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
W. S. P. Alexander, neck; 2nd Lieutenant R. S. G.
Paget, arm; 2nd Lieutenant J. K. Greer, leg and hand; 2nd Lieutenant
C. de Persse, head. Twenty-two men were killed, 284 wounded, and 86
missing. The Battalion came through it all, defeated, held down at
long range, but equable in temper and morale.
Small wonder that in the cheerless dawn of the 19th their Brigadier
came and “made some complimentary remarks to the men who were
standing about.”
The four officers who had been left behind were then ordered up to
fill the gaps, and in that dawn the company commands stood: No. 1,
Lieut. R. G. C. Yerburgh; 2nd Lieut. R. H. W. Heard. No. 2, Lieut.
Sir Gerald Burke; 2nd Lieut. A. W. L. Paget. No. 3, Capt. T. M. D.
Bailie. No. 4, Lieut. J. S. N. FitzGerald; Lieut. C. D. Wynter.
Almost at once shelling opened again, and Lieutenants Burke and Paget
were wounded and 10 men killed or wounded by three high explosives
bursting right over the line. It was sheer luck that, though
shelled at intervals for the rest of the day, there were very few
further casualties, and the Battalion returned “in small parties”
to their bivouacs near Le Touret, where a hot meal, great-coats and
a rum-ration awaited them. They were wet, tired, chilled, and caked
with dirt, and cheerful; but next day, when they paraded before going
into rest while they waited for reinforcements, there was hardly a
speck of mud to be seen on them. Rest-billets at Lapugnoy, some seven
or eight miles back, were out of range but not out of hearing of
the guns, in a valley between delightful beech-woods carpeted with
blue-bells. Here they lay off and rejoiced in the novel sight of
unscathed trees and actual hills.
FROM FESTUBERT TO LOOS
On the 24th May General Horne came to inspect and complimented them.
His compliments are nowhere recorded, but it was remarked with
satisfaction at his parade that the men “stood very steady and moved
their arms well considering that they have not had much practice in
steady drill lately.” They had merely practised unbroken discipline
among the dead and the dying in a hopeless fight.
A draft of 126 men, under Lieutenant A. F. Gordon, arrived, and
Lieutenant R. Rankin, who had been attached to the 1st Scots Guards
since February, joined them at Lapugnoy, and the Rev. S. Knapp, R.C.
Chaplain from the 25th Brigade, took temporary charge of spiritual
affairs while their own Father Gwynne, who never spared himself, was
trying electric treatment in Paris for lumbago, induced, as every one
knew, by unsparing exposure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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