Corporal Tom Clark fingered his rifle. His eyes scanned the long open hillside that sloped down to a silver stream below. He had stood at his post for many hours, looking at that slope, watching the river, waiting for the enemy. Now he was tired. His body called for sleep, but Tom Clark wasn’t going to sleep. Some night the enemy army would come up that slope, and he, Tom Davis Clark, Jr., was going to be one member of the welcoming committee.

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In his younger days he might have been afraid. Now he was twenty-two ... a man ... and he felt no fear of the enemy encamped somewhere across the river. But just as if he had been a kid, Tom thought of home, of all the Christmas fires and gifts and cheer and rejoicing in England at that time of year. He thought of Mom and Dad and sister Mary and brother George­—And he wanted to be in England; but he had a job to do, a big job to do.

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His eyes again scanned the hillside below, and as all was still quiet, he thought that perhaps he should return to headquarters and report “all’s well”. His eyes gave one last glance at the slope.

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He laid his rifle back on the ledge. Something had moved on the slope below. Now they came. Tom gritted his teeth. He could make some of them out now, and he hated them. He thought he had a right to hate them … as they came up the slope ... crawling on their bellies ... creeping on their bellies. War is a grim game, Tom thought.

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There was no thought in Tom’s mind to go back to headquarters and report the approach of the enemy. It was late … too late … to take his eyes off the hated shapes that were clawing the ground below. Carefully he picked out one of the enemy soldiers. A moment of tenseness. His finger pressed the trigger. His shot rang out, calling the enemy force to action. They were everywhere.

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Tom heard shouts from the men in the camp, heard Sgt. Harris bark or­ders. But he didn’t stop. He shot one after another of the enemy. He shot as fast as he could, but they continued to come. Nothing could stop them ... nothing. Then he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder and his rifle fell to the ground. Then he was looking into the grim, determined face of an enemy soldier. He wanted to cry out, but he could only gasp for breath. Tears were running down his anguished face as his body slid down the keen edge of the bayonet onto the ground. For the first time ever, he wanted to die.

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He thought of many things as he lay there. His thoughts were first of England, green England, beautiful England … of Mom and Dad and sister Mary and brother George. He thought of all his life in that moment, and he wanted to pray. His mind was too confused to think, too confused to pray; but still he could remember an old prayer he used to say when he had been a boy, a very little boy. He had knelt by his bed every night—except when it was awfully cold—and repeated … Oh, but that was a child’s prayer, and he was a man ... a soldier in his majesty’s army. But somehow he had to say something, and then no one would hear. He began to whisper ... “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die . . . before I wake, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.” The curtain fell as Tom Clark finished his prayer, but there are no curtain calls on the stage of life.

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The enemy flag was waving gaily from the tall slender pole on top of the hill next morning. Tom Clark never saw that flag. It was a new flag, with thirteen stars and thirteen stripes.

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