Page:The Irish guards in the great war (Volume 1).djvu/275

 Division by Sir Douglas Haig, in cold weather with a high wind.

On the 6th November General Antoine, commanding the First French Army Corps, which had lain on the Division's left at Boesinghe, was to present French medals gained by the Division, but, thanks to the wet, parade, after being drawn up and thereby thoroughly drenched, was dismissed and the medals presented without review. Lieut.-Colonel R. V. Pollok, commanding the Battalion, received the Croix de Guerre. It is all a piece with human nature that the miseries of a week in liquid mud among corpses should be dismissed with a jest, but a wet parade, which ruins three or four hours' careful preparation, regarded as a grievous burden for every one except the N.C.O.'s, who, by tradition are supposed to delight in "fatigues" of this order.

Their three weeks' training came to an end on the 11th November, when they moved thirteen miles, in torrents of rain, to the village of Ecques, which was filled with Portuguese troops, and began a long march. They did not know their destination, but guessed well where they were going.

Some had all the reasons in the world to know that the Division would relieve the French on half a dozen different named sectors. Others were certain that it would attack independently quite elsewhere. Even Italy, where the Caporetto disaster had just taken place, was to the imaginative quite within the bounds of luck. But their line of route—twelve or thirteen miles a day in fine weather—dropped always south and east. From Ecques it crossed the Lys at Thérouanne; held over the worn road between St. Pol and Béthune, till, at Magnicourt-le-Comte, came orders that all kits were to be reduced and sent in to St. Pol. Elaborate reasons were given for this, such as lack of transport owing to troops being hurried to Italy, which dissipated the idea of light wines and macaroni entertained by the optimists, and deceived no one. If they turned left when they struck the St. Pol-Arras road, it would