That clearing-up, a comparatively small detail on a vast front, fell to the lot of the Fourteenth Army Corps (Lord Cavan commanding), which lay between Ginchy village and Leuze Wood. The Corps was made up of the Fifty-sixth London Territorial Division, on the extreme right or east, next to the French; the Sixth Division, a little north of Leuze Wood, facing the Quadrilateral, a veiled defensive work as strong as ample time and the ground could make it, and destined to turn the fortunes of that day; and on the left of the Sixth, again, the Guards Division in front of what remained of Ginchy, Ginchy farm and orchard, all strongly held by the Germans, and some battered brick-fields hard by.
Lord Cavan did not overstate the case in his message to the Guards Division just before the attack when he wrote: “The Corps Commander knows that there are difficulties to be cleared up on the left and in front of the 1st Guards Brigade and on the right of the 2nd Guards Brigade, but the Commander-in-Chief is of opinion that the general situation is so favourable that every effort should be made to take advantage of it, etc., etc.”
A battalion looks at life from a more limited standpoint. Brigade Orders issued on the 11th September announced: “The French Army will attack the enemy defences between Combles Ravine, and Martinpuich on Z day, with the object of seizing Morval, Lesbœufs, Gueudecourt and Flers, and breaking through the enemy’s defences.” But what interested the Irish, who prefer fighting light, even as the Frenchman can shuffle into action under all his high-piled possessions, was the amount of weight they would have to carry up there. It included two days’ rations, a couple of bombs, two extra bandoliers of ammunition, a pick or a shovel and three sandbags per man, plus wire-cutters and other fittings. On the other hand, greatcoats and packs were discarded and cardigan waistcoats worn beneath their jackets.
On the 10th September the Battalion, with the 1st Brigade, moved in from Méaulte to the valley behind Carnoy, and, after dark that night, Nos. 3 and 4 Companies, under Major T. M. D. Bailie, were ordered up through Bernafay Wood to a line of what passed for trenches behind Ginchy, and next morning Nos. 1 and 2 (Captain Hargreaves and Captain Rankin) bivouacked in some old trenches at the north end of Bernafay, where they were used in carrying-fatigues for the 3rd Guards Brigade, then in the front line. The other two companies were heavily shelled in their Ginchy trenches, and lost seven killed and thirteen wounded. A bombing accident in bivouac the day before had also wounded six men.