t off. A patrol of a dozen Uhlans found them
there and ordered them to surrender, but they refused, and, tackling the
Germans from behind a barricade of furniture, killed or wounded half of
them. The others then brought up a machine gun and threatened the
destruction of the farm: but the two dragoons, remembering the kindness
of the farm owners and unwilling to bring ruin and disaster upon them,
rushed from the house in the wild hope of tackling the gun. The moment
they crossed the doorway they fell riddled with bullets." Another story
of the Irish Dragoons is told by Trooper P. Ryan. One of the Berkshires
had been cut off from his regiment while lingering behind to bid a dying
chum good-by, when he was surrounded by a patrol of Uhlans. A troop of
the Irish Dragoons asked leave of their officer to rescue the man, and
sweeping down on the Germans, quickly scattered them. But they were too
late. The plucky Berkshire man had "gone under," taking three Germans
with him. "We buried him with his chum by the wayside," adds Trooper
Ryan. "Partings of this kind are sad, but they are everyday occurrences
in war, and you just have to get used to them."

The Dragoons also went to the assistance of a man of the Irish Rifles
who, wounded himself, was yet kneeling beside a fallen comrade of the
Gloucester Regiment, and gamely firing to keep the enemy off. The
Dragoons found both men thoroughly worn out, but urgency required the
regiment to take up another position, and the wounded men had to be left
to the chance of being picked up by the Red Cross corps. "They knew
that," says the trooper who relates the incident, "and weren't the men
to expect the general safety to be risked for them. 'Never mind,' said
the young Irishman, 'shure the sisters 'll pick us up all right, an' if
they don't--well, we've only once to die, an' it's the grand fight we've
had annyhow.'"

One of the most stirring exploits of the war--equaled only by the
devotion and self-sacrifice of the Royal Engineers in the fight for the
bridge--is that of the Irish Fusiliers in saving another regiment from
annihilation. The regiment was in a distant and exposed position, and a
message had to be sent ordering its retirement. This could only be
accomplished by despatching a messenger, and the fusiliers were asked
for volunteers. Every man offered himself, though all knew what it meant
to cross that stretch of open country raked with rifle fire. They tossed
for the honor, an