I can’t help but stare in wonder as I watch the army around us make camp for the night. It seemed like we’d been on the move for a week. The entire time, a continual stream of scouts had been coming in and out of the camp, reporting what they encountered to the senior commanders. Baggage trains, supported by little armies of their own, seem to emerge from the land ahead of us, bending towards us as we move. I watch them, and they seem to me like some procession of ants; except instead of taking home some bit of milk or honey, they are bringing supplies to us – the army.
There are tens of thousands of men here, a human mass that seems almost impossible to sustain in one place. But they are being sustained. They’ve gone to war, they’ve engaged in battle, and they don’t seem slowed or weakened by the experience. The camp doesn’t smell of sweat or fear or exhaustion. Instead, wafts of wine and meat barbecued in smoke of native trees seems to drift over us.
This army is a wealthy army, and a fortunate one.
But not all who are here are so fortunate.
The men with me, we are not so fortunate.
We smell like fear.
We are about to die.
And I, Lot, should have seen it coming.
