hy of note that Sergeant-Major Leahy, in an
earlier letter, mentions that he served Mass for the chaplain, and was
known to Father Gleeson as his "altar boy." He corroborates what
Father Gleeson has written of the high moral conduct of the battalion
by saying, "Prayers more than anything else console me, and every
fellow is the same, so the war has been the cause of making us almost
an army of saints."

In his description of the battle, Sergeant-Major Leahy states that on
the preceding day, Saturday, May 8th, close on 800 men received Holy
Communion at the hands of Father Gleeson, and wrote their names and
home addresses in their hymn books. When evening came the regiment
moved up to take their places in the trenches in front of Rue de Bois.
"At the entrance to Rue de Bois," writes Mrs. Rickard, "there stands a
broken shrine, and within the shrine a crucifix. When the Munsters
came up the road, Major Rickard halted the battalion. The men were
ranged in three sides of a square, their green flags--a gift from Lady
Gordon--placed before each company. Father Gleeson mounted, Colonel
Rickard and Captain Filgate, the Adjutant, on their chargers, were in
the centre, and in that wonderful twilight Father Gleeson gave a
General Absolution." Sergeant-Major Leahy supplies other particulars
of that moving scene. "On the lonely, dark roadside," he says, "lit up
now and then by flashes from our own or German flares, rose to heaven
the voices of 800 men, singing that glorious hymn, 'Hail, Queen of
Heaven.' There were no ribald jests or courage buoyed up with alcohol;
none of the fanciful pictures which imagination conjures up of
soldiers going to a desperate charge. No, there were brave hearts
without fear; only hoping that God would bring them through, and if
the end--well, only a little shortened of the allotted span. Every man
had his rosary out, reciting the prayers, in response to Father
Gleeson, just as if at the Confraternity at home, instead of having to
face death in a thousand hideous forms the following morning." He
mentions also that after the religious service Father Gleeson went
down the ranks, saying words of comfort; bidding good-bye to the
officers, and telling the men to keep up the honour of the regiment.

At dawn the German position was bombarded for seven minutes in order
to cut gaps in the barbed-wire entanglements through which the
Munsters might pass to the enemy's trenches. Then, as Sergeant-Major
Leahy rela