[…] this jail keeper took a piece of board with holes bored through it (what you call a paddle) and cobbed him and cobbed him, and, then they took salt and washed him.

This is an industrial product—it's much too strong for home use.

Natalie’s brown eyes looked into Jim’s blue eyes, and the girl and boy flirted.

This is a book about war at the grunt level, and another reviewer was good enough to remark that the story is “told straight.”