filled into a
trench by a shell-burst. Along came another shell before he was half
through his task; the burst of a second knocked him over and doubled the
quantity of earth before him. When he picked himself up he went to the
captain and threw down his spade, saying:

"Captain, I can't finish that job without help. They're gaining on me!"

Some people thought that the Sinn Fein movement which had lately broken
out in the Dublin riots would make the new Irish battalions lukewarm in
any action. They would go in but without putting spirit into their
attack. Other skeptics questioned if the Irish temperament which was
well suited to dashing charges would adapt itself to the matter-of-fact
necessities of the Somme fighting. Their commander, however, had no
doubts; and the army had none when the test was made.

Through Guillemont, that wicked resort of machine guns, which had been
as severely hammered by shell fire after it had repulsed British attacks
as any village on the Somme, the Irish swept in good order, cleaning up
dugouts and taking prisoners on the way with all the skill of veterans
and a full relish of the exploit, and then forward, as a well-linked
part of a successful battle line, to the sunken road which was the
second objective.

"I thought we were to take a village, Captain," said one of the men,
after they were established in the sunken road. "What are we stopping
here for?"

"We have taken it. You passed through it--that grimy patch
yonder"--which was Guillemont's streets and houses mixed in ruins five
hundred yards to the rear.

"You're sure, Captain?"

"Quite!"

"Well, then, I'd not like to be the drunken man that tried to find his
keyhole in that town!"

It was a pity, perhaps, that the Irish who assisted in the taking of
Ginchy, which completed the needful mastery of the Ridge for British
purposes, could not have taken part in the drive that was to follow. We
had looked forward to this drive as the reward of a down hill run after
the patient labor of wrenching our way up hill. Even the Germans, who
had suffered appalling losses in trying to hold the Ridge, must have
been relieved that they no longer had to fight against the inevitable.

Again the clans were gathering and again there ran through the army the
anticipation which came from the preparation for a great blow. The
Canadians were appearing in billets back of the front. If in no other
way, I should have known of their presence by the