The German fear of cold steel is emphasised in many accounts given by men of the Black Watch. "They wouldn't look at the bayonet, and we ruled the roost with very slight losses," says one; and another—"The Germans are awfully frightened of the cold steel, and when they get a stab it is almost invariably in the back, for they run away from our boys when the bayonet appears."
Once in a while there comes an account of humanity on the part of the Germans; and one man of the Black Watch tells how he lay out in the open at the position of the Aisne for hours, wounded, and at last a German came along and bound up his wound under heavy fire. The German made the wounded man quite comfortable, and was about to retire from the danger area, when a stray bullet caught him, and he fell dead beside the man he had befriended.
Such stories as this last are welcome, and form a relief from the numberless stories of German barbarity that have appeared. Not that they disprove the stories of brutality, but they go to show that the policy of ruthlessness is a calculated one, and that the individual German might be a kind-hearted man at times if his officers would let him. The instances of cruelty and wanton destruction that have been related all point to organised cruelty, organised destruction—it is more a matter of policy than of the conduct of individuals.
The stories quoted here form a fairly connected record of the work of the Black Watch up to the time of the battle on the Aisne; of what came after, there is as yet no definite record. We know, from the casualty lists, that the Royal Highlanders are still making history in France, but in this first week of November we know no more than that, and a great story must still wait telling until the oft-quoted "fog of war" has lifted from the actions in Flanders and the north-west of France.
CHAPTER VI THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS
Formerly known as the 75th and 92nd line battalions, the Gordon Highlanders form a comparatively young regiment. The first battalion was formed at Stirling in 1788 under Colonel Robert Abercromby, and was sent to India for fourteen years of active service in Mysore and Southern India. The "Royal Tiger," worn on the badges of the regiment, commemorates the part they played at the taking of Seringapatam in 1799.
The great Scottish house of Gordon raised the second battalion of the regiment near the end of the eighteenth century, and this battalion was first named "Gordon Highlanders" in 1794, when it was embodied at Aberdeen, with the Marquis of Huntly as its first colonel. In the Egyptian campaign of 1801, the Gordons played a conspicuous part in driving Napoleon out of Egypt, and won the "Sphinx," inscribed "Egypt," as a badge, which is now worn on all the officers' buttons. In 1807 the regiment took part in the expedition to Copenhagen, and a year later they were with Sir John Moore on the retreat to Corunna. Later, in the Peninsular campaign under Wellington, the Gordons won the admiration of their enemies and the approbation of their chief. In one action alone, that of the Maya Pass, the regiment lost over 320 officers and men killed and wounded.
On to the end of the campaign the Gordons were in the thick of things, and then, in 1815, they sailed for Belgium in May, arriving in Brussels at the end of that month. At Quatre Bras, where they were under the eye of the Duke of Wellington, the 92nd (now the 2nd battalion of the Gordons) lost heavily, and then at Waterloo itself the battalion was reduced to 300 men before the memorable charge took place. The official account of that charge, as given in the history of the regiment, is worth quoting in its entirety.