With a machine gun a Highlander at a bridge over the river Marne kept back a column of Germans until reliefs came up. When he fell dead and was carried away thirty bullet wounds were found on his body.
It is strange to hear soldiers at home talking of soldiers who have gone to war, and have been wounded or died. They seldom express pity for them, nor do they feel much. And the want of what might seem a natural sensation is really very fine, for it is due to a conviction that a man has to do his duty, and that to die in the performance of it covers him with honour.
Strange, too, is the way soldiers can joke when hit themselves, or when someone near them has "got it." In one of the Highland regiments there was a very fat pipe major. His legs were like barrels, and when he was shot in them he said, "Weel, I wonder they didna do that before."
Two chums were discussing the relative values of their birthplaces. The Cockney was evidently having the best of the argument, when a shrapnel shell burst above them and the Londoner received a bullet in each leg, while the Birmingham man escaped unhurt.
"I should think you'll give way now!" said the man from Birmingham.
"Why?" asked the Cockney.
"Well, you haven't a leg to stand on," was the reply.
After a little experience of campaigning in France a young officer wrote, "I tried to like war, having heard and read so many fine things about it, but I could not; it is just beastly." Any one who talks of the glory of war should be invited to walk over a battle field when the fighting has ceased. He will see those who have "got it" from shells or bullets writhing in agony, he will hear many of them asking someone for the love of God to kill them and put them out of their misery.
A member of the Royal Army Medical Corps gives the following vivid picture of a battlefield after the guns had ceased firing:
"The last fight I was in the carnage had been fearful, and dead and dying of both sides were piled together. In one corner you could see a British Tommy with a bad wound lying with his head pillowed on the shoulder of a dying German, while a Frenchman near by was doing his best to cheer them up, and emptying his pockets in quest of some treasures to soothe the last moments of the other two. Close by a British Guardsman was propped against a tree smoking a cigarette and gazing intently at a photograph. Near to him was a wounded Frenchman, holding a little glass in one hand while he tried to curl a straggling moustache with the other. Further along I saw two men, a French artilleryman and a British rifleman, quietly playing cards while awaiting their turn to be taken to hospital. Next to them was a man of the Cameron Highlanders, with both legs shattered, munching a stick of chocolate, and trying to hide the twitching of his face as the pain racked his body. I approached another Highlander. 'It's ma birthday the day,' was what he said, with a wry face, and before the words were right out of his mouth he was dead. Under a little cluster of trees we find a party of wounded Germans, English, and French men. They were quietly praying for what they believed to be the last time on earth. Beyond them a Seaforth Highlander was lying with his Testament open at the story of the Crucifixion. He was beyond human aid."