new strength and grace to bear up. He said to me after: 'Father,
every time you'll say Holy Mass here, you will bring me Holy
Communion again, won't you? I don't like to trouble you, but I
long so much to receive.' Poor Paddy! He was such a good boy! I
know, dear Mrs. Kelleher, you have long since put your son in
God's holy hands, leaving him entirely to God. And God and Mary
will now, I know, reward you and give you help and grace to bear
for the love of them the sorrowful news it's my hard lot to be
the first to send you, perhaps. Your poor Paddy passed away to
the God whom he loved so much, and for whom he bore all so
patiently. Don't fear for Paddy. He is happy now, poor lad,
after many sufferings."

Could there be anything more precious to an Irish Catholic mother than
such an account of the last hours of the son of her heart--_a vic mo
chree_--dying of battle wounds in a far foreign land?

CHAPTER X

THE GREAT PUSH AT LOOS

HISTORIC FOOTBALL CHARGE OF THE LONDON IRISH, WITH THE GERMAN TRENCHES
AS GOAL

What a stirring story of Irish gaiety and resolution is that of the
charge of the London Irish Rifles in the great advance upon the mining
village of Loos, on Saturday, September 25th, 1915! "Hurrah, the
London Irish, hurrah!" The shout ran along the British Lines on
Tuesday, September 28th, as the battalion, with many gaps in their
ranks, returned after the splendid stand against the terrific German
counter-attack which followed the charge, when, according to the
General of their Brigade, they helped to save the 4th Army Corps.

"The lucky Irish!" That is one of the names they are known by at the
Front. They are given posts of difficulty and danger, and so well do
they acquit themselves that the company officers get Military Crosses,
and the Distinguished Conduct Medal is liberally distributed among the
rank and file. Yet their casualties are remarkably low. The jealous
and the profane in other London battalions account for it, I am told,
by reviving the ancient gibe about the devil always taking special
care of his own. It is true the London Irish are up to all sorts of
"divilment"--as we say in Ireland--whether in the trenches or in
billets. I have heard no more delicious war anecdote than that which
tells of a fine trick they played on the enemy. Their telephone
linesmen happened to find two live German cables on the ground behind
their trenches. T