The Irish on the Somme Part 2

The fatigue, the disgust, and the danger of life in the trenches are, at times, stronger than any other impulse, whether of the flesh or of the soul. "'Tis enough to drive one to the drink: a grand complaint when there's plenty of porter about," said a private; "but a terrible fate when there's only the water we're wading in, and that same full up--the Lord save us!--of creeping and wriggling things." "True for you; it's the quare life, and no mistake," remarked another. "You do things and get praise for them, such as smas.h.i.+ng a fellow's skull, or putting a bullet through him, which if you were to do at home you'd be soon on the run, with a hue and cry and all the police of the country at your heels."

Back in billets again, for a wash and a shave and a brush up, and lying in their straw beds in the barns, the Rangers would thus philosophise on their life. The b.e.s.t.i.a.l side of it--the terrible overcrowding of the men, the muck, the vermin, the gobbling of food with filthy hands, the stench of corrupting bodies lying in the open, or insufficiently buried, and, along with all that, its terror, agony and tragedy are, indeed, utterly repellent to human nature. Still, there was general agreement that they had never spent a week of such strange and exquisite experiences. Fear there was at times, but it seemed rather to keep up a state of pleasurable emotion than to generate anguish and distress. Certainly most Connaught Rangers will swear that life in the trenches has at least three thrilling and exalting moments. One is when the tot of rum is served round. Another is the first faint appearance of light in the sky behind the enemy's lines, proclaiming that the night is far spent and the day is at hand.

The third is the call to "stand to," telling that a visit from the Gerrys is expected, when the men cease to be navvies and become soldiers again--throwing aside the hateful pick and shovel and taking up the beloved rifle and bayonet.

CHAPTER II

EXPLOITS OF THE ULSTER DIVISION

BELFAST'S TRIBUTE TO THE DEAD

"I am not an Ulsterman, but as I followed the amazing attack of the Ulster Division on July 1, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world. With shouts of 'Remember the Boyne' and 'No Surrender, boys,' they threw themselves at the Germans, and before they could be restrained had penetrated to the enemy fifth line. The attack was one of the greatest revelations of human courage and endurance known in history."--A British officer on the exploits of the Ulster Division, July 1, 1916.

One of the most striking and impressive tributes ever paid to the heroic dead was that of Belfast on the 12th of July, 1916, in memory of the men of the Ulster Division who fell on the opening day of that month in the great British offensive on the Somme. For five minutes following the hour of noon all work and movement, business and household, were entirely suspended. In the flax mills, the linen factories, the s.h.i.+p yards, the munition workshops, men and women paused in their labours. All machinery was stopped, and the huge hammers became silent. In shop and office business ceased; at home the housewife interrupted her round of duties; in the streets traffic was brought to a halt, on the local railways the running trains pulled up.

The whole population stood still, and in deep silence, with bowed heads but with uplifted hearts, turned their thoughts to the valleys and slopes of Picardy, where on July 1 the young men of Ulster, the pride and flower of the province, gave their lives for the preservation of the British Empire, the existence of separate and independent States, and the rule of law and justice in their international relations.

"The Twelfth" is the great festival of Belfast. On that day is celebrated the Williamite victories of the Boyne, July 1, and Aughrim, July 12, 1690, in which the cause of the Stuarts went down for ever.

It is kept as a general holiday of rejoicing and merrymaking. The members of the Orange lodges turn out with their dazzling banners and their no less gorgeous yellow, crimson and blue regalia; and the streets resound with the lilt of fifes, the piercing notes of cornets, the boom and rattle of many drums, the tramp of marching feet and the cheers of innumerable spectators. There was no such demonstration on July 12, 1916. For the first time in the history of the Orange Inst.i.tution the observance of the anniversary was voluntarily abandoned, so that there might be no stoppage of war work in the s.h.i.+p yards and munition factories. But at the happy suggestion of the Lord Mayor (Sir Crawford McCullagh), five minutes of the day were given reverently to lofty sorrow for the dead, who, by adding "The Ancre,"

"Beaumont Hamel" and "Thiepval Wood" to "Derry," "Enniskillen," "The Boyne" and "Aughrim" on the banners of Ulster, have given a new meaning and glory to the celebration of "The Twelfth" in which all Ireland can share. Major-General O.S.W. Nugent, D.S.O., commanding the Ulster Division, in a special Order of the Day, issued after the advance, wrote--

"Nothing finer has been done in the War.

"The Division has been highly tried and has emerged from the ordeal with unstained honour, having fulfilled in every part the great expectations formed of it.

"None but troops of the best quality could have faced the fire which was brought to bear on them, and the losses suffered during the advance.

"A magnificent example of sublime courage and discipline."

This glory was gained at a heavy cost. There was cause for bitter grief as well as the thrill of pride in Ulster. Nothing has brought home more poignantly to the inhabitants of a small area of the kingdom the grim sacrifices and the unutterable pathos of the war than the many pages of names and addresses of the dead and wounded--relatives, friends and acquaintances--which appeared in the Belfast newspapers for days before "The Twelfth" and after. So blinds were drawn in business and private houses; flags were flown at half-mast; and bells were mournfully tolling for Ulster's irremediable losses when, at the stroke of twelve o'clock, traffic came instantaneously to a standstill, and for five minutes the citizens solemnly stood with bared heads in the teeming rain thinking of the gallant dead, the darkened homes and the inconsolable mothers and wives.

The Ulster Division possesses an individuality all its own. It has no like or equal among the units of the British Army on account of its family character; the close and intimate blood relations.h.i.+p of its members; its singleness of purpose; the common appeal of racial, political and religious ideals that binds it together by stronger links than steel. The United Kingdom, as a whole, may be said to have been totally unready when war broke out. But it happened that one small section of this industrial and peace-loving community was prepared, to some extent, for the mighty emergency. That was Ulster.

It was immersed in business at the time, just as much as Manchester or Sheffield, and in making money out of its flouris.h.i.+ng prosperity. But, unlike those English industrial centres, Ulster had in its history and traditions an influence which bred a combative disposition, and ever kept burning a martial flame, even in its marts and workshops. The community was convinced that in defence of all they hold dearest in religious beliefs and political principles they might have some day, not, as in England when opinions are at stake, to flock to the polling stations at a General Election, but take to the field and fight. The very pick of the manhood of the province joined the Ulster Volunteer Force, and armed and trained themselves as soldiers. So it was that in the years immediately preceding the war it seemed almost certain they would have to follow the example of their forefathers centuries before and raise the Orange flag at Enniskillen and Derry. Then came the challenge of Germany to British ideals. The aim and purpose of the Ulster Volunteer Force remained the same, as the members conceived it, but it was turned into a wholly unexpected channel. By an astounding transformation of events they were to bleed and give their lives for all they revere and cherish, not in Ulster but on the hills and in the woods of Picardy.

The Ulster Division is entirely Protestant and Unionist; or was, until it was decimated on the Somme. It was formed out of the men who had previously bound themselves together by a solemn covenant, signed on "Ulster Day," Sat.u.r.day, September 28, 1912, to stand by one another in defending, for themselves and their children, their cherished civil and religious heritage, should Home Rule be established. Thus the Division is unparalleled for its kind since Cromwell's "Ironsides" in enlisting stern religious fervour and political enthusiasm in a fighting phalanx. It consists of twelve battalions forming three brigades. It is wholly Irish. Nine of the battalions have the regimental t.i.tle of Royal Irish Rifles. The other battalions have the t.i.tles of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the two other regiments of the Line a.s.sociated with Ulster. The battalions have also territorial cla.s.sifications denoting their origin from the Ulster Volunteer Force, such as "North Belfast Volunteers"; "East Belfast Volunteers"; "Young Citizen Volunteers"; "South Belfast Volunteers"; "West Belfast Volunteers"; "South Antrim Volunteers"; "Down Volunteers"; "County Armagh Volunteers"; "Central Antrim Volunteers"; "Tyrone Volunteers"; "Donegal and Fermanagh Volunteers"; "Derry Volunteers." It has its own Engineers, Army Service Corps, Army Medical Corps and a complete Ambulance equipment.

There are also reserve battalions. In the pleasant surroundings of the Botanic Gardens, Belfast, a splendid hospital was established for the care of the wounded, and the provision of artificial limbs to those who might need them; and as evidence of the characteristic thoroughness with which everything was attended to, a fund has been raised to a.s.sist members of the Division who may be left maimed and broken in health, and to support the dependents of the fallen, outside any aid that may be derived from the State. The Commander, Major-General Nugent, is a county Cavan man, a Deputy Lieutenant for the county, and a kinsman of the Earl of Westmeath. He served in the King's Royal Rifles for seventeen years, and was wounded in both the Chitral and South African campaigns.

The Division completed its training at Seaford, in Suss.e.x. On visiting the district I was amused to find that the advent of "the wild Irish"

had been antic.i.p.ated by the inhabitants with much misgiving. They were apprehensive of their ancient peace being disturbed by the hilarity and commotion that spring from high and undisciplined spirits. What did happen agreeably surprised the Suss.e.x folk. The Ulstermen quickly earned the esteem of every one for their affable qualities and good-humour. What was particularly remarkable was that they were found to be most pliant and tractable--qualities which, by common tradition, are supposed not to be looked for in any body of Irishmen; and as for their moral behaviour, what was more astonis.h.i.+ng still was that the church or the chapel was to them infinitely more attractive than the inn.

So the Division prepared themselves for taking the field against the enemy. They were reviewed by the King shortly before leaving for the Front. "Your prompt patriotic answer to the nation's call to arms will never be forgotten," said his Majesty. "The keen exertions of all ranks during the period of training have brought you to a state of efficiency not unworthy of any Regular Army. I am confident that in the field you will n.o.bly uphold the traditions of the fine regiments whose names you bear. Ever since your enrolment I have closely watched the growth and steady progress of all units. I shall continue to follow with interest the fortunes of your Division. In bidding you farewell I pray G.o.d may bless you in all your undertakings." In the autumn of 1915 they went to France, determined to uphold the highest traditions of the fighting qualities of the Irish race, and burning for a chance of distinction.

During the winter months of 1915-16 the Division took its turns in the firing-line. Every battalion experienced the hards.h.i.+ps and dangers of the front trenches, when the weather was at its worst for chills, bronchitis, pneumonia and frost-bite, and when the Germans were most active at sniping and bombarding. Names of men in the Division began to appear in the lists of casualties within ten days of the landing in France. The battalions pa.s.sed through these preliminary stages with courage, endurance and splendid determination. They quickly earned a fine reputation among the highest military commanders for such soldierly qualities as willingness and cheerfulness in doing any sort of work, however unpleasant, that fell to them in the trenches, and their coolness and alertness on such dangerous missions as going out at night to the listening posts in No Man's Land and repairing the wire entanglements. Eager to s.n.a.t.c.h their share of peril and glory, they were also among the foremost in volunteering for such wild adventures as bombing raids on the German trenches under cover of darkness. One such daring exploit by the Tyrone Volunteers was the subject of a special order of the day issued by Major-General Nugent, commanding the Division. It was as follows--

"A raid on the German trenches was carried out at midnight on ---- by the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. The raiding party consisted of Major W.J. Peac.o.c.ke, Captain J. Weir, Lieutenant W.S. Furness, Second-lieutenant L.W.H. Stevenson, Second-Lieutenant R.W. M'Kinley, Second-Lieutenant J. Taylor, and eighty-four other ranks. The raid was completely successful, and was carried out exactly as planned. Six German dugouts, in which it is certain there were a considerable number of men, were thoroughly bombed, and a machine-gun was blown up, while a lively bombing fight took place between the blocking detachments of the raiding party and the Germans. Having accomplished the purpose of the raid, the party was withdrawn, with the loss of one man killed and two wounded. The raid was ably organised by Major Peac.o.c.ke, and was carried out by the officers and men of the party exactly in accordance with the plan, and the discipline and determination of the party was all that could be desired. The Divisional Commander desires that his congratulations should be extended to all who took part in it.

"Brigadier-General Hickman, in a special brigade order, says the arrangements and plans reflect the greatest credit on Colonel A.

St. Q. Ricardo, D.S.O., commanding the battalion, Major Peac.o.c.ke, and the other officers concerned. The whole scheme was executed with great dash and determination, cool judgment and nerve."

Such was the fame of the raid and its success that the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig, visited the battalion and personally congratulated them.

Dr. Crozier, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, visited the Division in January 1916; and after a week spent with the battalions, brought home a deep impression of their spirit and devotion. "A more capable, energetic and cheerful body of men I have never come across," he writes. "I have seen them at rifle practice, bomb-throwing, route marching, road-mending, and in the trenches, and everywhere my experience was the same--officers and men working in splendid harmony, and taking the keenest interest in any and every job they were given to do. One night I met a couple of hundred men coming back from eight days' weary work in water-logged trenches, and they were singing so l.u.s.tily that I really thought at first they were coming from a concert. And yet the war is to them a terrible reality, and they have already experienced some of its horror. I could not help noticing that this has produced a deep sense of responsibility, and has intensified their belief in the reality of duty; and whether at Sunday services or at weekday informal addresses, there were no restless or inattentive men, but they seemed to welcome every word that spoke of G.o.d's presence and guidance in all life's difficulties and dangers."

CHAPTER III

ULSTERS' ATTACK ON THE SLOPES OF THIEPVAL

"NOT A MAN TURNED TO COME BACK, NOT ONE"

The Division was put to the great test on July 1, 1916, the memorable day of the opening of the Battle of the Somme and the British attack in force to break through the German trenches in Picardy. It was a formidable task. The strength of the enemy positions was that they stood on high ground. That, also, was the reason of their importance.

The table-land must be taken and held to permit of an advance in the stretch of open country spreading on the other side to the north. It was to be uphill work. So the battle became the greatest the world has ever known, so far, for its dimensions, the numbers engaged and the duration. The Ulstermen were in the left wing of the British lines, and the scene of their operations was, roughly, three miles of broken country, dips and swells, on each side of the river Ancre, between the village of Beaumont Hamel, nestling in a nook of the hill above the river, eastwards to the slopes of Thiepval, perched on a height about 500 feet, below the river, all within the German lines. The main body of the Division a.s.sembled in the shelter of a Thiepval wood.

"Porcupine Wood" it was called by the men. The trees were so stripped of foliage and lopped into distorted shapes by enemy gun-fire that their bare limbs stood up like quills of the fretful porcupine. At half-past seven in the morning the advance commenced. For ten days the British batteries had been continuously bombarding the whole German front. There was no sudden hush of the cannonade at the moment of the attack. For a minute there was a dramatic pause while the guns were being lifted a point higher so that they might drop their sh.e.l.ls behind the enemy's first lines. Then the British infantry emerged from their trenches and advanced behind this furious and devastating curtain of fire and projectiles.

The morning was glorious and the prospect fine. The sun shone brightly in the most beautiful of skies, clear blue flecked with pure white clouds; and as the Ulstermen came out of the wood and ranged up in lines for the push forward, they saw, in the distant view, a sweet and pleasant upland country, the capture of which was the object of the attack. In the hollows the meadows were lush with gra.s.s, thick and glossy. There was tillage even, green crops of beetroot growing close to the ground, and tall yellowing corn, far behind the main German trenches. It was like a haunt of husbandry and peace. The only sound one would expect to hear from those harvest fields was that of the soothing reaping-machine garnering the wheat to make bread for the family board of a mother and a brood of young children. But no tiller of the soil was to be seen, near or far. The countryside to the horizon ridge was tenantless, until these tens of thousands of British soldiers suddenly came up out of the ground. Even in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 the agriculturists of northern France--then, as now, the zone of conflict--remained in the homes and pursued their avocations. During the battle of Sedan, which sealed the fate of France, an extraordinary incident occurred--a peasant was observed in one of the valleys within the area of the fight calmly guiding the plough drawn by a big white horse. "Why should the man lose a day?" says Zola in _The Downfall_. "Corn would not cease growing, the human race would not cease living, because a few thousand men happened to be fighting." But war is waged differently now. It is spread along fronts hundreds of miles in extent and depth. Millions of men are engaged. They burrow underground and are armed with terrific engines of destruction. So it was that behind that green and pleasant land, bathed in suns.h.i.+ne, ferocity and death are skulking underground.

Those elaborately interlacing white chalky lines over the face of the landscape mark the run of the German trenches. Each dip is a death-trap. The copses are barricaded with fallen timber and wired; the villages are citadels, the farmsteads are forts, the ridges of the two plateaux are each one succession of batteries. Swallows were darting to and fro hawking for flies for their young, and in the clear air soaring larks were singing to their mates brooding on their eggs in the gra.s.s, showing that Nature was still carrying on her eternal processes, but the husbandman had fled the deceiving scene, and the after-crops from his old sowings of corn and mustard were mixed with weeds in No Man's Land.

Things befell the Ulstermen, when they appeared in the open, which were things indeed. The fortunes of war varied along the British advance. A group of war correspondents on a height near the town of Albert, about midway in the line, noticed that while some of the British battalions were comparatively unmolested, the resistance of the enemy to the left or west was of the fiercest and most desperate character. The Germans seem to have expected the main a.s.sault at this part of the field of operations. Their guns and men were here most heavily ma.s.sed. On the left of the valley made by a curve of the river Ancre is a crest, in a crease of which lay on that July morning the village of Beaumont Hamel, or rather its site, for it had been blown almost out of existence by the British artillery fire. Under the village--as shown by explorations made after it fell--were a vast system of pa.s.sages and cellars, in which whole battalions of Germans found shelter from the bombardment. On the right of the valley is the plateau of Thiepval. It was as strong a position as the consummate skill of German engineers and gunners could make it. On the sky line at the top of a ridge of the plateau were the ruins of the village of Thiepval--heaps of bricks and slates and timber that once were walls and roofs of houses--encircled by blackened stumps of trees that once in the spring were all pink and white of the apple blossom. The ground sloping down to the valley, and the valley itself was a network of German trenches--mostly turned into a maze of upheaved earth-mounds by sh.e.l.l-fire--studded with many machine-gun posts. The main part of the Ulster Division advanced across the valley that rose gently, with many undulations upwards, to the slopes on the western or left side of Thiepval. They had to take what were called the A, B and C lines of trenches. As will be seen, they pushed far beyond their objective.

Clouds of smoke had been liberated from the British lines to form a screen for the attackers. Into it the men disappeared as they marched, line after line, in extended order, over the intervening stretch of ground. But almost immediately they were all scourged--especially the Ulster battalions on the extreme left moving towards Beaumont Hamel--with machine-gun fire poured at them from various points, to the continuous accompaniment of short, sharp, annihilating knocks. The bullets literally came like water from an immense hose with a perforated top. The streams of lead crossed and re-crossed, sweeping the ranks about the ankles, at the waist; breast high, around their heads. Comrades were to be seen falling on all sides, right, left, front and rear. So searching was the fire that it was useless to seek cover, and advance in short rushes in between. So the lines kept undauntedly on their way, apparently not minding the bullets any more than if they were a driving and splas.h.i.+ng shower of hail.

"Let her rip, ye divils!" shouted some of the Ulstermen in jocular defiance at the enemy and his machine-gun; "and," said an officer relating the story, "the Bosche let her rip all right." One of the wounded rank and file told me that in the advance he lost entire perception of the roar of the British guns which was so impressive as he lay with his comrades in the wood, though they still continued their thundering. Their terrible diapason of sound seemed to be lulled into absolute silence, so far as he was concerned, by the hollow, crepitating "tap-t-t-tap" of the German machine-guns; and the swish, swish, swish of the bullets, of all the noises of battle the most unnerving to soldiers a.s.sailing a position. But the Ulstermen were in a mood of the highest exaltation, a mood in which troops may be destroyed but will not easily be subjugated. The day had thrilling historic memories for them.

"July the First on the banks of the Boyne, There was a famous battle."

The opening lines of their song, "The Boyne Water," recounting the deeds of their forefathers, came inevitably to their minds. "Just as we were about to attack," writes Rifleman Edward Taylor of the West Belfast Volunteers, "Captain Gaffikin took out an orange handkerchief and, waving it around his head, shouted, 'Come on, boys, this is the first of July!'" "No surrender!" roared the men. It was the answer given by the gallant defenders of Derry from their walls to King James and the besieging Jacobites. On the fields of Picardy new and n.o.ble meanings were put into these old, out-worn Irish battle-cries. One sergeant of the Inniskillings went into the fray with his Orange sash on him. Some of the men provided themselves with orange lilies before they went up to the a.s.sembly trenches, and these they now wore in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. But, indeed, their colours were growing in profusion at their feet when they came out of the trenches--yellow charlock, crimson poppies and blue cornflowers, and many put bunches of these wild flowers in their tunics. So the Ulstermen were keen to prove their metal. They divided their forces and advanced to German positions on the right and left. Through it all their battle-shout was "No surrender." But there was one surrender which they were prepared to make, and did make--the surrender, for the cause, of their young lives and all the bright hopes of youth.

When the battalions on the right reached the first German line they found shapeless mounds and cavities of soil and stones and timber, shattered strands and coils of barbed wire, where the trenches had been, and the dead bodies of the men who were in occupation of them at the bombardment. The Ulstermen then pushed on to the second line, which still held living men of courage and tenacity who had to be disposed of by bayonet and bomb. On to the third line the Ulstermen went at a steady pace. They were still being whipped by machine-gun fire. Their ranks were getting woefully thinner. In their tracks they left dead and wounded. At the sight of a familiar face among the curiously awkward att.i.tudes and shapes of those instantaneously killed there was many a cold tug at the heart-strings of the advancing men, and many a groan of sorrow was suppressed on their lips.

The moaning of the wounded was also terrible to hear, but their spirit was magnificent. "Lying on the ground there under fire, they had no thought of their own danger, but only of the comrades who were going forward, and they kept shouting words of encouragement after the attacking column until it was well out of sight," said an Inniskilling Fusilier. "One company, recruited mainly from the notorious Shankill road district of Belfast, was going forward, when a wounded man recognised some of his chums in it. 'Give them it hot for the Shankill road,' he cried, and his comrades answered with a cheer." The same man, giving a general account of the fiercely contested attack on the enemy positions, said, "It was a case of playing leapfrog with death, but all obstacles were overcome, and the Fusiliers carried the enemy trenches with a magnificent rush. The Huns turned on them like baffled tigers and tried to hurl the Irishmen out again, but they might as well have tried to batter down the walls of Derry with toothpicks. The Inniskillings held their ground, and gradually forced the enemy still further back."

The German trenches, with their first, second, third, fourth and fifth lines, formed a system of defences of considerable depth, into which the Ulstermen had now penetrated for distances varying from two to three miles in depth. It was a land of horrible desolation. The ground at this point was almost bare of vegetation. It was torn and lacerated with sh.e.l.l holes. The few trees that remained standing were reduced to splintered and jagged stumps. All was smoke, flashes, uproar and nauseating smells. In this stricken battle area the defence was as stubborn and desperate as the attack. It seemed impossible for men with a nervous system and imagination to retain their reason and resolution in the terrific, intensive and searching preliminary bombardment. Nevertheless, the Germans did it. The British guns had, indeed, wrought widespread havoc. Not only lines of trenches were pounded to bits, but spots outside, affording concealment for guns and troops, were discovered and blown to atoms. There were, however, deep dug-outs going as many as thirty feet below ground, and in some cases, even at that depth, there were trapdoors and stairs leading to still lower chambers, and up from these underground fortifications the Germans came when the cannonade lifted. There were also hidden machine-gun shelters in the hollows and on the slopes which the British artillery failed to find. The resistance offered to the advance of the Ulstermen was accordingly of the most obstinate and persistent nature. The hand-to-hand fight with bayonet and bomb at the third line of trenches was described by a man of the Irish Rifles as "a Belfast riot on the top of Mount Vesuvius." No more need be said.

The phrase conveys a picture of men madly struggling and yelling amid fire and smoke and the abominable stench of battle. Yet the enemy's fourth line fell before these men who would not be stopped. There remained the fifth line, and the Ulstermen were preparing to move forward to it when the order came to fall back. The state of affairs at this time of the evening is well explained by one of the men--

"We had been so eager that we had pressed too far forward, and were well in advance of our supporting troops, thus laying ourselves open to flank attacks. The position became more serious as the day advanced, and the supporting troops were unable to make further progress, while the Huns kept hurrying up fresh men. We kept shouting the watchword of 'No Surrender,'

with which our fathers had cheered themselves in the siege of Derry, and every time the Huns attacked we sent them reeling back with something to remind them that they were fighting Irishmen. We couldn't help taunting them a lot. 'Would you like some Irish rebellion?' we called out to them, and they didn't like it. They kept throwing in fresh reinforcements all day, and gradually the pressure became almost unbearable. Still we held our ground, and would have continued to hold it if necessary."

"Retirement," he adds, "is never a pleasant task, especially after you have fought your corner as we fought ours. We felt that the ground won was part of ourselves, but orders had to be obeyed, and so we went back." The retirement was to the third line of trenches, at the point known as "the Crucifix," just north-west of Thiepval. It was carried out at nightfall, after fourteen hours' continuous fighting. This section of the Division, in the words of Major-General Nugent, "captured nearly 600 prisoners, and carried its advance triumphantly to the limits of the objective laid down."

The battalions, two in number, operating on the left at Beaumont Hamel, were not so fortunate. They were broken to pieces by the devastating machine-gun fire. The remnants, by a magnificent effort, succeeded in getting into the German trenches. They were held up there by an utterly impa.s.sable curtain of sh.e.l.ls and bullets. It was not their fault that they could not advance any further. They had to face a more terrific ordeal than any body of men have had to encounter in battle before. "They did all that men could do," says Major Nugent, "and, in common with every battalion in the Division, showed the most conspicuous courage and devotion."

Lieut.-Colonel Ambrose Ricardo, D.S.O., of Lion House, Strahane, commander of the Tyrone battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, gives an account of the experience of the Ulster Division which is of the greatest value for the reasons it supplies why the Division lost so heavily and thus were unable to hold the advanced positions they had taken. He first describes how his men set out for their plunge into the terrible unknown. "Every gun on both sides fired as fast as it could, and during the din our dear boys just walked out of the wood and up rumps we had cut through our parapet and out through lanes in our wire," he says. "I shall never forget for one minute the extraordinary sight. The Derrys on our left were so eager they started a few minutes before the ordered time, and the Tyrones were not going to be left behind, and they got going without delay. No fuss, no shouting, no running; everything orderly, solid and thorough, just like the men themselves. Here and there a boy would wave his hand to me as I shouted good luck to them through my megaphone, and all had a happy face. Most were carrying loads. Fancy advancing against heavy fire carrying a heavy roll of barbed wire on your shoulder!"