For more serious offences, those for which any number of press-ups were considered inadequate, there were an array of tasks about the base that no one wanted to do. The garbage run for instance, and mess duties, and guard duty and such like. All this was standard for any army base, but Surfer’s Paradise offered the commanders an added incentive that they weren’t afraid to use, denial of leave time. Just the mere thought of missing out on a weekend in Surfers, of the meandering bikini girls, the innumerable bars, the sea food, the beach and the waves, was a cruelty beyond the sadistic imagination even of a Sergeant Harding. The men, even Duffy, desperately strove to keep in line, to protect those two days in paradise.

 “Then get to hell under cover,” Warden yelled down as he looked up. “Here they come.”
    Lt Ross dived under the porch of the supply room as another single came blasting in from the southeast and the roaring umbrella of fire rose from the roofs to engulf it. It seemed impossible that he could fly through it and come out untouched. But he did.
    Right behind him, but flying due north along Waianae Avenue and the HQ Building, came another plane; and the umbrella swung that way without even letting go of its triggers.
    The plane’s gas tank exploded immediately into flames that engulfed the whole cockpit and the plane veered off down on the right wing, still going at top speed. As the belly and left-underwing came up into view, the blue circle with the white star on it showed plainly in the bright sunlight. Then it was gone, off down through some trees that sheered off the wings, and the fuselage, exploded into some unlucky married officers house quarters with everyone watching it.
    “That was one of ours!” Reedy Treadwell said in a small voice. “That was an American plane.”
“Tough,” Warden said, without stopping firing at the new double coming in from the northeast.” The son of a bitch dint have no business there.”
    From Here to Eternity, by James Jones, who these days seems to be classed as one of the great mediocrities and if so only by grave error. Published in 1952, it is the best and most finely detailed descriptions of the realities of military life ever written, even though he placed it in an exotic location and was talking about Americans. Pearl Harbour and prostitution and mindless military brutality are its themes, but really it chronicles America’s loss of innocence in telling its story of the doomed bugler Prewitt.
    The movie is mostly famous for the scene where Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr lie smooching on the beach while the waves surge about them and then retreat. Both were great actors and in that scene they needed to be, as anyone who has ever tried that particular bit of romantic nonsense in reality knows. The waves bring with them sand that intrudes and makes both bodies abraisive to touch, and even if your kiss is so perfect it provides a waterproof seal, the water goes up your nose and chokes you. Not to mention the fact that gushing cold water is hardly conducive to maintaining erections or producing lubricating fluids.
     The movie, although sanitised for a late 1950s audience, isn’t bad either but forget that—the book is tremendous in every way. It’s time some academic earned his PhD and set about the revival of James Jones.