left of that first heroic
expeditionary force the first battle of Ypres had come close to
wiping out. In the Ypres salient our men out there were hanging on
like grim death. There was no time to spare at Bedford, where men
were being made ready as quickly as might be to take their turn in
the trenches.

But there was a little time when John and I could talk.

"What do you need most, son?" I asked him.

"Men!" he cried. "Men, Dad, men! They're coming in quickly. Oh,
Britain has answered nobly to the call. But they're not coming in
fast enough. We must have more men--more men!"

I had thought, when I asked my question, of something John might be
needing for himself, or for his men, mayhap. But when he answered me
so I said nothing. I only began to think. I wanted to go myself. But
I knew they would not have me--yet awhile, at any rate. And still I
felt that I must do something. I could not rest idle while all around
me men were giving themselves and all they had and were.

Everywhere I heard the same cry that John had raised:

"Men! Give us men!"

It came from Lord Kitchener. It came from the men in command in
France and Belgium--that little strip of Belgium the Hun had not been
able to conquer. It came from every broken, maimed man who came back
home to Britain to be patched up that he might go out again. There
were scores of thousands of men in Britain who needed only the last
quick shove to send them across the line of enlistment. And after I
had thought a while I hit upon a plan.

"What stirs a man's fighting spirit quicker or better than the right
sort of music?" I asked myself. "And what sort of music does it best
of all?"

There can be only one answer to that last question! And so I
organized my recruiting band, that was to be famous all over Britain
before so very long. I gathered fourteen of the best pipers and
drummers I could find in all Scotland. I equipped them, gave them the
Highland uniform, and sent them out, to travel over Britain skirling
and drumming the wail of war through the length and breadth of the
land. They were to go everywhere, carrying the shrieking of the pipes
into the highways and the byways, and so they did. And I paid the bills.

That was the first of many recruiting bands that toured Britain.
Because it was the first, and because of the way the pipers skirled
out the old hill melodies and songs of Scotland, enormous crowds
followed my band. And it led them straight to the r