The battalion's coming in in a couple of days," Fitch said tightly. "Let's get 'em cleaned up." A loud salvo from the arty battery exploded behind them, making everyone flinch. "That means haircuts, shaves, the works. No mustaches unless they're sergeants or higher. Big John Six's orders."
Mellas wearily walked back to the platoon. Hamilton saw him coming and shouted down to the holes below for the squad leaders. Another salvo rocked the hill, obliterating all other sounds. He reached his hooch and sat down, staring blankly into the fog. Eventually the three squad leaders arrived. Jancowitz, filthy, was still in his gear from a patrol. On his face, sweat mixed with fine drops of precipitation. Connolly squatted down with his hands resting across his knees, Vietnamese style. Jacobs, still nervous about his job as temporary squad leader, already had a green notebook and a ballpoint pen ready. The next to arrive was Bass, breathing hard from chugging up the slope. He squatted on the ground, looking over toward Doc Fredrickson's hooch, annoyed because Fredrickson hadn't made it to the meeting on time. "He's up at the LZ with Senior Squid," Mellas said. "They're counting pills for a reorder when the battalion gets here."
"Battalion?" Bass asked, cocking his right eye.
"The birds are already fragged. That means we've got to get everyone squared away."
Jancowitz and Connolly nodded, having been through it before. Jacobs was scratching away in his notebook. "H-h-haircuts, Lieutenant?" he asked.
"Yes, Jake," Mellas said, with just a tinge of sarcasm.
"With what? Our fucking K-bars?" Bass asked.
Jancowitz giggled. "I thought you fucking lifers just grew short hair."
"You keep mouthing off," Bass replied, "and I'll cut yours with a goddamn E-tool and then shove it so far up your butt you'll be eating pussy with the blade."
"I don't see why in hell not," Jancowitz replied, undaunted. "We manage to do everything else with our E-tools."
"Rumor has it," Mellas broke in, "that Cassidy managed to get some clippers from the arty people that'll get passed around, and they've got plenty of water, too. So everyone shaves. And about the shaving-no stashes unless you're E-5 or above."
"Bullshit, sir!" Jancowitz looked betrayed. "I'm a fucking squad leader and squad leaders can have stashes. It's always been that way." He'd written to Susi about it.
"Janc, the word is E-5 and above."
"No one can see yours now," Bass said. "Why do you care?"
"I promise you I won't go anywhere near the LZ. No one'll see me." He looked at Bass and Mellas. Neither one could help him.
"Cut off the stashes and get anyone who needs a haircut a haircut," Mellas said quickly, giving no chance for rebuttal. "That's that. Who's got the patrols tomorrow?" Connolly and Jacobs each raised a finger. "OK, I'll be going with Conman. Bass will be going with Jacobs." Mellas outlined the patrol routes and together they targeted preparation fires by the artillery and mortars. Mellas was good with maps, he knew it, and it didn't go unnoticed by the platoon-their lives depended on it. Fredrickson showed up and handed out the daily dose of malaria tablets, and they split up.
Mellas was eating some glutinous C-ration beef and potatoes mixed with applesauce and some of Bass's carefully rationed Worcestershire sauce when Jancowitz came trudging back up the hill, this time with Parker behind him. Bass, who was heating water for coffee, looked over at Mellas. "I'll bet you a can of peaches that Parker doesn't want his hair cut," he said.
"Shit," Mellas said.
"RHIP," Bass said, smiling, with half-closed eyes.
The two arrivals reached the little level spot that the platoon CP group shared. Mellas swallowed another spoonful before acknowledging their presence.
"OK, Janc, what's the problem?"
"Parker wants to request mast, sir."
"How come, Parker?" Mellas asked, looking at him.
"I ain't getting no haircuts."
"What the fuck did you say?" Bass stood up, jaw thrust out, the tin can of hot water in his hand. "You're talking to the lieutenant, Parker." To Mellas, it hardly seemed the time to enforce military etiquette, but he let Bass go on.
"Sir, I don't need no haircuts and I want to see the skipper for mast, sir," Parker repeated.
Bass sat down. Requesting mast with the skipper was every Marine's privilege. Mellas looked at Parker's hair. It was curly, nearly an Afro. There was very little doubt that the battalion CP would find it too long, not just because of the Marine Corps' preference for extremely short hair, but also because of the political implications. "OK, Janc," he said, "I'll take it from here. Thanks."
Jancowitz nodded and headed back down the hill, where Hippy, clippers in hand, was sizing up another customer who was sitting on his gun emplacement with a towel around his neck. Mellas motioned toward a piece of broken ammunition pallet. "Sit down, Parker. Let me finish dinner." Parker sat down, somewhat hesitantly, looking at Bass. Almost everyone was afraid of Bass because of his unpredictable temper. Bass finished his coffee and moved off toward his hooch without saying anything.
"You know, Parker, that the skipper will have to tell you to get your hair cut."
"Why's that?" he said, looking at the thick mud on his boots.
"Because it's too long, Parker. We got the battalion coming in and that's the way it's got to be."
"I requested mast, and I got my right to see the skipper, and you can't stop me."
"Jesus Christ, Parker. I'm not trying to stop you from seeing the skipper. I'm just trying to save you a walk up the hill."
"I request mast."
"Let's go, then." Mellas threw the remaining glob of food into an empty cardboard box whose sides were collapsing from constant exposure to the rain. He turned to Parker for one last try. "Parker, the skipper works under the same rules as everyone else. It's going to have to get cut."
Parker took off his bush cover and grabbed at a few strands of his hair. "It ain't no longer than Bass's. He just greases the shit down. His motherfucking hillbilly hair could be five feet long and no one say shit about that." Something told Mellas that if he were a good officer he'd never let Parker get away with talking that way to him. Still, Parker's argument was valid, even though a losing one.
"Let's go see the skipper," Mellas said tautly. He turned and continued up the hill, slipping in the mud, aware of Parker watching his clumsy progress.
Fitch, Hawke, and the two radio operators, Pallack and Relsnik, were jammed together under the ponchos playing jungle bridge. It was their forty-fifth game in a series of 300, officers versus enlisted men. Sergeant Cassidy sat nearby on an ammo box. He was just outside the opening of the hooch carving on the stave Fisher had brought back, indifferent to the rain.
"What's the trouble, Lieutenant?" Cassidy asked.
Fitch looked out of the opening and started to rise.
"Oh, no, you don't, Skipper," Pallack said, turning to Parker. "Hey, Parker, you got to hold on. D' enlisted are about to take another game off d' officers." He turned back to the game and slapped down a card, hard. "You fucking dummies. Hee, hee. Look at dat queen." Parker's jaws were working beneath his dark cheeks. Fitch grimaced and threw down a card.
Parker spoke up. "Sir, I got the right for mast."
"You got the privilege, Parker," Cassidy growled. "You don't just walk in on the company commander and tell him you want mast."
Parker stood his ground. "I got the right for mast." Cassidy stood up. Hawke quickly threw a card and Pallack swooped up the little pile and then slapped down another, laughing. Hawke looked at Fitch and shrugged. Fitch threw in the rest of his cards, and Pallack and Relsnik shook hands and pulled out their pens and notebooks, both recording the score so there was no chance of error, making cracks about how anyone could be so dumb at playing cards and still manage to become an officer. The card game had eased the tension between Cassidy and Parker by giving Cassidy a chance to look away, which he took.
Fitch crawled out of the hooch and stood. "OK, Parker. Let's go inside Hawke's hooch and talk things out." Fitch's manner was easy and direct, and Parker seemed to relax a little. They crawled into Hawke's hooch.
Mellas walked back to his own hooch. People were out by the wire setting in trip flares for the night. A late cooking fire was visible down at Conman's squad, and Mellas shouted for it to be put out. It disappeared. The lines were quiet.
Mellas started to write a letter in the remaining twilight but was interrupted by Skosh, who'd packed the radio over with him. "It's the Six," he said. He squatted down and casually began reading Mellas's letter, which Mellas snatched away from him.
Fitch's voice crackled over the net. "Your character Pappa who was just up here has twenty minutes to get his fucking hair cut. Then I want to see him. You copy?"
"I copy." Mellas sighed and handed Skosh the hook. "Why do I have to fart around with goddamned haircuts in the middle of the jungle because some colonel is going to show up?"
Skosh shrugged his shoulders. "Just another inch of green dildo, sir."
Mellas walked down to Jancowitz's area. Parker was talking with Mole who, like many of the brothers in the battalion, wore a noose of heavy khaki nylon rope around his neck. Mellas guessed that it had something to do with lynching but was afraid to ask. The rest of the blacks from Third Squad stood around them. They fell silent when they saw Mellas approaching.
Everyone's hair had been cut except Parker's. Jackson spoke up, his broad face relaxed, his eyes calmly engaging with Mellas's. "Sir, I think they're fucking with the brothers over these haircuts." It was stated with no apparent anger.
Mellas tried hard for the same tone. "Jackson, no one has any choice in the matter. Curly hair doesn't look regulation and we've got the Big Six coming in and Lieutenant Fitch is on the spot. I really don't want to hear anything more about it."
"Yes, sir," Jackson said, turning away.
Mellas looked at Parker. "You know you've got about fifteen minutes, right?"
"Yes, sir," Parker mumbled.
"OK. Get it done and get up to the skipper and we'll forget the whole goddamn silly thing."
It was almost dark when PFC Tyrell Broyer saw Gunny Cassidy and Sergeant Ridlow from Lieutenant Goodwin's platoon coming down the hill. Cassidy was holding a pair of hair clippers. Broyer nervously adjusted his glasses even though they didn't need adjusting. He glanced at Parker, who shared their two-man fighting hole. Cassidy and Ridlow disappeared into Bass's hooch and Broyer heard them laughing.
Parker, his hair still uncut, leaned against the rear of the fighting hole, staring into the jungle. His rifle rested on a plastic sandbag and his arms were crossed in front of him.
"Hey, brother," Broyer said quietly, "I think we got trouble coming down the hill about your hair."
Parker grunted and spat. "God and country bigot motherfuckers."
Broyer looked back at the hooch above him. Sergeant Bass was crawling out, his beefy arms showing below his neatly rolled-up sleeves. Cassidy emerged behind Bass, his face set hard. Next came Ridlow. Parker gave a quick sideways glance over his shoulder and immediately turned away, stone-faced. Broyer wanted to run for help but didn't know where to go. He excused his inaction by recalling that he couldn't leave his hole during the evening 100 percent alert. He shifted his feet nervously.
The group of sergeants gathered silently around them.
"It's time, Parker," Cassidy said. "I see you decided you'd rather have it done by a pro."
Parker clenched his teeth.
"You fucking answer, turd, when you're spoken to," Bass said.
Bass had moved in front of the fighting hole and was glaring directly into Parker's face. Ridlow stood to his right, his boots next to Parker's face. Cassidy was to Bass's left. Bass motioned for Broyer to get out of the hole and Broyer scrambled out, still not knowing where to go. He saw the rest of the squad watching in silence.
"Did you fucking hear me, you puke?" Cassidy asked.
"Yes sir," Parker mumbled.
"I didn't hear you, Parker," Bass said, smiling.
"Yes, sir," Parker spat out.
"How would you like it, Parker?" Cassidy asked. "Parted on the left? What do you think, Sergeant Bass? What would Sassoon do?"
"Maybe on the left," Bass said. "No, make it down the center. A reverse Mohawk."
"I think we ought to take his fucking head off," Ridlow growled.
Cassidy squatted down and leaned forward to whisper in Parker's ear. "Parker, you fucking turd, so help me God if you make one fucking wrong move I'm gonna screw your head off and shit in it. I don't know what the fuck's wrong with these fucking officers in this company to take the crap that pukes like you hand out all the time, but if I had my way I'd have your ass strung up to the nearest fucking tree. You don't request mast about a fucking haircut. You request mast when something is really wrong. And you don't disobey orders. Now you sit up real nice on the edge of this hole and get your hair cut like a man, or so help me God I'll personally beat holy fuck out of you and leave you for the fucking maggots where you belong. You understand?"
Bass had also squatted down to look directly at him. Parker glanced around. The others in the squad were peering at him from their holes. They had all gotten their hair cut. Broyer heard the sound of Cassidy squeezing the hair clippers. He looked at Bass's heavy forearms. His knees were shaking and there was a racing feeling inside him.
"I just want to say my hair ain't no longer than some chuck that grease it down. That's all I want to say."
"Good. Now you've said it," Cassidy said. "And I want to say I don't want a puke like you in my Marine Corps. I just want to say that. You aren't worthy of the name. Now, I'll give you three counts to sit your ass on the edge of this fighting hole. One…"
Parker moved.
Broyer, still standing next to the fighting hole, took a breath. He looked around. He saw the lieutenant standing by Bass's hooch. Like everyone else, he was watching Cassidy clip Parker bald.
As soon as they stood down from the evening alert Broyer took off for Second Platoon to find China. It was the first time he'd been in another platoon's area, and he was a little surprised to see trash lying around the fighting holes. Walking by a hooch he heard a loud guffaw and then a hearty laugh. Lieutenant Goodwin's blond head stuck out of the hooch. Broyer scurried by, feeling out of place and hoping to avoid a confrontation. He walked up to a brother he didn't know, pushed his glasses back up on his nose, walked up to the man, and went through the now familiar handshake. He asked where China hung out. The brother pointed toward a small hooch, half hidden beneath a huge felled tree, barely two feet from a machine-gun position. He went over and saw China and two brothers leaning against the trunk of the tree on the side away from the hooch. They were eating supper. Their voices reminded him of summer nights in Baltimore.
China greeted him, going through the handshake. "Hey, brother, glad you could come by. Meet my friends."
One of them offered Broyer a C-ration can filled with hot coffee. He took it and sat down, gingerly holding the folded-down lid so the heat wouldn't burn his fingers. When he started to tell them about the haircut, he was surprised at the anger that spilled out. "And then the chickenshit motherfuckers shaved him bald. They shaved him fucking bald. And we just stood there and watched those motherfuckers."
When Broyer finished, China sprang to his feet. "You tell Parker get his ass over here soon as he can. And don't worry, we won't be standin' 'round much longer no more. We got the power." He was pounding his fist on the log. "We got the power. We gonna do some fuckin' over our own pretty soon."
Broyer hurried away, feeling understood, feeling China's will and strength.
China sat down against the log and sighed. He reached out to heat up another cup of coffee. The two others, knowing that China would speak when he had something to say, began to talk to each other, extinguishing the fire when darkness finally fell.
Broyer relayed China's message to Parker, and when Parker got off watch that night he made his way over to Second Platoon's area. He had to half-crawl, half-crouch up to the top of the LZ and then head back down to Second Platoon to avoid being shot by accident. In the blackness it took him about an hour.
When he reached China's hooch, the brother China shared it with was asleep and alone. He angrily told Parker to go down to the hole below them. He did, and after identifying himself, he slipped into China's two-man fighting hole.
"Shhh," China said, pretending to hear something, trying to think. The wind moved up the hill toward them, smelling of wet earth and moss. Brush, unseen, just ten meters in front of them, whispered beneath creaking trees.
"You said you wanted to see me," Parker finally whispered.
"Yeah." China was still thinking.
"They fucked with me this afternoon. Fucked with me bad, man."
"You stupid shit, shut the fuck up," China whispered fiercely.
"Hey, what's with you, man?"
"What's with me?" China whispered. "What's with you makin' a jive-assed flaky scene over a fuckin' haircut?"
"Hey, you told me, man-"
"I told you we'd wait to pick our ground and then we'd have a cause. Now I got every brother in the company wonderin' what the fuck I'm gonna do over a jive-assed fuckin' haircut. I ought to take you fuckin' head off. I just get the brothers sendin' parts to me and you got to blow shit up."
"They fucking castrated me right in front of my brothers and you be saying I fucked up?" Parker's lips curled back; his anger was barely under control. China felt it but knew he could handle Parker.
"Hey, brothers, cool it, huh?" China's hooch mate was whispering from the open flap. "Ridlow be checking lines anytime and he light big fire to our asses if you don't cool it."
Parker cooled down slightly, and China shifted his feet.
"Look," China said, "the racist motherfuckers gonna be taught a lesson, but you gotta do it up right. You hear me? You gotta do it up right. We don't keep the power unless we keep our brains. You hear me? And the brothers back home need weapons-real weapons."
"I hear you," Parker said sullenly. "I'll kill the motherfucker myself."
"You don't kill nobody without my say-so."
"I'll kill any fucking pig I want."
"You listen a me, Parker. We need you. You know that. Right? You know that. You brothers need you. But we don't need you doing no killin' unless it's a real showdown. We don't need you doin' that. You let me and Henry decide that stuff. We get it together next time we in VCB."
"Shit. We ain't seen VCB in two months. What makes you think we see VCB now? Henry rotate home before you see him. Sheeit."
"We see him, Parker. You just learn to bide time. We got time. Now you let me think how I'm gonna handle this, OK? And no fuckin' around with it. You just let me think about this tonight and I'll start seein' the brothers in the morning. OK?"
"OK."
"You did fine, brother. It took a lot of guts to stand up like that. I'm sorry I jumped on you. It's just we playin' for really big stakes here. You hear me? Big stakes. Can be no mis-takes." China cackled, leaving Parker nothing to say.
Parker went to all fours to feel his way back to his own fighting hole, leaving China in total blackness. China spent the rest of his watch and even took his hooch mate's watch trying to figure out how to handle the situation. He had to move the emphasis from something trivial like haircuts. Cassidy seemed the likely target. Cassidy, not the fucking haircut, was the key to the situation. He'd see the brothers first thing in the morning before patrol.
China did see the brothers first thing in the morning. Mellas, worried, watched him talking. When Mellas went down to join First Squad for the patrol, Mole was conspicuously late, still cleaning his machine gun in full view of the assembled squad, picking away at minuscule pieces of lint. The heavy noose hung from his coffee-colored neck.
Mole, who was six-two and very well built, didn't look like a mole. He'd received the nickname on the DMZ operation. Connolly's squad had been pinned down, and Mole had moved so low to the ground behind rocks and bushes to flank the enemy that the rest of the squad swore he'd gone underground. He'd opened up on the NVA, killing two and scattering the rest. The skipper had put him up for a Bronze Star.
"You going to burp it too, Mole?" Mellas asked, trying to make his voice light.
Mole continued cleaning the weapon. "Gun's gotta be babied, sir," he mumbled, "'specially when we can't get the fucking parts we order."
Mellas squatted down next to him. "You pissed off about something, Mole?"
"No, sir. Just doing my job." Mole scrutinized the gun's heavy receiver.
Not wanting to confront the haircut issue, Mellas looked at his watch. "Look, Mole, we're five minutes late already. Try and hurry it up, OK?"
Mole grunted and clamped the belt-feeder assembly into place.
Mellas joined Connolly and Vancouver, as well as Daniels, the artillery FO; the German shepherd, Pat; and Corporal Arran, Pat's handler. They were all checking their weapons, adjusting straps, stuffing favorite C-rations into pockets for lunch, and taking final drinks of water before topping off their canteens-all the nervous rituals one does to keep the ego functioning in the face of imminent death.
Mellas felt a surge of pride that Vancouver was in his platoon. Although he hadn't known who Vancouver was at the time, he remembered clearly their first encounter. It had been at VCB while he was waiting for a helicopter to take him and Goodwin out to Matterhorn. It was mostly a time of cold drizzle, boredom, and nervous energy amid rifled boxes of C-rations gone soggy and the smell of JP-4 fuel and urinal pipes stuck in sodden clay, but Mellas could have spent the rest of his days lying there in the mud. That squalid landing zone at VCB was a place where he could stay alive, where the dreaded bush lay in the future, beyond the helicopter's ramp. At VCB you could watch the helicopters leave without you. There, you never had to step through the dark aluminum-ringed portal to the unknown terror of the bush.
Still, by midafternoon, even Goodwin had been worn down by the rain and the boredom. They all dozed in the gray light, drizzle falling on them, stupefied by waiting and by their desire to forget what they were waiting for. Then the monotony broke.
A single Marine jumped off the back of an incoming helicopter and walked slowly across the landing zone toward the dirt road that led to the regiment's rear area. The Marine stood six-three or six-four, but his size wasn't nearly as interesting as the sawed-off M-60 machine gun dangling from two web belts hung over his shoulders. An M-60 usually took two men to operate. The book assigned a crew of three. A crude handle had been welded onto the barrel so the Marine could control the kick without resting it on a bipod. Two cans of machine-gun ammo lay against his chest, suspended from his shoulders. In addition to all this weight, Mellas guessed that he also carried the usual full pack of the bush Marine: sleeping gear, food, extra clothes, hand grenades, books, letters, magazines, ponchos for shelter from the rain, shovel, claymore mines, bars of C-4 plastic explosive, trip flares, handmade stove, pictures of girlfriends, toilet articles, insect repellent, cigarettes, rifle-cleaning gear, WD-40, jars of freeze-dried coffee, and maybe a package or two of long-rats: freeze-dried trail food designed as rations for long-range patrols but more often used by the grunts for special occasions. On the Marine's head was an Australian bush hat, left brim folded up at the side. Matted blond hair, discolored with grime, showed beneath it. His uniform was a mass of tattered holes and filth. One trouser leg had been torn off just below the knee, revealing pasty white flesh covered with infected leech bites and jungle rot. His hands, face, and arms were also covered with jungle rot and open sores. You could smell him as he walked by. But he walked by as if the LZ belonged to him, seemingly unaware of the hundred or more pounds he carried. He was a bush Marine, and Mellas wanted fervently to be just like him.
What Mellas didn't know then, but knew now, was that Vancouver had made the usual swap for the most tattered clothing in his platoon-he would be able to get all new clothing back in the rear-and that Lieutenant Fitch, acting on Fredrickson's recommendation, had sent him to VCB to clean up his NSU-nonspecific urethritis. Vancouver had contracted this medical problem when the company was at VCB some weeks before, waiting to lift out on the next operation. Instead of staying where he should have been, he had sneaked off one night through seven kilometers of unsecured territory to a Buru village near Ca Lu. Rumor had it that Vancouver was secretly married to a girl there.
The memory of seeing Vancouver at VCB gave Mellas a deep yearning to be back in its comparative safety. From VCB, Matterhorn had looked like the bush. Now Matterhorn itself felt like VCB. In the distant valley below Mellas were unseen trails, connecting base camps and supply dumps, crisscrossing the border into North Vietnam and Laos, a spidery network that carried the supplies and replacements for the NVA's operations against the population centers in the south and along the coast. The battalion's job was to stop them. Soon, he knew, he'd be down there-no perimeter, no artillery battery, no landing zones, no Matterhorn. The real bush.
* * *
Mellas's mind snapped back to the task at hand. They were going on another routine patrol to protect the artillery battery.
When Mole finished cleaning his machine gun, he walked over to Connolly and nodded. Connolly broke into activity, calling out the starting order of the fire teams in the patrol. Vancouver moved quietly down toward the intricate maze that was the only way through the barbed wire. Skosh, normally Bass's radio operator, had been sitting against a stump with his eyes closed the whole time. He rose and joined Mellas behind the first team. He and Hamilton had traded jobs to help relieve boredom. The scout dog, Pat, sniffed at each Marine as he went by, memorizing his smell. Once in the jungle, Pat would be alert to any smell that was different. Arran said Pat could memorize well over a hundred individual scents.
In five minutes they were down the steep hill into the jungle, away from the litter, tangled wire, garbage, and barren mud. A bird called. They heard its wings as it flapped away from the squad's path. The canopy rose high above them, 100 to 150 feet, blocking out sunlight, casting the squad into shadow. Down they went, like divers in a gray-green sea.
Pat was alert almost immediately, but Mellas and Corporal Arran were both expecting one of three two-man outposts that sat outside the company perimeter during the day. The squad wound silently by Meaker and Merritt from Second Platoon, acknowledging them with silent smiles. Outpost, or OP, duty was easy except that the OP was likely to be sacrificed warning the company of an attack.
The squad continued down the trail. The OP disappeared behind them. About ten minutes later, Arran went down on one knee, his hand on Pat's quivering back, trying to read Pat's message. The squad halted, and everyone tensed, looking to the sides of the trail. Arran pointed off the trail to the right and then pointed down. Mellas raised an eyebrow to Conman, and Conman nodded. Mellas put his thumb up-OK-and Conman tapped the kid in front of him and pointed right. The squad slipped off the trail that followed the crest of the finger and began working down a steep draw toward the valley floor. Suddenly, they were engulfed in bamboo. The top of the bamboo was about three feet above their heads, and they had to thread their way cautiously, moving aside stalks to build their own tunnel through the solid green mass.
Vancouver, on point, started going too far into the bottom of the draw. Mellas threw a pebble at Conman. Conman turned, and Mellas gave him a negative sign and pointed upslope. The word passed up front to Vancouver, and the squad quit going downhill into the draw, staying mid-slope on the finger that led down to the valley. Walking down a draw was an invitation to an ambush.
The sign came for the machetes. One was passed up from behind Mellas and soon everyone could hear the dull thwack of the blade as an impassible tangle was cut away so the squad could move again. With each sound, rifles were held tighter, and eyes and ears strained a little more. Finally the sound ceased. The squad began moving again, everyone ready to fire at the slightest noise or movement in the jungle.
The squad crawled, slid, sweated, and muttered its way through the dark jungle. Machetes had to be passed forward again. Again their dull thwacking echoed down the line. Kids bit their lower lips, fingered their safeties off and on. Yet without the machetes they couldn't move; and if they couldn't move, they couldn't return to the safety of the perimeter.
Conman rotated the lead fire team as each team became exhausted from the tension of being on point and the backbreaking work of swinging the machetes. Everyone, even Mellas, took his turn with a machete. Mellas knew it was foolish for him-it hindered tactical control-but he wanted to show that he could share some of the burden. He was acutely aware that the squad could be heard hundreds of meters away. Yet the patrol was going to certain checkpoints to make sure the NVA were kept well away from approach paths to Matterhorn. This literal bushwhacking let the patrol accomplish its mission without walking down established trails where the odds of getting ambushed were greatly increased. As he was finding out, no strategy was perfect. All choices were bad in some way.
Within minutes Mellas's hands were raw and blistered, and his arm felt weighted down. The whole time he was hacking at the bamboo he felt naked, aware that his rifle was in his left hand, and that his finger was not on the trigger. If he was fired on he would have to rely on the kid behind him to take out the enemy. Finally, after an eternity, someone tapped him on the shoulder and he dropped back behind Conman, where Skosh was with the radio. Mellas was sweating profusely, from both his labor and his fear. A voice within his head began mocking him, asking him why in hell any NVA would be anywhere near the middle of this damned bamboo patch they'd stumbled into.
Two more hours went by before they were out of the bamboo and back into the relative ease of walking through jungle, sweating, fighting insects, groping, as blind as the leeches against which they waged their real war. Lieutenant Fitch asked for pos reps-position reports-every twenty minutes or so. Mellas dutifully radioed them in, feeling frustrated and useless because they barely changed. In two hours the patrol had gone perhaps 300 meters.
Then, in an instant, the dullness and fatigue were swept away, leaving clean, cold terror.
Conman dived to the dirt in front of Mellas. Skosh too hit the dirt, before Mellas could even fold his knees. The entire squad was flat on the ground, rifles alternating sides all along the line, as they were assigned. Conman peered intently forward, then he started to hunch and wriggle backward on his belly and forearms toward Mellas. He turned and held up three fingers, then held out an open palm with a questioning look on his face. At least three, maybe more. Mellas's heart started to pound painfully in his throat. He was trying to remember what he'd been told to do, back at Quantico. His mind seemed empty. Conman squirmed back farther. Mellas could see no one else. All alone. All alone, and maybe about to die.
"Pat alerted," Conman whispered. "Arran says at least three gooks, by the way Pat's acting. Probably more."
"Maybe it's the machine-gun team," Mellas whispered, thinking, Why me?
Conman shrugged. "What'll we do, Lieutenant?"
Mellas didn't have the slightest idea.
He wanted to radio Bass and the Jayhawk and ask them. At the same time, he knew that this idea was ridiculous. His mind was turning over possibilities so fast that he felt dizzy. Meanwhile, Conman waited, open-mouthed, for Mellas to come up with a plan of action. If it was just three, he could send in the squad on line and wipe them out. If it was a three-man OP, an outpost for a larger unit, that unit could be anything from a platoon to a company. If he went in with the squad, they'd walk right into the deep shit and be lucky to come out with anybody alive. Then again, if it was only three there would be no excuse for not going after them. But someone would probably get killed. It might be Mellas, unless he sent two fire teams in without him. But what would the others think of that? He'd have to go. But he could get killed. It was only three. How could he be afraid? The odds were so much in their favor. Mellas suddenly saw himself and the fourteen squad members lined up against a wall, facing a firing squad of fifteen men, only one of whom had a bullet in his rifle. The odds would be very much in his favor there as well. But suppose the one bullet hit him. He suddenly knew that odds became meaningless when everything was at stake.
Mellas decided to assume it was an outpost for a larger group until he knew otherwise. That meant he'd have to find out. His training took over. His mind started inventorying his available weapons.
"Gun up," he whispered to Skosh. The word went back to invisible kids lying on the jungle floor. "Set it in here," Mellas whispered to Conman. "Put Vancouver with his machine gun one-eighty from it."
"He won't like it."
"To hell with him. Send a fire team around to the left. We'll cover with Mole if they get into the shit. Who do you want to go?"
Now it was Conman's turn to play God, at age nineteen. He shut his eyes. "Rider."
So some are chosen to die young.
Mellas turned to Skosh. "Rider up." Skosh crawled back toward the next man. "Rider up." The whisper passed along.
"Your seventy-nine man have any shotgun rounds?" Mellas asked Conman.
Conman held up three fingers.
Mellas cursed under his breath. The rounds, so useful in the jungle where nothing could be seen, were always in short supply. The M-79 men hoarded them like misers.
"He'll go with the team."
Conman nodded.
"Set the gun in so Rider can get his ass back if he runs into trouble. I'll go and pick him up."
"What about artillery?" Conman asked.
Mellas felt a sudden sinking in his stomach. He'd forgotten all about it. "I'll see Daniels on the way down," he said, saving face.
Conman gave him a thumbs-up and started crawling to the nearest person to set up the perimeter.
Mellas passed Skosh. "Stick with Conman. I'll be with Daniels and on the arty frequency if the Six wants me." Mellas continued crawling down the line of intense questioning faces. He kept whispering, "Three gooks. Maybe more. Conman'll set you in," all the while motioning them forward. He met Mole and Young, Mole's assistant gunner, moving forward, both of them sweating heavily. Mole looked grim. Young gave a wan smile, dragging the heavy machine-gun ammunition beside him on the ground, trying very hard to move without making noise.
"You'll block for Rider," Mellas whispered to Mole. "See Conman." Mole nodded, continuing in a low crawl, the large gun cradled across his arms as he worked his way forward. Rider came crawling forward behind Mole and Young, his face glistening, his eyes slightly wild. The two frightened kids in his fire team crawled behind him. Yet no one questioned that they would do what they were told. "Three gooks," Mellas whispered. "We have to find out if that's all. Could be an OP. Tell Connolly that I said for you to take Gambaccini and his M-79 with you."
Rider licked his lips and looked quickly at his two friends. One nodded. The other was staring into the jungle as if the intensity of his gaze could reveal its secret. But the undergrowth revealed nothing. The secret could be revealed only by crawling into the jungle and meeting it there.
Rider nodded and pointed uphill, looking at his team. The three of them crawled toward the head of the column, disappearing almost immediately. Mellas continued down the line, sending kids forward to form the perimeter.
Daniels crawled up, his radio slipping awkwardly from side to side on his back.
"The angle is really the shits for Golf Battery," Daniels whispered. "The ridge is between them and the gooners. The one-oh-fives will have to shoot nearly straight up to come straight down on them in a high arc and they can't elevate their barrels that much. If they shoot a flat trajectory, they'll hit the ridge's front side or fly right over the target. I think you ought to use the company's sixties. The rounds are a tenth the weight, but they'll hit the target. I've got them up on the net now."
Mellas nodded his head, thankful for Daniels's foresight. "Good," he said.
Daniels started forward again, twisting the frequency knob at the same time to tell his battery to stand by, that he'd be using the mortars; then he switched frequencies again and started talking to the company mortar squad. Mellas and Daniels met Vancouver lying in front of them, his own machine gun cradled on a rotten limb. Skosh was crawling toward Mellas, holding out the handset. Mellas grabbed it, waiting for Daniels to finish with the mortars. He noticed that Rider's fire team and Gambaccini and his M-79 grenade launcher were already gone. "It's the skipper," Skosh whispered.
"I'll need a pos rep," Fitch said. "Over."
"We haven't moved squat since the last one," Mellas whispered. "Over."
"Bravo One, I want a pos rep. You copy?"
"Wait one." Mellas's hands were shaking as he dug out his map. The jungle made it impossible to see any landmarks. He tried to remember the terrain they'd walked over, estimate the distances. It was like navigating underwater. He stabbed a finger at the most likely spot, still feeling it was the same place he'd radioed in last time. He looked at Daniels, raising his eyebrows. Daniels moved his finger to a point on his own map with his own peculiar pencil marks and dogears, not trusting anyone else's. He looked at where Mellas was pointing on his own map. Thumbs-up. Mellas radioed in the position. If he was wrong, the shells could hit Rider's team, or them, instead of the enemy.
Fitch got off the hook and let Corporal Devon, the squad leader of the 60-millimeter mortars, come back up on the net.
Daniels started talking. "Bravo Whiskey, Bravo One One, fire mission. Over."
And Mellas had nothing to do.
He sat down while Daniels called in the mission. He noticed that there were ants on the ground where they had set in. He could barely see the backs of some of the kids as they lay beneath the foliage. A bird chirped. He didn't know if the whole thing wasn't just a foolish exercise.
The thunk of mortar shells leaving the tube jarred him. For all the hours they'd walked, he was surprised to hear the sounds of tubing so close to him. There was a sudden rush and a loud crash as the 60-millimeter shells came nearly straight down. The sounds were muffled and seemed far away. Mellas wondered if they'd read the map that badly.
"Right fifty. Drop one hundred," Daniels whispered, correcting by sound alone. The second salvo came down right on the ridge above them. The sounds were magnified tenfold, no longer masked by the earth. Daniels called for four salvos. Then he adjusted to the right and called in four more. Mellas was amazed: it was all mechanical, yet people were probably getting killed.
Pat was lying quietly next to Arran, who was sitting against a log. The dog was panting and so seemed to be grinning. His odd reddish ears were standing up.
The radio whispered. Skosh handed Mellas the handset. "I have to know the word on the basketball team." It was Fitch, using the radio code for a fire team. "Big John Six wants to know. Also Golf Six wants to know why he's standing by and not firing the mission. Over."
"Tell him character Delta thinks the angle is bad. We're masked by a ridge and the mortars have a better shot at it. And I can't walk out and ask the damned basketball team what the score is because I don't exactly know where they are. Which is another reason why we don't want the artillery right now. Over."
Fitch came back up laughing. "OK. Let me know ASAP. Six out."
An ant bit Mellas, who suppressed a yelp. He noticed Pat pressing his paws on the ground, holding his head back as if to push the ants away. Several of the kids were squirting insect repellent on their faces and legs. He looked at his wristwatch. Only five minutes had passed. More mortar shells crumped into the jungle; the explosions moved the ground beneath them yet seemed somehow far away. Mellas slapped at a fly and missed. It circled off and landed on Skosh, who did exactly the same thing. Two more minutes went by. Daniels told the mortars to hold off for a minute. One of the kids was cautiously moving his leg back and forth, probably trying to get the blood back into a foot that had fallen asleep. The fly landed on Mellas again. Then the jungle ripped apart.
It was as if someone had torn a sheet of solid sound. The M-16s, on full automatic, screamed, making Mellas wince and shut his eyes. Just a few meters in front of him he could hear the slower, more solid hammering of the heavier-caliber NVA AK-47s. Mellas, who had buried his face in the earth, now raised his eyes, trying to see through the jungle to where the sound originated. Quick bursts from the lighter, higher-velocity M-16s of Rider's fire team were going off; the bursts alternated as one rifleman would cover for another who was slamming in a new magazine. The blurred screams of the M-16s on full automatic answered the slower and heavier slapping of the AK-47s. The AK bullets cracked overhead, cutting branches in two. Leaves, bark, and splinters rained down on the men's helmets and backs. There was a short explosive pop followed almost immediately by the thud of a much louder explosion as Gambaccini got off a grenade round. Uphill from them, someone was shouting. There were crashing sounds in the jungle. The radio was screaming. "What the fuck's going on? You being hit? Over."
Mellas could scarcely talk because of the blood pounding in his throat. The air was crazy with the ear-hammering noise of automatic weapons. "That's a neg." Mellas was unaware that he was shouting. "It's the basketball team. Over."
"Where are they? Give me a pos rep. Over." Fitch's voice steadied Mellas, who had to cover one ear with his hand to hear what Fitch was saying. "About twenty-five meters bearing zero-four-five. Maybe less. I don't know. I can't see shit." Mellas's words were coming out in gasps.
"Get your arty cranked up. You want the sixties dropped in closer? Over."
"That's a neg." Mellas gasped for air. "Don't know where the team is." Panting. "Character Delta's going up on the arty net now. Over."
Mellas was bewildered by the suddenness of it all. It had been so methodical, so easy. Now he couldn't even tell where the fire was coming from. Should he go after Rider or wait for him? Questions rattled through his head, but no answers came. He decided to stay put.
An AK-47 bullet with just enough energy left to keep moving after it exited from a thick brush stem fluttered over Mellas's head with a high-pitched whine and lost itself in the dense jungle behind him.
Then there was silence. It was as if the last shattering burst had killed all sound. Everyone was breathing rapidly. Mole was digging his toes into the earth behind the machine gun, the stock pulled in tight to his shoulder, staring down the barrel as if trying to cut through the jungle with his eyes.
There were no sounds from the forest.
Mellas crawled up next to Connolly and whispered, "We've got to get in touch with Rider."
Connolly nodded. He cupped his hands and called out in a strangled half whisper, "Rider?" His voice carried through the silence like a shaft of light through a dark cave. No answer. An insect started to chirrup again. "Rider, get your ass back in here. Call my name when you get close so we'll know it's you." Connolly turned to Mellas. "He ain't hardly going to yell back, sir."
The radio hissed with static. Mellas knew what was coming. "This is Bravo Six. We need a sit rep. Big John is creaming his jeans. Over."
"Six, this is One Actual. No change yet. Over."
There was a long pause. Fitch knew as well as anyone that, at the moment, to go looking for Rider would be insane. He'd be shooting anything that moved. So would any number of NVA. The radio hissed again. "I copy. But you've got to get me a sit rep ASAP. Over."
"I copy. We're working on it. Over."
"Roger that. Bravo Six out."
Three long minutes went by. Then they heard a sound in the bushes. Rifles moved in unison, focusing on the single sound. Connolly's hand was up, holding the fire. A whisper cut through the bush. "Conman?"
Rifles relaxed.
"Here," Conman whispered back.
A brief commotion followed, then Rider came scrambling into the perimeter, crouched low, followed by his two team members and Gambaccini with the M-79 still smoking from the barrel. They threw themselves to the ground.
Rider crawled over to Mellas. He was breathing hard. His face was streaked with dirt and sweat. His utility shirt reeked. "Two gooks," he said. "Maybe more. We saw each other at the same time." His chest heaved, trying to pull in more air. "We both opened up. We hit the deck. Shot shit out of everything. I may have hit one. They dee-deed."
"Which way?"
Rider shook his head negatively. "Fuck if I know. Downhill."
"That'd be south," Mellas said, pulling out his map. He pulled the squad back while Daniels worked over the area south and east of them with artillery and mortar fire, controlling the 105-millimeters from his own radio and the 60-millimeters from Skosh's radio. After about fifteen minutes the squad moved into the worked-over area, everyone on the alert, Pat quivering with excitement but under perfect control by Arran.
Pat picked up a trail and started tracking. The squad followed Pat down into the valley. They worked through thicker and thicker growth, occasionally seeing a torn bush, a broken tree limb, or fresh dirt from the artillery. Other than these small signs and the smell of the explosive, the half-hour fire mission and fight had made no impression on the jungle at all. The Marines began to grow weary.
The radio cracked. "Bravo One, this is Bravo Six. Big John wants an after-action report. He can't wait any longer. He's got to see Bushwhacker Six. I've also got Golf Six on my back wanting to know how his artillery did. Over."
"Wait one," Mellas said. He sighed, holding the handset in front of his mouth, thinking. Mellas wanted to believe something had happened, something good that he could report. They'd shot up a quarter of an hour's worth of shells. Rider had done an incredible job checking out the alert. No one had been hurt. It was a good job. Mellas wanted to believe they'd done well. He wanted to, so he did.
"Bravo Six, this is Bravo One. Our character Romeo feels certain he got one right when he opened up. He only saw two gooks, but from the sound of things there had to be more than that. We got a probable for sure. Over."
There was a pause. "What about the artillery damage assessment? Over."
Mellas looked at Skosh. Skosh shook his head and spat, still leaning over. "I don't know. I'm just the fucking radioman."
Conman spoke up. "Give them a fucking probable and get the arty off the skipper's back. They'll never leave us alone if we don't, sir."
"I can't give them a goddamn probable," Mellas said. "What evidence have I got?"
"They don't need fucking evidence. They need an artillery damage assessment. Tell them there's all sorts of blood trails around here. They always like that."
Mellas looked at Daniels. Daniels held up both hands, palms out, and shrugged. He didn't give a shit.
Mellas keyed the radio. "Bravo Six, this is Bravo One Actual. We got one probable. That's all. Over." He wasn't going to lie so that an artillery officer could feel good.
So the one probable became a fact. Fitch radioed it in to battalion. Major Blakely, the battalion operations officer, claimed it for the battalion as a confirmed, because Rider said he'd seen the guy he shot go down. The commander of the artillery battery, however, claimed it for his unit. The records had to show two dead NVA. So they did. But at regiment it looked odd-two kills with no probables. So a probable got added. It was a conservative estimate. It only made sense that if you killed two, with the way the NVA pulled out bodies, you had to have some probables. It made the same sense to the commander of the artillery battalion: four confirmed, two probables, which is what the staff would report to Colonel Mulvaney, the commanding officer of Twenty-Fourth Marines, at the regimental briefing. By the time it reached Saigon, however, the two probables had been made confirms, but it didn't make sense to have six confirmed kills without probables. So four of those got added. Now it looked right. Ten dead NVA and no one hurt on our side. A pretty good day's work.