Joy in the Morning | Page 6

have happened in our country. A hundred years wouldn't have been enough to free us again, if that had happened. You and I, dearest, owe it to those soldiers that we are here together, free, prosperous citizens of an ever greater country.
She. (Drops on her knees by the ditch.) It's a shrine. Men of my land, I own my debt. I thank you for all I have and am. God bless you in your heaven. (Silence.)
He. (_Tears in his eyes. His arm around her neck as he bends to her_.) You'll not forget the story of the Charging Blank_th_?
She. Never again. In my life. (Rising.) I think their spirits must be here often. Perhaps they're happy when Americans are here. It's a holy place, as you said. Come away now. I love to leave it in sunshine and flowers with the dear ghosts of the boys. (Exit He and She.)

FIFTH ACT
_The scene it the same trench in the year 2018. It is five o'clock of the same summer afternoon. An officer of the American Army and an English cabinet member come, together, to visit the old trench. The American has a particular reason for his interest; the Englishman accompanies the distinguished American. The two review the story of the trench and speak of other things connected, and it is hoped that they set forth the far-reaching work of the soldiers who died, not realizing their work, in the great fight of the Charging Blank_th.
Englishman. It's a peaceful scene.
American. (_Advances to the side of the ditch. Looks down. Takes off his cap_.) I came across the ocean to see it. (He looks over the fields.) It's quiet.
Englishman. The trenches were filled in all over the invaded territory within twenty-five years after the war. Except a very few kept as a manner of monument. Object-lessons, don't you know, in what the thing meant. Even those are getting obliterated. They say this is quite the best specimen in all France.
American. It doesn't look warlike. What a lot of flowers!
Englishman. Yes. The folk about here have a tradition, don't you know, that poppies mark the places where blood flowed most.
American. Ah! (Gazes into the ditch.) Poppies there. A hundred of our soldiers died at once down there. Mere lads mostly. Their names and ages are on a tablet in the capitol at Washington, and underneath is a sentence from Lincoln's Gettysburg speech: "These dead shall not have died in vain, and government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
Englishman. Those are undying words.
American. And undying names--the lads' names.
Englishman. What they and the other Americans did can never die. Not while the planet endures. No nation at that time realized how vital was your country's entrance into the war. Three months later it would have been too late. Your young, untried forces lifted worn-out France and England and swept us to-victory. It was America's victory at the last. It is our glory to confess that, for from then on America has been our kin.
American. (Smiles.) England is our well-beloved elder sister for all time now.
Englishman. The soldiers who died there (_gestures to the ditch_) and their like did that also. They tied the nations together with a bond of common gratitude, common suffering, common glory.
American. You say well that there was common gratitude. England and France had fought our battle for three years at the time we entered the war. We had nestled behind the English fleet. Those grim gray ships of yours stood between us and the barbarians very literally.
Englishman. Without doubt Germany would have been happy to invade the only country on earth rich enough to pay her war debt. And you were astonishingly open to invasion. It is one of the historical facts that a student of history of this twenty-first century finds difficult to realize.
American. The Great War made revolutionary changes. That condition of unpreparedness was one. That there will never be another war is the belief of all governments. But if all governments should be mistaken, not again would my country, or yours, be caught unprepared. A general staff built of soldiers and free of civilians hampering is one advantage we have drawn from our ordeal of 1917.
Englishman. Your army is magnificently efficient.
American. And yours. Heaven grant neither may ever be needed! Our military efficiency is the pride of an unmilitary nation. One Congress, since the Great War and its lessons, has vied with another to keep our high place.
Englishman. Ah! Your Congress. That has changed since the old days--since La Follette.
American. The name is a shame and a warning to us. Our children are taught to remember it so. The "little group of wilful men," the eleven who came near to shipwrecking the country, were equally bad, perhaps, but they are