Dr. Crozier, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, visited the Division in January 1916; and after a week spent with the battalions, brought home a deep impression of their spirit and devotion. "A more capable, energetic and cheerful body of men I have never come across," he writes. "I have seen them at rifle practice, bomb-throwing, route marching, road-mending, and in the trenches, and everywhere my experience was the same--officers and men working in splendid harmony, and taking the keenest interest in any and every job they were given to do. One night I met a couple of hundred men coming back from eight days' weary work in water-logged trenches, and they were singing so lustily that I really thought at first they were coming from a concert. And yet the war is to them a terrible reality, and they have already experienced some of its horror. I could not help noticing that this has produced a deep sense of responsibility, and has intensified their belief in the reality of duty; and whether at Sunday services or at weekday informal addresses, there were no restless or inattentive men, but they seemed to welcome every word that spoke of God's presence and guidance in all life's difficulties and dangers." CHAPTER III ULSTERS' ATTACK ON THE SLOPES OF THIEPVAL "NOT A MAN TURNED TO COME BACK, NOT ONE" The Division was put to the great test on July 1, 1916, the memorable day of the opening of the Battle of the Somme and the British attack in force to break through the German trenches in Picardy. It was a formidable task. The strength of the enemy positions was that they stood on high ground. That, also, was the reason of their importance. The table-land must be taken and held to permit of an advance in the stretch of open country spreading on the other side to the north. It was to be uphill work. So the battle became the greatest the world has ever known, so far, for its dimensions, the numbers engaged and the duration. The Ulstermen were in the left wing of the British lines, and the scene of their operations was, roughly, three miles of broken country, dips and swells, on each side of the river Ancre, between the village of Beaumont Hamel, nestling in a nook of the hill above the river, eastwards to the slopes of Thiepval, perched on a height about 500 feet, below the river, all within the German lines. The main body of the Division assembled in the shelter of a Thiepval wood. "Porcupine Wood" it was called by the men. The trees were so stripped of foliage and lopped into distorted shapes by enemy gun-fire that their bare limbs stood up like quills of the fretful porcupine. At half-past seven in the morning the advance commenced. For ten days the British batteries had been continuously bombarding the whole German front. There was no sudden hush of the cannonade at the moment of the attack. For a minute there was a dramatic pause while the guns were being lifted a point higher so that they might drop their shells