like a hawk peering for prey in the fields and
hedges, and there was a burst of shrapnel over the British lines,
followed by the booming of distant artillery. An attack so soon was
unexpected. The bells of Mons had been ringing for the Sunday
services, as usual, all the morning, and the Cathedral was crowded
with worshippers at the High Mass when the sound of the German guns
broke startlingly in upon their devotions. It was a beautiful day, and
many of the men in one of the Irish regiments billeted in a farmyard
close to the town were bare but for their trousers--availing
themselves of the warm sunshine to wash and dry their shirts and socks
after their long tramp in France and Belgium--when the bugles rang out
"Stand to arms." The Germans were unseen, but having on Saturday
beaten the French at Charleroi--to the British right--they were
advancing in overwhelming numbers, under Von Kluck, in the cover of
the woods, railway embankments and hedgerows. Soon the sharp crackle
of musketry was added to the cannonading of the guns, and the sabre
and lance of cavalry gleamed in the sun.

The first of the Irish regiments to exchange shots with the enemy's
infantry were the 2nd Rifles, who suffered severely, holding a
position in the suburbs of Mons. The 2nd Royal Irish Regiment
defended a village behind the town, and on the main road leading
south. A Gordon Highlander named Smiley says the Irish were "fearfully
cut up" when his company, about two miles behind, were directed to
advance to their relief. The Gordons crept up the road, and reached
the trenches of the Irish at dusk. Another Gordon says:--"When we got
to the trenches the scene was terrible. The Irish were unprepared for
the sudden attack. They were having dinner when the Germans opened on
them, and their dead and wounded were lying all around."

The Irish Guards, who lay to the east of Mons, on the British right,
had, as the regiment's first experience of warfare, to meet the shock
of a cavalry charge. One of the most popular recruiting posters in the
early days of the war was a picture of a comical-looking Tommy on the
field of battle. He was represented striking a match to light his pipe,
and saying, with a devil-may-care glint in his roguish eye, "Half a
mo', Kaiser," while German horsemen in the background were charging
towards him. The idea was suggested to the artist by an incident in the
encounter between the Irish Guards and the Germans at Mons. "I am
told,