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Whenever the tide complied, Jack and Snail would leave their wall and stomp their way in the deep shingle to the sea's edge where they found the relief of firmer footing on the wet, compacted sand. Jack often thought of the marines’ yomping on the Falklands; just muck and bullets. There was a statue of a yomping marine by the old barracks nearby, and Jack was moved by it, saw this as another irony. People believed Jack was not a great fan of the military, which was unmerited, as it was only the martinet, up their own arses, wanker types, as Mary Poppins would say, who got up his fireman’s hose, as Jack would say. So you see he was, if nothing else, balanced in his views.
When the tide was midway or out completely, Snail and Jack would yomp to the end of the eastern extremity of the
