and parcel of the immense situation. Nothing could have astonished them then, or, unless it directly concerned food or rest, have made them think.
The Battalion was placed where it was to endure, and was thankful that the 28th was a "fairly quiet day" but for heavy shelling on their right, and trench-mortars and shells on themselves. No. 2 Company, who had been unlucky with the big barrage the day before, suffered once again.
Next day (29th March), which was another "quiet" occasion, Lieutenant Zigomala was wounded and forty "of the most tired men" were relieved by an equal number from the Reinforcement Battalion, which relief became systematized, as it eased the strain a little to clear out visibly finished men day by day. All were worn down but "remained cheerful." Those who have full right to speak affirm that, in absolutely impossible situations, the Irish could be trusted to "play up" beyond even a cockney battalion. The matter will always be in dispute, but none know better than the men who saw the Push through how superbly the mud-caked, wire-drawn platoons bore themselves.
On the 30th March the attack rolled up again from the south where it had met no particular encouragement, and barraged the Battalion's sector with heavies for a couple of hours; causing forty-two casualties among the men and wounding Lieutenants Stacpoole and Bagenal. It then fell upon the 2nd Grenadiers and 1st Coldstream immediately to the Battalion's left and right, and was driven off with loss. There were other attacks, but with less venom in them, before the Hun could be induced to withdraw. Half the Battalion spent the night digging a line of posts in support which they occupied by dawn.
On the last of March "nothing of importance occurred." Everything, indeed, had occurred already. The old Somme salient which, English fashion, had become an institution, was completely reversed on the ominous newspaper maps. The Germans stood a-tip-toe looking into Amiens, and practically the entire spare
