"Over yonder at Chestnut Hill, on the school-grounds, the flag will be floating from the top of the staff to-day."
"Yes, I know. It will be a pretty sight. I used to be ashamed to look at it. You know why. To-day I could stare at it and glory in it for hours."
"That flag at the school-house is the most beautiful American flag in the world. I never saw it but once, but it thrilled me then unspeakably. I have loved it ever since. I can think of but one other sight that would be more beautiful and thrilling."
"To see 'Old Glory' waving from the top of a flag-staff here on the soil of France, signifying that our country has taken up the cause of the Allies and thrown herself, with all her heart and might into this war."
"Wait; you will see it, comrade, you will see it. It can't be delayed for long now."
Then the order came to advance. In a storm of shrapnel, bullets and flame, the British host swept down again upon the foe. The Germans gave desperate and deadly resistance. They fought hand to hand, with bayonets and clubbed muskets and grenades. It was a death grapple, with decisive victory on neither side. In the wild onrush and terrific clash, Pen lost touch with his comrade. Only once he saw him after the charge was launched. Aleck waved to him and smiled and plunged into the thick of the carnage. Two hours later, staggering with shock and heat and superficial wounds, and choking with thirst and the smoke and dust of conflict, Pen made his way with the survivors of his section back over the ground that had been traversed, to find rest and refreshment at the rear. They had been relieved by fresh troops sent in to hold the narrow strip of territory that had been gained. Stumbling along over the torn soil, through wreckage indescribable, among dead bodies lying singly and in heaps, stopping now and then to aid a dying man, or give such comfort as he could to a wounded and helpless comrade, Pen struggled slowly and painfully toward a resting spot.
At one place, through eyes half blinded by sweat and smoke and trickling blood, he saw a man partially reclining against a post to which a tangled and broken mass of barbed wire was still clinging. The man was evidently making weak and ineffectual attempts to care for his own wounds. Pen stopped to assist him if he could. Looking down into his face he saw that it was Aleck. He was not shocked, nor did he manifest any surprise. He had seen too much of the actuality of war to be startled now by any sight or sound however terrible. He simply said: