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 line ditches and the like for fear of attack. Then an overtaking, at wrecked cross-roads, of some of the 2nd Brigade, who reported patrols of the 3rd Grenadiers had pushed on into Maubeuge without opposition, and that the rest of that battalion was gone on. Just before dawn, No. 4 Company of the Irish, marching on a road parallel to the highway, ran into a company of Germans retiring. The Diary says: "A short sharp fight ensued in which five of the enemy were wounded and twelve captured, the rest getting off in the dark." But there is a legend (it may have grown with the years) that the two bodies found themselves suddenly almost side by side on converging tracks, and that the Irish, no word given, threw back to the instincts of Fontenoy—faced about, front-rank kneeling, rear-rank standing, and in this posture destroyed all that company. It was a thing that might well have come about darkling in a land scattered with odds and ends of drifting, crazed humanity. No. 2 Company solemnly reported the capture of two whole prisoners just after they had crossed the railway in the suburbs of Maubeuge, which they passed through on the morning of the 9th, and by noon were duly established and posted, company by company, well to the east of it. No. 2 Company lay in the village of Assevant, with pickets on the broken bridge over the river there, an observation-line by day and all proper supports; No. 4 Company in posts on the road and down to the river, and Nos. 1 and 3 in reserve; Yeomanry and Corps Cyclists out in front as though the war were eternal.

And, thus dispersed, after a little shelling of Assevant during the night, the Irish Guards received word that "an Armistice was declared at 11 this morning, November 11."

Men took the news according to their natures. Indurated pessimists, after proving that it was a lie, said