One knows how a single night of sleeplessness will tell its tale in the face of a man or woman. Here was the fourth night of ceaseless fighting and marching, with only an odd hour of rest now and again.
All through the night and on into the daylight hours sounded the plod-plod of marching men, the grumble—creak—grumble of transport or guns. And in the far rear of the moving columns were more regiments lined out, showing a bold front to the still advancing enemy, ever guarding the backs of their comrades so far as was humanly possible.
One particularly sad disaster befell a regiment in the course of the retirement; it is remarkable that there were not many others of a like nature. The 1st Gordons lost their way after dark, and began to march in a direction across the front of the German advance. About midnight the regiment found itself moving into masses of troops. The first thought was that they were amongst the French, for it was supposed that they had been marching towards French support.
Suddenly fire was opened upon the regiment from all sides, and though the Gordons put up the gallant fight which they have ever done in a tight corner, the odds were too impossible, and ten minutes saw the end.
I think that disaster affected the Force more than anything else in that opening month. Men spoke of it in hushed tones. A magnificent regiment with glorious traditions, and to be crushed out as they were in those few minutes. And yet not crushed out! Though the older generation of the family may die, there is the younger generation which follows, and their sons after them. And well do I remember that younger generation at the Aisne, when the Regiment rose again reincarnate from the ashes of the dead. I see now the stern-set faces of the officers, proud in their determination to avenge their honour; faces shaded and hallowed by the knowledge of what the Regiment had done and suffered, what it must now do and suffer that their dead may rest in peace. As it was, so shall it be,
Rising, roaring, rushing like the tide,
(Gay goes the Gordon to a fight)
They're up through the fire-zone, not to be denied;
(Bayonets! and charge! by the right!)
Thirty bullets straight where the rest went wide,
And thirty lads are lying on the bare hillside;
But they passed in the hour of the Gordons' pride,
To the skirl of the pipers' playing.
[[1]] This Corps is always regarded in Germany as the finest in the German Army.
CHAPTER XIII
THE RETREAT CONTINUES
We are but warriors for the working-day;
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd
With rainy marching in the painful field;
There's not a piece of feather in our host,
*****
And time hath worn us into slovenry;
But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim.