At Canungra, the standard punishment for any minor misdemeanour was twenty press-ups, rising to one hundred for more serious offences.
    “Down you go, you horrible little man. Count ‘em out!”
    “...four, five, six...”
    For your average slow-witted, slightly naughty, bewildered, prone to fucking up lad like me, it was not uncommon to be down on your toes and hands half a dozen times a day.
    “Keep your bum straight, shit-for-brains. Faster than that. Chin to the ground each time. Get fucking on with it!”
    “...eleven, twelve, thirteen...”
    Chaps like Johnny Duffy seemed to be down making like they were having sex with an imaginary woman more times than they were on their feet.
    “Don’t flop like a landed barramundi. It just makes it harder, you dickhead!”
    “...seventeen, eighteen, nineteen...”

“That we blow up an obscene bridge and then have to obscenely well obscenity off out of these mountains.”...
...”Go to the unprintable,” Agustin said. “And unprint thyself. But you want me to tell you something of service to you?”
 “Yes,” said Robert Jordan. “If it is not unprintable,” naming the principle obscenity that larded the conversation. The man, Agustin, spoke so obscenely, coupling an obscenity to every noun as an adjective, using the same obscenity as a verb, that Robert Jordan wondered if he could speak a straight sentence....
...”And thou,” said Pablo bitterly. “With your head of a seed bull and your heart of a whore. Thou thinkest there will be an afterwards from this bridge? Thou hast an idea of that which will pass?”
 “That which must pass,” the woman of Pablo said. “That which must pass, will pass.”...
...”Am I a leader of nothing?” Pablo asked. “I know what I speak of. You others do not know. This old man talks nonsense. He is an old man who is nothing but a messenger and a guide for foreigners. This foreigner comes here to do a thing for the good of foreigners. For his good we must be sacrificed. I am for the good and the safety of all.”
    Ernest Hemingway, grappling with the problem of obscenity in his finest book For Whom the Bell Tolls. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. The Spanish, of course, are legendary for their foul language, but really even they are no match for soldiers everywhere.
    The book is superb, as an American gets tangled up in the warring tribes of partisans as he tries to organise them to blow up a bridge. Gary Cooper did the character to perfection in the film, with Ingrid Bergman unbelievable but still good as the girl who helps him and loves him and, of course, loses him. But Arkim Tamaroff was outstanding as the wavering leader of the guerrillas, a wild man who moves dramatically with his moods. As did all Spain. Few books have captured men in action with such literary flair.