But the cure was ready to hand. On the evening of the 18th September, in wet and cold weather, the Brigadier sent the Battalion a letter of praise and prophecy:
As your Brigadier I wish to express my feelings as to your most gallant work on the 15th September 1916 in the operations at Ginchy. The advance from the Orchard in the face of machine-gun fire is equal to anything you have yet accomplished in this campaign, and once more the 1st Battalion Irish Guards has carried out a most magnificent advance and held ground gained in spite of the most severe losses. In this, your first campaign, you are upholding the highest standard of bravery and efficiency for your successors and more praise than that I cannot give you. You may be called upon in the very near future to carry out similar work and I know you will not fail.
(Sd.) C. E. PEREIRA, Brigadier-General, Commanding 1st Guards Brigade.
This meant that they would be moved again as soon as they could stand up, and would go into their next action with at least 50 per cent. new drafts and half their proper allowance of officers. Indeed, they were warned, next day, with the rest of their Division for further operations in the “immediate future,” and the work of re-making and re-equipping the Battalion from end to end, saved them from that ghastly state of body and soul which is known as “fighting Huns in your sleep.”
On the 19th, Major T. M. D. Bailie’s body was brought back from the front and buried in the cemetery in the centre of the camp at Carnoy, and on the same day Lord Cavan, commanding the Corps, rode over and spoke to the officers on horseback of the progress of the campaign, of what had so far been accomplished on the Somme, what was intended for the future, and specially, as bearing on their next battle, of what their artillery had in store for the enemy. It was a simple, unadorned speech, the substance of which he repeated to the N.C.O.’s, then wished the gentlemen of His Majesty’s Foot Guards all good fortune and rode away.
The Division had expected to be used again as soon as might be, but their recent losses were so heavy that every battalion in it was speculating beneath its breath how their new drafts would shape. It is one thing to take in men by fifties at a time and weld them slowly in The Salient to a common endurance; it is quite another to launch a battalion, more than half untried recruits, across the open against all that organized death can deliver. This was a time that again tested the Depot and Reserve Battalion whose never-ending work all fighting battalions take for granted, or mention only to blame. But Warley and Caterham had not failed them. Over three hundred recruits were sent up immediately after the 15th and 16th, and on the 20th September the re-made Battalion, less than six hundred strong, with ten officers, marched out of Citadel Camp to its detestable trenches on Ginchy Ridge. The two Coldstream Battalions of the 1st Brigade held the front line there; the 2nd Grenadiers in reserve, and the 1st Irish Guards in support.