With deadly aim, the foemen curst.
High o’er the din the pipers blew,
The hardy Scots marched two by two,
No halt, no pause, the swinging pace
Lost not one atom’s form or grace.”
And they got into Coomassie, but it must have taken no ordinary courage to make men play at the head of such a column, themselves with no weapons of defence. Firing at an unseen foe among the kopjes of the Transvaal was child’s play to it.
Recent wars have been equally fruitful in similar incidents. Piper James Stewart of the Cameron Highlanders, who was killed at the battle of the Atbara, was found to have seven bullets in his body. He gallantly led the charge, playing “The March of the Cameron Men,” and during a bit of rough and bloody work, he mounted a knoll and stood playing the tune until he fell mortally wounded. Piper Mac Lellan, of the Highland Light Infantry, kept playing his pipes at the battle of Magersfontein, amid a hail of bullets, encouraging the scattered Highlanders to re-unite in the attack, and he was mentioned by Lord Methuen in his despatches for bravery in charge of stretcher bearers. At the same engagement, Pipe-sergeant James Mac Kay of the 91st Highlanders, a native of the Reay Country and one of the official pipers to the Clan Mac Kay Society, standing in absolutely exposed positions, rallied parties of his regiment over and over, earning the admiration of all ranks. At Elandslaagate, a piper of the Gordon Highlanders, Sergeant Kenneth Mac Leod, a native of Lewis, continued playing after he had received several wounds, and only stopped when a bullet smashed his pipes.
The pipe-major of the 2nd Seaforth Highlanders, who also served in South Africa, is a son of the well-known military piper, Ronald Mac Kenzie, now in the service of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon at Gordon Castle, Fochabers. He was through Magersfontein and all the other battles with the Seaforths, and escaped with a scratch on the left leg and the loss of his chanter, which was smashed into bits by a bullet. More instances might be given, but these will suffice. Pipers have done quite as much as soldiers, in proportion to their numbers, to falsify estimates like that of the Soudanese women, who, when they first saw the kilted regiments of Kitchener’s expedition, thought they were men who had got into disgrace at home, been deprived of their trousers, and degraded to the level of women.
CHAPTER X.
The Regimental Piper.
“The Esk was swollen sae red and sae deep,