See how they gather!
Wide waves the eagle's plume
Blended with heather."
An account of the few minutes before "zero" by a piper of this battalion appeared in the Scottish Field ("Pipes of the Misty Moorland," John M'Gibbon), and affords a good example of the steadying effect of the pipes in a period of great strain on morale:
"I looked down at the company and I could see they were shaken.... I slung my rifle over my back and took up the pipes; that cheered them. I played through two or three tunes and then birled up 'Tullochgorum.' They fairly hooched it and stamped time with their feet. It was close on 'zero' ... when I changed to 'The March of The Cameron Men.' Our guns burst out with drum fire behind us ... and the men jumped the parapet like deer and raced over the broken ground at the double. I kept up 'The Cameron Men.' ... I reached the parapet of the first enemy trench, when I 'stopped one' with my leg, and down I went in a heap."
The pipes were again to the front in the fighting for Hill 70 on the Lens-Loos line in August, 1917. It was surely appropriate enough that, in the advance over the very country in which so many Scottish regiments had fought, with only temporary success, two years before, the pipes should again be at the head of the units which recaptured those blood-soaked positions.
An officer, describing the advance of the 13th Royal Highlanders of Canada, says:
"Our advance was resumed and we swarmed over the top at three different points. Away to the left, which was the objective of our advance, the strains of the pipes could be heard, and across the hills, where so many Scottish lads had fallen two years ago, there burst a loud triumphant cheer as the Canadian Highlanders pressed on to complete their work."
And so it happened that the gallant lads of the 15th Division were avenged.
Opportunities for pipers continued during the later fighting in 1917-18. Records of individual companies and platoons show that on several occasions the pipes encouraged the men to further effort. In one case near Albert, a company of the Black Watch was temporarily cut off from its supports after getting into a German trench and suffered heavily; the men were crushed by superior numbers, and the prospect was black until the piper, who was present as a stretcher bearer, started playing. This had a great effect on the company, which held on to the position until reinforcements arrived.