l, but there was some mistake. There was no
curtain of fire before them, no artillery preparation to help them. And
the order to charge came. So, right into the German guns, in the face of
those terrible Prussian Guards, our lads went "over the top" with a
great shout, and poured like a flame, like a catapult, across the space
between them--No-Man's Land, they called it then--it was only
thirty-five yards--to the German trench. So fast they rushed, and so
unexpected was their coming, with no curtain of artillery to shield
them, that the Germans were for a moment taken aback. Not a shot was
fired for a space of time almost long enough to let the Americans reach
the trench, and then the rifles broke out and the brown uniforms fell
like leaves in autumn. But not all. They rushed on pell-mell, cutting
wire, pouring irresistibly into the German trench. And the Guards, such
as were not mown down, lost courage at the astounding impetus of the
dash, and scrambled and ran from their trench. They took it--our boys
took that trench--this old ditch. But then the big German guns opened a
fire like hail and a machine gun at the end--down there it must have
been--enfiladed the trench, and every man in it was killed. But the
charge ended the war. Other Americans, mad with the glory of it, poured
in a sea after their comrades and held the trench, and poured on and on,
and wiped out that day the Prussian Guard. The German morale was broken
from then; within four months the war was over.

_She_. (_Turns and hides her face on his shoulder and shakes with
sobs_.) I'm not--crying for sorrow--for them. I'm crying--for the glory
of it. Because--I'm so proud and glad--that it's too much for me. To
belong to such a nation--to such men. I'm crying for knowing, it was my
nation--my men. And America is--the same today. I know it. If she needed
you today, Ted, you would fight like that. You would go over the top
with the charging Blank_th_, with a shout, if the order came--wouldn't
you, my own man?

_He_. (_Looking into the old ditch with his head bent reverently_.) I
hope so.

_She_. And I hope I would send you with all my heart. Death like that is
more than life.

_He_. I've made you cry.

_She_. Not you. What they did--those boys.

_He_. It's fitting that Americans should come here, as they do come, as
to a Mecca, a holy place. For it was here that America was saved. That's
what they did, the boys who made that charge. They saved America f