They did not know Jasper was British. Most GIs had never met a Brit, and he had got bored with being an object of curiosity. He had changed his accent, and to them he sounded Canadian, or something. Never again did he want to explain that he did not actually know the Beatles.

Their mission today was to “cleanse” a village.

They were in Quang Ngai Province, in the northern part of South Vietnam known to the army as I Corps Tactical Zone, or just “the northern region.” Like about half of South Vietnam, it was ruled not by the regime in Saigon but by the Vietcong guerillas, who organized village government and even collected taxes.

“The Vietnamese people just don’t understand the American way,” said the man walking alongside Jasper. He was Neville, a tall Texan with an ironic sense of humor. “When the Vietcong took over this region there was a lot of uncultivated land, owned by rich people in Saigon who couldn’t be bothered to farm it, so Charlie gave it to the peasants. Then, when we started to win territory back, the Saigon government returned the land to the original owners. Now the peasants are mad at us, can you believe that? They don’t get the concept of private property. That tells you how dumb they are.”

Corporal John Donellan, a black soldier known as Donny, overheard and said: “You’re just a fucking Communist, Neville.”

“I am not—I voted for Goldwater,” Neville said mildly. “He promised to keep uppity Negroes in their place.”

The others within earshot laughed: this kind of banter was enjoyed by soldiers. It helped them deal with their fear.

Jasper, too, liked Neville’s subversive sarcasm. But during their first rest stop this morning he had noticed Neville rolling a joint, and sprinkling into the marijuana some of the unrefined heroin they called brown sugar. If Neville was not a junkie, he soon would be.

Guerrilla fighters moved among the people as fish swam in the sea, according to the Chinese Communist leader Chairman Mao. General Westmoreland’s strategy for defeating the Vietcong fish was to take away their sea. Three hundred thousand peasants in Quang Ngai were being rounded up and moved to sixty-eight fortified concentration camps, to leave the landscape deserted but for the Vietcong.

Except that it was not working. As Neville said: “These people! They act as if we have no right to come to their country and order them to leave their homes and their fields and go live in a prison camp. What is wrong with them?” Many peasants evaded the roundup and stayed close to their land. Others went, then escaped from the crowded, unsanitary camps and came home. Either way, they were now legitimate targets in the eyes of the army. “If there are people who are out there—and not in the camps—they’re pink as far as we’re concerned,” General Westmoreland said. “They’re Communist sympathizers.” The lieutenant briefing the platoon had put it even more clearly. “There are no friendlies,” he had said. “Do you hear me? There are no friendlies. No one is supposed to be here. Shoot anything that moves.”