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Cadet Private Frazier, First Class, one of the best dancers in the battalion, was heard to mutter to his next-door neighbor in the front rank of the color company: "It'll be nine o'clock before we get things going at the hotel, and we've got to quit at nine-thirty. Confound the orders!" And yet, peering from under the visor of his shako, Mr.
On nearing the shore, a royal standard was hoisted at the masthead, and Mackinnon disembarked, wearing the star of his shako on his left breast, and accompanied by his friends, who agreed to play the part of aides-de-camp to royalty.
And that's witness to me that you may count on him for what the great Napoleon called two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage; not too common even in his immortal army: when it's pitch black and frosty cold, and you're buried within in a dream of home, and the trumpet springs you to your legs in a trice, boots and trowsers, coat and sword-belt and shako, and one twirl to the whiskers, and away before a second snap of the fingers to where the great big bursting end of all things for you lies crouching like a Java-Tiger a ferocious beast painted undertaker's colour for a leap at you in particular out of the dark; never waiting an instant to ask what's the matter and pretend you don't know.
And that's witness to me that you may count on him for what the great Napoleon called two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage; not too common even in his immortal army: when it's pitch black and frosty cold, and you're buried within in a dream of home, and the trumpet springs you to your legs in a trice, boots and trowsers, coat and sword-belt and shako, and one twirl to the whiskers, and away before a second snap of the fingers to where the great big bursting end of all things for you lies crouching like a Java-Tiger a ferocious beast painted undertaker's colour for a leap at you in particular out of the dark; never waiting an instant to ask what's the matter and pretend you don't know.
And while a glow of fever warmed my whole blood, I buckled on my sabre, and taking my shako, prepared to issue forth. Scarcely had I reached the door, with tottering limbs, when I saw Minette dashing up the steep street at the top speed of her pony, while she flourished above her head a great placard, and waved it to and fro. "The news! the news!" cried I, bursting with anxiety.
We were marching in procession along the wall which skirts the railway on the left bank of the Seine, and as we were burying my pet lizard we were chanting the "De Profundis." About twenty of my little playfellows were following me, when suddenly a soldier's shako fell at my feet. "What's that?" called out one of the girls. "A soldier's shako." "Did it come from over the wall?" "Yes, yes. Listen.
I cannot describe the relief we felt at the sight of him. Though we could not tell what he was going to say, his attitude dispelled our fears at once. He gazed at us with wide astonished eyes from under the peak of his shako, and came on quietly, as if he were taking a walk, his hands in his pockets, murmuring in a tone of stupefaction: "What on earth is the matter?"
The other, who had a deep and scarcely-healed scar over the ear, only wore a forage cap, having evidently lost his shako when wounded. "What do you mean by saluting a prisoner," a French staff officer, when he was passing, angrily asked an old soldier. "You have been long enough in the service, surely, to know that prisoners are not saluted." The soldier stood at attention.
They of course returned the salute, and made a cheery remark to each, such as "Rather a change, this, from our work up in the hills, lad," to which each gave some short and respectful answer, three of them prefacing it with the words: "The morning is fair, mon Colonel ". Two of these had the number of their regiment on their shako.
The grey coatee, decorated with bright buttons and broad gold lace, the shako with tall plumes, the spotless white trousers, set off the trim young figures to the best advantage; and the full-dress parade of the cadet battalion, marked by discipline and precision in every movement, is still one of the most attractive of military spectacles.
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