His glance sweeping to the rear to scan the landscape under the light of day, he recognized, with a sense of pride and awe, the tactical importance of his company’s position in relation to that of the other companies.  Easily he made out the regimental line by streaks of concealed trenches and groups of brown uniforms; and here and there were the oblong, cloth stretches of waiting hospital litters.  On the reverse slope of another knoll was the farmhouse, marked X on his map as the regimental headquarters, where he was to watch for the signal to fall back from his first stand in delaying the enemy’s advance.  Directly to the rear was the cut through which the company had come from the main pass road, and beyond that the Galland house, which was to be the second stand.

“Can you see them from up here?” chirped a voice in a jubilant, cackling laugh that drew Dellarme’s attention to his immediate surroundings, and he saw Grandfather Fragini coming up to join him on the crest.  He slid back on his stomach below the sky-line and held up an arresting hand.

“Kept along after you,” piped the old man; “and it’s just as I thought—­the glummest lot of funeral faces I ever seen!”

“You must not remain!  Follow that cut there and it will take you out to the road!” Dellarme told grandfather sharply.

“Just got to stay.  Too tired to take another step,” and grandfather dropped in utter exhaustion.  “Have to carry me if you want me to go.”

“That means two men out of the line,” thought Dellarme.

“You’re an archaic old fire-eater!” Stransky remarked in cynical amusement to grandfather Fragini.

“And you’re a traitor!” answered grandfather with all the energy he could command.

Now Dellarme disposed his men in line back of the ridge of fresh earth that they had dug in the night, ready to rush to their places when he blew the whistle that hung from his neck, but he did not allow them a glimpse over the crest.

“I know you are curious, but powerful glasses are watching for you to show yourselves; and if a battery turned loose on us you’d understand,” he explained.

The men wanted to talk but did not know what to talk about, so they examined their rifles critically as if they were unfamiliar gifts which they had found in their stockings on Christmas morning.  Some began to empty their magazines of cartridges for the pleasure or occupation of refilling them; but one of the lieutenants stopped this.  It might mean delay when the whistle blew.  Thus the hours wore on, and the church clock struck nine and ten.

“Never a movement down there!” called the sergeant from the crest to Dellarme.  “Maybe this is just their final bluff before they come to terms about Bodlapoo”—­that stretch of African jungle that seemed very far away to them all.

“Let us hope so!” said Dellarme seriously.

“Hope there won’t be any war!  Just listen to that from an army officer, with the enemy right in front of him!” gasped grandfather.