Page:The Irish guards in the great war (Volume 1).djvu/162

 *ing strict and accurate inquiries at Headquarters as to "what exactly is being sent out for Christmas Day. Is it plum-pudding only or sausages alone? Last year we had both, but I should like to know for certain."

All things considered (and there was no shelling), Christmas dinner at La Gorgue 1915 was a success, and "the C.O. and other officers went round the dinners as at home" in merciful ignorance that those of them who survived would attend three more such festivals.

Major-General Lord Cavan, commanding the Guards Division, who had been appointed to command the newly formed Fourteenth Corps, addressed the officers after dinner and half-promised them the Christmas present they most desired. He spoke well of the Battalion, as one who had seen and shared their work had right to do, saying that "there might be as good, but there were none better," and added that "there was just a hope that the Guards Division might eventually go to his corps." They cheered.

The quiet that fell about Christmastide held till the birth of the New Year, which the inscrutable Hun mind celebrated punctually on the hour (German time) with twenty minutes' heavy machine-gun and rifle fire in the darkness. One killed and one wounded were all their casualties.

Here is the roll of the Officers and Staff of the Battalion as the year ended in mud, among rotten parapets and water-logged trenches, with nothing to show for all that had gone before save time gained and ground held to allow of preparation for the real struggle, on the edge of which these thousand soldiers and all their world stood ignorant but unshaken:

HEADQUARTERS

Lieut.-Colonel R. C. A. McCalmont   Commanding Officer. Major Lord Desmond FitzGerald       Adjutant. Lieut. T. E. G. Nugent              a./Adjutant. Hon. Lieut. H. Hickie               Quartermaster.