sous-officers

Updated: May 17, 2025

I have seen soldiers mutiny, a squadron of them, because they hated their chief and loved two of their sous-officers; and I have seen the end of it all a few hundred men, blind and drunk with despair, at bay against as many thousands, and walled in with four lines of steel and artillery, and fired on from a score of cannon-mouths volley on volley, like the thunder till not one living man was left, and there was only a shapeless, heaving, moaning mass, with the black smoke over all.

Ouida - Under Two Flags

The same yellow dish carried what seemed the same rationed jam; the square blocks of meat might have been cooked in the Bar cook-hut, and brought with them over the desert; two heavy loaves stood as usual on the wooden table. The French Army ration was the same in every town. "Mesdames," said the orderly assigned to them, "there are two sous-officers without who wish to speak with you."

Enid Bagnold - The Happy Foreigner