The Black Watch Part 15

"In the room there were many young ladies--most of them dressed in white.

I recognized some of their faces. Jeanie was standing in the centre, dressed as a bride with a bouquet clasped in her arm.

"I was beginning to think that it surely was a most heavenly surprise. But they caught sight of me and it seemed as if they all made for the farthest corners of the room. They looked at me in what seemed to be terror.

"Jeanie stared at me for a moment. She was very pale. I wondered why she didn't rush forward and greet me--as I felt she ought--with outstretched arms. At that I started to make for her side. She gasped out 'Ned'--and sank to the floor in a faint.

"While I was leaning over her, there was a commotion at the door. I looked around and saw the clergyman enter, with one of my old-time chums dressed as a bridegroom. Upon recognizing me the bridegroom looked bewildered, but the next moment he had recovered himself. He approached me and shook hands, telling me, with an odd and embarra.s.sed manner that my arrival was timely. He added: 'If you had been delayed half an hour, Jeanie and I would have been married by now. It seems as if Fate has taken a hand in this.'

"He told me that Jeanie had been worrying and was continually talking about me, and that she didn't believe I was dead, although I had been reported 'killed or missing' since September, 1914. He had told her that she was foolish to keep up this thought, and finally had persuaded her to become engaged to him. The date for the marriage was fixed for the night on which I arrived.

"During this time the bride was being attended by some of the other young ladies and had been revived.

"The intended bridegroom went to her side and asked if she still cared for me. Her answer was: 'If he loves me, _yes_.' He approached me again, asking whether I cared for her still. Oh, I wanted to say how I loved her and how anxiously and hurriedly I had made my way to her on reaching British soil, but I was too overcome for words; I could only nod an a.s.sent. Do you know, Reuter, what this old pal did? He withdrew, giving me his place, and he acted as Best Man.

"Since then I've wondered whether, if it had been any other man, he would have stepped aside so. He loved her as I did, no doubt, but it seems she couldn't forget me, no matter how he tried to make her do so; so, realizing all this at the time, he did what he thought would give her the greatest happiness. I had suffered sorely, Reuter, but surely I was well rewarded. The pal who had expected to have my place gave us a hundred pounds as his gift to help us along in business. We were married that same night--only three days ago. So you see, Reuter, I lost no time in trying to find you to tell you of my complete happiness."

We left the tea rooms, and I accompanied Ned to the railway station, where he took the train for his home town. As we parted he wished me the best of success in America, and hoped that he would hear of my getting married very soon, for he a.s.sured me he was so happy that he wished to know that such happiness was mine also.

I made for home then, and in less than a week's time I was on my way to the States.

Ned's good wishes for me have certainly been fulfilled. I have since married, and it is my wife who has proved my sole inspiration and help in writing this book.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

No doubt, if I had been trained in writing rather than in the tactical requirements for service in the British army, I should call this the appendix of my book. I prefer not to do so, having found in my own experience that readers may be inclined to view the appendix in literature as similar to the appendix in surgery--something which is unnecessary.

I cannot so regard this chapter. It is to me a component and interesting part of the whole, for it goes to the source of the splendid and unique traditions of the regiment in which I have been privileged to serve as a soldier of my country.

A great deal has been written about the Black Watch. Even poets have been inspired to sing of its deeds in stanzas which are undying. Men of Highland birth, glorying in its history, have set down the facts of its achievements under England's banner. Yet most of these records are composed of dry facts, with no expressed sense of the romantic and the unusual which enter so largely into the history of the most famous fighting organization in the world. And most of them, also, might be written from the viewpoint of a century ago. They do not bring the recital of the achievements of the Black Watch into the atmosphere of to-day, with due regard for the interesting and almost startling effect of contrast.

This thought came to me one day when I was riding on a trolley through one of the busy districts of that part of Greater New York which lies east of the bridged river, and suddenly realized that I was pa.s.sing over the very ground upon which the Black Watch had its first important engagement in the war of the American Revolution--the Battle of Brooklyn. I recalled that on this very spot, where clanging trolleys, quick motor cars and hurrying pedestrians made a confusing rush of traffic, the men of the Black Watch fought, in the fas.h.i.+on of their forefathers, with broadsword and pistol, against the st.u.r.dy pioneers whose descendants are now the allies of our nation in a war for world freedom. In the annals of our regiment, the use of the broadsword and pistol in the Battle of Brooklyn is duly recorded, for it was after this engagement that the regiment was required to lay aside these mediaeval weapons--a fact which occasioned such discontent among the veterans of the Watch that there was even fear that the Highland stubbornness might manifest itself as markedly in protest as on the occasion--in England, in 1743--when the men of the regiment, confronted with orders issued in ignorance of the Highland characteristics and customs, departed quietly, in a body, without the knowledge of their officers, and marched as far as Northampton with the intention of returning to their Highland homes, relinquis.h.i.+ng the purpose only when prolonged negotiations had made the facts of the situation plain to their stubborn minds.

On the whole, however, this disposition on the part of the men of the Black Watch could hardly be called surprising, in view of the ignorance regarding the Highland character then prevalent in England. Three years before, King George the Second, having never seen a Scotch Highlander--although the Black Watch had already been organized in the Highlands as the Forty-third regiment of the British army--asked to have some examples of the race sent to appear before him and his court. Two Highlanders, Gregor MacGregor and John Campbell, appeared in response to the King's command. (A third, John Grant, began the journey to London with them but died on the way.) MacGregor and Campbell gave exhibitions of their dexterity with the broadsword and the Lochaber axe, in the presence of the King and his Court. When they had finished the King gave each a gold guinea as a gratuity. They gave the coins as a tip to the porter, on their departure. The King had not understood that his guests were Highland gentlemen.

Sitting at the window of the house where I now pa.s.s the peaceful and uneventful days of the soldier who has fought until wounds incapacitate him for further service afield, I smiled, one day, at another thought in which the past and the present incongruously came into a.s.sociation. From this window, I viewed the populous, close-built residential stretches of Was.h.i.+ngton Heights, typical of the city life of to-day. And, amid all this, my eye could seek out the very spot where occurred the grimly humorous adventure of Major Murray, most corpulent of the officers of the Black Watch, when the command was fighting against Was.h.i.+ngton's rebellious patriots. Having to scale the heights which were later to become famous as the habitat of the hardy goats of Harlem, Major Murray was at a great disadvantage because of his weight and girth. "Soldiers, would you leave me behind?" he appealed, pathetically, when he needed a.s.sistance. And then his husky Highlanders would boost him upward toward the fray. It was, consequently, in a somewhat breathless and confused condition that the valiant major attained the spot upon the heights where the conflict raged.

Rus.h.i.+ng forward to close with some antagonist in the Colonials, Major Murray discovered that his only weapon, his dirk, had got twisted behind him in the strenuous struggles of the ascent and that, because of his excessive fatness, he couldn't reach it. The records of the regiment, at the home station, Perth, state that the major, on this occasion, tore a sword from the grasp of one of three Colonials who attacked him and put all three to flight. With no thought to cast aspersion upon the major's valour, I have always been inclined to the belief that the writer of the regimental reports may have compensated in a certain generosity of statement for his earlier description of the major's comic predicament.

Study of the history of the Black Watch, gathered, largely, in a fragmentary way, has always had a fascination for me. I have felt in the greatest degree the pride of members.h.i.+p in the organization--and the world knows that the men of the Black Watch have always made much of the name. I feel that tradition had well prepared the regiment for its sacrificial and almost superhuman efforts between Mons and the Marne. For hard fighting and long fighting--in every quarter of the globe and with opponents of almost every race--civilized and uncivilized--no organized fighting force has ever had a record to equal that of the Black Watch.

The regiment got its name in 1729, when six companies of Highlanders which had const.i.tuted a sort of military police along the highland border, were joined together into a more or less h.o.m.ogeneous command. Four of these companies had been in existence for a few years. Two were of organization of that year. They were called the Independent Companies of Highlanders but it was their purpose to co-operate to preserve order among the turbulent spirits of the border and to enforce the disarming act.

Highlanders from the broken clans flocked to the banners of the Independent Companies, as this gave them the right still to bear arms.

Many of them were Highland gentlemen, who came with their servants to carry their arms and belongings. The companies were commanded by Lord Lovat, Campbell of Lochnell, Grant of Ballindalloch, Campbell of Fonab, Campbell of Carrick, and Munro of Culcairn. Approximately, there were a hundred men in each company. They wore the dark tartan of the clan Campbell, and thus came to be called the _Freaceadan Dubh_, or Black Watch, as distinguished from the _saighdearan dearg_, or red soldiers.

For ten years, these six companies served on the border, const.i.tuting a slender but effective bulwark between two neighbouring but utterly different peoples. In this day--when it is but a pleasant outing to motor from England into the Highlands--it seems almost unbelievable that the laws, language, customs, and social usages of the Highlanders should for centuries have remained utterly different from those of England and the lowlands, and that the people of the lowlands should have almost no knowledge of neighbours so near. The st.u.r.dy and soldierly qualities of the Highlanders of the six companies, however, couldn't escape the notice of England's generals, ever seeking new drafts for England's fighting forces.

In 1739 it was decided that a foot regiment of Highlanders should be added to the regular establishment of the army, the six Independent Companies being augmented by four new companies to const.i.tute the regimental strength.

In 1740 this regiment--commanded by the Earl of Crawford and Lindsay, as colonel--was paraded for the first time on a field, near Aberfeldy. Until then, the Black Watch had been uniformed only in the fact that each member wore the _philleadh mor_ or belted plaid, of the Campbell tartan. No one but a Highlander could ever adjust this dress. It consisted of twelve yards of tartan, two-thirds of it gathered in pleats, held by a belt round the waist, and the other third folded around the body and clasped with a buckle, on the left shoulder.

The uniform and individual equipment of the new regiment, which was called the Forty-third Foot, is described in detail in an old order of the day.

It consisted of "scarlet jacket and waistcoat, with buff facings and white lace; the _phileag beag_, or little kilt; a blue bonnet, with check border of red, white, and green, and a tuft of feathers; musket, bayonet, pistol, broadsword, dirk and target." The first march of the regiment was from beside the waters of the Tay--where it had encamped for more than a year--to Perth, in which city the home station of the regiment was then established and still is maintained.

When I outfitted there, with my contingent of first reserve men, at the outbreak of this war, the thought came to my mind that, three times before, the Black Watch had moved from Perth to fight in Flanders.

I have never seen a succinct summary of the activities of the Black Watch.

Though far abler writers than I have described its separate campaigns, each of these writers has given but a limited view of the long vista of st.u.r.dy fighting which visualizes the regiment's history. From such sources of information as I have had, the following summary has been extracted.

Surely it will tell a story of interest to every man who is interested in the traditions of Britain's "far-flung battle line."

The regiment marched from Perth to London, in 1743, and, after a mutiny--due to tales of scandal-mongers that the Highlanders were to be sent to the American plantations--made its first journey overseas, going to fight in Flanders under the command of the Earl of Stair. After Fontenoy, the regiment covered the British retreat and lost, among their officers, five Campbells. In this battle they were commanded by Sir Robert Munro.

The Black Watch, then called the 43rd Highlanders, was transferred to England, and most of the companies were kept in Kent, during the Jacobite uprising. Three companies were engaged in Scotland in putting down the insurrection, and one was at the battle of Prestonpans. I quote from a story of the Black Watch written by Lauchlan MacLean Watt in saying that "the other two companies had an unwilling share in the deplorable outrages in the Highland Glens after Culloden, which made the name of the Duke of c.u.mberland worthy to be placed amongst those of his blood who have won similar distinction in Belgium, to-day."

The Black Watch was sent to France, in 1746, thence to Ireland and back to Flanders in 1747.

In 1749 it was returned to Ireland where it remained eight years. In this year the regimental number was changed to the 42nd.

In 1757 the regiment was a part of the expeditionary force sent to America for the French and Indian war. At Ticonderoga it served so valiantly and suffered such terrific losses that the name "The Royal Highlanders" was conferred upon it.

The regiment next fought at Martinique and Guadaloupe, returning to fight again in Canada and take an important part in the battle which compelled the surrender of Montreal. Altogether, it served seven years in the West Indies and North America. It was only at this period that company sergeants were given carbines instead of the Lochaber axes which they had always carried.

In 1775 the regiment returned to Scotland, having been absent 32 years.

In April, 1776, the regiment embarked again for America, this time to fight in the revolution of the American colonists. They were disembarked on Staten Island, and, as I have said, they were engaged and suffered some losses in the Battle of Brooklyn. They also suffered heavily in the Battle of the Brandywine.

The Black Watch next fought against Hyder Ali, in India, in 1782.

In 1795 it took part in the defence of Nieuport, in Flanders, and suffered much in the Gildersmalsen retreat, in that campaign.

Back again, the regiment went, after this, to the West Indies and in this campaign the men were first given a uniform suitable to wear in the tropics. Its princ.i.p.al features were white duck trousers and round hats.

The mutations of world warfare had had their effect. The Highlanders were willing to put on pantaloons. There were but five companies of the regiment on this expedition. The whole regiment was rea.s.sembled, however, in the following year, at Gibraltar, and fought as a whole in the capture of Minorca.

The year 1800 found the regiment, under Sir Ralph Abercromby, in Egypt.

During the fighting with Napoleon's armies, there, the regiment lost its commander in action.

In 1808 the Black Watch was among the British forces in the Peninsula and suffered extreme privation and heavy losses on the retreat from Corunna.

In the following year the regiment was on the ill-fated expedition to Walcheren, returning with less than one-third of its original strength.

Three years later they were in Portugal again.

After the escape of Napoleon the regiment fought through to Waterloo, though without playing an important part in that last great battle.

It then fought through the campaign of the Crimea as a part of Sir Colin Campbell's Highland brigade.