“Your ashes o’er the flats of France are scattered,
But hold a fire more hot than flesh of ours.
The stainless flag that flutters frayed and tattered,
Shall wave and wave like spring’s immortal flowers.
You die, but in your death life grows intenser,
You shall not know the shame of growing old.
In endless joy you wave the holy censer,
And blow a trumpet though your lips are cold.”
“To Our Dead.” By Edmund Gosse.

On the evening of the 20th December, 1914, the 2nd Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers, commanded by Colonel A. M. Bent, were billeted in the outskirts of Bailleul. They were scattered about in the farm houses and barns, in the narrow, yellow-plastered châteaus, that let in all the draughts from all the corners of the country, and in the little villa houses on the threshold of Bailleul itself.

Up to that time Bailleul had escaped from the destruction of falling shells, and only the far-away boom of guns made war very strongly evident; that and the masses of British troops and the passing of motor transport, divorced it from its old dreaming quiet of a few months back. The weather was intensely cold; an icy west wind came over the frozen flats, and drove the tearing rain-storms out of the mist-covered fens.

The Regiment had been some weeks in billets, re-equipping and training, going steadily through the process by which freshly drafted youngsters are made into fine soldiers. Colonel Bent was unusually gifted with the quality that inspires men to realise the value of central control; his personality and indomitable will made for an influence that the hundreds of men under his command responded to instinctively. Many of those who fought with him at Ypres and elsewhere have testified to this.

Previous to December 20th the Battalion had been “standing by” ready to move at the shortest notice, but on the morning of December 20th a message was received from Brigade Headquarters to the effect that the Battalion need no longer be held in readiness; so normal, semi-peace conditions reigned. They were, however, not destined to enjoy these conditions for long, nor to turn their thoughts towards the completion of Christmas festivities, for at 5 p.m. an urgent message was received by Colonel Bent that the 3rd Brigade, to which the Battalion belonged, was to be ready to march “as soon as possible.”

It was quite dark when the order came, and though the men were scattered in their billets, at 6.15 p.m. the Munsters were in their place in the Brigade, and marching out into the stormy darkness. Behind them the dream of Christmas vanished like so many dreams. Reality took its place, a reality of a road ankle deep in mud, a tearing blizzard of rain and hail, and a black drenching tempest to face with bent heads.

For six hours the Battalion marched forward until at Merville a halt was called; and in an empty factory there was rest and shelter for the drenched and weary men.

There was no sign anywhere of any promise of day in the sky; it might have been the commencement of eternal night and of eternal darkness when the Munsters stood to arms. The men were heavy with their four hours’ sleep, heavy, too, with their load of ammunition and equipment. They left the factory behind them and took the sodden road, and at last the ashen grey dawn broke, and the landscape slowly cleared from the shadow of night, but the rain never ceased nor lessened; and the sound of the heavy guns told that the “business as usual” of the war had begun again.

At 8 a.m., outside Bethune, the Battalion halted again awaiting orders, the men sitting or lying in the mud along the roadside, keeping as cheerful as circumstances would permit. With his unwavering cheerfulness and energy, Colonel Bent worked against the conditions of the weather and the hardships his men were undergoing, affecting everyone with his own courage and dispelling the despondency of weariness, which is one of the hardest things a man can face. A battle itself calls up the human characteristics of dash and fight, but weariness and rain and mud are cruel adversaries, fought at a disadvantage. It is in those hours that most of all the magnetism of personality is of superb value. Afterwards, when the issue is no longer doubtful and the battle is over, and the definite, conspicuous end gained, it is easy for anyone to raise a cheer; but sitting in the liquid mud, weary and very cold, it takes a strong heart and the truest kind of pluck to rise above it all.

By 3 p.m. orders were received that the Battalion was to occupy the trenches at Festubert vacated by the Indian troops; the leading Brigade deployed for attack, and shortly after the Third Brigade were placed on the left of the First Guards Brigade. This Brigade consisted of the 2nd Welsh Regiment, the 1st Gloucesters, supported by the Munsters, the 1st South Wales Borderers, and the 4th Royal Welsh Fusiliers (Territorial). After the issue of these orders the Brigade resumed its march, through Gorre to Festubert, where the Battalion remained in reserve, but on the night of the 21st received orders that there was to be a general attack upon the German line.