"Kilometre after kilometre we marched, through the hottest hours of the middle day, and our feet and backs ached under the weight of all we carried, our faces were dabbled and streaked with dust and perspiration, and in our mouths was only dust to chew....
"Walking had become a purely mechanical exercise, our limbs controlled, as it seemed, by some power outwith us; our brains were numb and dazed with fatigue and the maddening persisting pain that was our every step. Blindly, dumbly, helplessly we staggered on ... in infinite weariness we dragged ourselves to the beginning of the street, and then—
"Then the pipes suddenly set the heavens and the earth dancing to the strains of 'Highland Laddie,' the regimental march of the Glasgows. And at the skirl of the pipes, and before the eyes of those critical spectators, every man braced himself, his step assumed as much of jauntiness as he could put into it, and he had a laugh and a jesting answer ready on his lips for every outsider who spoke to him.... It was something more potent than wine that put the boldness into their step, it was the sense of the tradition and honour of their regiment: the feeling that on no account must they present other than a brave front to the world, that the one unpardonable offence would be to let the battalion down."
Examples could be multiplied indefinitely, but the best tribute to the value of the pipes as a marching instrument and in keeping the men cheery is, after all, the fact that regiment after regiment felt constrained to keep them out of action entirely—whether as pipers pure and simple or in other military capacities.
Statements to this effect have been received from nearly all the regiments whose views have been asked, commanding officers being almost unanimous in their opinion that, only where it is imperatively necessary, should a pipe band be exposed to the chances of annihilation inseparable from modern shell fire.
And in just the same manner as the pipes have helped battalions along the "via dolorosa" into action so they have, time and again, played them back to rest and comparative security. In some cases they had shared in the action itself, in others they waited until their services were required. Many commanding officers and observers have referred to this as one of the most important of their duties. In describing the return of a battalion, or what remained of it, from Longueval, Philip Gibbs writes:
"There was a thick summer haze about, and on the ridges the black vapours of shell bursts.... It was out of this that the Highlanders came marching. They brought the music with them and the pipes of war playing a Scottish love song, 'I lo'e na a laddie but ane.' Their kilts were caked with mud, they were very tired, but they held their heads up, and the pipers who had been with them played bravely ... and the Scottish love song rang out across the fields."
An officer of an Argyll battalion, writing of the days of trench fighting, says: "They have done much to hearten us on long marches. They came out of Bethune after Loos and played what was left of us back to billets." Another, in the Royal Scots, referring to the return of the battalion from Kemmel, says: "I shall never forget the effect on the men; as they struck up they fairly shouted themselves hoarse with delight."
"Wonderful pipes! The men get tired and would fall out, but the pipes make a unity of them. Invisible tendons and muscles seem to connect the legs of all files, and all move as one, mechanically, rhythmically, certainly. The strong are reduced to the step, the weak are braced up to it. All bear the strain and share the strain. So we go on, and the miracle is in the power of the music."[8]