"the Red Watch"

CHAPTER XXX

Wanted, More and More of Them 286

Index 289

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Col. John A. Currie Frontispiece

Capt. R. Clifford Darling, Adjutant 24

Officers of the 48th Highlanders 40

Group of Non-Commissioned Officers, 48th Highlanders 56

Aboard Ship in Winter Garb 72

Our Pullman Coach 88

48th Highlanders at Church Service near Messines 104

Church Steeple where V.C. was Won 120

Signallers in Flanders 136

The Trenches in Winter 152

First Aid in the Trenches 168

Trenches at Neuve Chapelle 184

Map of the Original Salient at Ypres 194

The Famous Road to Ypres 200

Map of the Break in the Salient 206

Sniping Through a Port Hole 216

A narrow Escape 232

Map of the Salient Flattened 248

The Muster of the 48th Highlanders after the Battle of St. Julien 264

PREFACE

The kind reception given to the rough notes from the Author's Diary, which appeared first in the daily papers in Canada, encouraged the production of this book. These notes, in order to make them more readable, have been put in narrative form. There is no pretence that this is a history of the war. It is only a string of pen pictures describing life and incidents of the campaign common to almost every corps in the field.

Where anything is omitted it must be borne in mind that the author cannot give any information of a military character which might assist the enemy while the war is in progress.

Opinions and observations on military matters are omitted. Discussions on the merits of the various arms, equipments, rifles, work of the staff, errors, omissions and criticisms of the manner in which the war is conducted, must wait for a future volume.

It is hoped that this publication will encourage all young men to "take their places in the ranks" and bear arms for the King and Empire, regardless of whether our military system be volunteering, conscription or National service.

It is more evident every day that there is need for the mobilization and consolidation of all the resources of the Empire. Consolidated and mobilized the Empire is self-sustaining and invincible. Its military and financial powers would be quadrupled. There is nothing to justify any delay in accomplishing this object except political expediency. In union there would be not only immediate strength, but confidence and harmony.

The world is just as full of brave deeds and stirring events as ever. The British Empire is yet a lump of clay unfashioned and formless on the wheel of the potter. That is the colonial view. It is for us to help "Mould it nearer to our heart's desire."

It is a great privilege to live in this age when such glorious deeds are being performed and history is being written. It is better still to be permitted to die, doing brave deeds, that our Empire may live, greater, freer and happier than ever.

TORONTO, OCTOBER 2ND, 1916.

CHAPTER I. Kilties in Canada.

KILTIES IN CANADA.

With this book as with many others the first chapter should be read last. The reason it is placed first is that the chronological order must be maintained. Besides, when stirring deeds by brave men are recalled, it matters not how briefly, they demand better treatment than being embalmed in an appendix.

This chapter deals with the first appearance of the Highland soldier in Canada. That appearance was both interesting and tragic. The stories and legends surrounding the campaigns of these brave men have furnished many themes for the poet and novelist. This chapter can only briefly refer to them.

If you search the great plains and rugged mountains of Canada from end to end, you will find many beautiful plants and flowers, but not a single spray of heather. Only in one spot in the whole vast Dominion will you find the plant that is so characteristically Scottish, growing naturally, and that is in Point Pleasant Park, Halifax. Tradition has it that on this spot, in 1757, the soldiers of the "Black Watch," the 42nd Highlanders, first set foot on Canadian soil. Here in this park, one of the most beautiful in America, the visitor is shown a plot of Scottish heather, flourishing vigorously in spite of souvenir hunters and vandals.

The Black Watch arrived at Halifax in the spring of 1757 to take part in the expedition against Louisburg, under General Abercrombie. Some say that the men of the Regiment, desirous of perpetuating the badge of so many of their clansmen, planted the heather seed where it now grows. Others, that the palliasses or mattresses of the soldiers were emptied here after the voyage, and the heather with which they had been filled in Scotland provided the seed from which this plot grew. It matters very little how it came. The heather still flourishes on the spot where the Black Watch first pitched its tent in Canada.

The expedition against Louisburg was abandoned, but the following year the regiment took part in the operations against the French under Montcalm at Lake George. Visitors there are shown the ruins of the ramparts of Ticonderoga. Around these ruins cling many legends and stories, but the name of Ticonderoga will live forever in the weird tale immortalized by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Parkman and the poem of Robert Louis Stevenson. It is told how on the eve of the battle there appeared to Duncan Campbell, of Inverawe, Major of the Black Watch, the wraith of a relative, murdered by a man to whom Campbell had granted sanctuary. This wraith had years previously appeared to him and warned him that he would meet him at "Ticonderoga." The following day Major Campbell died at the head of the assaulting columns of the Black Watch, and that brave regiment lost 655 officers and men, nearly equalling the losses of the "Red Watch," the 48th Highlanders of Canada, at the Battle of St. Julian in Flanders, when their roll showed 691 casualties.

The charge of the Black Watch at Ticonderoga was one of the bravest exploits of British arms. The gallant Highlanders advanced against the log redoubts and abattis of the French under Montcalm, hacking at the branches with their broadswords, climbing the ramparts with the assistance of their comrades, only to be hurled back, torn and bleeding, with the grape shot from hidden guns and musket-fire from many loopholes. They assaulted again and again, and finally had to be withdrawn.

For their gallant conduct at Ticonderoga the "Black Watch" were made a "Royal" regiment by the King.

The Black Watch was quartered for many years afterwards in Canada and quite a few of the descendants of these old warriors helped to make history for the Canadians in this latest and "Greatest War."

The second appearance of the armed Highlander in Canada was characteristically dramatic. They came in the persons of Fraser's Highlanders, hard on the heels of the gallant Black Watch. This regiment, known as the old 78th, was celebrated in many ways. This is the corps raised by Lord Lovat, that Pitt was said to have had in mind when in the British House of Commons he delivered the famous panegyric on the Highland troops.

This regiment distinguished itself first at the taking of Louisburg. It was the first to climb the Heights of Abraham and its fame has come down through history with that of Wolfe's victory at Quebec. The fierce charge of this regiment at Quebec which broke through the French line as if it were paper, is accounted for by the story that the Highlanders were rendered frantic by the fall of Wolfe whom they idolized, as the young staff officer who, on the day after Culloden, dared the anger of his Commander by refusing to pistol a wounded Highlander. A Canadian poet, Mr. Duncan Anderson, in describing the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, refers to the Frasers thus:

"And the shrill pipe its coronach that wailed, On dark Culloden moor, o'er trampled dead, Now sounds the 'Onset' that each clansman knows, Still leads the foremost rank where noblest blood is shed."

While Fraser's regiment were in garrison in Quebec, an incident occurred that was later on duplicated in Flanders. Owing to the inclement weather in Quebec, some of the officers in authority decided that the men should discard their kilts and don trousers. The officers and men of the regiment would not hear of it, and the historian of the regiment says that the kilt was retained winter and summer and that "in the course of six years the doctors learned that in the coldest of winters the men clad in the Highland garb were more healthy than those regiments that wore breeches and warm clothing."

In the trenches at Neuve Chapelle an agitation arose to give the kilted Canadian soldier in the trenches trousers. With the snow on the ground and half an inch of ice on the water pails in the morning, they would not hear of anything but the kilt. Their health was similarly good, colds being unknown.

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