The Four Stragglers

The crash of guns. A flare across the heavens. Battle. Dismay. Death. A night of chaos.
And four men in a thicket.
One of them spoke:
A bloody Hun prison, that's us! My Gawd! Where are we?
Another answered caustically:
Monsieur, we are lost—and very tired.
A third man laughed. The laugh was short.
A Frenchman! Where in hell did you come from?
Where you and the rest of us came from. The Frenchman's voice was polished; his English faultless. We come from the tickling of the German bayonets.
The first man elaborated the statement gratuitously:
I don't know about you 'uns; but our crowd was done in good and proper two days ago. Gawd! ain't there no end to 'em? Millions! And us running! What I says is let 'em have the blinking channel ports, and lets us clear out. I wasn't noways in favour of mussing up in this when the bleeding parliament says up and at 'em in the beginning, leastways nothing except the navy.