I congratulate you, my brave countrymen and fellow soldiers, on

Host:
The sky was a bruised canvas of grey and gold, dawn still struggling to climb above the horizon. A thin mist clung to the valley, wrapping the ground in the kind of silence that only follows after thunder — or battle. The air smelled of gunpowder and earth, of sweat, blood, and the fragile promise of victory.

Across the field, flags fluttered half-torn, their colors dampened but still defiant. Men moved slowly among the smoke — carrying the wounded, collecting the fallen. Somewhere beyond the river, a faint drumbeat echoed — not of celebration, but of exhaustion made rhythmic.

Jack stood near a broken stone wall, his coat heavy with mud, his hands still trembling from the weight of his rifle. He stared into the distance where the sun was trying to pierce the fog, his grey eyes hollow with both triumph and disbelief.

Jeeny approached quietly, her uniform torn at the shoulder, her hair matted with rain. She carried in her hand a folded piece of parchment — its ink smudged but legible. She stopped beside him, unfolded it, and read aloud, her voice steady despite the quiver in her breath:

“I congratulate you, my brave countrymen and fellow soldiers, on the spirit and success with which you have executed this important part of our enterprise.” — James Wolfe

The words seemed too clean for the world around them.

Jack:
(quietly)
“Spirit and success.” Funny how easily those two words fit together when you’re not standing in the mud.

Jeeny:
They had to fit, Jack. Wolfe said them to men who needed to believe that this blood meant something.

Jack:
(looking at her)
And do you believe it does?

Jeeny:
(sighing)
I believe in the spirit, not always the success.

Host:
A cannon, somewhere far off, released a low rumble — not in anger, but as if echoing the last heartbeat of a long night. The wind carried the scent of the river, cold and metallic.

Jack:
You know what bothers me? It’s not the fighting. It’s how easily we dress suffering in words like “enterprise.”

Jeeny:
And yet, if we don’t, who could bear it? We need the poetry, Jack — even the false kind. Otherwise, this is just madness.

Jack:
(half-smiling)
It is madness. But we call it glory so we can sleep.

Jeeny:
And still, we fight.

Jack:
Because if we don’t, someone else will.

Jeeny:
(softly)
That’s what they all say. That’s what they’ve always said.

Host:
The fog began to lift. The first rays of sunlight cut through the haze, lighting the wet blades of grass like threads of glass. Around them, men began to stand, one by one — some cheering weakly, some silent, their faces blank as masks carved by fate.

Jeeny:
You know, when Wolfe said those words, he was dying. He congratulated his soldiers with his last breath.

Jack:
Maybe that’s why they believed him. Dying men make good poets.

Jeeny:
He wasn’t just a poet, Jack. He was trying to give them meaning — the one thing they couldn’t find in the smoke.

Jack:
And what if there is no meaning? What if all this — (gestures to the field) — is just one more story we tell ourselves to make killing look like courage?

Jeeny:
Then maybe belief is the only victory we have left.

Host:
The sun rose higher now, spilling gold across the battlefield. The ground shimmered, not with glory, but with dampness, with the weight of everything left behind.

Jack bent down, picking up a discarded musket ball, turning it between his fingers — small, smooth, deadly.

Jack:
Wolfe said we executed this “important part of our enterprise.” He made it sound like we were craftsmen, not killers.

Jeeny:
Maybe that’s what soldiers are — craftsmen of order, carving shape out of chaos.

Jack:
(looking up sharply)
At what cost, Jeeny? We build order out of bones.

Jeeny:
And yet we call it civilization.

Jack:
Then maybe civilization is just war with better vocabulary.

Jeeny:
(sadly)
Or maybe it’s the dream we keep building in spite of it.

Host:
The wind shifted, carrying the sound of a distant trumpet — a signal that the fight, at least for today, was over. Men began to move toward camp, limping, leaning on one another. The sound of their boots on the wet ground was heavy, almost sacred.

Jeeny:
You know, I used to think victory felt like music. Like drums, cheers, fireworks. But it doesn’t. It feels like... silence.

Jack:
Because silence is the only thing left when the noise stops.

Jeeny:
And yet, in that silence — listen — there’s something else. Not triumph. Not relief. Something quieter.

Jack:
(regarding her carefully)
What do you hear?

Jeeny:
Humanity, maybe. The small, tired kind that crawls out of war just to keep the world from dying entirely.

Host:
The sunlight now filled the valley. The fog retreated, revealing the river, the distant hills, the remains of camps, and the trails of smoke rising like memories. Jack and Jeeny stood side by side — not victors, not victims, but witnesses.

Jack:
So this is what success looks like.

Jeeny:
Success isn’t the victory, Jack. It’s surviving it without losing your soul.

Jack:
And spirit?

Jeeny:
Spirit is what reminds you you’re still human, even when the world teaches you to forget.

Host:
She reached out, her gloved hand brushing his arm — a small, human gesture against the enormity of the moment. The wind tugged at their coats, at the flags behind them, at the smoke that refused to die.

Jack:
Maybe Wolfe wasn’t congratulating his soldiers. Maybe he was warning them — that success without spirit isn’t victory at all.

Jeeny:
(smiling faintly)
Maybe. Or maybe he was just trying to leave the world with a sentence that sounded like hope.

Host:
The two stood there in the morning light, watching the field turn slowly from grey to gold.

Somewhere far off, the river glimmered — cold, steady, eternal. The birds had begun to sing again, hesitant but unbroken.

And as the sunlight rose higher, touching the scars of the earth, it seemed to whisper — not of triumph, but of continuation.

Because the spirit of a people, like the river, flows even through ruin. Because success, when it costs too much, becomes its own kind of mourning.

And yet — humanity keeps building, keeps believing, keeps rising.

Host:
Perhaps that is what Wolfe truly meant: that even in the aftermath of conquest, the greatest victory is that the heart still beats.

Fade out.