As it turned out, life in Holdsworthy prison was little different to Canungra in most ways, and in some ways an improvement. All of the customary bastardisation was in place, albeit meted out by MP Corporals all of whom, I had to admit, had a long way to go to reach Sergeant Harding’s heights of mental brutality. It was all rather more the childish shrieks familiar from recruit training days. And there were the usual punishments, running everywhere, press-ups, running with a bucket of sand in each hand, running up hills with rocks in your pack. But they lacked Canungra’s primary weapon--the deprivation of leave since there was no leave, although I had rather tired by then of leering at near-naked girls that you weren’t allowed to touch.

Roberts, with his mouth wide open, clawed his way up the hill. Sand clung to his face and chin where he had slipped and fallen. Reaching the top he staggered as the sun hit him like a physical blow. On the downward slope, he had trouble keeping upright. He was afraid that if he fell over he would never get up again. He reached the foot of the hill, straightened up, and doggedly trotted towards Williams. “About turn.” Roberts slowly trotted back to the hill and, gazing up it, was convinced he would never reach the top this time.
    He moved unsteadily toward the crown, and then half slid down it, determined to catch up with the other prisoners and follow them to the pool. But when he was faced with Williams, again he obeyed the order “About turn.” Puzzled, he went up and over the hill again, moving like a zombie. Even his ability to think clearly had deserted him but he stubbornly clung to one thought: the pool—after this trip—the pool. But again and again, when confronted with Williams, he turned back to the hill and went up it and over it…
    The Hill by Ray Rigby, and its compelling film version gives a pretty good idea of what being in a military prison is like. The movie was so fierce that in one scene in which Sean Connery—seizing his first opportunity to escape James Bond—and Ian Hendry were staging a fist fight, the characters were so affected by their savage roles that when the director called cut!, the two actors kept right on slugging it out in a blind fury and, when finally separated and calmed down, both needed medical treatment. In fact it was set in the desert campaign and featured the mindless brutality of a British military prison but it turned out that there was nothing in it that didn’t happen in normal Australian army training.
    And JTC at Canungra was far worse. The Hill provided me with my central fear, that of military life, a fear that was to be justified many times over. As we constantly assured each other, the war will be a piece of piss after this. And we were right. It might be the best way to train the most ferocious fighting men in the western world, but it is also a sure way to break human beings as well.