Karl Marlantes - Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

Table of Contents

Copyright 2010 by Karl Marlantes

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press in association with El Len Literary Arts

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El Len Literary Arts is a private foundation established to extend the array of voices essential to a democracys arts and education.

Excerpt from Ian Tysons Four Rode By used by permission of the artist.

The characters, units, and events in the novel are fictional. The Twenty-fourth Marines is a reserve regiment that did not serve in Vietnam. Matterhorn,

Helicopter Hill, Sky Cap, and Eiger are fictional places and Mutters Ridge doesnt extend as far west. The novel, however, is set in Quang Tri province, Vietnam, among other actual places. Novels need villains and heroes, and the ones in this novel are invented. I served under two fine battalion commanders, one of whom was killed in action, and their S-3 was a crackerjack infantry staff officer.

I am proud to have served with officers and enlisted men who exemplified all the character, skill, and bravery that make one proud to be a Marine. These Marines fought fatigue and the failures of courage, judgment, and will that make me proud to be human.

Published simultaneously in Canada

Printed in the United States of America

FIRST EDITION

ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-1928-5

eISBN : 97-8-080-21971-6

Atlantic Monthly Press
an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

Distributed by Publishers Group West

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This novel is dedicated to my children,
who grew up with the good and
bad of having a Marine combat
veteran as a father.

Shame and honor clash where the courage of a steadfast man is motley like the magpie. But such a man may yet make merry, for Heaven and Hell have equal part in him.

Wolfram von Eschenbach Parzival

A glossary explaining slang, military jargon, and technical terms has been provided at the back of the book.

Chain of Command and Principal Characters(Radio call signs in italics)

Matterborn, Eiger, and Sky Cap are fictional places; the other locations are real.

CHAPTER ONE

Mellas stood beneath the gray monsoon clouds on the narrow strip of cleared ground between the edge of the jungle and the relative safety of the perimeter wire. He tried to focus on counting the other thirteen Marines of the patrol as they emerged single file from the jungle, but exhaustion made focusing difficult. He also tried, unsuccessfully, to shut out the smell of the shit, which sloshed in the water that half-filled the open latrine pits above him on the other side of the wire. Rain dropped from the lip of his helmet, fell past his eyes, and spattered onto the satiny olive cloth that held the armor plating of his cumbersome new flak jacket. The dark green T-shirt and boxer shorts that his mother had dyed for him just three weeks ago clung to his skin, heavy and clammy beneath his camouflage utility jacket and trousers. He knew there would be leeches clinging to his legs, arms, back, and chest beneath his wet clothes, even though he couldnt feel them now. It was the way with leeches, he mused. They were so small and thin before they started sucking your blood that you rarely felt them unless they fell on you from a tree, and you never felt them piercing your skin. There was some sort of natural anesthetic in their saliva. You would discover them later, swollen with blood, sticking out from your skin like little pregnant bellies.When the last Marine entered the maze of switchbacks and crude gates in the barbed wire, Mellas nodded to Fisher, the squad leader, one of three who reported to him. Eleven plus us three, he said. Fisher nodded back, put his thumb up in agreement, and entered the wire. Mellas followed him, trailed by his radio operator, Hamilton.The patrol emerged from the wire, and the young Marines climbed slowly up the slope of the new fire support base, FSB Matterhorn, bent over with fatigue, picking their way around shattered stumps and dead trees that gave no shelter. The verdant underbrush had been hacked down with K-bar knives to clear fields of fire for the defensive lines, and the jungle floor, once veined with rivulets of water, was now only sucking clay.The thin, wet straps of Mellass two cotton ammunition bandoleers dug into the back of his neck, each with the weight of twenty fully loaded M-16 magazines. These straps had rubbed him raw. All he wanted to do now was get back to his hooch and take them off, along with his soaking boots and socks. He also wanted to go unconscious. That, however, wasnt possible. He knew he would finally have to deal with the nagging problem that Bass, his platoon sergeant, had laid on him that morning and that he had avoided by using the excuse of leaving on patrol. A black kidhe couldnt remember the name; a machine gunner in Third Squadwas upset with the company gunnery sergeant, whose name he couldnt remember either. There were forty new names and faces in Mellass platoon alone, and almost 200 in the company, and black or white they all looked the same. It overwhelmed him. From the skipper right on down, they all wore the same filthy tattered camouflage, with no rank insignia, no way of distinguishing them. All of them were too thin, too young, and too exhausted. They all talked the same, too, saying fuck, or some adjective, noun, or adverb with fuck in it, every four words. Most of the intervening three words of their conversations dealt with unhappiness about food, mail, time in the bush, and girls they had left behind in high school. Mellas swore hed succumb to none of it.This black kid wanted out of the bush to have his recurrent headaches examined, and some of the brothers were stirring things up in support. The gunnery sergeant thought the kid was malingering and should have his butt kicked. Then another black kid refused to have his hair cut and people were up in arms aboutNext page