gly and
proudly watching them, and that the sacrifice they make in her name
will, as they wish it--for their wish is the same as the dying
Sarsfield's on the field of Landen--go to her profit.

The record so far brings Ireland great honour. And this excites no
jealousy in the Army--for it is from the other corps in the Army
itself comes the most generous testimony to the work of the Irish
soldiers and the most comrade-like regret where it is thought there
has been lack of recognition. What stands out is that on every front,
and whether new levies or regulars, the work of the Irish troops has
not only been of great merit in every instance, but of exceptional
merit, and they have to their credit some of the most splendid and
astonishing achievements. The Irish Guards at Mons, the Royal Irish
Regiment at Ypres, the London Irish at Loos (dribbling a football
before them as they charged--the boys in the trenches, before the
charge, holding out the matches with which they had lit their
cigarettes to show each other that their hands were not shaking), the
regular battalions at "V" Beach, the new "service" battalions of the
Tenth Division at Sulva, I name out of a long list to illustrate this
statement. To General Mahon's Division, composed exclusively of new
levies who were civilians when the war began--thousands of Nationalist
families in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught represented its
ranks--the terrific open fighting at Suvla Bay (which began with the
shelling of the lighters at the landing and the bursting of chains of
contact mines as they set foot on shore) was their first experience of
being under fire. Undismayed, their coolness undisturbed, they formed
for attack as if on the parade ground. These were the "freshies"
spoken of in the letter partly quoted above of Captain Thornhill,
himself a representative of those magnificent Australian and New
Zealand troops whose prowess has been another of the revelations of
the war. "The Empire can do with a heap more 'freshies' of the Irish
brand," he writes. "Their landing at Suvla Bay was the greatest thing
you will ever read of in books by high-brows. Those that witnessed
the advance will never forget it. Bullets and shrapnel rained on them,
yet they never wavered.... God! the men were splendid. The way they
took that hill (now called Dublin Hill) was the kind of thing that
would make you pinch yourself to prove that it was not a cheap wine
aftermath. How they got there Heav