Many incidents in which smiles and tears were commingled took place in the nests of dug-outs and cellars among the ruins of the village. The Dublin Fusiliers lost most of their officers in the advance. Many of them were the victims of snipers. In the village the direction of affairs was in the hands of young subalterns. The manliness and decision of these boys were wonderful. One of them captured, with the help of a single sergeant, a German officer and twenty men whom they had come upon on rounding the corner of a trench. The German officer surrendered in great style. He stood to attention, gave a clinking salute, and said in perfect English, "Sir, myself, this other officer and twenty men are your prisoners." The subaltern said, "Right you are, old chap!" and they shook hands. Hundreds of the defenders of Guinchy had fled. "An' if they did itself, you couldn't blame them," said a wounded Dublin Fusilier to me. "We came on jumping mad, all roaring and bawling, an' our bayonets stretched out, terribly fierce, in front of us, that maybe 'tis ourselves would get up and run like blazes likewise if 'twere the other way about." Hot and impulsive in all things, the Irishmen were bent on advancing into the open country beyond Guinchy in chase of the retreating Germans. The officers had frantically to blow their whistles and shout and gesticulate to arrest this onward rush of the men to destruction in the labyrinth of the enemy supports which had escaped bombardment. "Very frankly the men proclaimed their discontent," says the special correspondent of _The Times_, "with what they called the 'diplomacy' which forbade them to go where they wanted--namely, to hell and beyond, if there are any Germans hiding on the other side." The only cases of desertion in the Irish Division occurred on the night before the storming of Guinchy. It is a deliciously comic incident. Three servants of the staff mess of one of the brigades disappeared. They left a note saying that, as they had missed Guillamont, they must have a hand in the taking of Guinchy. "If all right, back to-morrow. Very sorry," they added. Sure enough they were found in the fighting line. CHAPTER XIII HONOURS AND DISTINCTIONS FOR THE IRISH BRIGADE HOW LIEUTENANT HOLLAND OF THE LEINSTERS WON THE V.C.