These newcomers had to take part in the digging which goes on behind the lines at night⁠—out in the open, without the shelter of a trench. It was nervous work, especially when the German flares went up, silhouetting their figures on the skyline, and when one of the enemy’s machine-guns began to chatter. But the Irish boys found the heart for a jest, and one of them, resting on his spade a moment, stared over to the enemy’s lines and said, “May the old devil take the spalpeen who works that typewriter!”

It was a scaring, nerve-racking time for those who had come fresh to the trenches, some of those boys who had not guessed the realities of war until then. But they came out proudly⁠—“with their tails up,” said one of their officers⁠—after their baptism of fire.