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Updated: May 12, 2025
And I'd like to hear a little more cussing. How the Hussars used to cuss! Too much reading and writing nowadays. It makes men too ladylike." 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.
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!"
As they were to receive rather than give blows they might be more honest with themselves than the men of the Grays. In marching order, with cartridge-boxes full, on Saturday night the 53d marched out to the main pass road. When Grandfather Fragini found that he had been ordered to remain behind he sought the colonel. "I've got reasons! Let me come!" he pleaded. "No. It is no place for you."
Hugo saw a spurt of dust at the point slightly below the crest where he aimed; for he was the best shot in the company at target practice. "I'm not killing anybody!" he thought happily. What about Stransky of the Reds, who would not fight to please the ruling classes? What about Grandfather Fragini, who would fight on principle whenever a Gray was in sight?
Grandfather Fragini has attached himself to the regiment while it rests in barracks a few hours' march from the frontier. He is accepted as the mascot of the company in which both his grandson and Stransky are serving. But he never speaks to Stransky and refers to him in the third person as "that traitor," which makes Stransky grin sardonically.
"Tom Fragini, with your corporal dead I put you in charge of the first section! What are you waiting for, Corporal Fragini?" Tom was bending over Grandfather Fragini, who had been forgotten by everybody in the ordeal. The old man was lying where he had fallen after the first burst of shrapnel. "Can't go!
Inwardly, Grandfather Fragini is worried about the state of the army. Is his race becoming decadent? Or, as he puts it, are the younger generation without sand in their craws? When he came into the barracks yard swinging his cap aloft and shouting the news that mobilization had begun there was not even a cheer.
"Yes, just before we were ordered south," said Dellarme, obviously pleased to be remembered. "I overheard your speech," Lanstron continued, nodding toward Stransky. "It was very informing." A crowd of soldiers was now pressing around Stransky, and in the front rank was Grandfather Fragini. "Said our flag was no better'n any other flag, did he?" piped the old man. "Beat him to a pulp!
The men knew through their training that there was no use of dodging and that their best protection was an accurate fire of their own. "Shelling us, the !" gasped Grandfather Fragini, who had experience, if he were weak in reading and writing. "All noise and smoke!" as it was to a larger degree in his day.
Stransky rolled his eyes in and out; the tendons of his neck swelled; his jaw worked as if crunching pebbles. Deafeningly, the shrapnel jackets continued to crack with "ukung-s-sh ukung-s-sh" as the swift breath of the shrapnel missiles spread. "Give it to 'em! Give it to 'em!" Grandfather Fragini cried, his old voice a quavering bird note in the pandemonium.
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