With the others he followed the noise to the middle of the village. There they found a ceremonial pond with lotus flowers in front of a small dinh, the building that was the center of village life: temple, meeting hall, and schoolroom.

Inside, sitting cross-legged on a floor of beaten earth, they found a shaven-headed Buddhist monk drumming on a wooden fish about eighteen inches long. He saw them enter but did not stop.

The company had one soldier who spoke a little Vietnamese. He was a white American from Iowa, but they called him Slope. Now Smith said: “Slope, ask the slant where the tunnels are.”

Slope shouted at the monk in Vietnamese. The man ignored him and continued drumming.

Smithy nodded to Mad Jack, who stepped forward and kicked the monk in the face with a heavyweight U.S. Army M-1966 jungle combat boot. The man fell backward, blood coming from his mouth and nose, and his drum and stick flew in opposite directions. Creepily, he made no sound.

Jasper swallowed. He had seen Vietcong guerrillas tortured for information: it was commonplace. Though he did not like it, he thought it was reasonable; they were men who wanted to kill him. Any man in his early twenties captured in this zone was probably one of the guerrillas or someone who actively supported them, and Jasper was reconciled to such men being tortured even when there was no proof they had ever fought against the Americans. This monk might have looked like a noncombatant, but Jasper had seen a ten-year-old girl throw a grenade into a parked helicopter.

Smithy picked up the monk and held him upright, facing the soldiers. His eyes were closed but he was breathing. Slope asked him the question again.

The monk made no response.

Mad Jack picked up the wooden fish, held it by its tail, and started to beat the monk with it. He hit the man on the head, shoulders, chest, groin, and knees, pausing every now and again for Slope to ask the question.

Jasper was really uncomfortable now. Just by watching this he was committing a war crime, but it was not so much the illegality that bothered him: he knew that when U.S. Army investigators looked into allegations of atrocities they always found insufficient evidence. He just did not see that this monk deserved it. Jasper was sickened, and turned away.

He did not blame the men. In every place, in every time, in every country there were men who would do this kind of thing, given the right circumstances. Jasper blamed the officers who knew what was happening and did nothing, the generals who lied to the press and the people back in Washington, and most of all the politicians who did not have the courage to stand up and say: “This is wrong.”

A moment later Slope said: “Give it up, Jack, the fucker’s dead.”

Smithy said: “Shit.” He let go of the monk, who fell lifeless to the ground. “We have to find the fucking tunnels.”