fatigue-duty

Butler then wrote him a letter presenting fresh arguments, showing how essential it was that the soldiers, who would soon be obliged to defend the city, should be spared as far as possible from unusual fatigue-duty, and inclosed a peremptory order for the performance of the work by the negroes.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 69, July, 1863 Various

When we were not eating, sleeping, on guard, or on fatigue-duty we were in the valley behind the position, scrounging for fuel.

Homage to Catalonia 1938

The memorial alleged that the men lacked training; that they were physically unfit; that they busied themselves devising pretexts for evasion; that their chief function was to perform fatigue-duty for local governors, and that to send such men into the field of battle would be to throw away their lives fruitlessly.

A History of the Japanese People From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era Dairoku Kikuchi 1886

Allen's white shirts grew fringy at the edges with fatigue-duty, and his large hands were furry at the fingers with much soap.

Not Pretty, but Precious Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford 1878

Anisette after the fatigue-duty of unharnessing, restored him a little; but he was still weary and depressed into gentler languor than ever through all the courses at a dinner party at the Austrian Embassy, and did not recover his dejection at a reception of the Duchess of

Under Two Flags 1839-1908 Ouida 1873

Their cheerfulness in camp, their celerity in the performance of fatigue-duty, their patient endurance of heat and cold, hunger and thirst, and their bold efficiency in battle, made them welcome companions everywhere they went.

History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens George W. Williams 1870

Perhaps he is wishing he was an officer with no kit to keep in order, no fatigue-duty to undergo, sitting merrily down to as good a dinner as luxury can provide, or a guest, of whom he has seen several pass his post in starched white neckcloths and trim evening clothes.

M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." G.J. Whyte-Melville 1849

Picpon was quite in love with his joke; it was only a good joke in his sight; and, indeed, men need to live as hardly as an African soldier lives, to estimate the full temptation that gold can have when you have come to look on a cat as very good eating, and to have nothing to gnaw but a bit of old shoe-leather through the whole of the long hours of a burning day of fatigue-duty; and to estimate, as well, the full width and depth of the renunciation that made him mutter now so valorously,

Under Two Flags 1839-1908 Ouida 1873

You recollect his general order at one time, excusing soldiers and sailors from fatigue-duty on Sunday, that they might have time to attend religious service, and his remarks upon the custom of profane swearing in the army; how he reminded both officers and men that 'We could have but little hope of the blessing of Heaven upon our arms, if we insult it by impiety.'"

Poganuc People: Their Loves and Lives 1878

"After a cup of coffee I fell in with a lot of our fellows, and was told off for fatigue-duty.

Blue Lights Hot Work in the Soudan 1859