DUMBARTON'S DRUMS
CHAPTER V
DUMBARTON'S DRUMS
I
Back Again!
The landing of the British Expeditionary Force in the far-away days of August 1914 was one of the great moments of history. And Scotland has a special share in the pride and sorrow that surround that great day, for in her premier regiment centred memories of warfare and endurance, of ancient alliances and ancient enmities, without a parallel in the story of any other regular regiment. The oldest regiment in Europe was on the battlefield once again. The First, or Royal Regiment of Foot, now known as The Royal Scots, when it climbed the steep streets of Boulogne, marched on a soil sacred to it by the memories of heroic campaigns. Names that were as yet unfamiliar to the world at large were dear to it as the last resting-places of its comrades of long ago—names such as Dunkirk and Dixmude, Furnes and Ypres, Saberne and Bar-le-Duc. Hepburn's Regiment had fought over every foot of the ground on which it was now to share the waging of the greatest of all campaigns. Dumbarton's Drums were once more beating their way through Europe to the making of history. The trust of Gustavus Adolphus and Turenne, of Marlborough and Wellington, marched with them as the promise of victory; and from the old Royals, dustily climbing the cobbled street, spoke all the glamour of 'age-kept victories.'
France was a smiling land in those days, for the sun shone in the hearts of Frenchwomen as the rumour of war rose from the anxiously expected British columns and drifted across the shining August fields. The 2nd battalion—the 1st was still in India—tramped cheerily on its way. To no one then was there revealed that dreary vista of trenches that was to be war to the mind of the modern soldier.