“And what did he do?”
“He stood there shouting to the enemy to come out and fight. He yelled,—‘I see you, you Dutchmen! You Squareheads! You Slobs! Look at me! Look at this li’l old Flag! Fire on that if you dare!’ Then he held his rifle up high, with the Stars and Stripes on the end of it.”
There ran a sudden thrill around the crowded table. The American venerates his Flag in a fashion hardly comprehended by the Englishman. Every nation must worship some totem. In the Englishman this impulse finds vent in loyalty to the Crown. We love the Union Jack, and we salute it upon state occasions. But we take off our hats to the King, and pray God to save him, because he stands for a tradition that goes right back a thousand years and more. The American pins everything—national honor, national tradition, personal loyalty, everything—to Old Glory.
“Well?” enquired the Colonel—presently.
“For a moment,” pursued Nichols, “the enemy did nothing. He was kind of paralyzed, I guess. Then the machine guns in that nest spoke up, and poor Smithers went down. Even then he was only hit in the legs. He sat up, and waved his flag again. Then they got him in the body, and he fell on his back. But he managed to keep his rifle erect for another fifteen seconds or so. He shouted, too, as he lay—calling them cowards, and daring them to come and take the Flag. By that time the guns were trained right on him, and—he passed out. But”—Nichols’s voice rose again exultantly—“they had been so busy trying to fix poor Sissy that they never thought to look around behind them; and right then Boone and his bunch jumped in on their necks, and the nest was out of business for keeps! We went across with the supporting party and helped them clean up. Turned their own machine guns on them too, until a German field battery got to work on us.”
“I suppose that was when you got most of your casualties?” said the Colonel.
“Yes, sir. Two men killed, besides Smithers, and Boone and seven others wounded. The men were all fine. After the shelling died down at dusk, and we were settling into our new positions, two or three Huns who knew a little English started to josh us; explained how they were coming over presently to turn us out, and beat us up, and show themselves a time generally. Finally one of our men, called McCarthy, pushed his head over the sandbags, and yelled: ‘Aw, what’s the use of pulling that stuff? Is this a War, or a Chautauqua?’ That fixed them. I guess McCarthy had stepped right outside their vocabulary!”
“Great boys, great boys!” chuckled the Colonel. “They were just the same on the Hindenburg Line.” He turned to Floyd. “Our idioms there puzzled some of our British friends, Major. But between us we got the goods on old man Hindenburg, I fancy.”
“I have heard rumours to that effect, Colonel,” replied Floyd. “The coöperation was pretty good, eh?”
“It was great,” said the Colonel. “French, British, or American, it did not seem to matter who was in command. We all kept touch, and we all made our objectives. And team-work! Here is a letter I received from an Australian commander under whom we worked for quite a while. He was a busy man, but he found time to write me this.”