Harry Lauder’s Songs
I want to let the public know how the Black Watch went through it. Well, it was a terrible bit of work, but our fellows stuck to their ground like men—the men of the bulldog breed the kiddies sing about at school. The Germans were as thick as the “Hielan” heather, and by sheer weight forced us back step by step. But we had our orders, and every man stuck to them, and until the order came not a livin’ man flinched. We stuck there popping off the Germans as fast as we could, and all around us the German shells were bursting. And in the thick of it all we were singing Harry Lauder’s latest. Aye, laddie, it was grand; all around us were the dead and dying, and every now and then the German shells would burst, and as we peppered away at ’em we sang about “Roamin’ in the gloamin’” and “The Lass of Killiecrankie”: A Corporal of the Black Watch.