o have deployed until after the enemy's fire had opened. Had shrapnel
struck this close formation, as it was within an ace of doing, the loss
of life must have been as severe as it was unnecessary.

On approaching the Drift--the position or even the existence of which
does not seem to have been very clearly defined--it was found that the
troops had to advance into a loop formed by the river, so that they were
exposed to a very heavy cross-fire upon their right flank, while they
were rained on by shrapnel from in front. No sign of the enemy could be
seen, though the men were dropping fast. It is a weird and soul-shaking
experience to advance over a sunlit and apparently a lonely countryside,
with no slightest movement upon its broad face, while the path which
you take is marked behind you by sobbing, gasping, writhing men, who can
only guess by the position of their wounds whence the shots came which
struck them down. All round, like the hissing of fat in the pan, is the
monotonous crackle and rattle of the Mausers; but the air is full of
it, and no one can define exactly whence it comes. Far away on some
hill upon the skyline there hangs the least gauzy veil of thin smoke to
indicate whence the six men who have just all fallen together, as if it
were some grim drill, met their death. Into such a hell-storm as this
it was that the soldiers have again and again advanced in the course
of this war, but it may be questioned whether they will not prove to be
among the last of mortals to be asked to endure such an ordeal. Other
methods of attack must be found or attacks must be abandoned, for
smokeless powder, quick-firing guns, and modern rifles make it all odds
on the defence!

The gallant Irishmen pushed on, flushed with battle and careless for
their losses, the four regiments clubbed into one, with all military
organisation rapidly disappearing, and nothing left but their gallant
spirit and their furious desire to come to hand-grips with the enemy.
Rolling on in a broad wave of shouting angry men, they never winced
from the fire until they had swept up to the bank of the river. Northern
Inniskilling and Southern man of Connaught, orange and green, Protestant
and Catholic, Celt and Saxon, their only rivalry now was who could
shed his blood most freely for the common cause. How hateful seem those
provincial politics and narrow sectarian creeds which can hold such men
apart!

The bank of the river had been gained, but where