North of Longueval the 1st Gordons made a furious attack, on the 18th July, and on this occasion they were led by their pipers.
"They were out of sight over the parapet, but we could hear at intervals their shouts of 'Scotland for ever!' and the faint strains of the pipes. Then we saw them reappear, and then came prisoners."
Similar accounts were given of the 6th and 7th Gordons. In the 6th Gordons Piper Charles Thomson had his arm blown off while playing. "The gallantry of these men who wear the tartans of the old Scottish clans would seem wonderful if it were not habitual with them. Their first dash for Longueval was one of the finest exploits of the war. They were led forward by the pipers, who went with them, not only towards the German lines, but across them and into the thick of the battle.... In that September fighting the pipe major of a Gordon battalion played his men forward and then was struck below the knee; but he would not be touched by a doctor until the others had been tended. He was a giant of a man and so heavy that no stretcher could hold him, so they put him in a tarpaulin and carried him back. Then he had his leg amputated and died."[4]
On the 3rd September the 4th Black Watch were played into action and had to capture a village. According to an eye-witness:
"It was magnificent to see these men charge up the narrow street leading to the second barricade. Amid the ruined houses on each side the enemy were posted. At the moment when it was hottest the strains of the pipes were heard. The men answered with a cheer and swept steadily on over the barricade and through the ruins; and the village was ours."
Of a Seaforth battalion a similar story is told:
"The men simply raced into the storm of bullets ... at last it became too terrible for any human being to stand against it. The attacking lines melted away, the men seeking what cover could be found.... It was here that the pipers of the Seaforths had their chance. They took it. As the men advanced again to the attack they were cheered on by the strains of the pipes, which could just be heard. The men dashed through, clearing out the enemy as they went."
During the attack on Beaumont Hamel in October, as in the earlier fighting at Thiepval, the pipers of the 15th H.L.I. lost very heavily when leading their companies.
Such instances of the bravery of pipers and of the stimulus afforded by the pipes to men in action became matters of almost every-day occurrence, and, though everyone recognised the tremendous losses that were the result of their exposure, there were occasions when those losses were more than compensated for at the time by the results obtained. Everywhere, at Contalmaison, Martinpuich, Pozières, Delville Wood, wherever Scottish troops were employed, their pipers played their historic rôle, and, to quote Philip Gibbs, "over the open battlefields came the music of the Scottish pipes, shrill above the noise of gunfire."
Nor were the pipers of purely Scottish regiments left to establish these records of bravery unchallenged. They had keen rivals in battalions of overseas Scots, notably the South African Scottish and the Canadians.