th gold chevrons of
foreign service or no less honorable silver chevrons of service here;
now that the dear lads who sleep in France know that the "torch was
caught" from their hands, and that faith with them was kept; now
that--thank God, who, after all, rules--the war is over, there is an old
word close to the thought of the nation. "Heaviness may endure for a
night, but joy cometh in the morning." A whole country is so thinking.
For possibly ten centuries the Great War will be a background for
fiction. To us, who have lived those years, any tale of them is a
personal affair. Every-day women and men whom one meets in the street
may well say to us: "My boy was in the Argonne," or: "My brother fought
at St. Mihiel." Over and over, unphrased, our minds echo lines of that
verse found in the pocket of the soldier dead at Gallipoli:

"_We_ saw the powers of darkness put to flight,
_We_ saw the morning break."

Crushed and glorified beyond all generations of the planet, war stories
prick this generation like family records. It is from us of to-day that
the load is lifted. We have weathered the heaviness of the night; to us
"Joy cometh in the morning."

M.R.S.A.

CONTENTS

I. The Ditch

II. Her Country Too

III. The Swallow

IV. Only One of Them

V. The V.C.

VI. He That Loseth His Life Shall Find It

VII. The Silver Stirrup

VIII. The Russian

IX. Robina's Doll

X. Dundonald's Destroyer

THE DITCH

PERSONS

THE BOY an American soldier

THE BOY'S DREAM OF HIS MOTHER

ANGELIQUE }
} French children
JEAN-BAPTISTE }

THE TEACHER

THE ONE SCHOOLGIRL WITH IMAGINATION

THE THREE SCHOOLGIRLS WITHOUT IMAGINATION

HE

SHE

THE AMERICAN GENERAL

THE ENGLISH STATESMAN

The Time.--A summer day in 1918 and a summer day in 2018

FIRST ACT

_The time is a summer day in 1918. The scene is the first-line trench of
the Germans--held lately by the Prussian Imperial Guard--half an hour
after it had been taken by a charge of men from the Blank_th _Regiment,
United States Army. There has been a mistake and the charge was not
preceded by artillery preparation as usual. However, the Americans have
taken the trench by the unexpectedness of their attack, and the Prussian
Guard has been routed in confusion. But the German artillery has at once
opened fire on the American