the two men squelched on through the marsh together, dodging tent ropes and wooden stakes, and trying to close their noses to the smell of countless thousands of men, all too long in the field, inured to living among piss and shit and vegetable skins and the bones of the animals they devoured. All caught between their hope of an end and acceptance of their fate, which was simply to wait and try not to die until the ships came to take them home.
