Matterhorn (7 page)

“It’s got to be done, Jim,” Hawke said quietly.

Fitch nodded, still looking at the senior squid. “How do you feel, Sheller?” Mellas was surprised to hear the senior squid
called by his name.

“I don’t have a catheter, Skipper, and trying to ram something up the urethra to clean out the leech would just make a mess
of it. The only
thing I can think to do is cut into the penis from the bottom side. Two cuts. You can see where his urethra’s swollen right
up to the leech. Cut one is just up from there on the bladder side to relieve the pressure. I’d try to keep it small. Stick
in a piece of IV tubing to keep the cut open and keep him drained until we get him out of here.” Sheller fished into his pockets
and brought out a freshly cut piece of tubing. “I’ll need to sterilize it and have some floor space to work on, sir. I can
grease it with bacitracin to help it slide into the cut.”

“That’s only one cut,” Fitch said.

“Yeah. OK.” Sheller swallowed. “Cut two. I’d cut into the leech to bleed it and kill it. We don’t want it moving upstream.”
He looked at the silent group, realizing it was all on him. “I’ll use Fredrickson. It’ll make Fisher feel better if it’s a
squid he’s used to.”

Hawke looked grimly satisfied. Bass kept looking at Sheller and then back to the skipper with no emotion on his face.

“OK, Squid. Go ahead on it.” Fitch spoke crisply with no hint of doubt. He turned to Hawke. “Ted, go up and tell those guys
to move Fisher down here.”

Sheller moved off and crawled into the CP hooch without saying anything. He started to clear it out. The others, except Mellas,
Hawke, Fitch, and Cassidy, returned to their positions.

The entire hill was quiet, on the 100 percent alert that happened every dusk and dawn. Mellas watched Fredrickson and Lindsey
talking to Fisher as they began to move him off the landing zone on a stretcher made by wrapping a poncho between two tree
limbs. Fisher suddenly cried out and Lindsey cursed quietly. Hawke, who was walking alongside the stretcher, quickly stifled
Fisher’s cry by placing his hand over his mouth. Mellas walked beside them, figuring it was better to say nothing.

When they reached the CP they pulled Fisher inside the small hooch. Sheller was laying out his kit and lighting candles. Fredrickson
removed Fisher’s filthy trousers and folded them carefully. Outside the hooch the two radio operators huddled next to their
equipment while
Fitch tried to make the entrance lightproof. Hawke and Cassidy sat on the ground, quietly talking.

Inside, Doc Fredrickson looked at Sheller, whose chin was trembling slightly underneath the fat. Fisher was writhing in pain
and trying not to scream. Fredrickson crawled behind Fisher, putting his knees on each side of Fisher’s head. He then leaned
over and put his hands and full weight on Fisher’s shoulders. The candles flickered in the draft, casting shadows across the
draped ponchos.

“It’s going to be OK, Fisher,” Fredrickson whispered, bending close to Fisher’s face. “It’s going to be OK.”

“Oh, fuck, Doc, stop it. Stop it from hurting.”

“It’s going to be OK.”

Fredrickson was looking intensely at Sheller, willing him to do it. The senior squid finished lubricating the IV tube, switched
it to his left hand, and looked back at Fredrickson across Fisher’s body. He picked up a small knife in his right hand and,
using his elbows, he spread Fisher’s legs and crawled between them. He looked up at Fredrickson again. With anguish on his
face he silently mouthed, “I don’t know if I’m right.”

Fredrickson nodded his head in encouragement. “Do it,” he mouthed silently. “Do it.”

Fisher started moaning again, arching his back, trying to get his bladder and kidneys off the floor. The senior squid put
the knife in the candle flame. Then he poured alcohol on it. There was a slight hiss and the alcohol smell filled the hooch.
He lifted Fisher’s penis back, pushing it firmly against his stomach. Even that pressure made Fisher scream.

Fredrickson leaned his whole body over Fisher’s face, muzzling him, pressing down on his shoulders and upper arms.

Sheller pushed the blade into Fisher’s penis. Fisher screamed and Fredrickson put all of his weight on him to keep him from
rolling. Blood and urine streamed over the knife blade, the initial burst spraying Sheller’s hands and chest. Then Sheller
pushed the makeshift catheter up the smooth side of the knife into the incision and quickly slipped the blade out. Urine coursed
out of the catheter, flowing over Fisher’s hips and crotch, filling the tent with its hot smell, running onto the mud, soaking
the nylon poncho liners under Fisher’s body.

“Goddamn. Goddamn. Oh, goddamn,” Fisher cried, but each “goddamn” lessened in intensity with the lessening force of the coursing
urine, until all that could be heard was Fisher’s ragged panting and the deep breathing of Fredrickson and Sheller.

Fisher broke the silence. “What would I say if this was a movie?”

Fredrickson shook his head back and forth and snorted a laugh. “Shit, Fisher,” he said. Sheller, still breathing hard, merely
nodded at Fisher.

Fisher winced and took in a shaky breath. He held it, then let it out all at once and turned his head to the side, looking
at the floor of the hooch. “Kind of a mess.”

Sheller nodded. “Yeah. Kind of a mess,” he said. He was covered in blood and urine. He flicked a glance at Fredrickson, who
nodded very slightly. Then Fredrickson suddenly bore down on Fisher with his full weight. Senior Squid took Fisher by surprise
and quickly punctured his penis again, this time to pierce the leech and kill it.

Fisher bucked his hips upward, screaming. “Jesus Christ, Squid. What the fuck?” Fredrickson kept his full body weight on him,
trying to keep him still.

“Sorry,” Sheller said. Blood from the swollen leech was running along the flat of the knife. He pulled it out and took a deep
breath. Dark blood oozed from the second cut, mixing with the redder blood and urine from the first.

Sheller sat back on his haunches, his knees under him.

“You fucking done?” Fisher asked.

Sheller nodded yes.

The small hooch, filled with the three young men, the light from the candles, and the warm smell of urine, was quiet.

From outside they could hear FAC-man, the forward air controller, shouting. “Get him up to the LZ. The bird’s coming in.”

“Now what?” Fisher asked.

“I don’t know,” Sheller answered. “They get you to Charlie Med. The usual repair work. Infection’s the main problem around
here. We don’t know what got carried in by the leech or on the knife for that matter.”

“No, I mean …” Fisher hesitated. “You know, later. Back home.”

FAC-man poked his head through the ponchos. “I’ve got the fucking chopper. Get him up on the LZ. What the fuck you waiting
for?” He ran off into the dark with his radio on his back, talking to the pilot.

Sheller rolled out of the way as Fitch and Hawke came through the opening of the hooch and grabbed the stretcher. He didn’t
answer Fisher, using the interruption as an excuse. What would scar tissue do? Infection? Had he cut tubes he didn’t even
know about? He honestly didn’t know what would happen and was fully aware he might have doomed Fisher to be not only childless,
but impotent.

Mellas watched the shadows moving back up the hill. The familiar washboard thumping could be heard in the valley below them
as the chopper fought for altitude, skimming over the tops of trees beneath the low cloud cover. Then the NVA .51 opened up.
It was followed almost immediately by the chopper’s two .50-caliber machine guns, firing blindly into the dark jungle to try
to suppress the fire. The chopper loomed out of the darkness and slammed into the zone; its crew chief immediately jumped
out and yelled at the Marines to get the stretcher on board.

Cassidy, Hawke, Fitch, and FAC-man ran across the LZ with the stretcher and up the ramp of the chopper, the sound of the NVA
.51’s bullets cracking through the air. Mellas crouched to the ground, thankful he was just below the lip of the LZ, defiladed
from the fire. The chopper was moving before the four stretcher bearers were even out of it. It was already airborne as the
last dark figure jumped for the ground and ran for the lip of the LZ.

The shadowy bulk of the chopper merged into darkness, the faint glow of its instrument panel disappearing with it into the
night. The firing stopped. Mellas rose to a half crouch and glanced back inside the CP hooch. The senior squid was still kneeling
over the now deserted space, the front of his utility shirt soaked with urine and blood, his knife in his hand. He was crying
and praying at the same time.

T
he light died. Voices were silenced. Darkness and fear replaced light and reason. The whisper of a leaf scraping on bark would
make heads turn involuntarily and hearts gallop. The surrounding blackness and the unseen wall of dripping growth left no
place to run. In that black wet nothingness the perimeter became just a memory. Only imagination gave it form.

Mellas shivered in his hooch and listened to the whispers of the company communications network. Through the mud he could
feel Hamilton shaking but couldn’t see him, curled up in a greasy nylon poncho liner. Mellas’s own wet undershirt clung to
him. At home, he’d snapped at his mother for dyeing it too pale a color. “I’ll be spotted a mile away.” She had bit her lip
to hold back the tears. Mellas had wanted to hug her but didn’t.

He had hole-check at 2300 and 0300 to make sure those on watch were awake. Meanwhile, he sat like someone who needs to urinate
but doesn’t want to leave a warm bed. A rat crept through the vegetation, and Mellas could hear it rustling through discarded
C-ration containers. He imagined it dragging its wet belly on the ground. He watched the minute hand on his watch creep its
luminous route toward eleven. At exactly eleven, far to the east, he heard what he surmised was an Arc Light mission, B-52s
from Guam, flying far to the east and so high they couldn’t be seen, dropping hundreds of 500- and 1,000-pound bombs. The
bombing could make a small area of suspected enemy troop concentration a furnace of pain and death, but to Mellas it seemed
like only
sterile thunder without rain. He watched the minute hand creep past eleven. The inner voice of duty won. He strapped on his
pistol, put on his helmet, and crawled outside.

Invisible rain struck his cheeks. The warmth from his poncho liner drifted away like a thin cry over stormy water. He headed
downhill, slipping in the mud. Then, after groping his way for what seemed far too long a time, he grew frightened that he
would overshoot the lines and be killed by his own men. He tripped face forward over a root, grunting, hurting his wrist as
he broke his fall. Cold water from the mud worked through his clothing. Blinded, he crept forward on hands and knees, hoping
to find the machine-gun position directly downhill from his own hooch. He tried to imagine its occupant, Hippy, who had questionably
regulation hair and wore, hanging from his neck, a silver peace medallion that looked curiously like a passenger jet.

A voice, barely audible, floated through the darkness: “Who’s that?”

“It’s me,” Mellas whispered. “Character Mike.” He was afraid that if he said “lieutenant” a North Vietnamese soldier lurking
just outside the lines would fire on him.

“Who the fuck’s character Mike?” the voice whispered back.

“The new lieutenant,” Mellas responded, frustrated and realizing that he’d probably made enough noise to be shot anyway. Mellas
crawled toward the voice. Suddenly his hand encountered freshly turned clay. He must be near a fighting hole. He felt, rather
than saw, a shadowy shape inside his small circle of awareness, barely a foot from his eyes.

“How’s everything?” Mellas whispered.

“I keep hearing something down the finger.”

“How far?”

“Can’t tell.”

“If it gets close and you want to throw a Mike-26, make sure you tell me or Jake.” Jacobs had replaced Fisher as leader of
Mellas’s Second Squad.

“I’m in Third Squad.”

Mellas was suddenly confused. He peered intently in the direction of the man’s face but couldn’t make out who it was.

“Who’ve I got here?” Mellas finally whispered.

“Parker, sir.”

Mellas was aghast. He’d crawled in a totally different direction from what he had intended. He tried to visualize Parker and
then he remembered that Parker was the one who felt he’d been passed over for his R & R in Bangkok. Sullen.

Then both of them were silent, trying to see in the dark. The spattering rain precluded any hope of hearing somebody moving
in the jungle. Mellas felt it plastering his shirt to his back and began to shiver. The noise of his shivering made hearing
even harder. Parker shifted his weight impatiently.

Mellas tried to think of something to say to make a connection. “Where you from, Parker?” he whispered.

Parker didn’t answer.

Mellas hesitated. He didn’t know if Parker was being defiant or was simply afraid to make any more noise. He made a choice,
though.

“Parker, I asked you a question.”

Parker waited a full three seconds before answering. “Compton.”

Mellas didn’t know where that was. “Oh,” he said. “Is it nice there?”

“I wouldn’t call it that.”

“Sir,” Mellas appended.

“I wouldn’t call it that,
sir
.”

Mellas didn’t know how to answer. He felt the chance to make a connection with Parker slipping away. He gave it a last shot.
“I’m from Oregon, a little logging town on the coast called Neawanna.”

“Neawanna?” There was a hesitation. “Sir.”

“Yeah. Funny name, huh? Indian name.”

Silence.

“I’ve got to move on,” Mellas whispered, sensing Parker’s discomfort. “Who’s in the next hole to your right?”

Parker did not respond immediately, and Mellas wondered if he too was having a problem keeping all the names straight. Finally
Parker whispered, “Chadwick.”

“Thanks, Parker.” Mellas crawled off toward the next hole. That hadn’t gone well, he thought. He felt awkward and incompetent.