At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed.

The BEST definition for the word remove as used in this passage is

A) go away.

Eliminate

B) eliminate.

C) change to another location.

D) distance between two things.

The best definition for the words remove as used in this passage is D) : distance between two things.

Explanation:

The word remove has more than one meaning, but in order to know which one to use we should look at the context; that means the rest of the sentence. In this case, we can see that short is an adjective that affects the word remove, it is a characteristic of it, so remove, in this case, is a noun, not an action. Then, the paragraph continues: "was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed.", that means we are talking about places, distances, and there we have our answer. The option that best fits the meaning of the word remove, in this case, is D because is the one that refers to distance.