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
Woodhouse, and the Grenadiers’ Company stumbled as best they could
along the sleepers towards Arras. Every one missed every one else in
the confusion, while the Irish orderlies raged through the crowd like
angry nurses, in search of their officers. But at last all hands were
accounted for, blind, coughing, and, thanks to the nose-clips of the
masks, mostly with sore noses. They got into Arras at midnight, and
a good many of the Grenadiers had to be sent down for gas injuries.
The month closed with the Battalion nominally at Arras, and actually
finding more than two thirds of its strength for working-parties in
the filthy front line--a favour which it had not received itself
while there. Its casualty list for January was extraordinarily low,
being only two men killed and twenty-six wounded, one officer,
Captain Gordon, wounded and one, 2nd Lieutenant D. A. B. Moodie in
hospital. During the month, 2nd Lieutenants A. S. Stokes and L. H.
L. Carver joined, and 2nd Lieutenant A. W. G. Jamrack rejoined from
the Reinforcement Battalion.
On the 1st February orders came that the line was to be held by
all three brigades of the Guards Division instead of two; for it
must be remembered that each brigade was short one battalion. The
rearrangement drew more heavily on the working-parties in the forward
area where a new, foul trench--Hyderabad Support--was under way. They
supplied from two to four hundred men as need was, and lived in Arras
prison in luxury--wire beds, and palliasses for every man!--till the
6th February, when they relieved the 2nd Coldstream in the front
line. The support-trenches here were the best they had found, being
deep, duck-boarded, well revetted and with plenty of dug-outs and an
enviable system of cook-houses delivering hot meals in the actual
trenches. They sent working-parties to the insatiable engineers and
the brigade at large; for fresh trenches were being sketched out, if
not built, against the impending German attack.
The front line from the 10th to the 13th February was remarkably
quiet but not easy. Their patrols found no enemy, nor any sign of
them in No Man’s Land; a little wiring of nights was possible; and
there were no casualties. But the trench-strength of the Battalion
was weak--16 officers and 398 ranks, and every one had to work
double-tides to keep the ways open.
They were relieved on St. Valentine’s Day, two days after the 4th
Guards Brigade, which took with them the 2nd Irish Guards, had been
formed under Lord Ardee, and added to the Thirty-first Division.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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