There their total casualties were two hundred and ninety-seven of all ranks.
'They fought like heroes, and like heroes fell—an honour to the country,' to quote the War Office Record, page 145. 'On many a Highland hill, and through many a Lowland valley, long will the deeds of these brave men be fondly remembered and their fate deeply deplored. Never did a finer body of men take the field; never did men march to battle that were destined to perform such services to their country, and to obtain such immortal renown.'
But equal renown did their services win on the banks of the Alma, when old Colin Campbell led them into action, exclaiming,
'Now, men, the whole army is watching us; make me proud of my Highland Brigade!'
And reason indeed had that grand old soldier to be proud of his lads in the kilt, as they swept up the green hillsides to glory. 'The ground they had to ascend,' says an eye-witness, the author of 'Eothen,' 'was a good deal more steep and broken than the slope beneath the redoubt. In the land where those Scots were bred, there are shadows of sailing clouds shimmering up the mountain side, and their paths are rugged and steep, yet their course is smooth, easy, and swift. Smoothly, easily, and swiftly the Black Watch seemed to glide up the hill. A few minutes before their tartans ranged dark in the valley; now their plumes were on the crest.'
Into the dense grey masses of the Kazan column, over which towered the miraculous figure of St. Sergius, their steady volley swept like a sheet of lead; anon their line of bayonets was flashing to the charge like a hedge of steel, and a wail of despair broke from the Muscovites, who, crying that 'the Angel of Death had come,' threw away all that might impede their speed and fled.
'Then,' says the brilliant author we have quoted, 'rose the cheers of the Highland Brigade. Along the Kourgané slopes, and thence west almost home to the causeway, the hillsides were made to resound with that joyous and assuring cry, which is the natural utterance of a northern people so long as it is warlike and free.'
Their furious onset struck terror to many an Indian heart during the dark years of the Sepoy revolt, and like sweetest music their pipes were heard by that desperate and despairing band who fought for their wives and children in beleaguered Lucknow; and as, of course, the old Black Watch must be in everything, they bore their share in the conquest of Coomassie, and were the first men in the sable city, as their pipes announced to the army of Wolseley.
While on this subject, we cannot help quoting a Frenchman's estimate of the Scottish troops. In the Moniteur de Soir for 1868, a writer says,
'The Scottish soldiers form without distinction the cream of the British army, and the Highlander is the prototype of the excellent soldier. He has all the requisite qualities without one defect. Unluckily for Great Britain, the population of Scotland is not numerous. Saving, it is true, to the point of putting by penny after penny, the Scotsman, for all that, is honest, steadfast, and amiable in his intercourse with others, enthusiastic and proud, most chivalrous when the question is about shedding his blood. The old traditions of clanship subsist, each company is grouped round an illustrious name, and all and every man is sure to be the captain's cousin. The Highlanders have a strange sort of bravery, which partakes of French fire and English phlegm. They rush with impetuosity, they charge with vigour, but are not hurried away by anger. In the very hottest of an attack, a simple order suffices to stop them. Formed in square, you would take them for Englishmen, but in the bayonet charge you would swear they were French. For the rest they are of Celtic origin, and the blood of our fathers flows in their veins. In the eyes of the Turk, the Scots have one enormous fault—that of showing their bare legs. In our eyes they have but one defect, but still excessively annoying—their depraved taste for the screaming of the bagpipes. We know that the Highlanders would not get under fire (with élan) without being excited by their national airs being played on this discordant instrument. One of their generals having put down this piercing music, they attacked the enemy so languidly that the bagpipes had to be restored to them, and then they took the position. In a word, we repeat that the Scots are magnificent soldiers.'