Matterhorn_ A Novel of the Vietnam War Part 30

'Can you beat what?' Mellas asked. His tongue was beginning to get in the way of his words.

'I mean can you beat the f.u.c.king Three getting a medal for hanging out in a Huey when we got into that s.h.i.+t sandwich by Co Roc?'

'f.u.c.king insanity.' Mellas spat, and it landed in the half-empty case instead of nearby, where he'd aimed. 'I still haven't gotten any word on Vancouver's and Conman's medals.'

'They're snuffs. It takes longer.'

'There it is, Jack,' Goodwin said.

Hawke opened another can of beer and Mellas watched the foam spill satisfyingly over the sides and onto his hands. 'The medal was for rallying a demoralized company and risking his life to coordinate its extraction under fire. Captain Black didn't get zip for going in and pulling Friedlander's a.s.s out of the s.h.i.+t.'

's.h.i.+t is right, Jack,' Goodwin said.

'The war's run by a bunch of a.s.sholes,' Mellas said.

'How do you know?' Hawke asked.

'We get f.u.c.king killed and they sit in Paris and argue about f.u.c.king square tables and round tables.'

'Those are diplomats, not a.s.sholes,' Hawke said.

Goodwin popped open another can of beer and lay back on the ground. A light mist fell on his face.

'They're in charge of the f.u.c.king war, aren't they?' Mellas said.

'Right, right,' Hawke said, nodding.

'And the war is so f.u.c.ked up it has to be run by a bunch of a.s.sholes. Right?'

'That's f.u.c.king right, Jack,' Goodwin said. Hawke agreed.

'So . . .' Mellas said.

'So what?' Hawke asked.

'So . . .' Mellas finished his can of beer. 'I can't f.u.c.king remember what I was trying to prove, but the people that run this f.u.c.king war are a bunch of a.s.sholes.'

'I'll drink to that. G.o.dd.a.m.ned right.' Hawke leaned back, chugging the remainder of his beer.

'I'll drink to anything,' Goodwin said fuzzily.

A silence followed. The damp wind moved gently through the dark, rippling tent walls, causing an occasional light leak to flutter briefly. Mellas let out a long contented burp, his head spinning happily, not really aware of where he was except that he lay in some wet gra.s.s in a light drizzle.

The sustained heavy slapping of an AK-47 on full automatic sent the three of them flat on their stomachs, their beer cans thrown aside. People came piling out of the tents around them, running for the bunkers, some hopping as they struggled into trousers. The AK opened up again and a ricochet spun over the three lieutenants' heads with an almost lazy hum. Hawke was clutching the case of beer, protecting it from possible damage from the bullets.

Shouts arose from the battalion area.

'What do you think?' Mellas asked, his head spinning. Hawke shrugged and popped open three more cans of beer. 'If it's f.u.c.king sappers, they're after the f.u.c.king helicopters. And I ain't a f.u.c.king helicopter. But I don't ever remember sappers doing one-man attacks.'

The three of them sat up, watching the confusion. Blakely went sprinting across to the COC bunker, head bent close to the ground, shouting directions to people. He disappeared into the bunker.

'Hey, Jayhawk,' Goodwin said.

'Uh?'

'What kind of medal you think the Six and Three will get for this one?'

'Navy Cross,' Hawke said, 'or possibly higher.' Hawke raised his hand to his lips and gave a jeering raspberry of a bugle call.

A small figure came creeping up behind the BOQ tent. They all froze, realizing they were without rifles; the bravado of the beer was gone. The man, his back to them, was creeping up on the tent.

Goodwin moved very slowly, motioning to Hawke and Mellas, indicating that they should roll in his direction. He pointed into some high gra.s.s behind him.

The figure continued to creep along the back of the tent. 'Hey, Lieutenant Hawke,' the figure whispered to the tent. 'Hey Lieutenant Jayhawk, it's Pollini, sir.'

's.h.i.+t, Jack,' Goodwin moaned.

'Shortround, you f.u.c.king numby,' Hawke hissed. 'Get over here.'

Pollini turned around. 'What are you guys doing in the bushes?' he asked loudly. He groped his way toward them. He was carrying the AK- 47 Vancouver had brought back from Mellas's aborted reconnaissance.

'Over here, Pollini,' Mellas whispered fiercely. 'Where the h.e.l.l do you think you are, Central f.u.c.king Park? Get your a.s.s down before someone sees you.'

'Oh, Lieutenant Mellas, sir,' he said aloud. He walked over and sat down. Hawke grabbed the AK-47 from Pollini, who smelled like a grape factory on strike in a heat wave. His eyes were clouded over and a little drool was forming at the side of his mouth.

Mellas was furious with him. 'This stunt could land you in the brig for months. What do you think you're doing?'

Pollini scratched his head and then said brightly. 'Just shooting up the place.'

'Why, Pollini?' Hawke asked.

'Wasn't that right?' he answered. 'Isn't that what a s.h.i.+t bird does?' He stood up, weaving badly. 'Oh, here, sirs.' He dug into his pockets. Out came a loaded magazine. 'Here's what makes the little f.u.c.ker go bang.' He started laughing.

Goodwin pulled him to the ground.

Pollini suddenly broke into sobs, the start of a crying jag. He curled up in a ball, sobbing, 'I don't want to be a s.h.i.+t bird. I wanted to be a good Marine. I want my father to be proud of me.'

'Who said you were a s.h.i.+t bird?' Mellas asked, feeling suddenly awkward about all the times he'd poked fun at Pollini. 'Hey, you can't cry like that,' he said softly. 'Hey, Pollini, don't cry.'

Through the sobs came the story.

Mellas had a hand on Pollini's back. He didn't know what to do. He turned to Hawke. 'But why would he get so upset? To go after a guy with a f.u.c.king soup ladle?'

'His father was killed in Korea.'

Mellas moaned. 'Isn't the s.h.i.+t of this war enough? We still have to deal with s.h.i.+t from Korea?' He shook his head slowly. Did it have to go on and on and on?

Pollini eventually fell into a stupefied sleep. The three lieutenants finished the case of beer, watching the battalion area return to normal. Long after it was quiet, Goodwin threw Pollini over his shoulder, Mellas took the rifle, and together they walked toward the landing zone and put Pollini to bed.

The next day Mellas took him off KP.

The same day, the Bald Eagle was launched into combat. But not without complications.

The battalion surgeon, Lieutenant Maurice Witherspoon Selby, USN, was sick and tired of the mud, the lack of ice, the unsanitary conditions, and the monotonous round of malaria, dysentery, ringworm, infected leech bites, jungle rot, crotch rot, sore backs, sore legs, and sore heads. He was particularly tired of PFC Mallory's sore head. Mallory had just returned from an examination by the lone psychiatrist at Fifth Med in Quang Tri with a note saying he had a pa.s.sive-aggressive personality and he'd have to learn to live with his headaches. He also had a note from the Fifth Med dentist, who had put on temporary caps and said that Mallory was fit for duty but should see about getting a bridge when he got back to the States.

'Look, I'm busy,' Selby said to Hospitalman First Cla.s.s Foster. 'Just give him some more Darvon and get him out of the sick bay.'

'He seems pretty riled up, sir.'

'G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I've looked at his ugly head until I'm blue in the face. I was training to be a surgeon, not a psychiatrist.' Selby reached for a bottle of aspirin and slugged down four, not bothering to take any water. 'Now you tell him that sick bay goes at oh nine hundred, and let me do some work. You got that, Foster?'

'Yes, sir.' Foster paused as Selby sat down behind the crude desk, his hands over his face. 'Sir?'

'What, Foster?'

'Will you see him at oh nine hundred? I don't think he's going to take one of us squids giving him more Darvon. He's eating the stuff like candy anyway.'

'What do you want me to do, hold his f.u.c.king hand? I've got a bunch of people out there that I can can cure, and I'm sick of seeing him. No. I won't see him.' cure, and I'm sick of seeing him. No. I won't see him.'

'Yes sir.' Foster walked to the entrance of the tent. Mallory was sitting on a bench, his forehead in his hands, gear strewn beneath his feet. His flak jacket and .45 lay across his pack.

'PFC Mallory,' Foster said.

'Yeah.'

'I talked with Lieutenant Selby and he said there wasn't really anything he could do for you.'

'That's what they all say. What's going down around here, huh?' Foster sighed. 'Mallory, I don't know what else to tell you. If there's nothing they can do in Quang Tri, there's sure not anything we can do here.'

'My f.u.c.king head hurts.'

'I know that, Mallory. All I can do for you is give you-'

'f.u.c.king pills.' Mallory stood up, screaming, 'I don't need f.u.c.king pills. I need help. And that motherf.u.c.king doctor is f.u.c.king me over and I'm tired of it. I'm tired, you hear me?' He began to whimper. 'I'm so f.u.c.king tired.'

Selby walked through the part.i.tion. 'You get out of this sick bay right now, Marine,' he said, 'and if your a.s.s isn't out that door in five seconds, I'll have it for disobeying a direct order.'

Mallory, visibly in pain, screamed and reached for the .45 at his feet. He pulled back the action. 'My f.u.c.king head hurts and I want it fixed.' The pistol was pointed at Selby's stomach.

Selby backed slowly away. 'You're going to be in a heap of trouble over this, Marine,' he said nervously.

'My head hurts.'

Foster started easing toward the door. Mallory turned the pistol on him. 'Where you going?'

'Let me go find the colonel or someone. Maybe they can do something about it. What do you think, Lieutenant Selby?'

'Oh, yes,' Selby said. 'Maybe we could send you to Da Nang. Maybe j.a.pan. I had no idea you-'

'You shut up,' Mallory said. 'You had no idea idea. That right. You had no idea idea until I stand up here with a gun barrel poked at you fat face. You sure as s.h.i.+t have no f.u.c.king until I stand up here with a gun barrel poked at you fat face. You sure as s.h.i.+t have no f.u.c.king idea idea.'

'Look, I'll write up an order right now, sending you to Da Nang.'

'You can do that?'

'Sure I can. Foster here can get it all typed up, can't you, Foster?'

'Yes, sir. That's right.'

'All right. You start typing,' Selby said to Foster. It was clear that Mallory's anger was cooling. Selby could also see that Mallory was no longer sure about what to do with the pistol or how to get out of the situation.

Foster put three forms with carbon paper between them into a typewriter and started pounding away. Selby stood stiffly next to Foster's table, trying to summon up enough courage to glare at Mallory. He ended up pretending to read what Foster was typing.

Hospitalman Third Cla.s.s Milbank, returning from breakfast, came whistling up the small path to the aid station. He stopped short when Foster shouted, 'Sick call doesn't go until oh nine hundred, Marine.'

'What?' Milbank said. He could see Foster through the open doorway, with Selby standing nervously by him.

'You know the rules, Marine. Oh nine hundred. We're under a lot of pressure here. Now clear out.'

'Sure.' Milbank walked off the path, puzzled. He walked quietly to the side of the tent. It was absolutely silent inside. Then he heard a hostile voice. 'Where you going?'

'I have to look up the right coding on the order.' Foster's voice answered, a little too slowly and clearly. 'It's in that book over there.'

Milbank carefully peeked beneath the wall of the tent. It ended about half an inch above the ground. He could make out the bleached boots of a bush Marine and a helmet among some gear with the medevac number M-0941 on it. A medevac number consisted of the first letter of the man's surname and the last four of his serial number. Then he saw the .45 held in a black hand. M-Mallory. It was that morose f.u.c.king machine gunner with the headaches, from Bravo Company.

Milbank ran to the mess tent and found Staff Sergeant Ca.s.sidy sc.r.a.ping the remains of his breakfast into a garbage can. 'Mallory's got a .45 pulled on Doc Selby and Foster,' he said. 'Over at the battalion aid station.'

'You get Lieutenant Fitch right now,' Ca.s.sidy said. He ran for the aid station.

Milbank didn't know which way to go. He spotted Connolly and shouted at him. 'Mallory's pulled a f.u.c.king gun on Doc Selby. Get your skipper up here right away.' Everyone in the place stopped eating. Connolly looked at his cup of coffee and closed his eyes, then ran for the airstrip.

Ca.s.sidy reached the battalion aid station with Milbank close behind him. 'You can see him through the crack under the tent,' Milbank whispered. Ca.s.sidy merely grunted. He went to the ground and peered up through the narrow open s.p.a.ce between the tent wall and the ground. He saw Mallory's jungle camouflage trousers and then the underside of the .45.

He walked calmly around the tent and through the door. Mallory, surprised, took a step backward.

'Give it to me, Mallory,' Ca.s.sidy said.

'I tell you, my head hurts. I'm getting outa here.'

'Give me the f.u.c.king pistol or so help me I'll jam it down your scrawny f.u.c.king throat.'

Mallory shook his head, then seemed to collapse into a whimpering child. 'It hurts me.'

Ca.s.sidy walked over, took the .45 away, and tossed it at Selby, who put his hands in front of his face rather than catch it. The pistol clattered to the floor. 'They don't work without magazines in them, Lieutenant Selby, sir, sir,' Ca.s.sidy said. He looked at Mallory, his hands on his hips. 'And you, you f.u.c.king excuse for a man, I ought to tear your head right off.' Ca.s.sidy suddenly lashed out with his fist, sinking it into Mallory's stomach. Mallory doubled over. Ca.s.sidy, cooling down, picked up Mallory's .45, went to Mallory's pack, and found a magazine, which he inserted into the b.u.t.t. He pointed it at Mallory. 'This one's loaded, f.u.c.khead. Now get up.'

'I got my rights,' Mallory muttered.

'That's all that's saving you, puke,' Ca.s.sidy said. 'Now move.'