An original way to describe a covey of great-coated soldiers packed on a boat. 

The passageways was crowded with the soldiers we had taken on, looking as close-packed and furry in their greatcoats as a grove of nettles by a churchyard wall. 

Source: Louis Golding, Good-bye to Ithaca (London: Hutchinson, 1955), pp. 44-45

Photo credit: klimkin in pixabay