is related of one Welshman that, among a thousand questions, he demanded if his tutor had ever gone over the top. The Irishman admitted that he had. “And how often does one go over?” the Welshman continued. “I’ll show you. Come with me,” replied the other Celt, and, moving to a gap in the parapet, lifted the Welshman in his arms that he might the better see what remained, hung up in German wire, of a private of some ancient fight—withered wreckage, perhaps, of Neuve Chapelle. “He went over wanst,” said the Irishman. The working-party resumed their labours and, men say, that that new boy put no more questions “for the full of the half an hour—an’ that’s as long as a week to a Welshman.”
All four companies were held in the first line except for three posts—Picantin, Dead End, and Hougoumont—a few hundred yards behind that were manned with a platoon apiece, but on the 12th December rumours of a mine made it wise to evacuate a part of the right flank till one of our 9.2’s should have searched for the suspected mine-shaft. Its investigations roused the enemy to mild retaliation, which ended next day in one of our men being wounded by our own 9.2, and three by the enemy’s shrapnel—the first casualties in four days.
The wet kept the peace along the line, but it did not altogether damp the energies of our patrols. For a reason, not explained officially, Lieutenant S. E. F. Christy was moved to go out with a patrol and to hurl into the German lines a printed message (was it the earliest workings of propaganda?) demanding that the Germans “should surrender.” There is no indication whether the summons was to the German army at large or merely to as many of them as lay before the Battalion; but, the invitation being disregarded, Lieutenants Christy and Law made themselves offensive in patrol-work to the best of their means. On one excursion the latter officer discovered (December 15) a water-logged concrete-built loop-hole dug-out occupied by Germans. Being a hardened souvenir-hunter, he is reported to have removed the official German nameboard of the establishment ere he went back for reinforcements with a view of capturing it complete. On his return he found it abandoned. The water had driven the enemy to a drier post, and the cutting-out expedition had to be postponed. Too long in the line without incident wears on every one’s temper, but luck was against them and an attempt on the 20th December by a “selected party” under some R.E.’s and Lieutenants Law and Christy was ruined by the moonlight and the fact that the enemy had returned to their concrete hutch and were more than on the alert. By the light of later knowledge the Battalion was inclined to believe that the dug-out had been left as bait and that there were too many spies in our lines before Laventie.
On the 21st December the Battalion came out for Christmas and billeted at Laventie, as their next turn would be in the old sector that they had handed over to the 4th Grenadiers three weeks ago. The same Battalion relieved them on this day, and, as before, were an hour late in turning up—a thing inexcusable except on one’s own part.
Their Adjutant’s preoccupations with officers sick and wounded; N.C.O.’s promoted to commissions in line battalions, and the catching and training of their substitutes; and with all the housekeeping work of a battalion in the field, had not prevented him from making strict and accurate inquiries at Headquarters as to “what exactly is being sent out for Christmas Day. Is it plum-pudding only or sausages alone? Last year we had both, but I should like to know for certain.”
All things considered (and there was no shelling), Christmas dinner at La Gorgue 1915 was a success, and “the C.O. and other officers went round the dinners as at home” in merciful ignorance that those of them who survived would attend three more such festivals.
Major-General Lord Cavan, commanding the Guards Division, who had been appointed to command the newly formed Fourteenth Corps,7 addressed the officers after dinner and half-promised them the Christmas present they most desired. He spoke well of the Battalion, as one who had seen and shared their work had right to do, saying that “there might be as good, but there were none better,” and added that “there was just a hope that the Guards Division might eventually go to his corps.” They cheered.
The quiet that fell about Christmastide held till the birth of the New Year, which the inscrutable Hun mind celebrated punctually on the hour (German time) with twenty minutes’ heavy machine-gun and rifle fire in the darkness. One killed and one wounded were all their casualties.
Here is the roll of the Officers and Staff of the Battalion as the year ended in mud, among rotten parapets and water-logged trenches, with nothing to show for all that had gone before save time gained and ground held to allow of preparation for the real struggle, on the edge of which these thousand soldiers and all their world stood ignorant but unshaken
| HEADQUARTERS | ||
| Lieut.-Colonel R. C. A. McCalmont | Commanding Officer. | |
| Major Lord Desmond FitzGerald | Adjutant. | |
| Lieut. T. E. G. Nugent | a./Adjutant. | |
| Hon. Lieut. H. Hickie | Quartermaster. | |
| Capt. P. H. Antrobus | Transport. | |
| Lieut. C. Pease | Brigade Company. | |
| Lieut. L. C. Whitefoord | “ | |
| Lieut. J. Grayling-Major | Depot. | |
| Capt. Rev. A. H. A. Knapp, O.P. | Chaplain. | |
| Capt. P. R. Woodhouse, R.A.M.C. | Medical Officer. | |
| No. 108 Sgt. Major Kirk | Sgt. Major. | |
| No. 176 Q.M.S. J. M. Payne | Q.M.S. | |
| No. 918 Drill-Sgt. T. Cahill | Senior Drill Sgt. | |
| No. 2666 Drill-Sgt. G. Weeks | Junior Drill Sgt. | |
| No. 1134 O.R.Cr. Sgt. P. Matthews | Orderly-Room Sgt. at Base. | |
| No. 3933 Sgt. Dr. W. Cherry | Sgt. Drummer. | |
| No. 1119 Sgt. R. Nugent | a./Pioneer Sgt. | |
| No. 837 Armr. Q.M.S. S. Bradley | Armr. Q.M.S. | |
| No. 3874 Sgt. M. Greaney | Transport Sgt. | |
| No. 4166 Sgt. J. Fawcett | Signalling Sgt. | |
| No. 2900 Sgt. P. J. Curtis | Orderly-Room Clerk. | |
| No. 1. Company. | ||
| Capt. R. G. C. Yerburgh. | (3726 C.Q.M.S. P. M’Goldrick.) | |
| Lieut. D. J. B. FitzGerald. |
| |
