On the morning of May the 9th, 1915, the Third Infantry Brigade were ordered to attack. Their right was on the Cinder Track, and their left on the Orchard Redoubt. The Munster Fusiliers were the assaulting Battalion, with the 4th Royal Welsh Fusiliers; the Gloucesters and South Wales Borderers in reserve.
The morning of the 9th broke incredibly still and fair, touching the land with the strange suggestion of unreality, which is part of the mystery of early dawn; and the Rue du Bois, for all its desolation, was for a moment beautiful with the spaciousness of peace. Night dews were still in the air, and the first coming of the sun was not far distant when sustained thunder pervaded the whole world. The bombardment of the enemy's trenches had begun, and the noise grew to the dimensions of intensest force, crashing and roaring with the rage of a storm at sea. The object of the bombardment was to cut gaps in the barbed wire in front of the Battalion, and for seven minutes the torrent of sound tore and rent the air. Only for thirty minutes the guns spoke, and on the amazed instant of silence Colonel Rickard gave the order for attack. Cheering wildly the men followed him over the breastworks, with a rush that swept them across the open under deadly fire to a little ditch, some half-way between the British and German lines. There they were to lie down and take cover while the Artillery again bombarded, only continuing the rush when the fire lifted.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-COLONEL V. G. H. RICKARD
2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers, killed while gallantly leading the Battalion at Rue du Bois, 9th May, 1915
Record of Service:--South African War, 1902--Served as Adjutant, 2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers, operations in the Transvaal, April to May, 1902. Operations in Orange River Colony, February, April and May, 1902. Queen's Medal, with three clasps. Promoted Temporary Lieutenant-Colonel, 8th March, 1915.]
As they crossed the first hundred and fifty yards to the given point, Colonel Rickard fell, killed by a bullet that struck the spinal column of the neck. No one who knew him could ever doubt that he would have chosen any other end than to die leading the Regiment he so loved all his life; he gained the perfect death that takes no thought of self, and which, in all truth, is swallowed up in victory.