Guinchy fell within the same week as Guillamont. It was stormed on the following Saturday, September 9. The village had been taken two or three times previously--some accounts say four--by the British and recaptured each time by the Germans. But the grip of the Irish Brigade could not be relaxed. Standing on a hill 500 feet high, Guinchy was one of the most important enemy strongholds on the Somme, particularly for artillery. It had been fortified with the accumulated skill of eighteen months' labour by the German engineers. It was well protected by guns. Picked troops--the Bavarians--defended it. The Germans, according to a captured officer, believed that Guinchy could not be taken. "But," he added, "you attacked us with devils, not men. No one could withstand them." The capture of the place was therefore a good day's work. It stands solely to the credit of the Irish Brigade. They did it all by themselves. The attack was mainly delivered from the direction of Guillamont. All through the week, for five days and nights, most of the Irish battalions had lain in the trenches--connected shell craters for the most part--under heavy artillery fire. In these circumstances they could get nothing hot to eat. They subsisted mainly on the iron rations of bully beef and biscuit, which formed part of each man's fighting equipment, and a little water. As for sleep, they were unable to get more than disturbed and unrefreshing snatches. Yet they were as full of spirit and had nerves as unshaken as if they had come fresh from billets, and they were as eager for a fight as ever. In preparation for the advance, a thunderstorm of British fire and steel broke over the German trenches. The splitting, tearing crashes of the mighty "heavies" lying miles back; their firing accuracy, the penetrating power of their shells, had a heartening influence on the men. "Ah, those guns," said an officer of the Royal Irish Regiment--"their effect, spiritual and temporal, is wonderful. Your own makes you defiant of the very devil; the enemy's put the fear of God into you." The German lines were blotted out by smoke and flying soil. The ground rocked and swayed. It was like a heavy sea, only the waves were of earth.