here
,’ the skipper says. ‘And I don’t care what your goddamned map says, we’re
out here
and you’re
back there
and I tell you we see fucking lights on Hill 967.’ But this fucking asshole tells us it’s impossible and over the
radio
for shit’s sake that we can’t see what’s in front of our fucking faces …”

The new lieutenant was tugging at McCarthy’s sleeve and urgently nodding toward the head table. McCarthy turned darkly and
leaned back, folding his arms. The Three announced that the colonel had something to say. His eyes never left McCarthy.

Simpson, mildly and happily drunk, gave a quick official smile. He spilled a little of his wine as he leaned forward with
his hands on both sides of his plate. Then he stood straight, bringing his glass up with him. “Gentlemen. First Battalion
Twenty-Fourth Marines has made a fine name for itself here in Vietnam. I am both humble and proud to address you, the officers
who have contributed so greatly to that record.” He lowered his voice and looked down at his dessert plate, where the ice
cream that had been flown in from Quang Tri that afternoon was melting. “And to remember those officers who contributed their
most precious possession, sacrificing all they had, that the record might remain proud and noble.”