machine-guns and snipers. The Diary remarks that the patrols located "at least one machine-gun," which is probably a large understatement; for so soon as the German machine-gunners recovered breath and eyesight, after or between shells, they were up and back and at work again. By the rude arithmetic of the ranks in those days, three machine-guns equalled a company, and, when well posted, a battalion.
The Battalion was relieved on the evening of the 26th by its sister (the 2nd) Battalion, who took over the whole of Lesbœufs ruins from the Brigade; and the 1st Irish Guards went back with the others through Bernafay Wood, where they fed, to camp once more at the Citadel.
In the two days of their second Somme battle, which they entered less than six hundred strong and ten officers, they had lost one officer, Captain Hargreaves, died of wounds, and five wounded, and more than 250 casualties in other ranks. Add these to the casualties of the 15th, and it will be seen that in ten days the Battalion had practically lost a battalion. The commanding officer, Colonel McCalmont, the adjutant, Captain Gordon, and Lieutenant Smith were the only officers who had come unwounded through both actions.
General Pereira, commanding the 1st Guards Brigade, issued the following order on the 27th September:
You have again maintained the high traditions of the 1st
Guards Brigade when called upon a second time in the battle
of the Somme. For five days previous to the assault the 2nd
and 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards held the trenches under
constant heavy shell-fire and dug many hundred yards of
assembly and communication-trenches, this work being constantly
interrupted by the enemy's artillery. The 2nd Battalion
Grenadier Guards and the 1st Battalion Irish Guards,
though under shell-fire in their bivouacs, were kept clear of
the trenches until the evening of 24th September, and were
given the task of carrying by assault all the objectives to
be carried by this Brigade. Nothing deterred them in this
attack, not even the fact that in places the enemy wire was
