Page:The Irish guards in the great war (Volume 1).djvu/281

 the bad luck of the tour, and the dawn of the 30th November was ushered in by single shells from a long-range gun which found them during the night. Half an hour after they had the order to move to Heudicourt and had digested a persistent rumour that the enemy were through at Gonnelieu, telegrams and orders began to pour in. The gist of them was that the line had undoubtedly cracked, and that the Brigade would move to Gouzeaucourt at once. But what the Brigade was to do, and under whose command it was to operate, were matters on which telegrams and orders most livelily conflicted. Eventually, the Division as a whole was assigned to the Third Corps, the 3rd Brigade was ordered to come up from Trescault and help the 1st, and the various C.O.'s of the battalions of the 1st Brigade rode forward to see for themselves what was happening. They had not far to go. Over the ridge between Gouzeaucourt and Metz poured gunners, carrying their sights with them, engineers, horses and infantry, all apparently bent on getting into the village where they would be a better target for artillery. The village choked; the Battalion fell in, clear of the confusion, where it best could, and set off at once in artillery formation, regardless of the stragglers, into the high and bare lands round Gouzeaucourt. There were no guns to back them, for their own were at Flesquières.

As was pointed out by an observer of that curious day—"'Tis little ye can do with gunsights, an' them in the arrums av men in a great haste. There was men with blankets round 'em, an' men with loose putties wavin' in the wind, and they told us 'twas a general retirement. We could see that. We wanted to know for why they was returnin'. We went through 'em all, fairly breastin' our way and—we found Jerry on

had been given them by a French Corps. When the order to move at once came, the parting words of the Officer in Charge of the Goat to the aged man were: "Now you look after the goat and our blankets, and don't walk about upstairs. You needn't worry about yourself. If you're taken prisoner we'll send you lots of parcels. Look after the goat and hang on to our blankets." He did.]
 * [Footnote: water for the officers' baths" and look after a certain mascot-goat which