blue-peter

If we clung as devotedly as some philosophers pretend we do to the abstract idea of life, or were half as frightened as they make out we are, for the subversive accident that ends it all, the trumpets might sound by the hour and no one would follow them into battle — the blue-peter might fly at the truck, but who would climb into a sea-going ship?

Virginibus Puerisque and other papers 2005

The battle raged all that day and the next, blue-peter diving at the flash of the gun, and defiantly coming up and wailing for it to be reloaded.

Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches George Paul Goff

In some places it is known as a crow duck, but the proper local name here is "blue-peter."

Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches George Paul Goff

Strategy was resorted to, and when blue-peter went under at the flash, our hero waded out and struck it with a club as it came to the surface.

Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches George Paul Goff

Three shining mackintoshed figures are walking down the quay, making for the gang-plank of the great liner from which the blue-peter is flying.

The Lost World 1912

Three shining mackintoshed figures are walking down the quay, making for the gang-plank of the great liner from which the blue-peter is flying.

The Lost World Arthur Conan Doyle 1894

On the day but one following that of the impressment of the _Aurora's_ men, a gun was fired at sunrise by the commodore, blue-peter was hoisted at the fore-royal-mastheads, and the fore-topsails were loosed on board the ships of the convoying squadron, and the still morning air immediately began to resound with the songs of seamen and the clanking of windlass-pawls, as the fleet of merchantmen constituting the convoy began to get under weigh.

The Voyage of the Aurora Harry Collingwood 1886

As soon, therefore, as the gig had left the ship's side, blue-peter was run up to the fore-royal-mast-head, the fore-topsail was loosed, and everybody not actually belonging to the ship was ordered to be out of her in an hour's time.

Under the Meteor Flag Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War Harry Collingwood 1886

If we clung as devotedly as some philosophers pretend we do to the abstract idea of life, or were half as frightened as they make out we are, for the subversive accident that ends it all, the trumpets might sound by the hour and no one would follow them into battle -- the blue-peter might fly at the truck, but who would climb into a sea-going ship?

The Pocket R.L.S., being favourite passages from the works of Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson 1872

Next day the frigate went out to Spithead, took her powder on board, and blue-peter was hoisted, as a signal that she was about to sail.

The Rival Crusoes William Henry Giles Kingston 1847