Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 3, 2025
"You've killed me, you cowards," sobbed Devlin and dropped, cut from the shoulder-strap to the centre of the chest; and a fresh detachment of his men retreating, always retreating, trampled him under foot as they made for the pass whence they had emerged. I kissed her in the kitchen and I kissed her in the hall Child'un, child'un, follow me! Oh Golly, said the cook, is he gwine to kiss us all?
Half a score of labourers lay tugging in the shoulder-strap or leant with all the force of their bodies against the cart, which rolled on toilsomely. 'Twas a load of flax, packed tightly in great square bales standing one against the other, the whole cart full. The dray caught its right wheel in the grating of an open gutter and remained stock-still, leaning aslant, as though planted there.
Mounted orderlies dash hurriedly, with hideous clatter of sabre and equipments, across the line of march, through the very regiment's ranks, answering with a disdainful oath or mocking gibe when an outraged shoulder-strap raised a remonstrating voice. At Fourteenth Street the Caribees were halted until the colonel could take his bearings from headquarters, just around the corner.
Many of them officers as well as men were blasphemous in their scorn of "parson stuff," some of them frightfully ironical. A friend of mine watched two chaplains passing by. One of them was a tall man with a crown and star on his shoulder-strap. "I wonder," said my friend, with false simplicity, "whether Jesus Christ would have been a lieutenant colonel?"
But Master Lox, having seen in the cabin plenty of fine meat, desired greatly to become one of the family, and having been much about in life knew something of the ways of every one. So putting on the Culloo style, he, seeing a babe, began to sing with the most natural air in the world a Culloo nursery-song: A seal-skin strap, A shoulder-strap.
We let a rare prize slip through our fingers.” “Can’t be helped now,” dryly remarked Sergeant Latham. “If you had captured him it might have put one bar, if not two, on your shoulder-strap.” The Lieutenant scowled, but did not reply. All the letters were read and passed around.
But while I looked, I saw one by one totter and fall, and directly I perceived that the epaulette or shoulder-strap on the shoulder of each was a great hideous yellow worm, that gnawed away the shoulder and palsied the arm and ate into the vitals. Every second, one fell and died, making frantic efforts to tear away the reptile from its grasp, but in vain.
That is something I shouldn't like to do, for I have carried this thing through so far without help from anybody, and I want to complete the work myself. If I should ask for advice, the colonel would probably send a shoulder-strap down here to rob me of all the glory I have won," added Bob with a smile. "Oh, you needn't laugh over it," exclaimed George. "You have covered yourself with glory.
If he has ever worn the shoulder-strap, he has learned the reprimand for its ill adjustment. The old word of command flashes through his muscles, and his hand goes up in an instant to the place where the strap used to be. Yes, odd things come out in ways that nobody thinks of.
The troopers thought from his dress and carriage that he must be an officer, and when he drew rein in front of the station they stood at "attention" and saluted him. "I don't deserve that honor, boys," said the stranger with a laugh; "I am not a shoulder-strap." "You are not?" exclaimed Bob, who was not a little astonished as well as provoked at the mistake he had made.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking