Cavan is the Guards’ spirit incarnate. All his admiration goes to the fearless man. I wish I could tell you in his own words, as he told me, the now familiar story of how Mike O’Leary of the Irish Guards won the V.C. at Cuinchy. The General (who believes that where the Guards are there he should also be) witnessed the incident himself. He tells how he saw O’Leary, right ahead of his company, dash up one bank and kill the Germans there, then dash up another and kill the Germans there, then, going round the back, seize two Germans working a machine-gun by the scruff of the neck, and with either hand gripping their collars firmly, call to his comrades to relieve him of his prisoners. “A most extraordinary fellow,” says the General. “By rights he should have been killed a dozen times.” Lord Cavan’s own fearlessness and complete indifference to danger are a by-word in the army. His officers swear by him. His men adore him, regarding him, with true Guards’ exclusiveness, as a treasured possession, a peculiar acquisition of the Guards. More than once he has been mentioned in despatches. This is what the Commander-in-Chief, on the recommendation of Sir Douglas Haig, wrote of his conduct at the first battle of Ypres: “He was conspicuous for the skill, coolness, and courage with which he led his troops, and for the successful manner in which he dealt with many critical situations.” Lord Cavan has no enemies, I believe, and no one who has seen him in the field will think that what I have written in praise of him is excessive. A sudden German attack on November 6 drove back the troops on the left of the Guards Brigade, which was left exposed. A splendid charge by the Household Cavalry brought a British cavalry brigade to fill the gap on the left of the Guards, and the next day the Guards delivered a successful counter-attack, but could not retain the ground they had won against the overwhelming German odds. On November 11 the final desperate effort of the Germans to break through to the sea, in the shape of the attack of the Prussian Guard, failed, and the battle came to a close. The First Brigade, with which were the 1st Coldstream and the 1st Scots Guards, with the rest of the First Division, stemmed the tide and threw the flower of the German Army back in confusion. The First Brigade left its commander on that blood-stained field in the person of the gallant Brigadier-General Fitzclarence, V.C., who, as I have told elsewhere, was the author of the famous order to the 2nd Worcesters that saved the day at Ypres on October 31.