By this time he had once more attracted the captain's attention.
"Grandfather Fragini, you must drop back—you must! If you don't, I'll have you carried back!" called Dellarme, sparing the old man only a glance from his concentrated observation on the front.
When he looked again at the enemy any thought of carrying out his threat vanished, for the minute had come when all his training was to be put to a test. The figures on the other side of the white posts were rising. He was to prove by the way he directed a company of infantry in action whether or not he was worthy of his captain's rank. He breathed one of those unspoken prayers that are made to the god of one's own efficient, conscientious responsibility to duty. The words of it were: "May I keep my head as if I were at drill!" Then he smiled cheerily. In order that he might watch how each man used his rifle, he drew back of the line, his slim body erect as he rested on one knee, his head level with the other heads while he fingered his whistle. His lieutenants followed his example even to the detail of his cheery smile. There was a slight stirring of heads and arms as eyes drew beads on human targets. The instant that Eugene Aronson sprang over the white post a blast from Dellarme's whistle began the war.
It was a signal, too, for Stransky to play the part he had planned; to make the speech of his life. His six feet of stature shot to its feet with a Jack-in-the-box abruptness, under the impulse of a mighty and reckless passion.
"Men, stop firing!" he cried thunderously. "Stop firing on your brothers! Like you, they are only the pawns of the ruling class, who keep us all pawns in order that they may have champagne and caviare. Comrades, I'll lead you! Comrades, we'll take a white flag and go down to meet our comrades and we'll find that they think as we do! I'll lead you!"
Grandfather Fragini, impelled by the hysterical call of the Hussar spirit, also sprang up, waving his hat and trembling and swaying with the emotion that racked his old body.
"Give it to 'em! Aim low! Give it to 'em—give it to 'em, horns and hoofs, sabre and carbine!" he shouted in a high, jumpy voice. "Give it to 'em! Make 'em weep! Make 'em whine! Make 'em bellow!"
Both appeals were drowned in the cracking of the rifles working as regularly as punching-machines in a factory. Every soldier was seeing only his sight and the running figures under it. Mechanically and automatically, training had been projected into action, anticipation into realization. A spectator might as well have called to a man in a hundred-yard dash to stop running, to an oarsman in a race to jump out of his shell.
So centred was Dellarme in watching his men and the effect of their fire that he did not notice the two silhouettes on the sky-line, making ridicule of all his care about keeping his company under cover, until the doctor, who alone had nothing to do as yet, touched him on the arm. At the moment he looked around, and before he could speak a command, a hospital-corps man who was near Grandfather Fragini threw himself in a low tackle and brought the old man to earth, while the company sergeant sprang for Stransky with an oath. But Stransky was in no mood to submit. He felled the sergeant with a blow and, recklessly defiant, stared at Dellarme, while the men, steadily firing, were still oblivious of the scene. The sergeant, stunned, rose to his knees and reached for his revolver. Dellarme, bent over to keep his head below the crest, had already drawn his as he hastened toward them.
"Stransky," said Dellarme, "you have struck an officer under fire! You have refused to fight! Within the law I am warranted in shooting you dead!"