an
admiring English soldier who watched it, and the terrible gashes in the
German ranks bore tragic testimony to the results of this double charge.
The same desperate maneuver, it may be recalled, was carried out at
Waterloo and is the subject of a striking and dramatic battle picture.

Though all the letters from men in the Highland regiments speak
contemptuously of the rifle fire of the Germans, they admit that in
quantity, at least, it is substantial. "They just poured lead in tons
into our trenches," writes one, "but, man, if we fired like yon they'd
put us in jail." The German artillery, however, is described as "no
canny." The shells shrieked and tore up the earth all around the
Highlanders, and accounted for practically all their losses.

Narrow escapes were numerous. An Argyll and Sutherland Highlander got
his kilt pierced eight times by shrapnel, one of the Black Watch had his
cap shot off, and while another was handling a tin of jam a bullet went
clean into the tin. Jocular allusions were made to these incidents, and
somebody suggested labeling the tin "Made in Germany."

Even the most grim incidents of the war are lit up by some humorous or
pathetic passage which illustrates the fine spirits and even finer
sympathies of the Highlanders. Lance-Corporal Edmondson, of the Royal
Irish Lancers, mentions the case of two men of the Argyll and
Sutherlands, who were cut off from their regiment. One was badly
wounded, but his comrade refused to leave him, and in a district overrun
by Germans, they had to exist for four days on half-a-dozen biscuits.

"But how did you manage to do it?" the unwounded man was asked, when
they were picked up.

"Oh, fine," he answered.

"How about yourself, I mean?" the questioner persisted in asking.

"Oh, shut up," said the Highlander.

The truth is he had gone without food all the time in order that his
comrade might not want.

Then there is a story from Valenciennes of a poor scared woman who
rushed frantically into the road as the British troops entered the
town. She had two slight cuts on the arm, and was almost naked--the
result of German savagery. When she saw the soldiers she shrank back in
fear and confusion, whereupon one of the Highlanders, quick to see her
plight, tore off his kilt, ripped it in half, and wrapped a portion
around her. She sobbed for gratitude at this kindly thought and tried to
thank him, but before she could do so the Scot, twisting the other half
o