Supremely heroic on a point of romantic sentiment is our Gordon Highlander. When Cameron fell at Quatre Bras, he was not only mortally wounded, but pinned down by his horse. In this helpless condition he was recognised by one of the enemy, who swiftly rushed forward to bayonet him. But swifter still came the cold steel of Ewen Macmillan (the Colonel's foster brother) and pierced the would-be murderer to the heart. Ewen extricated his leader and bore him off; then, his master safe, he turned back with the set purpose of securing the saddle on which he had sat through many a victorious battle. In the thick of the fight the imperturbable Scot, amid a hail of bullets, secured that saddle and returned safely with it to his company, exhibiting it with a fine mingling of triumph and regret. "We must leave them the carcase," he said, "but they shan't get the saddle where Fassiefern sat." That was what he had risked his life a thousand times a minute for—the saddle where Fassiefern had sat!
And not only in stirring deeds of deathless glory have the Gordon Highlanders shone in the starry sky of Britain's fame. In the course of their long career they have been called upon to suffer and endure tests of hardship and privation, which prove the true mettle of the British soldier. They have played many parts in the theatre of war where the limelight did not fall. It was even their fate to take part in the terrible retreat to Bremen. Mr. W. Richards gives a grim description of some of these hardships:
"The high, keen wind carried the drifted snow and sand with such violence that the human frame could scarcely resist its power; the cold was intense; the water, which collected in the hollow eyes of the men, congealed as it fell, and hung in icicles from their eyelashes; the breath froze, and hung in icy incrustations about their haggard faces, and on the blankets and coats which they wrapped about them."
But, with the Gordons, the hardy spirit in which they weathered all this was only a modification of that which carried them into their most glorious triumphs on the field of battle. Speaking of hardships and remembering the strong spirit of camaraderie which has always existed between our soldiers of all regiments, we cannot help reminding the Gordons that their 2nd Battalion owes the Coldstreamers one ration. It happened in this way. When the Gordons arrived at Fuentes d'Onoro both officers and men were literally starving, owing to a faulty commissariat; and no sooner did the Guards get wind of this than they volunteered a ration of biscuits, from their haversacks. Now, as the Coldstreamers will not be able to get those biscuits from the enemy, who appears to have "embarked without them," they may require them again from the Gordons and they should insist on having them well buttered.
THEIR BADGES AND BATTLE HONOURS, ETC.
Badges.—The Sphinx, superscribed Egypt. The Royal Tiger, superscribed India.
Battle Honours.—Mysore, Seringapatam, Egmont-op-Zee, Mandora, Corunna, Fuentes d'Onoro, Almaraz, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nive, Orthes, Peninsula, Waterloo, S. Africa 1835, Delhi, Lucknow, Charasiah, Kabul 1879, Kandahar 1880, Afghanistan 1878-80, Egypt 1882-84, Tel-el-Kebir, Nile 1884-85, Chitral, Tirah, S. Africa 1889-1902, Paardeberg, Defence of Ladysmith.
Uniform.—Regular and Reserve Battns., scarlet with yellow facings.
[To the first regiment (the 89th), raised in 1759, there belong the romances of two notable men. One was the Duke's brother, Lord William, who afterwards ran away with Lady Sarah Bunbury, and the other was Lord George, the future rioter. A further romance belongs to the Gordons proper. When, in 1794, the 4th D. of G. was commissioned to raise a regiment for the King, with the Duke's son, Lord Huntly, as its colonel, his wife Jane, "the Bonnie Duchess," acted as her son's recruiting sergeant. Day after day she rode in among them at their gatherings, and with the King's shilling between her teeth, kissed them into the army. "Now, lads; whose for a soldier's life—and a kiss o' the Duchess Jean?" Her ambition for her son in the way of masculine counterpoise to the brilliant alliances of her daughters does not matter so much as that the Gordons sprang into being at the touch of her lips—which is a legend greatly treasured among Highlanders.]