Major Charrier and eight officers of the Munsters were buried near the trench where the men were laid to rest, under the shadow of the trees where they had fought their great fight. But though we call them dead, we know that the spirit that is strong and cheerful, and that has added to the page of a nation's history, outlives all so-called untimely endings. The finished work, the completed undertaking, is not for many in the story of this great war, and it is not a little thing but a fine deed, to have left a record that betters the honourable traditions of the Royal Munster Fusiliers. "Dying ye shall die greatly with a glory that shall surpass the glories of the past." [Illustration: THE MUNSTERS AT FESTUBERT December 22nd, 1914 _Drawn by Philip Dadd._] [_To face p. 17._] THE MUNSTERS AT FESTUBERT _December 22nd, 1914._ "Your ashes o'er the flats of France are scattered, But hold a fire more hot than flesh of ours. The stainless flag that flutters frayed and tattered, Shall wave and wave like spring's immortal flowers. You die, but in your death life grows intenser, You shall not know the shame of growing old. In endless joy you wave the holy censer, And blow a trumpet though your lips are cold." "To Our Dead." By EDMUND GOSSE. On the evening of the 20th December, 1914, the 2nd Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers, commanded by Colonel A. M. Bent, were billeted in the outskirts of Bailleul. They were scattered about in the farm houses and barns, in the narrow, yellow-plastered châteaus, that let in all the draughts from all the corners of the country, and in the little villa houses on the threshold of Bailleul itself. Up to that time Bailleul had escaped from the destruction of falling shells, and only the far-away boom of guns made war very strongly evident; that and the masses of British troops and the passing of motor transport, divorced it from its old dreaming quiet of a few months back. The weather was intensely cold; an icy west wind came over the frozen flats, and drove the tearing rain-storms out of the mist-covered fens. The Regiment had been some weeks in billets, re-equipping and training, going steadily through the process by which freshly drafted youngsters are made into fine soldiers. Colonel Bent was unusually gifted with the quality that inspires men to realise the value of central control; his personality and indomitable will made for an influence that the hundreds of men under his command responded to instinctively. Many of those who fought with him at Ypres and elsewhere have testified to this.