“Boone and his party,” continued Jim, “had been gone about twenty minutes on their detour through the undergrowth which was to cut out this nest. We were lying along the edge of the clearing, ready to make a supporting bayonet rush if Boone got in among them. At what I thought was the right moment I passed the word down the line for the men to be ready. And then—and then—” “Well?” “And then, sir, the _darndest_ thing you ever saw!” proclaimed Jim, breaking away from strict technicalities in his emotion. “One of my men jumped suddenly to his feet and charged out into the middle of the clearing. He had a little flag—our flag—on the end of his bayonet, and he acted like he was stark insane.” “Who was the man?” “His name was Smithers. Miss Sissy Smithers, the boys called him. He was a sissy, in his ways, usually.” “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.