If Providence has sent me here,
'Twas surely in his anger."
The Argylls long ago took Burns' song and treated it with the contempt it deserves when they adopted "Baile Inneraora" as their "onset." It was played at the taking of Longueval, in the attack at Loos, and at the subsequent rally after that glorious disaster, and in many other actions.
During the fighting on the Somme for the heaps of ruins which had once been a French village, an incident occurred which takes us back to the legend connected with the pibroch "A Cholla, mo run." Long ages ago, when the Campbells heard they were going to be attacked by Coll Kiteach at Dunivaig, they set an ambush and captured the advance guard. All were hanged except the piper, who was given permission to play a lament over his comrades. The piper at once started the warning, which was heard and understood by his comrades,
"Coll of my love avoid the strait, avoid the strait, avoid the strait,
Coll of my love, go by the Mull, gain the landing place."
The poor piper was instantly stabbed by the infuriated Campbells.
It is a far cry from those days, when men could converse to each other in pibroch, to 1916; but another tune—not "A Cholla, mo run"—was played by another piper in a French village when his party was cut off. Two officers, a sergeant, and a piper of an Argyll battalion, got separated from the main body, and found themselves unable to get away when the village was again attacked by our men. The small party at once started bombing the enemy from the rear, but the piper, appreciating the unpleasant possibility of their own presence not being recognised, struck up the regimental onset. This alarmed the Germans, who thought they were being attacked from a fresh quarter, and materially contributed to the success of the operation.