I am sure you remember the occasion when the Coldstreams were driven from their trenches near Cuinchy, and two counter-attacks failed to recover them. At ten in the morning of 1st February a desperate effort to win them back was made by fifty men of the 2nd Coldstream Guards and thirty men of the Irish Guards, accompanied by sappers with wire and sand-bags. The Coldstreams went first. With fixed bayonets they rushed across the 200 yards that separated them from the German trenches. They were met by a heavy fire, which checked them a little; and then the Irish Guards went forward in support. O'Leary, fleet of foot, outdistanced his comrades. He had not gone far before he felt the ground give beneath his feet, and springing back, he saw a German bomb-thrower in a pit. He shot the man, and hurrying on to the angle of a barricade which he had marked all day, fired five shots and killed the five Germans who were holding it. Leaving his comrades to take possession of the barricade, he dashed towards a second position, sixty yards ahead, where a machine-gun section was frantically trying to turn its weapon upon the stormers. O'Leary, however, was too quick for them. A German officer had his finger on the button of the gun, and was about to release the hail of lead, when "crack" went our hero's rifle, and the officer dropped dead. Again and again O'Leary fired, and two other men fell, while their comrades, with white, scared faces, threw up their hands and begged for mercy. A few moments later and the Guards, with a wild rush through the flying mud, secured the position. "Lance-Corporal O'Leary thus practically captured the enemy's position himself, and prevented the rest of the attacking party from being fired on." He was promoted sergeant on the field. [Illustration: The Great Exploit of Lance-Corporal Michael O'Leary. (_From the picture by A. C. Mitchell. By permission of The Illustrated London News._)] Sergeant O'Leary, V.C., had a great reception when he returned to London in July on leave. A demonstration was held in Hyde Park by the United Irish League, and the hero, who was presented with a purse of gold, made a recruiting speech, in the course of which he said, "There are many others who have fought and are fighting, who have attempted and have done more than I for King and country. I have had the luck." In his own country the sergeant was enthusiastically received, and was so lionized that he said he must get back to the trenches to rest. At a banquet to his honour in his native county he asked for lemonade, and when some one thoughtlessly pressed him to take wine, he refused, and said that he must "keep fit." Not only did he receive the Victoria Cross at the hands of the King, but the highest awards for valour from the French and the Russian Government. [Footnote 6: See page 46.] CHAPTER VIII. THE GERMAN SUCCESS AT SOISSONS.