With the Scottish Regiments at the Front

by Evelyn Charles Vivian

CHAPTER II THE ROYAL SCOTS

One of the titles bestowed on the Royal Scots, that of "Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard," marks the claim of the regiment to antiquity. Under Marlborough, in the French war in America, at Corunna, through the Peninsular war with Wellington, at Quatre Bras and Waterloo, in India, the Crimea, and in China, have the battalions of the Royal Scots upheld the honour of the British Army; and it stands to their credit that in the South African campaign, in which they were engaged practically from start to finish, there was not a single case of surrender of a party of the Royal Scots.

The history of the regiment in the present war begins at Landrecies and Mons, and it is worthy of note that the first story of a man of the regiment that comes to hand concerns the bravery of men of other units. The man in question was twice wounded himself before being invalided home; but, declining to talk about himself, he remarked that for real British pluck he had never seen anything to equal that of the Middlesex regiment. He saw them digging trenches near Mons when a mass of Germans, who seemed to come from nowhere, came down on them. He conjectured that the Germans had been apprised of the position of the Middlesex men by an air scout, and he saw how the Germans came on the Middlesex, who were totally unprepared in the matter of equipment, and had to face fixed bayonets with no apparent means of reprisal. But the sergeant of a company set the fashion by the use of his fists, and "downed" two of the attacking Germans; the whole of the company followed suit, but they were badly cut about by the Germans, and the sergeant was bayoneted. Near by were the Connaughts, who, after six guns had been taken by the Germans, charged down on the enemy and took back the guns, with the aid of artillery fire. But, regarding the doings of the Royal Scots at the time, the man of the regiment who tells this story has never a word to say.

A corporal of the 1st Royal Scots tells how Lieutenant Geoffrey Lambton, nephew of the Earl of Durham, died. It happened in the third rearguard action after Mons that the lieutenant was in charge of his men in a wood, and was directing fire from a mound. Before and beneath the Scots the Germans were in strong force, and were preparing to attack, when Lambton gave the order to fire, and, picking up a rifle himself, set the example to his men. Fatally wounded by a German bullet, he knew that he had not long to live, so handed over to the corporal his pocket-book, note-book and sketch-book, to take back to his people.

Another corporal of the regiment testifies to the spirit of its men at Landrecies, where in company with about fifty others he was cut off from the main body, and engaged in desperate street fighting. The party joined up with the Grenadier Guards, and in the streets of Landrecies German officers called on them to surrender, but the officers answered that "British never surrender—fix bayonets and charge!" So well did they charge that the streets were piled with German dead. The Royal Scots were heavily engaged at Landrecies, and accounted for a great number of the enemy there.

Graphically is the story of the retreat told by one Private Stewart, who was invalided home after the battle of the Marne. "After Mons," he says, "the hardships of fighting on the retreat began. We had little time for sleep; both day and night we retreated, and as they marched the men slept. If a man in front of you happened to stop, you found yourself bumping into him. I didn't have my clothes off for six weeks, and my kit and overcoat have been left on the field. At one place where we halted for the day the lady of the farmhouse was washing, so some of us took off our shirts to have them washed. While they were hanging up to dry the order came that the troops had to move on, and the wet garments had to be put on just as they were. Mine was dry next morning. Two of my mates were killed in the trenches by one shell, which burst close to them. We were not deeply entrenched, and the German artillery fire was so heavy that we had to lie on our sides like pitmen and dig ourselves in deeper. We had a chance to look up occasionally when our guns replied. Another time the Royal Scots were having a meal by the roadside, when we got orders that we must be finished in five minutes. In less than that time the Germans opened fire, but fortunately the side of the road was an embankment, and so formed a natural trench. We lay there during the rest of the day and the greater part of the night, keeping off the attack by constant fire. My company captured about forty German cyclists, who offered no resistance—this was after the Marne, when the Germans retired. The British had been blazing away for some time at what appeared to be the helmets of the men in the trenches, when an officer saw that the helmets were not moving. He gave the order to advance, and when we got up we found that the Germans were retiring, and had left their helmets as a blind. Many prisoners were taken that day."

Brief as an official report is this story, and as pithy, giving as it does an outline of the work in which the Royal Scots have been engaged from the time of Landrecies onwards. For it is not what is actually written that counts in such a sincere piece of writing as this, but the facts that appear between the lines. The brief reference to the hardships of the retreat, the queer washing day, and the interrupted meal, are chapters of war in themselves, reported with a brevity and conciseness which stamp the document as authentic.

Another man of the regiment was in the first of the fighting at Landrecies, and went on to the positions of the Marne and the Aisne, returning wounded from the latter, with four splinters of shrapnel in his back, one in his ribs, and a bullet wound in his head—surely enough to send any man back from the firing line. At Landrecies he and his fellows encountered a looting party of Germans, who carried large quantities of jewellery, clothing, and other articles: practically every account of the first of the fighting tells of German attention to details of this kind.

At the position of the Aisne, the Royal Scots had a stiff struggle in the holding of a pontoon bridge, and the man who tells this story was wounded there during a rain of shell fire to which his battalion was subjected. After he was hit, he lay unconscious for seven hours, and in order to escape after regaining his senses he had to propel himself, feet first, along a sort of furrow or ditch. It was a weary business, and, exposing himself momentarily, he was hit again on the head by a bullet, though the lead failed to penetrate to any depth; and during his journey he was for a time between the fire of Germans and British. He came on a German trench full of dead men, and was struck by the elaborate arrangement of the trench, for there were tables and chairs, and a quantity of champagne bottles, both full and empty—the trench was well stocked with wine.

Previously to being wounded, this man made one of a party that captured a number of Germans, one of whom spoke English well, and told his captors that he had a wife and five children in Glasgow, and that the only way to get back to them was to court capture. This German had been in employment in Glasgow, and was called up five months before the war broke out—a significant fact when it is remembered how German statesmen are still insisting that Britain made the war.