looker, has been said of it. And
everything that has been said retires into the perspective of the
academic, when one reads, in this volume, the words of a trained British
soldier who experienced and survived it. For stark and simple strength,
for realism of detail, for a complete picturization of the desperate and
heroic resistance of the sacrificial army, this soldier's tale is, and
will remain, unequalled and unique. This prefatory emphasis is not vain or
extravagant. It need not fear the fact that there is but the turning of a
page between promise and performance. Here is a writing which is _of_ the
war, and therefore differs from all writings which can only be _about_ the
war. It conveys to the reader an almost paralyzing sense of wonder at the
steadfastness of Britain's military traditions, put to an unexampled
test. It shows how marvellously well a soldier may learn his business in
advance--when his business is to die. Concerning one of the most
noteworthy accomplishments of the arms of Britain, there will survive in
print no more compelling and convincing narrative than this, the utterance
of one whose trade was fighting and not writing.

THE BLACK WATCH

THE BLACK WATCH

CHAPTER ONE

For more than two years now, I have been trying to forget those first
months of the war. The months when the Black Watch and other regiments of
the immortal "contemptible little army" marched into the unknown against
the fiercest, most efficient military power the world, up to that time,
had known; the months when hidden enemies struck swiftly mystifying blows
with strange weapons, the more terrible because we did not understand them
and had never imagined their power and numbers.

For more than two years I have habitually sought to keep my mind upon
other subjects, yet I can recall those days now in the minutest detail. I
can hear the sudden thrum of the masked machine guns like giant partridges
drumming; can hear the singing roar of the Prussian airplanes to which, in
those days, because of the scarcity of British planes, there could be
practically no answer; and I can live again the frightful nights when we
made our stand upon the Marne, and, sneaking into German outpost trenches,
slew the guards with jack-knives, thrusting gags into their mouths and
cutting their throats to prevent outcry.

Those were the days of picturesque and shifty fighting. There was
movement, the rush of cannon from the rear, the