He pumped vigorously for a minute. The mother continued to plead, though Slope did not bother to translate. The father was silent, but Jasper saw tears streaming down his face. Jack grunted a couple of times, then stopped and withdrew. There was blood on the girl’s thighs, bright red on her ivory skin.
Smithy said: ‘Who’s next?’
‘I’ll do her,’ said Donny, unzipping.
Jasper left the temple.
This was not normal. Any pretext of getting the father to talk was now redundant: if he had known anything he would have revealed it before the rape began. Jasper had run out of excuses for the men of this platoon. They were out of control. General Westmoreland had created a monster and deliberately let it loose. They were beyond sanity. They were not even animals; they were worse than that; they were mad, evil fiends.
Neville followed him out. ‘Remember, Jasper,’ he said, ‘this is necessary to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people.’
Jasper knew that this was Neville’s way of bearing the unbearable, but all the same he could not stomach Neville’s humour at this moment. ‘Why don’t you shut the fuck up,’ he said, and walked away.
He was not the only one sickened by the scene in the temple. About half the platoon were out here, watching the village burn. A pall of black smoke lay over the village like a shroud. Jasper could hear the girl screaming in the temple, but after a while she stopped. Minutes later, he heard a shot, then another.
But what was he going to do about it? If he made a complaint, nothing would be done except that the army would find ways to punish him for stirring up trouble. But maybe, he thought, he should do it anyway. In any case, he vowed to go back to the States and spend the rest of his life exposing the liars and fools who made this kind of atrocity happen.
Then Donny came out of the temple and approached him. ‘Smithy wants you,’ he said.
Jasper followed the corporal back into the temple.
The girl lay splayed on the floor, a bullet hole in her forehead. Jasper also noticed a bleeding bite mark on her small breast.
The father was dead, too.
The mother was on her knees, begging, presumably, for mercy.
Smithy said: ‘You haven’t lost your cherry yet, Murray.’
He meant that Jasper had not yet committed a war crime.
Jasper knew what was coming.
Smithy said: ‘Shoot the old woman.’
‘Fuck you, Smithy,’ said Jasper. ‘Shoot her yourself.’
Mad Jack raised his rifle and pressed the end of the barrel into the side of Jasper’s neck.
Suddenly everyone was silent and still.
Smithy said: ‘Shoot the old woman, or Jack will shoot you.’
Jasper had no doubt that Smithy was willing to give the order, and that Jack would obey. And he understood why. They needed him to be complicit. Once he had killed the woman he would be as guilty as any of them, and that would prevent him making trouble.
He looked around. All eyes were on him. No one protested or even looked uneasy. This was a rite they had performed before, he could tell. No doubt they did it with every newcomer to the company. Jasper wondered how many men had refused the order, and died. They would have been recorded as killed by enemy fire. No downside.
Smithy said: ‘Don’t take too long making up your mind, we have work to do.’
They were going to kill the woman anyway, Jasper knew. He would not save her by refusing to do it himself. He would be sacrificing his own life for nothing.
Jack prodded him with the rifle.
Jasper raised his M16 and pointed it at the woman’s forehead. She had dark-brown eyes, he saw, and a little grey in her black hair. She did not move away from his gun, or even flinch, but continued pleading in words he could not comprehend.
Jasper touched the selector lever on the left side of the gun, moving it from ‘Safe’ to ‘Semi’, allowing it to fire a single round.
His hands were quite steady.
He pulled the trigger.