When I was in the school cadets we had a week camping trip to the Breckon beacons in Wales.
when we arrived at the campsite it turned out to be a field on the side of a hill - with quite a decent slope. Our tents were heavy canvas ex army affairs for two people about 6’ x 3’ (called a bivouack if I remember correctly). The first discussion was about which way the tents should be pitched - up/down the hill or along the contour? The problem with the latter was that the ‘uphill guy’ would roll into the ‘downhill guy’ overnight which was considered to be too close for comfort.
most, including myself, went for the up/down pitch and sleeping head to toe.
the first thing you need to know is that bivouacks don’t have a built in ground sheet, just a small tarpaulin, plus we had sleeping bags (also ex army and made of a material a bit like felt, certainly not that warm and not waterproof)
anyway, after a day of setting camp, a 5 mile hike and having something to eat, campfires are smothered and off we went to our respective tents for the night.
my tent buddy and I flipped a coin as to who would have the ‘head uphill’ position- I won.
so back to no built in groundsheet and the ex army sleeping bags. As you sleep you do wriggle around a bit. I was OK, my weight kept the bag in place though maybe slipped down the hill a few inches. But my tent buddy was not so fortunate- his wriggling meant not only did he gradually slide out of the sleeping bag, but also slide out of the tent.
you may think the punchline is that it rained and he got soaked, that would have been funny enough but it was worse than that….
so the second thing you need to know is that the farmer only cleared the field of cattle on the morning of our arrival. There were fresh cowpats everywhere and the pitching of tents took these into account so tents and the entrances avoided them.
But no one thought about the other end of the tent.
so my tent buddy managed to wriggle out of the tent and his head into a nice fresh cowpat. He managed to cover himself pretty extensively. No showers, very basic washing facilities and a new nickname he had to live with.
it was so bad our leader managed to persuade the farmer to allow the use of his bathroom so he could clean up
Still makes me smile to this day