This temporary victory, however, afforded no respite for the Black Watch. Hot upon the action came a strong column of French infantry swiftly advancing, and it was a matter of the utmost importance that they should be attacked at once. The Black Watch, dishevelled as they were, their great chests still heaving with their exertions, were flung forward by Sir Ralph Abercromby, who, in the urgency of the critical moment, himself hallooed them on.
It was a quick passage. After a clashing impact, the Black Watch broke the French column and scattered it in flight. Seeing the Highlanders eagerly pursuing, and in danger of being cut off by three squadrons of cavalry, General Moore ordered the pursuers to retire. It appears that, in the crash and roar of the battle, this order was lost upon the foremost pursuers, who were dealing death right and left, and they were not aware of what threatened until the French cavalry was thundering down upon them. It was so sudden that the Highlanders had barely time to retrieve their scattered state, and rally back to back. Thus, raising their fierce northern battle-cry, they fought against fearful odds, a small body of men surrounded on every hand. But even from this they emerged victorious, routing the very flower of the French cavalry. So it was that in one day this regiment won three brilliant victories, each one of which had seemed at first almost a forlorn hope.
It must be remembered that the Royal Highlander has always been a perfect swordsman, terrible with his rifle, and deadly with his pistol. His strength is renowned in history. There have been men among them who have claimed no great superiority over their fellows from the fact of being able to twist a horseshoe, or drive a skeandhu up to the hilt in a pine log. Fatigue, hunger, thirst, the extremes of heat and cold—all these are with those men the mere commonplace foes of a Spartan existence—foes which have always found and left them silent, patiently contemptuous, where foes of flesh and blood would at once arouse them to anger of the grimmest kind.
Perhaps no part of the world has seen the Black Watch in as true a light as the Peninsula. From all quarters of it their honours are drawn. They were with Moore at Corunna on that memorable occasion, when on a sudden he cried out to them: "Highlanders, remember Egypt!"
With reference to this speech, and the moment it was delivered, tradition has clothed it with romance. At many a Highland fireside, when the eerie spirit sits in the glen and whispers round the lonely sheilings, it has been said by aged warriors, who had lived on in peace perhaps into the sixties, that, at those words, the men around him, who loved him best, saw, with the uncanny second sight of their race, a misty shimmering shroud enclosing their commander's form, portentous of his coming death.
The words "Highlanders, remember Egypt!" referred to the occasion when, at Alexandria, Sir Ralph Abercromby being taken prisoner, and his captor being shot by a Royal Highlander, the regiment, though broken, continued to fight individually. It is no wonder that Sir John Moore, who had marvelled at their prowess, should exhort them, eight years later, at Corunna, to remember Egypt.
At Toulouse, Pack, as he galloped swiftly up with General Clinton's orders, drew rein in silence before the Black Watch. Then he spoke calmly, but with elation: "General Clinton has been pleased to grant my request that the 42nd shall have the honour of leading the attack. The 42nd will advance!" There were 500 who went in, and there were about ninety who came out alive. One can imagine then their terrible passage up to the fatal redoubt, and all the more clearly may be pictured the determination of it from the fact that, when they reached it, the enemy had fled.
When they were before the heights of Alma, Sir Colin Campbell turned to them, and cried: "Men, the army is watching us. Make me proud of my Highland brigade!" From the future, near and far, the whole wide world watches them, and a great Empire has been made proud of them. Kinglake tells this part of the story with a fine touch. "Smoothly, easily, and swiftly," he says, "the Black Watch seemed to glide up the hill. A few instants before, and their tartans ranged dark in the valley; now their plumes waved on the crest." The enemy did not stay for the coming onslaught, for, as many said afterwards, they "did not like those men in the petticoats, with their red vulture plumes and their coloured tartans."
At Ticonderoga, in 1758, they suffered heavily, in blood, though not in honour. Of that encounter an officer of the 55th, who was in the engagement, says: "It is with a mixture of esteem, grief, and envy, that I considered the great loss and immortal glory won by the Scots Highlanders in the late bloody affair." From all historical accounts it seems that the enemy was very strongly entrenched, in front by ditches, and on the battle side by barricades of felled trees. From this cover they sent volley upon volley into the ranks of the advancing Highlanders. "Yet," says one chronicler:
"The Scots hewed their way through the obstacles with their broadswords, and—no ladders having been provided—made strenuous efforts to carry the breastwork, partly by mounting on each other's shoulders, and partly by placing their feet in holes which they dug with their swords and bayonets in the face of the works. After a desperate struggle, which lasted nearly four hours, General Abercromby, seeing no possible chance of success, ordered a retreat—an order which had to be thrice repeated before the Highlanders would withdraw from the unequal contest!"