Page:The Irish guards in the great war (Volume 1).djvu/262



On August 1 Lieutenant the Hon. P. J. Ogilvy joined the Battalion and took over No. 1 Company from Acting Captain W. C. Mumford, who had been appointed Town Major of the busy and occasionally battered town of Elverdinghe; and Lieutenant E. Budd took over the 4th Company from Acting Captain H. F. d'A. S. Law, wounded.

On the 15th August, the eve of the Langemarck attack, they were put on one hour's notice, which was withdrawn the next day, when six divisions (the Forty-eighth, Eleventh, Fifty-sixth, Eighth, Twentieth and Twenty-ninth) struck again along the line from the Menin road to our junction with the French in the north. The weather once more blinded our aeroplanes so that our artillery could not deal effectively with the counter-attacks; the pill-boxes held up our infantry, and though prisoners, guns, and a little ground round Langemarck were gained, the line of the Salient from St. Julien southwards stood as it had since the first. The Battalion was peacefully at bomb-practice on that day, and by some oversight a live bomb got mixed up with the dummies, and caused thirteen casualties, luckily none of them very serious, and the training went forward. As the crops were cut ground was gradually extended and every one was worked hard at practice attacks; for they understood that their lot would be cast in the Salient for some time.

On the 27th August medal ribbons were presented by the General of the 1st Brigade to those who had won honour in the Boesinghe battle, either by their cool-headedness in dealing with "surprise situations" or sheer valour in the face of death or self-devotion to a comrade; for there was every form of bravery to choose from. Lieutenant E. Budd received the bar to his Military Cross, and Sergeant (a/C.S.M.) P. Donohoe (No. 3056), No. 1910 Sergeant (a/C.S.M.) F. M'Cusker, No. 3224 Corporal E. M'Cullagh, No. 4278 Lance-Corporal J. Vanston, No. 7520 Private S.