spit-and-polish

Updated: June 19, 2025

There followed three months of varied kinds of soldiering: short spells holding the line, odd days in rest areas, quick shifts to other parts of the Front, occasional participation in carefully prepared raids on Hun trenches, one whole fortnight in a riverside village where even the Boche night-bombers did not come, and where we held a joyous race-meeting seventy riders in one race and a spit-and-polish horse show.

George Herbert Fosdike Nichols - Pushed and the Return Push

"You can go out and buy yourself a new uniform," Quill growled. "Your old one isn't regulation any more." Well, not exactly growled. If he'd had the voice for it, it would have been a growl, but the closest he could come to a growl was an Irish tenor rumble with undertones of gravel. He stood five-eight, and his red and gold Space Service uniform gleamed with spit-and-polish luster.

Randall Garrett - Unwise Child