f 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,