With the Scottish Regiments at the Front

by Evelyn Charles Vivian

A man of the Royal Scots has told how Captain Price of the regiment died. While in the trenches, and under a hot fire, Captain Price ran forward to help a corporal who had been shot in the arm, and in kindly fashion the captain was preventing the corporal from seeing his wound—shielding the injured arm while it was being dressed. While so engaged Captain Price was struck in the head by a piece of shrapnel, and he died while being carried to the field hospital. On the testimony of the men of the regiment, a braver or kindlier officer than Captain C. L. Price, D.S.O., has never worn uniform.

With regard to the work of the regiment in the trenches of the Aisne, and the enemy they have had to face, one man of the regiment speaks. "The Germans are good range finders with their big guns," he says, "and their fire is very effective—but you could get boys to give them points with the rifle. One thing has made an impression on me, and that is that the enemy has no respect whatever for the Red Cross. Our men were proceeding along a road, when they came on a Red Cross waggon lying on its side, with several Red Cross men lying dead beside it. There was one brave incident I witnessed, and although I do not know the name of the fellow who showed such pluck, I know he belonged to the Royal Scots. I saw him carry one of his comrades across a field for about three hundred yards, though the fire from the German ranks was simply awful at the time."

Here, again, is an instance of the way in which the men tell of each other's deeds but make no mention of their own. The French soldier, as a rule, knows when he has done a brave action, and talks about it—the quality does not make him less brave, but it is one that is inconsistent with British character. The average British soldier is usually quite unconscious that he has done anything worthy of note, and, even if he knows the value of what he has done, he is very shy of speaking about it, and usually prefers to talk about the things somebody else has accomplished.

A certain Private Kemp, invalided home to Berwick, testifies to the way in which tobacco and cigarettes have come to be regarded by the men in the firing line. He tells how, when out scouting, he was captured by three Uhlans, who took away his arms and equipment, and were just about to take him away as a prisoner when a shot was fired, and the Uhlans took to their heels. Kemp, wounded in the leg, fell, and after lying for an hour and a half, he was picked up by advancing British troops. "One great hardship," he says, "was the lack of tobacco all the time. I and many of my comrades have been reduced to smoking dried tea-leaves wrapped in old newspaper. A real smoke would have been a blessing."

One officer of the regiment, wounded while out in front of the trenches studying the position of the enemy with field-glasses, was carried back into shelter, and laid in the trench until the field ambulance should come to remove him to the rear. "He lay there smoking cigarettes," says one of the men, "and shouting—'Good old Royal Scots—well done!' whenever anything came off." And in this and incidents like it lies the spirit that makes the Royal Scots what they are—it is the spirit of men who do not know when they are beaten, who will never admit defeat. It is the spirit that Findlater showed at Dargai.

Yet another private of the regiment, writing with no address and no date to his letter, says: "In the last scrap I was in we had a terrible time one way and another. After marching from the Sunday to the Tuesday night, we got anchored near a farm, and the next morning, just when breakfast was ready, we had to leave it lying and get stuck into our trenches, as the Germans had come on us. We could see them moving up on our front, and our artillery were not long in getting their range and sending them out of it. Our big guns were going finely until the afternoon, when they seemed to stop all at once, compared with the guns the Germans had brought up. They started to shell a village behind us with their siege guns, and they just blew holes in it. We had a church for a hospital, and that went up too—but that is their usual dirty game. They have no respect for a Red Cross waggon, and, as far as I can see, they seem to take them for targets. We had to retire after being shelled for about eight hours, and we lost a good few men, but had the consolation of knowing that, as usual, the enemy had lost a good many more. We are having a rest now, and have not seen the battalion for two weeks. It is a very sad sight to see the people here going about homeless; most of them are of the poorer class, and it must be an awful time for them."

Writing later, the same man says: "We have come through four days' hard fighting, and have been relieved—we drove the Germans out of all their positions. At one place the French were trying to shift the enemy, so our lot were brought up to assist; and although we lost a good few men in the open fields, our chaps stuck it well. General Smith-Dorrien sent along a message—'Good, Royal Scots!' and then when we took the other side of the bridge he said 'Bravo, Royal Scots!' so we have not done so badly."

And there, for the present, the record of this oldest regiment of the service must be broken off. It tells of work from Mons and Landrecies, through the great retreat to the position of the Marne, and on to the Aisne—and there it ends, for the present. We know that many of the regiments along the line of the Aisne have been moved up to assist in the great Flanders battles, and in all probability there have been Royal Scots in that Flanders line as well as along the Aisne.

There is one story of this first regiment of British infantry which, though it is nearly fourteen years old, should always be told in any account of the deeds of the regiment. It concerns a certain Sergeant G. Robertson, placed in command of a party of about twenty men who were acting as railway escort to a train from Pretoria. The train was bound for the Eastern Transvaal, and, on reaching Pan, it was stopped by Boers blowing up the line. The Boers attacked in force, being concealed in a trench a few yards from the train, and the escort at once, under orders from Sergeant Robertson, opened fire. The Boers, who greatly outnumbered the escort, called on Robertson to surrender, but he answered—"No surrender!" Almost immediately afterwards, he was shot through the head.

A similar case concerns Major Twyford, an officer of the Royal Scots, who in April of 1901 was attacked by a commando under Jan de Beers in the Badfontein Valley. Twyford and his party numbered eight all told, mounted men, and they took up a position among the ruins of a farmhouse which afforded some shelter from the fire of the enemy. The commando of Boers closed in on them, and, having in mind the enormous disparity of the forces, called on them to surrender. Major Twyford declined to do so, and went on firing on de Beers' commando until shot dead by the enemy.