"Commissioned officer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hard to see how discipline can be maintained. I almost wish now that I wasn't a temporary non-commissioned officer. As a private one simply has the time of one's life, telling corporals all day long to go and boil their heads. I wish I ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various
... Supervisor who panted wearily back toward his scattered fellows, and it was the Filipino with a kris to whose muscles hope of victory lent fresh energy. Fortunately, this young constabulary lieutenant, who had been a non-commissioned officer of volunteers, saw what was going on, and picked off the Filipino with a long range shot from his rifle. The kris was secured, and its beautiful blade and tortoise-shell scabbard, inlaid with silver, went as a present to Mrs. Wright when she ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... he slipped around the tree to the opposite side. The sentry had resumed his pacing, and was now out of sight momentarily among the trees further on. He could not see the American, but there were others who could. They came in the shape of a non-commissioned officer and a detachment of the guard to relieve the sentry. Barney almost bumped into them as he rounded the tree. There was no escape—the non-commissioned officer was within two feet of him when Barney discovered ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... boy, that your case is very different from mine. You have only just reached the end of your second term of service, and are still a youth. Whereas, I am a commissioned officer of the Fur Trade, with a fairish income, besides being an elderly man, and not very keen to throw all up and begin life ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... commands the Colonel, vicariously through his non-commissioned officer. "Ride up the creek, and find if there is a pass leading out above. Take all the men with you; only leave Galvez to keep guard over ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... provinces were governed by men who had been consuls (consulares), and as legatus meant any commissioned officer, these were distinguished as legati consulares. With reference to this consular authority, the same were called proconsules. Cf. note, H. 1, 49. Trebellius Maximus and Vettius Bolanus are here intended. Cf. 16. and His. 1, 60. ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... number on duty at the post. From the doctor the sick received professional aid. In 1826 when the force at Fort Snelling amounted to three hundred and twenty-nine men there were in the hospital one subaltern, one non-commissioned officer, one musician, and fifteen privates. That Fort Snelling was at a healthful location is indicated by the fact that during the same period at Fort Atkinson, with a force of only one hundred more, there was a total of one ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... resist him, shot him through the head; the horseman fell, the marquis jumped up in his place without even setting foot in the stirrup, started off at a gallop, and went away like the wind, leaving fifty yards behind him the non-commissioned officer, dumbfounded with what had ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was sent by the non-commissioned officer who was present. He described how the Boers approached the fort waving a white flag, how a corporal went out to them, and was told that they wished to speak with an officer, how Captain Miers rode out ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and lancer cap, red faced. The glow of sunrise stained the green of the moon with crimson. A trumpet blared. From the rear of the Residence marched with stiff-legged precision a squad of askaris and the stocky figure of a non-commissioned officer in a white helmet. Simultaneously appeared on the verandah of the large bungalow the tall form of a white man in pink silk pyjamas. The sergeant barked. The squad presented arms. A coloured ball slid up the flagpole. The first rays of the sun splintered the bloodied waters beyond into silver ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... much changed, and had acquired all the composed and self-reliant look which is so remarkable in a good non-commissioned officer. Readiness to obey and command was stamped on every line of his face; but it required all his powers of self-restraint to keep within bounds his delight at getting home again. His wound was quite healed, and his ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... to their hateful task. In the house of the doctor, who is B.'s uncle, they gave his wife the choice between two maids. She preferred the elder and they said, "Well, then she is the one we are going to take." Mlle. L., the young one who has just got over typhoid and bronchitis, saw the non-commissioned officer who took away her nurse coming up to her. "What a sad task they are making us do." "More than sad, sir, it could be called barbarous." "That is a hard word, are you not afraid that I will sell you?" As a matter of fact the wretch denounced her. They allowed her seven minutes and took her away bare-headed, ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... Cebu, where a cable put in eleven months before needed repairing. After a two hours' run we anchored off our destination, which proved to be a most deserted little hole, rich in vegetation only. There were but a few men, commanded by a non-commissioned officer at Liloan, and as our stay there was to be very brief, only the Signal Corps detachment went ashore. By one o'clock the defective splice in the trench had been cut out, a new one made, and the office overhauled, after which, as the tests showed the cable working satisfactorily ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... into it that it became necessary to dislodge it, a service which was performed in a very daring manner by a few of the 92nd, under Lieutenant Grant and Colour-Sergeant Hector Macdonald, the same non-commissioned officer who had a few days before so distinguished himself ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... "Why, a non-commissioned officer," answered the soldier, staring at Bob as if he were surprised at his ignorance. "You never did any soldiering, ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... to me, 'I loved him like a brother'; and this condition of regard is mutual, for it is no uncommon thing (on the occasion of the departure of the 'leave' train) to see an officer, frequently of senior rank, on spotting in the crowd a non-commissioned officer, or private, from his regiment, go up to him and with a hearty grip of the hand, say, 'Well, my lad, hope you have had a good time!' Such a state of things would, of course, be impossible in the German army, but we Englishmen have proved that the most ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... A Sikh non-commissioned officer has, according to The Central News, delivered himself of the following saying:—"Power is to kings, but time belongs to the gods. The Indians know how to wait." This will no doubt call forth an indignant rejoinder ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... too busy to talk further with the four chums; indeed it would not be conducive to discipline for the commissioned officer to give the apprentice seamen too much of ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... it with care, from the adorably finished prologue—it is the disgrace of our Navy that we cannot produce a commissioned officer capable of writing one page of lyric prose—to the eloquent, the joyful, the impassioned end; and my first notion was that I had been cheated. In this sort of book-collecting you will see how entirely the bibliophile lies at the ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... in the Philippines once related to me, quite of his own accord, what had led him to the choice of his profession. One day, when he was a non-commissioned officer in the army, he was playing cards with some comrades in a shady balcony. "See," cried one of his friends, observing a peasant occupied in tilling the fields in the full heat of the sun, "how the donkey yonder is toiling and perspiring ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... ability and superiority, etc. He shows the tragic depths, so somber below, so luminous above, which appear in the heart of the combatant torn between fear and duty. In the private soldier the sense of duty may spring from blind obedience; in the non-commissioned officer, responsible for his detachment, from devotion to his trade; in the commanding officer, from supreme responsibility! It is in battle that a military organization justifies its existence. Money spent by the billions, men trained by the millions, are ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... for defense of Captain Semmes' position; but it may be well to record how blind is the hate which still attempts to brand as "Pirate" a regularly-commissioned officer in service, whose long career gained him nothing but respect under the northern—nothing but glory under the southern flag. If Raphael Semmes be a "pirate," then was the northern recognition of belligerents but an active lie! ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... whole has an extra one, so that, if an army consists of eight corps, it possesses fifty-four aeroplanes. I am speaking now of the particular type of aeroplane employed for regulating artillery fire. It was a young non-commissioned officer with a marked Southern accent who explained to us the secret nature of things. He was wearing both the Military Medal and the Legion of Honour, for he had done wondrous feats in the way of shooting the occupants of Taubes in mid-air. He got out one ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... of the soldiers who had been a spectator saw the opportunity for which he had long been searching. He hurried to the non-commissioned officer in charge of the guard to report, exaggeratedly, that two Russian prisoners had been fighting. The non-commissioned officer, one of the most brutal and despicable Prussians in the camp, seized his rifle and hurried to the Russian barrack. Here the ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... instructions to the non-commissioned officer in charge of the Mounted Police in his absence, that every assistance in his power was to be afforded to me for continuing my journey, I was enabled to leave Battleford for Fort McLeod with Major Irvine, on the 25th August. Besides us two, the party consisted of four police ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... the river. The "Thorn" steamed ahead of us, and disappeared. Shortly after we got under way, the Colonel who was put in command of the boat—himself a released prisoner—came around on a tour of inspection. He found about one thousand of us aboard, and singling me out made me the non-commissioned officer in command. I was put in charge, of issuing the rations and of a barrel of milk punch which the Sanitary Commission had sent down to be dealt out on the voyage to such as needed it. I went to work and ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... which you will remember, are going to try to run this train off the track, wound and kill the passengers, and rob the cars and the United States mail. It is our business to prevent them. Sergeant Wilson" (a gray-bearded non-commissioned officer stood up and saluted), "I am going on the engine. See that my orders are repeated. Now, men, aim low, and don't waste any shots." He and Sinclair climbed over the tender ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... farm burning close by formed a convenient means of getting rid of the bodies. They were thrown into the flames from the bayonets. It is right to add that no commissioned officer was ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... PROUANE, a retired non-commissioned officer in the navy, who acted as beadle to Abbe Harteur, as well as fulfilling the duties of Mayor's clerk. He eked out a livelihood by gathering shell-fish, but when he had any money he was usually in a state of ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... of the directions from His Imperial Majesty, communicated through Your Excellency, to equip the Pedro Primiero, Carolina, and Maria de Gloria, with all possible despatch, and to hold them in readiness to proceed on service, I ordered a commissioned officer to visit the different rendezvous which the seamen frequent, and endeavour to prevail on them to re-enter —assuring them that the continuance of their services was the best means whereby to obtain their rewards for captures made during the late campaign. ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... evening a commissioned officer of the police, who had made the journey from headquarters at Regina and spent an hour or two examining the scene of the supposititious tragedy, sat with Curtis in a very hot private room of the hotel at Sebastian. Its raw ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... one of which is the provision of regimental officers. I hope the problem of supplying officers may be solved by the large numbers coming forward to fill vacancies, and by promotions from the non-commissioned officer ranks of the regular forces. In a country which prides itself on its skill in and love of outdoor sports, we ought to be able to find sufficient young men who will train and qualify as officers under the guidance of the nucleus of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... neighbouring forts. The Goorkahs, upholding their well-known character, fought desperately against an overwhelming force; they would have suffered severely but for the able conduct of their leader, who was an European non-commissioned officer and quarter-master sergeant of the corps; his manoeuvring would have done credit ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... a species apart and labeled it with his name. If he frowned, the troopers knew somebody had tried to flatter him; if he smiled, the regiment grinned; and when his face lacked all expression, though his eyes were more than usually quick, officer, non-commissioned officer and man alike would sit tight in the saddle, so to speak, and gather up ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... in the ranks conducted parade services also. The commanding officer would send for some godly non-commissioned officer or private, and make him for the time being the 'padre' for the ship. Nor were these devoted Christians unduly exalted by the position in which they found themselves. It was no slight acknowledgment of worth that, all untrained, they found themselves for the time being Acting-Chaplains to Her Majesty's ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... On a second attempt he succeeded in landing. With about a hundred men Colonel Van Rensselaer led them up the bank, and halted to await the arrival of the remainder. It was now daylight, and the little command was in full view of the enemy, who opened a deadly fire. Every commissioned officer was either killed or wounded. Finding that the river bank afforded but little protection, Colonel Van Rensselaer determined to storm the Queenstown heights. He had now received four wounds, and was compelled to relinquish the command to Captains Peter Ogilvie, Jr., and John Ellis Wool. ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... Sikhs were completely lulled. To an alert and resourceful soldier like Rasul Khan, a man whom nothing in warlike strategy escaped, it occurred amongst other things that only a single sentry with his reliefs, under a non-commissioned officer, guarded the main entrance. As night fell, with engaging candour he pointed out the weakness of this arrangement to the Commandant, and, to avoid imposing additional guard duties on the Sikh garrison, offered, now that his men were ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... "November 10, 188-.—I, non-commissioned officer of the Z. section of the N. police department of railways, Ilya Tchered, in accordance with article II of the statute of May 19, 1871, have drawn up this protocol at the station of X. as herewith ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Major yielded: "All right!" said he; and immediately the Baron sent for Pflicht. Pflicht was an old non-commissioned officer, who had never been seen smiling, but who carried out with fanatical punctuality the orders of his superiors, no matter what ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... pleasure to have you along with me," hastily replied the non-commissioned officer of the battery, "and as the harness is now repaired, make yourselves at home here, if you can find a lodgment where your feet will be out of the ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... about to ask their direction from a non-commissioned officer who was directing a squad of men in the unloading of a truck which seemed filled with canned goods, when ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... crank case and drew out a shrapnel ball. I thought that would settle it, but the Frenchmen were not convinced. The shells were bursting fifty metres too low, they said. Fifteen bombs had fallen about the arsenal, and one man, a non-commissioned officer, ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... have hesitated, but now a decision was not so easily made. Of his command scarcely thirty men remained at Devere, a mere infantry guard, together with a small squad of cavalrymen, retained for courier service. His only remaining commissioned officer at the post was the partially disabled cavalry captain, acting temporarily as adjutant, because incapacitated for taking the field. He had waited until the last possible moment, trusting that a shift in conditions might bring back some available ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Quartermaster's Batman dumped the rations on it. The Corporal was smoking a fag. I carried the rations back to the billet. The Corporal was still smoking a fag. How I envied him. But when the issue commenced my envy died, and I realized that the first requisite of a non-commissioned officer on active service is diplomacy. There were nineteen men in our section, and they soon formed a semi-circle around us after the Corporal had called out, ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... to the king. That is all that I require of you. He has not yet been informed of my son's unfortunate attempt. I must be the first to bring him this intelligence. I will confess that it was I who assisted my son in this attempt, who bribed the non-commissioned officer, Nicolai, with flattery and tears, with gold and promises; that it was I who placed the horses and loaded pistols in readiness beyond the outer palisade; that I sent my son the thousand ducats which were found on his person; ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... world, let us analyze "The Delirium." Captain Markov has been ordered by the government to suppress the revolution in certain provinces. Disgusted with the duty of daily executioner, the officer frets himself into a high fever. A non-commissioned officer enters to ask him to decide the fate of three men who have been arrested the previous night, one of whom is an old man with a peaceful and strangely beautiful face. The sergeant knows that they ought to be ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... A bearded non-commissioned officer entered a description of me in a pocket memorandum book. If his face, as he wrote it, was anything to judge by he described me as a leper without a license. Then I was cautioned gruffly in an unknown tongue and told to "imshi!" It isn't a bad plan to "imshi" rather quickly ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... the revolution Girty was a commissioned officer of militia at Ft. Pitt. He deserted from the Fort, taking with him the Tories McKee and Elliott, and twelve soldiers, and these traitors spread as much terror among the Delaware Indians as they did among the whites. The Delawares had been ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... forget it, and I wish I were an artist that I could show you the sloping valley, the white tents, flushing like a girl's cheek to the good-night kisses of the sun, the curling smoke wreaths, and far, far above the amethystine heaven, from which floated over all a dim purple tint. I was the youngest commissioned officer in the regiment, having been promoted to a vacancy a week or two before ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... this unfortunate culmination of our Christmas festivities was not only the breach of discipline, but the present status of this sergeant. He was an exceptionally good non-commissioned officer, with a splendid record in both battles and in all service, yet he had now committed an offence the punishment for which, in time of war, was death,—viz., striking his superior commissioned officer. The next day Colonel Albright reported the affair ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... "Rosa says," went on for a long while. The former non-commissioned officer and lackey of the vaudeville star, Bulke, came towing Rosa across the deck in the same way as he did his master. Both looked red and contented. Frederick asked what the ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... admirably agree with my mental state, so that I might begin a new life. They will see me under fire. [Footnote: On me verra au feu.] I shall make myself liked; I shall be respected for my real self,—the cross—non-commissioned officer; they will relieve me of my fine; and I shall get up again, et vous savez avec ce prestige du malheur! But, quel desenchantement! You can't imagine how I have been deceived! You know what sort of men the officers ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... exercise," retorted the captain sternly. "Now, don't let me catch you at it again. Here's an old lazy hound behind you who knows very well that it is his duty, and I shall take that stripe off your arm if I catch you at this job again." Of course, as a non-commissioned officer, I took the warning to heart, and kept to my own duties for the future—the warning having taken effect with the old soldiers as ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... would ooze out, trickle scalding hot between the fingers, and compel the helpless man to drop the pie. One unfortunate fellow lost four pies in succession. As they cost fifteen cents apiece, the pocket was too much interested to let the matter escape notice. A non-commissioned officer, who had lost a pie, savagely returned to the stand, and demanded another pie or his money. The baker was much too shrewd for that. The precedent, if set, would well nigh exhaust his stock of pies, and ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... near the blockhouse. Three mountain guns pointed viciously at the river from the most exposed position in Tabatinga at the top of the staircase. According to the account of a non-commissioned officer, there was a force there of 240 soldiers "escondido no matto"—that is to say, kept ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... from his followers, Uraga has summoned to his side the youngest commissioned officer of the ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... names. When they told him—"Dr. Schrotter, M. D. one of the members for Berlin and Professor Emeritus," and "Dr. Eynhardt, Doctor of Philosophy, householder," he offered them chairs. The informer introduced himself as "non-commissioned officer Patke, retired, member of a military association, and candidate ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... major, who was cut off and unable to retreat with the main army. When the firing ceased, he came over the breastwork. A little Tennesseean, who looked as if he had spent his days in the fever-infested swamps, demanded his sword; but the officer was looking about for some commissioned officer to give it to, when Colonel Smiley, whose democratic principles were at enmity with punctilio, ordered him to hand over the sword to "Paleface," as the youth was called. A great many who were unable to escape in the retreat, came over and surrendered. Among them, ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... second son of Thomas and Keziah (Howard) Ames, was born in Bridgewater in 1738: married in 1759 Susannah Howard, daughter of Ephraim Howard. He was a commissioned officer during the war of the Revolution. A blacksmith by trade he also rendered the patriot cause service by the manufacture of guns. His account book, still in existence, also proves that he was engaged in the manufacture of ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... nobles or in the ordinary bourgeois class, mostly among the people or even amongst the populace, and, in its lowest ranks, Massena, the son of a wine-dealer, once a cabin-boy and then common soldier and non-commissioned officer for fourteen years; Ney, son of a cooper, Lefebvre, son of a miller, Murat, son of a tavern-keeper, Lannes, son of an hostler, and Augereau, son of a mason and a female dealer in fruit and vegetables.—Under the Republic, noble birth consigned, or confined, the ablest and best qualified ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... questions about the war with Spain and my service in the Dixie. She never moved a muscle when it came out I had been a quartermaster, though I could feel she was astounded at my being but a shade above a common seaman, and not, as she had taken it for granted, a commissioned officer. I was too proud to explain over-much, or to tell her I had gone in, as so many of my friends had done, from a strong sense of duty and patriotism at the time of my country's need, and consequently allowed her to get a very wrong idea, I suppose, about my state ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... square miles, or 2,142,720 acres. Its western border lies in Idaho, and along its northern border a narrow strip lies in Montana. It is under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior, and it is guarded by a detachment of cavalry from the United States Army. The Superintendent is now a commissioned officer of the United States Army. The business of protecting the game is performed partly by four scouts, who are civilians specially engaged for that purpose, but the number has always been totally inadequate to ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... King's boats at landing, not even in those of the transports; an extraordinary mark of civility and confidence, and of which every officer in our fleet was perfectly sensible. But when the masters of the transports went on shore, a non-commissioned officer from the guard attended them wherever they went, and their sailors were attended by a ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... toilet articles and some strands of fair hair.... I remember a corner where a wounded man suffering from meningitis, called out unceasingly: 27, 28, 29... 27, 28, 29... a prey to a strange obsession of numbers. I see a kitchen where a soldier was plucking a white fowl... I see an Algerian non-commissioned officer pacing ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... several soldiers were stretched at full length on a bench, slumbering: a snoring non-commissioned officer was lying on three straw bottomed ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... the Government to provide suitable white commissioned officers. The prospect was pleasing to many young white men in the ranks; and ambition went far to irradicate prejudice against Negro soldiers. Nearly every white private and non-commissioned officer was expecting the lightning to strike him; every one expected to be promoted to be a commissioned officer, and, therefore, had no prejudice against the men they hoped to command as their superior officers. To prepare the large ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... that, the latter principle adopted, there will be no picking and choosing. The private soldier has his conscience as well as the commissioned officer. In cases of industrial dispute Tommy Atkins would find in speeches made to-day by noble Lords and hon. Members justification for refusal to shoot down members of his own class with whose position he had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... turned into another side street, and saw a lighted doorway. Two soldiers were standing in the veiled radiance. She could just read the lower half of the painted notice: "All service men welcome. Beds. Meals. Writing and reading rooms. Always open." She passed on. One of the soldiers, a non-commissioned officer of mature years, solemnly winked at her, without moving an unnecessary muscle. She ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... met off Flamborough Head and, after a desperate fight, captured two British armed ships: the Serapis, a 40-gun vessel newly commissioned, and the Countess of Scarborough, carrying 20 guns, both of which were convoying a fleet. The fame of his exploit rang through Europe. Jones was a regularly commissioned officer in the navy of the United States, but neutral powers, such as Holland, had not yet recognized the republic and to them there was no American navy. The British regarded him as a traitor and pirate and might possibly have hanged him had ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... under the peculiar circumstances, I reckon I must admit that I did assume an attitude on your part of which you are incapable, and that such an assumption was insulting—if a private can be insulted by a commissioned officer. This being man to man, I ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... turned toward the discourser to Chloe, who sat on a lift of sand, cross-legged like an Eastern scribe. Mathew Coffin, near him, looked half pleased, half sulky at the teasing. Since Port Republic he was a better-liked non-commissioned officer. Billy Maydew, again flat on his back, stared at the blue sky. Steve stole a tin cup and slipped quietly off through ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... endeavored to do something for him, and his commander received a letter from a member of Parliament commending the seaman to his favor. The captain acknowledged the merit of Cook in his reply, but stated that he had been in the navy for so brief a period that he could not be made a commissioned officer, but in due time, if he proved worthy, a master's warrant might be obtained for him. Four years after he entered the service a strong interest secured this promotion for him. In this capacity he was assigned to the frigate Mercury, which was ordered to North ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... at full gallop. Its rider was gesticulating wildly. Strange to say, though not a word had been said, as though awakened by an electric current, every man had got up and had fixed his astonished eyes on the newcomer. He was an artillery non-commissioned officer; his face was crimson, his hair unkempt, his cap had come off his head and was dangling behind by the chin-strap. With a violent jerk he pulled up his foaming horse for a second: "Where is the Colonel—the Colonel?" With one voice the whole squadron replied: "There, on ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... Maynard, while others gathered about the lovely girl who sat there in the saddle. There came marching up from the railway a small squad of soldiers, competitors arriving from the far West. Among them—apparently their senior non-commissioned officer—was a tall cavalry sergeant, superbly built, and with a bronzed and bearded and swarthy face that seemed to tell of years of campaigning over mountain and prairie. They were all men of perfect physique, all in the neat, ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... appoint a superintendent of freedmen,—a commissioned officer,—with such number of assistants —officers and non-commissioned officers—as may be necessary, whose duty it will be to take charge of all the freed people in his district who are without homes or proper employment. The superintendents will send back to their homes all who ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... misguided person had been telling her about the Officer Training School up here, and she arrived fired with the ambition to enter me into that institution without further delay. True to form, she bounded headlong into the matter without consulting my feelings by accosting the very first commissioned officer she met. He happened to be an Ensign, but he might as well have been a Vice-Admiral for all ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... missionaries some sixty-two years ago preached to Demerara negroes under the rule of Christian England, they were treated by Christian judges, holding commission from Christian England, as criminals for so preaching. A Christian commissioned officer, member of the Established Church of England, signed the auction notices for the sale of slaves as late as the year 1824. In the evidence before a Christian court-martial, a missionary is charged with having ...
— Humanity's Gain from Unbelief - Reprinted from the "North American Review" of March, 1889 • Charles Bradlaugh
... expeditionary force, bound on an international mission, finds itself stranded in an unknown country. The force is composed of men very various in rank and profession. Two of them, whom we may call a non-commissioned officer and a private, go exploring by themselves, and take one of the natives of the place prisoner. This native is an ugly low-born creature, of great physical strength and violent criminal tendencies, a liar, and ready at any time for theft, rape, and murder. He is a child of Nature, a lover ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... and alleged that the troops had fired without his orders. Such was the apology of the French commander, but it certainly does not tell well for the discipline of his troops, nor is it easy to understand how so large a body of men could be left without a commissioned officer even for a moment, much less how they could have kept up a continued fire, which this seems to have been. Perhaps, however, it is not fair to comment too severely upon the conduct of the French on this occasion; the signal of surrender might not have been observed, and as the English had ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... had a wiry and terrier-like appearance. A "down-East" Yankee, he had spent some years in Mexico, and then drifted to South Africa during the war period, which, it will be remembered, lasted from 1877 to 1882. He had served in the Zulu war as a non-commissioned officer in one of the irregular cavalry corps, with some credit. The fact of his being a man of extremely few words was enough to account for the friendship which existed between him and the garrulous Langley. Whitson was known to be a dead shot with ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... several British officers present, when a Serjeant-Major came to take an account of us, and particularly a list of such of us as were officers. This Serjeant, though not uncivil, had all that animated, degage impudence of air, which belongs to a self complacent, non-commissioned officer of the most arrogant army in the world; and with his pen in his hand and his paper on his knee applied to each of us in his turn for his rank. * * * The sentinels were withdrawn to the distance of about ten ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... letters with their sayings and doings." Mary stole another glance at the lady in black. So this was an aunt of the two little knights of Kentucky, and the mother of the "Little Captain," whose name had been in all the papers as the youngest commissioned officer in the entire army. She would have something to tell Holland in her next letter. He had always been so interested in everything pertaining to Ranald Walton, and had envied him his military career until he himself had an opportunity to go into ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... that no reference was made to the motive of the priest's visit, for which I was heartily thankful. I was anxious to get away from the noise and the light, and as soon as I had finished my supper I rose. Just then Andrew Menzies, a non-commissioned officer of the ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... with a non-commissioned officer at six o'clock and landed here safely at seven. It was ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... thought of separation from his friend was disagreeable; he enlisted in the company in which Madwell was second-lieutenant. Each had taken two steps upward in rank, but between the highest non-commissioned and the lowest commissioned officer the gulf is deep and wide and the old relation was maintained with difficulty and ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... first time: for the war at home had hitherto prevented the men of my date from having much foreign cruising. I was in uniform in the streets, confining myself severely to my own business, when I saw approaching a squad of redcoats under a non-commissioned officer. Being used to soldiers, I was observing them only casually, but still with the interest of novelty, when wholly unexpectedly I heard, "Eyes right!" and the entire group, as one man, without moving their heads, slewed their eyes quickly round and ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... stone to the end of the turban, and looked over. A non-commissioned officer of the police was already standing below. I lowered the stone; he took it, waved his hand to ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... shall therefore take the liberty of giving it as my opinion, that a good bounty be immediately offered, aided by the proffer of at least a hundred, or a hundred and fifty acres of land, and a suit of clothes, and a blanket, to each non-commissioned officer and soldier, as I have good authority for saying, that however high the men's pay may appear, it is barely sufficient, in the present scarcity and dearness of all kinds of goods, to keep them in clothes, much less to afford support ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... safe from these traitors. The sergeant major in particular, spied on us, reporting all criticisms of our guards and other things German. We raged. He had for his virtue a small room to himself in a corner of the hut. When parcels came from England, addressed to the senior non-commissioned officer of his regiment, for him to distribute; he called the guards in. Shortly they went out with their coats bulging suspiciously. We were then called to receive ours whilst he stood over, bullying us with all the abusive "chatter" which the British service so well ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... several of the enemy, at the same time keeping a constant eye upon his own men, telling them when and where to fire, and when to take cover. When all the company officers were either killed or wounded, he at once recognized his position as senior non-commissioned officer, and was invaluable in getting orders passed to the other companies, and in superintending the men till dark, when the enemy retired. He then, acting under orders, personally placed the outpost line, saw to the collection ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... which hung in the hall, and he had put all his papers out of the way. But O! Mr. Waverley, how shall I tell you, that they made strict inquiry after you, and asked when you had been at Tully-Veolan, and where you now were. The officer is gone back with his party, but a non-commissioned officer and four men remain as a sort of garrison in the house. They have hitherto behaved very well, as we are forced to keep them in good-humour. But these soldiers have hinted as if, on your falling into their hands, you would be in great danger; I cannot prevail on myself to write ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... subsequent to my return, a message was brought to me from the prison, to the effect that a non-commissioned officer, captured at Manassas, claimed to have a promise of protection from me. The name was given Hulburt, of Connecticut. I had forgotten the name he gave when I saw him; but, believing that I would recognize the person who had attended to Colonel Gardner, and to whom only ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... the regiment when, after its years of battling in the Army of the Potomac, it was sent into exile on the far Pacific coast and speedily lost to sight in the deserts of Arizona. The type of non-commissioned officer most familiar to the rank and file as well as to their superiors was the old-fashioned "plains raised," "discipplin furst and rayson aftherwards" class of which Feeny was so prominent an exponent. Brave to rashness and faithful to ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... the sixteen-gun brig Lexington, Captain John Barry, [19] fell in with a British armed vessel off the coast of Virginia, and after a sharp engagement captured her. She was the first prize brought in by a commissioned officer of the American navy. ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... port, and I have no doubt that many of these private and colonial vessels flew the Grand Union Flag after it had been adopted. So therefore it is fair to presume from the records that Lieutenant Paul Jones was the first commissioned officer to raise it to the peak of a commissioned American war vessel, the Alfred; that Captain John Barry was the first to take it to sea on the Lexington, and that the first to exhibit it to other countries was Captain Wickes, of the brig Reprisal, who arrived at St. Eustatia ...
— The True Story of the American Flag • John H. Fow
... Houses and became law. The Act of Parliament fixed a date for the carrying out of the change. To avoid the clerical work involved by the carrying out of the re-attesting of the whole of the citizen forces, partially paid and Volunteer, under the new Act it was provided that every officer, non-commissioned officer and man who did not, in writing, notify his intention to sever his connexion with the forces owing to the new conditions, would continue in the service, and the date for the beginning of his period of service under the new Act, namely, three years, would be entered in ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... without further reply advanced a few paces to meet an ammunition corporal who was obviously seeking him. "Well?" he demanded, as the non-commissioned officer saluted. ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... start up and seize large wooden pails. They pass to the lower floor. One of them says to the sentinel on duty at the southwest corner door, "Sentry, call the sergeant of the guard; we want to go for water." He complies. In five, ten, or fifteen minutes, a non-commissioned officer, with some half a dozen heavily armed soldiers, comes, the bolts slide, the doors swing, our squad passes out. They are escorted down the hill to the river, and back to prison. By this time it is broad daylight. Many are still lying silent ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... accept this position," continued the Surgeon, flinging away his refractory cigar in disgust, and rising to get a fresh one, "you will have the best rank and pay of any non-commissioned officer in the regiment; better, ineed, than that of a Second Lieutenant. You will have your quarters here with me, and be compelled to associate with no one but me, thus reducing your disagreeable companions at a single stroke, to one. And you will escape finally from all subserviency ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... agreeably to the promises that had been held out to the explorers, the Secretary of War (General Henry Dearborn), secured from that body the passage of an act granting to each member of the expedition a considerable tract of land from the public domain. To each private and non-commissioned officer was given three hundred acres; to Captain Clark, one thousand acres, and to Captain Lewis fifteen hundred acres. In addition to this, the two officers were given double pay for their services during the time of their absence. ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... moreover, Captain Vickers had carefully apprised him "that by the King's Regulations, he was forbidden to reply to any question or communication addressed to him by a convict, but, in the event of being addressed, was to call the non-commissioned officer on duty." Now, though he was within easy hailing distance of the guard on the quarter-deck, he felt a natural disinclination to disturb those gentlemen merely for the sake of a sick convict, and knowing that, in a few minutes, the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... to bear ahead. He was a junior lieutenant, Bourne by name, and in receipt of a private income of eight hundred a year. On that sum he might have lived the life of a man of leisure, but he vastly preferred a strenuous life as a commissioned officer in the Royal Navy. Not once had he regretted his choice, and upon the outbreak of war he was ready to execute a hornpipe of sheer delight at the prospect of ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... that every bullet must have done some most serious mischief to the townspeople, and it was only upon one of the soldiers, a non-commissioned officer, who was below, assuring them of the innoxious nature of the proceeding ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... field-pieces, each of which was commanded by a bombardier. At the foot of the ramparts, outside the square, and immediately opposite to their several embrasures, were stationed the gunners required for the batteries, under a non-commissioned officer also, and the whole under the direction of a superior officer of that arm, who now walked to and fro, conversing in a low voice with Major Blackwater. One gunner at each of these divisions of the artillery held in his hand a blazing torch, reflecting with picturesque yet gloomy effect the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... muskets paced the floor without a moment's pause day or night. Two other sentinels and a commissioned officer occupied the gunner's room, the door and window of which were securely fastened. Sentinels were stationed on the parapet overhead whose steady tramp day and night made ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... of it beneath a birch bluff, seeing nothing whatever, and only hearing a coyote howl. It almost appeared there was something wrong with the information supplied them respecting the probable running of another load of prohibited whisky, and towards morning Stimson rode up to the young commissioned officer. ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... little mollified by their submission, and was able to watch things more coolly. It was not difficult to see that the gang were led by a non-commissioned officer—a little bull-dog of a man with hard eyes—with a rascally, hypocritical and wicked face; he was one of the heroes of the affray of the Sunday before. He was sitting at the table next to Christophe. He was drunk already and stared at the people ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... would also never touch or see it, but was compelled to strike out for himself every spark of fire which lighted, burned, and perhaps consumed him. He must win the battle of life with his own hand, and with his own eyes, and was obliged to act as general, captain, ensign, non- commissioned officer, private, drummer, great arms, small arms, infantry, cavalry, all in his own unaided self. When, therefore, I ask help for the artist, I do not make my appeal for one who was a cripple from his birth, but I ask it ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... return to the boat, Christy found his crew in excellent order, for he had instructed Flint to allow no noise or disorder, as sailors and young men generally are somewhat given to skylarking when not under the eye of a commissioned officer. Christy took his place with Flint in the stern sheets of the boat, and ordered Beeks, who was acting as coxswain, to shove off ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... and report yourself to General Airey. As for you, my fine fellow," Lord Raglan went on, turning to Hyde, "you are still a non-commissioned officer, I see." ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... and found another with whom I was able to talk. He was a non-commissioned officer, young and very intelligent. I told him I was an American, which aroused his interest. He wanted to talk about America. He had friends there. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... little woman, and your argument sound, but these sentiments won't do to promulgate in the Queen City. Remember, I am still a commissioned officer in the United States ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... smaller inner room where the telephone was close to his hand, while the non-commissioned officer and his men ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... thirty-five, until now (the date for deducting the amount from them, when their accounts are concluded and balanced) is at the rate of eight reals from the captain, four from the alferez, two from the sergeant, a like sum from each non-commissioned officer, and four reals from each marine soldier, a like sum from the pilot, and the same from the common seamen. This has been done in virtue of an order of Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, knight of the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... and a non-commissioned officer of the 1st Cambridgeshires went out one night to reconnoiter a German trench 350 yards away. Creeping along the parapet of the trench they heard sounds indicating the presence of six or seven of the enemy. Further on they heard deep snores apparently proceeding from a dug-out immediately ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... surmounted by a huge cockade, was perched knowingly over his left ear, covering, or rather shadowing, little more than one fourth of his head—"I reckon as how this here sort of thing comes within the spy act. Here's a commissioned officer of King George, taken not only in our lines, but in our very trenches in the disguise of a private soger. What say you, Captain Buckhorn?" turning to one somewhat younger and less uncouth, who sat nest him ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... his horse was unfit for service, the man obtained from his regimental commander permission to obtain a fresh one, which had also, before it was valid, to be approved by the brigade commander. Whenever it was practicable, the exchange was required to be made in the presence of a commissioned officer, and, in every case, a horse, if the soldier had it, was ordered to be left in the place of the one impressed. When a man was without a horse, altogether, his company commander could impress one for him. No doubt, this seems to the unmilitary reader, only systematic robbery—but is not that ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... of the door. Sergeant Bellews followed at leisure. He painstakingly avoided ever walking the regulation two paces behind a commissioned officer. Either he walked side by side, chatting, or he walked alone. Wise officers let him ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... he stood looking on, conscious the while that a tall, keen-looking non-commissioned officer who passed him ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... the sergeant declared he had again seen an apparition, which threatened his life. Moved by a dream and the sergeant's statements, Captain Douglas resolved to inquire into the matters that so disturbed the non-commissioned officer. The latter told his superior that during the night a frightful spectre stood by his bed-side, that it changed into the shape of a black cat, jumped out at the window, and flew over the church steeple. Moreover, the sergeant ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... captain. "And as an old commissioned officer in his Majesty's service should feel it my duty to help in any way ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... I excitedly, as the drift of the conversation suggested itself to me for the first time. Then, in a flash, I qualified my statement by adding: "Of course I mean if I could enter as a commissioned officer. As a warrant-officer I fear I should be quite out of place. I have had so much liberty, and have been, so to speak, my own ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... a day or so. He's no small fry either, he's a non-commissioned officer with some authority. He thinks the Gestapo is about to pick him off for not ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... whose prowess, from their appearance, I should be inclined to doubt, but came from the mountains, an unconquered people, who continually make war upon the invaders of their soil. I was greatly amused by the recital of his part in the affair, by a non-commissioned officer, who informed me that he was born a Belgian, and gave his story in broken French, broken in words as well as grammar, for he had been imbibing something stronger than water. It appeared that his valiant self and two others equally brave—one a Frenchman, the other a Prussian—had been ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... themselves. Yusuf was a sturdy, rather surly-looking youth of about eighteen. Evidently not a pure Arab, he claimed various admixtures as the fancy took him, the general preference being Kurd. I always felt that there was almost certainly a good percentage of Turk. His father had been a non-commissioned officer in the Turkish army, and at first I was loath to take him along on advances and attacks, for he would have been shown little mercy had he fallen into enemy hands. He was, however, insistent on asking to go with me, and I never saw him show any concern under fire. ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... uprising occurred in the naval arsenal at Cavite, with a Spanish non-commissioned officer as one of the leaders. From the meager evidence now obtainable, this would seem to have been purely a local mutiny over the service questions of pay and treatment, but in it the friars saw their opportunity. It was blazoned forth, with all ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... under a shed near the offices, with their bridles linked together. Three or four soldiers attended as a guard, while others stamped up and down with their long broadswords and heavy boots in front of the house. Hazlewood asked a non-commissioned officer ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... trusty, the trader at Flying Post, the only Indian in the Company's service holding rank as a commissioned officer, grunted in contempt at the question, while Achard, of New Brunswick House, motioned warningly toward the groups of Indian trappers in the background. "Hush, boy," said he to Herbert, "news travels, and in the south are the Free Traders to ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... execution warrant, which had been issued by the President of the court-martial, and handed over the prisoner to a non-commissioned officer, who, regarding him with an expression of pity, bade him in an almost apologetic tone ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... Missouri, and Governor Reynolds of Illinois; also one to General Atkinson at Jefferson Barracks, detailing my views on the present Indian situation. These are confidential, and I hesitate to entrust them to the regular mail service. I had intended sending them down river in charge of a non-commissioned officer, but shall now utilize your services instead—that is, if you are willing to ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... his time to the uplift of his people, traveling in America, Africa and England. He became such a worker among his people that he was known as a leader rather than a physician. He served in the Civil War as a commissioned officer of the United ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... technical requirements, a thorough knowledge of mathematics especially being necessary before one can become a good non-commissioned or commissioned officer of artillery, this branch of the service appeals to men of schooling. It has been claimed that the 351st regiment contained the best educated group of Negroes in the American forces; most of them being college or high school men. They were praised highly by their officers, especially ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... beating shout of men staggering under heavy loads make up a resounding din. Clamped boxes, camp-chairs, enamel basins, dispatch-boxes, helmet-cases are carried swinging up the gangway. Here is a man wildly waving a gun-case which a non-commissioned officer wrenches from him; another is struggling under a folded tent, the end of which catches on a post and nearly precipitates him into the water. Black Nubian sailors in white and blue jumpers are wrestling with an endless series of mail-bags; ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... state was an army very different from any that has since been seen among us. At present the pay of the common soldier is not such as can seduce any but the humblest class of English labourers from their calling. A barrier almost impassable separates him from the commissioned officer. The great majority of those who rise high in the service rise by purchase. So numerous and extensive are the remote dependencies of England, that every man who enlists in the line must expect to pass many years in exile, and some years in climates unfavourable to the health and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a very bad example, your honour, that corporal Strides has set the men, and we may expect to hear of more desertions. A non- commissioned officer should have had too much pride for this! I have always remarked, sir, in the army, that when a non-commissioned officer left his colours, he was pretty certain to carry off a ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the Scots Greys is thus described: "Seeing the wounded getting cut at by the German officers, the Scots Greys went mad, and even though retreat had been sounded, with a non-commissioned officer leading, they turned on the Potsdam Guards and hewed their way through, their officers following. Having got through, the officers took command again, formed them up, wheeled, and came back the way they went. It was a sight ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... lines we found that a recruit battery of light artillery had come out from the city that morning for target-practice. An experienced non-commissioned officer fired the first shot, which hit the sugar warehouse, the target. A recruit gunner fired the second, which, falling short, saved our lives. They knew nothing of the presence of the Filipinos or of ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... an intolerable itch for gambling. The soldiers, though fainting with fatigue on the line of march, invariably group themselves in card-parties whenever they are allowed a few minutes' halt; and a non-commissioned officer, with half-a-dozen men on any duty of fatigue, are very generally to be seen as follows, viz. one man as a sentry, to watch the approach of the superintending officer, one man at work, and the non-commissioned officer, with the other ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... the command of Colonel S.W. Kearny, commanding the third military division. Three men were especially detailed for the management of this, under the charge of Louis Zindel, a native of Germany, who had been nineteen years a non-commissioned officer of the artillery in the Prussian army, and regularly instructed in the ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... soldier, a private, a corporal, a non-commissioned officer, who has abandoned his old parents, his wife, his children, why he is preparing to kill men whom he does not know; he will at first be astonished at your question. He is a soldier, he has taken ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy
... military tribune was a commissioned officer nearly corresponding to our rank of colonel. The tribunes were often inexperienced men, so Caesar did ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge
... non-commissioned officer in a regiment back home, ma'am," he said, greatly pleased. "But why should I ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... gave up his establishment in Greenville, and I was obliged to look elsewhere for employment. A newspaper was published at St. George, owned and edited by an Englishman, who had been a non-commissioned officer in the regiment which was disbanded in the island a few years before. I had then, even at that early age, some indefinite hankering after newspaper life, and having picked up a crude mass of knowledge, incongruous ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... Captain Glynn, I took the liberty of giving a few directions myself. We'll take an A tent, you know, for you and me. I see Keyser is sergeant in F troop. Glad we have a non-commissioned officer so competent. Haven't seen him since '64, at Winchester. Why, it's cleared ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... the Throne had taken the field in war. His Royal Highness was received by the troops with delight and acclamation. The courage, devotion and endurance which he has since displayed on active service have secured him the love and admiration of every officer, non-commissioned officer and man of His Majesty's Army, and his name will descend in history, bright with the honour which he ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... that once a Rapine picture-book, with pictures of the Austrian army, had found its way into the Howdahs, and on that day the brothers had agreed to divide the two highest dignities in the army between themselves, while to him, the younger, the place of a non-commissioned officer was assigned. Since then, indeed, there had been periods when one of them had inclined to the vocation of a trapper, and the other to that of an Indian chief, but Paul's thoughts clung to those gold-braided uniforms, with which the wooden spears, and the patched rag sandals, which ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... frigate Constitution, Captain Decatur of the frigate United States, and Captain Jones of the sloop of war Wasp, each a gold medal, with suitable emblems and devices; and a silver medal, with like emblems and devices, to each commissioned officer of the aforesaid vessels, in testimony of the high sense entertained by Congress of the gallantry, good conduct, and services of the captains, officers, and crews of the aforesaid vessels in their respective conflicts with the British frigates the Guerriere and ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... non-commissioned officer in the room?" The "Y" man kept looking from side to side. His little eyes were hard and spiteful and his lips were drawn up in ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... Indians wear citizens' clothes. They had to call General Sheridan from Washington, D. C., to quiet the Indians down. Now, we had to make a line in three divisions, fifteen miles a part, one non-commissioned officer to each squad, and these men was to go to Caldwell, Kansas and bring him to Ft. Reno that night. He came that night, so the next morning Colonel Brisbane and General Hatch reported to General Sheridan what the trouble ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... shore. A few days later two others also escaped. These had not courage to strike out into the river, and one of them was caught at Baie St. Paul. Nairne offered a reward of four dollars for each of the prisoners and probably all were taken. A sequel of the incident was that a non-commissioned officer and eight men of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment were sent to guard the remaining prisoners at Murray Bay—a task apparently beyond Nairne's local militia. This guard was, no doubt, composed of Germans; one wonders ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... any man show me the contrary, I shall presume to have been a commonwealth consisting of an army, whereof the common soldier was the people, the commissioned officer the Senate, and the general the prince) were foreigners, and by nation Circassians, that governed Egypt; wherefore these never durst plant themselves upon dominion, which growing naturally up into ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... work of reconstructing civil government in the several States might be intrusted. A circular from Mr. Seward accompanied the proclamation, directing that the oath might "be taken and subscribed before any commissioned officer, civil, military, or naval, in the service of the United States, or before any civil or military officer of a loyal State or Territory, who, by the laws thereof, may be qualified to administer oaths." ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... GROISON, non-commissioned officer of cavalry in the Imperial Guard; later, during the Restoraton, estate-keeper of Blangy, where he succeeded Vaudoyer at a salary of three hundred francs. Montcornet, mayor of that commune arranged a marriage between the old soldier and the orphan daughter of one of his farmers who ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... they were firing them off by the hundred almost, they were shouting them at their prisoners and at one another, till there was such a babel that no one could answer and few could understand. It was not, indeed, until a non-commissioned officer of burly form and bullying appearance came upon the scene that the commotion ended, and some sort of ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... the excellent humour in which his potations had put the non-commissioned officer, he filled a large earthen mug with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... of good families were to be found in the ranks, a circumstance which added to the pride and self-consequence of these troops. A remarkable instance of this occurred in the person of the non-commissioned officer in question. His real name was Francis Stewart, but he was universally known by the appellation of Bothwell, being lineally descended from the last earl of that name; not the infamous lover of the unfortunate Queen Mary, but Francis ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... they went to the War, Jack as an Officer, Tony as a Non-Commissioned Officer in the same Battalion, Jack hating the bloody business but resolute to play this great game of duty as he played all games for all that was in him, Tony aglow at first with the movement and glitter and later mad with the lust for deadly daring ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor |
