Scarlet Majors (Symbol)
The British military authorities are introduced as "scarlet Majors" in the poem (Line 1). This color works to symbolize the differences between the majors and the soldiers they command. Soldiers who actively participated in battle wore khaki uniforms, standardized in order to provide camouflage. If the color scarlet here refers to uniforms, then it is clear that the majors do not actually engage in battle. The color also refers to the ruddy faces of these officials who later in the poem engage in gluttony as they guzzle and gulp food and drink.
Scarlet also implies that the majors are responsible for the deaths of the soldiers they send to the front lines, whose red blood is spilled in battle.
The Line (Symbol)
In the poem, the Majors "speed glum heroes up the line to death" (Line 3). The line refers to battle formations, showing that the Majors give the orders to send soldiers to the front lines. On their own, lines (in any context) can represent both connection and separation. The Majors are connected to the soldiers by the chain of war command, but this hierarchy defines a line of separation between Majors and soldiers. It is the soldiers who encounter premature deaths while the Majors stay safely at the base. However, Sassoon suggests that everyone (including the Majors, in the end) are in the "line to death."
Hotel (Symbol)
Hotels symbolize comfort and ease facilitated by the service of others. In this poem, Sassoon's satiric descriptions of the majors prompt the reader to imagine the very different conditions of the active-duty soldiers under the command of the majors. While the majors stay in the best hotels, guzzling and gulping food and drink, the soldiers are likely suffering discomfort at best and deprivation at worst.
