Page:The Irish guards in the great war (Volume 1).djvu/171

 The snow stopped all training except a little bombing. Opinion as to the value of bombs differed even in those early days, but they were the order of the day, and gave officers the chance to put in practice their pet theories of bowling. A commanding officer of great experience wrote, a year later, after the Battle of Arras, thanking Heaven that that affair had "led to the rediscovery of the rifle as a suitable weapon for infantry," adding, "I swear a bomb is of all weapons the most futile in which to specialize."

The French were as keen on the bomb as the rest of the world, and parties of officers visited our bombing competitions at Wormhoudt, where the Battalion lay till the 16th March, moving to billets (Brandhoek) near Vlamertinghe for St. Patrick's Day and the sports sacred to the occasion. They were played into camp by a naval party to the tune of "A Life on the Ocean Wave," not a little to their astonishment. A little later they were to be even more astonished.

Then the 1st Guards Brigade took over their sector of the Fourteenth Division's new front from the Sixth Division and, as usual, complained that the trenches which ran from the east to the town were in bad condition. The Brigade Reserve camp near Vlamertinghe was not much better. It is significant that, at this date, a train, specially oiled and treated to run noiselessly through the night, used to take the reliefs up into Ypres—a journey that did not lack excitement.

On the 23rd March, as the Battalion was going into the trenches on the Ypres Canal bank, the meaning of that "naval party" at Vlamertinghe became plainer. Three naval officers and twenty-five petty officers on special leave appeared among them for the purpose of spending a happy four days with them at their labours. They wore the uniforms of private soldiers without pack or equipment, and were first seen joyously walking and talking on a well-observed road, which combination of miracles led the amazed beholders to assume that they were either lunatics or escaped criminals of the deepest dye; and it was a toss-up that the whole cheery picnic