The Irish Guards in the Great War, Volume 1 (of 2) : $b The First Battalion — John Shaqi
The Irish Guards in the Great War, Volume 1 (of 2) : $b The First BattalionKipling, Rudyard
History
The Irish Guards in the Great War, Volume 1 (of 2) : $b The First Battalion
Kipling, Rudyard
Great Britain. Army. Irish Guards -- History; World War, 1914-1918 -- Regimental histories -- Great Britain
On the afternoon of August 25 the Battalion reached Landrecies, an
unlovely, long-streeted town in closely cultivated country. The
German pressure was heavy behind them, and that evening the 3rd
Coldstream Guards on outpost duty to the north-west of Landrecies,
on the Mormal road, were attacked, and, as history shows, beat
off that attack in a night-fight of some splendour. The Battalion
turned out and blocked the pavé entrance to the town with improvised
barricades, which they lined, of stones, tables, chairs, carts, and
pianos; relieved the Coldstream at 1.30 A. M., August 26; and once
again covered the retirement of the Brigade out of the town towards
Etreux. The men were very tired, so weary indeed that many of them
slept by the roadside while waiting to relieve the Coldstreams at
Landrecies fight. That night was the first they heard wounded men
scream. A couple of Irish Guards officers, sleeping so deeply that
only the demolition by shell-fire of the house next door waked them,
were left behind here, but after twenty-four hours of fantastic and,
at that time, almost incredible adventures, rejoined safely next day.
It was recorded also that one of the regimental drums was seen and
heard going down Landrecies main street in the darkness, strung on
the fore-leg of a gun-horse who had stepped into it as a battery went
south. A battalion cooker, the sparks flying from it, passed like
a fire-engine hastening to a fire, and men found time to laugh and
point at the strange thing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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