field cornet

British  

noun

1. Often shortened to: cornet.  a commander of burgher troops called up in time of war or in an emergency, esp during the 19th century

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Example Sentences

At Borderside, where the frontiers are barely eighty yards apart, a field cornet and his men, who are patrolling their side of the line, greet the pickets of the Cape Police who are stationed there with exulting menaces and much display of rifles.

From Project Gutenberg

They had been proceeding to reinforce Game Tree Fort, upon an order from Field Cornet Steinekamp, when the cessation of hostilities had taken place under the provisions of the Red Cross.

From Project Gutenberg

But for the most part they behaved with a certain decorum, and it may be that the weapon which they bore was the silent confirmation of the Field Cornet's words.

From Project Gutenberg

The Field Cornet proceeded to assert that the acts of his men were neither so barbarous nor so inhuman as those which our own soldiers had committed after the battle of Elandslaagte, where, he said, Imperial troops had stripped the body of General de Koch, leaving him to lie upon the field wounded and naked, and adding that we were morally responsible, and held as such by every right-minded person in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, for the subsequent death of the Boer general.

From Project Gutenberg

I referred this man's statement to the Field Cornet, when quite a lively altercation in Dutch ensued.

From Project Gutenberg