"Umph! We've got a pipe-major, onyhoo."
"Aye." A grudging admission.
Such remarks were of the everyday talk of the men who heard the pipes.
Again, at the periodical meetings and games of Highland brigades, the massed bands of the battalions were always there playing a mighty skirl. There were, of course, piping competitions in conjunction with competitions in Highland dancing and sport.
All these occasions did much to rob modern war of its dismal character, and bring back something of the glamour of arms, and the glory of strong men.
But enough of general remarks. I wish to write of five typical scenes from the life of the war relating to pipes and the pipers.
In the first I am standing at the entrance to one of the low dug-outs, covered over with turf, which used to lie, and perhaps still exist, a few hundred yards from the Café Belge up the road to Ypres. Most people who fought in that sector found a billet in them at some time, or knew them—filthy they were.
Overhead a couple of aeroplanes are hovering, very high up. An occasional shell can be heard, coming from a long distance away, with a rolling noise. The shells are probably 9-inch or perhaps larger, and they are bursting with crash and splash in the fields around or near the road.
From the direction of the Café Belge I see a company of men in kilts advancing, men heavily laden with all the usual impedimenta of packs, rifles, etc. They look, in the distance, tired and grim, and in formation they are straggling, owing to the appallingly muddy state of the road.