Читать книгу Joy in the Morning - Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews - Страница 7

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The scene is the same trench in the year 2018. It is three o'clock of the afternoon, of the same summer day. A newly married couple have come to see the trench. He is journeying as to a shrine; she has allowed impersonal interests, such as history, to lapse under the influence of love and a trousseau. She is, however, amenable to patriotism, and, her husband applying the match, she takes fire—she also, from the story of the trench.

He

This must be the place.

She

It is nothing but a ditch filled with flowers.

He

The old trench. (Takes off his hat.)

She

Was it—it was—in the Great War?

He

My dear!

She

You're horrified. But I really—don't know.

He

Don't know? You must.

She

You've gone and married a person who hasn't a glimmer of history. What will you do about it?

[pg 020]

He

I'll be brave and stick to my bargain. Do you mean that you've forgotten the charge of the Blankth Americans against the Prussian Guard? The charge that practically ended the war?

She

Ended the war? How could one charge end the war?

He

There was fighting after. But the last critical battle was here (looks about) in these meadows, and for miles along. And it was just here that the Blankth United States Regiment made its historic dash. In that ditch—filled with flowers—a hundred of our lads were mown down in three minutes. About two thousand more followed them to death.

She

Oh—I do know. It was that charge. I learned about it in school; it thrilled me always.

He

Certainly. Every American child knows the story. I memorized the list of the one hundred soldiers' names of my own free will when I was ten. I can say them now. "Arnold—Ashe—Bennett—Emmet—Dragmore—"

She

Don't say the rest, Ted—tell me about it as it happened. (She slips her hand into his.) [pg 021] We two, standing here young and happy, looking forward to a, lifetime together, will do honor, that way, to those soldiers who gave up their happy youth and their lives for America.

He

(Puts his arm around her.) We will. We'll make a little memorial service and I'll preach a sermon about how gloriously they fell and how, unknowingly, they won the war—and so much more!

She

Tell me.

He

It was a hundred years ago about now—summer. A critical battle raged along a stretch of many miles. About the centre of the line—here—the Prussian Imperial Guards, the crack soldiers of the German army, held the first trench—this ditch. American forces faced them, but in weeks of fighting had not been able to make much impression. Then, on a day, the order came down the lines that the Blankth United States Regiment, opposed to the Guard, was to charge and take the German front trench. Of course the artillery was to prepare for their charge as usual, but there was some mistake. There was no curtain [pg 022] 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 [pg 023] 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.

[pg 024]

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 from the most savage and barbarous enemy of all time. As sure as France and England were at the end of their rope—and they were—so surely Germany, the victor, would have invaded America, and Belgium would 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 [pg 025] 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.)

[pg 026]