Jacques Soupault

Lieutenant-colonel Jacques Soupault was an officer in the French army during World War II. He was Luc Harcourt's regimental commander. In 1940 he promoted Harcourt from corporal to sergeant to recognize Harcourt's heroism the night before in repulsing a German trench raid. Harcourt, commander of a machine gun crew, had poured a withering fire into the enemy troops. Unknown to Soupault, Harcourt had done so only because the four tablets of codeine he'd taken after being shot in the ass had given him a surplus of nervous energy instead of having the more common sedative effect.