Matterhorn (64 page)

He stared into the fog, envisioning the many times he’d joked with guys like Jackson. Then he saw Mole, turning his face around
to him after cleaning his machine gun on Matterhorn when Cassidy had shaved Parker. And then Jackson, throwing his body against
the bamboo to build the useless LZ and then standing in the open with the NVA shells coming in, evacuating the wounded from
Matterhorn. And Mole again, staring at the machine-gun bunker where Young was blown away and agreeing to take it alone, frightened,
but knowing it was a key point in the defense, now revealed to the enemy. He realized guys like that didn’t need his help
at all. All he had to do was get out of their way. “I blew it, Jackson,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

“Shit, sir. You didn’t blow it any worse than the rest of us. Me and Mole only just figured it out when you and the other
lieutenants was up all night making that fucked-up plan to take Helicopter Hill.”

They looked at each other and started laughing.

“A fucking sneak attack by Scar,” Jackson said between giggles. “Sheeit.”

They grew quiet again.

“So if white people leave you alone,” Mellas said, “where’s that going to leave you guys? White people do control our society.
Rich white people in fact.”

“Yeah,” Jackson said, “and rich niggers, too. Look who’s fighting this fucking war: poor white and poor black. And the occasional
goddamned fool like you, begging the lieutenant’s pardon.” He paused and his eyes went to the jungle below them. Mellas let
him think. Then Jackson turned to him. “We’ve got to handle our own problems,” he said. “All you got to do is start treating
us like everyone else. It’s as simple as that. We don’t need nothing special. Oh, yeah, we got people who are going to fuck
us up. Fuck us up good. They’ll be pissed off and throwing shit around and smashing things. And you got ’em too. Look at
fucking Cassidy. But we don’t need any special fucking help. We’re people. Just treat us like people. We’re no dumber than
you and we’re no smarter.” He looked over at Mellas. “Although we do do better music.”

Mellas laughed.

“Let us solve our problems the same way everyone else does,” Jackson went on. “We might even make some mistakes. We’re people,
Lieutenant, just like you.” Then he made a fist and held it out to Mellas. “We’re just treated different.” He was nodding
in encouragement. Mellas smiled and tapped Jackson’s fist with his own, and once again they went through the hand dance. Mellas
still did it awkwardly, but he laughed with pleasure.

Two rockets lashed out of the jungle, sending everyone deep into his hole. Goodwin radioed in, reporting one more wounded.

Daniels brought an artillery mission crashing in from a 155-millimeter howitzer battery. Beautiful rolling volleys of sound
washed over them from the jungle. Mellas grunted in satisfaction. He hadn’t known that the 155s had been moved within range.
“At least they’re finally doing something for us niggers,” he said.

Stevens and Hawke had been up all night pushing staff from various organizations to move a 105 battery to FSB Eiger about
ten kilometers southeast of Matterhorn. It was at extreme range to support Bravo Company, but it could cover the companies
moving to Bravo’s aid from the south and east. They also talked the regimental staff into moving two 155s there. It was these
two 155s that Daniels was directing. They’d wanted to move a 105 battery to Sky Cap, but that move was made impossible by
the same fog that prevented all helicopter flights to Helicopter Hill. Eiger, at least 2,500 feet lower than Sky Cap, however,
was clear of clouds and building ammunition and other supplies rapidly.

Simpson and Blakely hovered over the shoulders of the radio operators, leaping on every report that came in from Alpha and
Charlie companies. They were moving at an agonizingly slow pace. “If they don’t
get their asses in gear, Three Twenty-Four will beat us to it,” Simpson muttered grimly. “How are the replacements doing?”

“They’re on the LZ, sir. Everything’s standing by.”

On the edge of the muddy landing zone at Vandegrift Combat Base, every new replacement who had come into the battalion was
waiting in the slow drizzle. Cardboard boxes, each containing four glass containers of IV fluid in a protective wood carton,
were stacked next to the kids, along with boxes of ammunition and C-rations, all covered with rubberized canvas tarps to keep
the cardboard from crumbling to mush in the rain. A small water tank on wheels also stood in the rain, wrapped in a cargo
net that would be hooked to the underside of one of the choppers. Rumors that Bravo Company was getting slaughtered had grown
enormously. The kids were pale with fear and cold, unable to eat.

At division headquarters at Dong Ha, Colonel Mulvaney was meeting with General Gregory Neitzel, commanding officer of the
Fifth Marine Division; Willy White, commander of the Twenty-Second Marines, the artillery regiment; and Mike Harreschou, CO
of Fifteenth Marines, another of the division’s three infantry regiments. An aide walked in with a slip of paper. “Excuse
me sir,” he said. “Mike Three Twenty-Four is in contact at 743571.” The aide didn’t know the protocol: whether to hand the
slip of paper to Mulvaney, whose company it was, or to the general.

Mulvaney spared him the decision by grabbing the paper from his hands. “Unknown-size force. Goddamn it.” He turned to the
aide. “I want an estimate of size as soon as you can get it.”

“Aye aye, sir.” The aide left.

The general and the artillery commander quickly moved to the large map on the wall. “Right here, Willy,” the general said,
his finger pointing to the coordinates. “Just about where we figured. How’s that battery at Smokey doing?”

“They ought to be ready to fire within the hour, sir.”

“Good.” General Neitzel turned to Mulvaney. “Mike, what do you think?” he asked.

“It’s our gook regiment, no doubt about it.” Mulvaney went to the map and with a thick finger pointed out the locations of
enemy contact. There was Charlie Company’s ambush incident just to the south of Matterhorn. Then there were two firefights
with Lima and Alpha companies, and Mike Company was in a fight right now. All those fights formed an arc. Mulvaney completed
the circle that the arc implied, roughly outlining the area that held the NVA regiment.

“Willy,” the general said, “if I were to authorize your First Battalion to pile in a few more artillery pieces, could you
put them to work anyplace?”

“Yes sir. If I can get some grunts for security. We could put a battery here on Hill 427, due south of Matterhorn. Eiger could
support it, and vice versa, although I’d sure like to get something up on Sky Cap again.” He stopped short of mentioning the
decision to abandon all of the artillery bases in the western mountains, like Sky Cap, in order to support the political operation
in the flatlands. “It’s mighty close to the goddamned Z, though, and I’d need good security. We’d need air or maybe counter
battery from Red Devil to stop getting shelled by the gook artillery across the Ben Hai.” Red Devil was the call sign of an
Army eight-inch heavy artillery unit. “Those gook hundred twenty-twos were designed as naval guns and they can reach us, but
we can’t reach them with our one-oh-fives.” He paused, stroking his chin. “Assuming we get political clearance to fight back.”

Neitzel grimaced. “I’ll take care of that.”

Harreschou and Mulvaney exchanged a look.

“Maybe a battery of one five fives on Lookout,” White continued. “They’d have the reach. That would take a little longer,
though.”

“How long?”

“Tomorrow afternoon?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Neitzel insisted.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“We’ll get you extra lift capacity with some Army CH-47s out of Phu Bai.”

“We’ll try it, sir. It’s fast, but we’ll go for it.”

“It’s crucial,” Neitzel said. He walked to the map and went over the situation with them again, as if reassuring himself about
the strategy. The NVA had attacked from out of Laos with three regiments, along three separate corriders, taking advantage
of the pullback from the far west that had been necessitated by the political operation at Cam Lo. They had also been encouraged
by the fact that just before Christmas the Army’s 101st Airborne Division had been pulled from the area completely because
of fierce fighting in the central highlands. What they didn’t know was that the 101st had just been ordered into the Au Shau
Valley. That unit could move extremely fast, given its airlift capacity. That left the Fifth Marine Division handling the
two northern thrusts: the central one in the Da Krong Valley and the northern one on Mutter’s Ridge. Mulvaney’s Twenty-Fourth
Marine Regiment had the northernmost of the three NVA advance routes, by virtue of the fact that it was already there. His
Second Battalion, Two Twenty-Four, with four rifle companies, was being moved into the valley north of Matterhorn. The NVA
would not want to move north against a Marine battalion that was waiting for them. They’d push up against the Marines like
water hitting a dam. They’d concentrate in front of that dam, making themselves vulnerable to artillery, which was indifferent
to the weather once it was in place, and to Arc Light attacks out of Guam, whose B-52s flew well above the weather and dropped
their bombs using radar. Simpson’s three remaining companies of One Twenty-Four were moving into a mirror-image position on
the south side of Matterhorn. That would stop the NVA from moving south, just as Two Twenty-Four would stop them from moving
north. Third Battalion’s Mike Company was already in contact with the NVA regiment, and Three Twenty-Four’s remaining companies
would be hitting the NVA within hours. This would stop any forward movement east along the ridgeline. The NVA would be forced
to retreat west. But Bravo Company, sitting on Helicopter Hill, blocked the only easy route to the Laotian border.

Neitzel then looked at the situation from the enemy’s point of view. The NVA needed to use the high ground of the ridge. Trying
to move through the jungle in the valleys below the ridge would be a nightmare
for any infantry unit. If the NVA commander didn’t move fast enough, he risked getting cut off, or cut in two, by a pincer
movement from the Marine battalions to his north and south. As long as the NVA commander felt safe from air strikes, he could
stay on the ridge, holding the high ground, making the Marines pay dearly for every hill. But he too knew that weather changes.
His best option had to be to overrun Bravo Company and clear it from his path. That would be a propaganda victory and would
spread all over the newspapers in America, making the whole northern thrust a political success—and political and propaganda
victories, not attrition, would win the war for the north. In addition, eliminating Bravo Company would give the NVA control
of the western end of Mutter’s Ridge, allowing an orderly withdrawal.

General Neitzel’s problem was getting everything into place in time.

He turned to the other infantry commander. “Harreschou, I want Fifteenth Marines to bottle them up in the Da Krong.”

Colonel Harreschou nodded, trying to imagine how he was going to turn the fucking regiment inside out to get it into position
in the Da Krong before the NVA broke out onto the coastal plain. He bit his lower lip. The other two colonels were silent.
“OK, sir. You know as well as I do what that’s going to take.”

“I know,” the general answered. “Like I said, with the 101st involved we think we can get some of their lift capacity. I’ll
shift our forty-sixes north to help out Mike and you get the Army forty-sevens.”

Harreschou grunted. The big Army CH-47s had much more lift capacity than the CH-46s of the Marines, which were built smaller
and had folding rotor blades to fit on carriers. That meant they’d need fewer of them than the 46s, but what if none were
available and Neitzel had the 46s committed to the north? Harreschou didn’t ask what he should do in that case. There was
no answer and, as usual, he knew the Marines would make it work.

Colonel White cleared his throat. “I’ve got a lot of firebases hanging out there, Greg.”

“I know it, Willy, goddamn it.” Neitzel paused. The divison’s other infantry regiment, the Nineteenth Marines, had just returned
from an operation in the south. They were ragged and exhausted, but they could
at least hold firebases, even if they had to split companies. The artillerymen themselves could fill in on the perimeters
where there weren’t enough infantrymen. On the other hand, with the gook regiments engaged, they wouldn’t have enough capacity
to also threaten very many firebases. “You’ll have grunts from Nineteenth Marines. They’re pretty beat up, but they ought
to be able to provide firebase security.”

White nodded.

Neitzel turned to look at Mulvaney. “When Bravo took that ridge away from their advanced elements it really set the gooks
up. That was good work, Mike.”

“Dumb luck, Greg,” Mulvaney replied. “And I mean dumb.” The sarcasm wasn’t wasted on Harreschou, who cast a quick glance at
his old friend Mulvaney. They’d been together with First Division at Inchon. In fact, Mulvaney had served as Neitzel’s Three
when Neitzel had Two-Nine during the Laos cluster-fuck; that was why he wasn’t afraid to risk a sarcastic comment. Willy White
had been to Amphibious Warfare School with Neitzel, and both of them had been young officers on Saipan. The Marine Corps was
small, and personal relations often helped cut through the usual bureaucratic behavior and chickenshit that went with all
military units, including the Corps.

“Luck, I’ll grant you,” the general said, not picking up on Mulvaney’s sarcasm. “If Sweet Alice hadn’t gotten into the shit
we’d have never launched the Bald Eagle. Bravo would never have assaulted the ridge. Shit, Mike, I know you’re worried about
Bravo up there. Sure it’s risky, but that’s what the gooks don’t expect of us. We’ve been too cautious. War is risky.”

He sat down in his stuffed leather chair and leaned back, looking at the operations map, his hands clasped behind his head.
“I don’t think Nagoolian has the slightest fucking idea what we can deliver around that hill once we get these batteries shifted
around. The whole fucking sky is going to fall on him.” He looked up at Mulvaney. “Can Bravo hold?”