The Black Watch; a record in action

Foreword

From Mons to the Marne lies the bloodiest trail of sacrifice in history. In all the records of war, there stands forth no more magnificent and no more melancholy achievement than that of the British regular army, which bled its heroic way in ever-diminishing numbers from the challenge to the check of the initial German sweep upon Paris. It could not hope for decisive victory; it could only clog the wheels of the Juggernaut with lives and lives and lives, sold bravely and dearly. Before a countless superiority of numbers and an incalculable advantage in enemy preparedness, it could only stand, and fall — and stand again, and fall — until the end; when the cause of the Allies was saved for the hour, and of French's hundred thousand there remained barely a little leaven of trained men for the British forces then assembling to learn the trade of warfare.

V

FOREWORD

The ablest pens writing of the Great War have paid tribute to this splendid deed which changed the course of its beginning. French's retreat from Mons has been a topic to inspire the highest eloquence of the patriotic historian and the most profound admiration of the militarist. Everything, from the point of the onlooker, 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,

vi

FOREWORD

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.

vu

Chapter One

FOR more tlian 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 charges of cavalry, the perils of scouting and patrolling. It was little like the slow trench warfare which followed.

The Black Watch — the regiment to which I belong — was one of the first to cross the Channel. War was declared August 4th, which was Tuesday. The first-class reservists, of which I was one, received their mobilization orders the next day.

We assembled at Queens Barracks, Perth, the historic headquarters of what we proudly maintain is the world's most famous fighting organization. Twice before, since 1742, the Black Watch had outfitted in Perth to fight in Flanders. Almost constantly since that date, battalions of the regiment have been fighting for Britain In some far-oflF quarter of the globe. For the third adventure in Flanders, which vas to see the existing personnel of the regiment practically wiped out In an imperatively necessary campaign of blood sacrifice, our preparations were brisk and businesslike. Within three hours of my arrival at the depot at Perth, I was one of a thousand men, uniformed, armed, and fully equipped, who entrained for Aldershot to join our first battalion stationed there.

On the thirteenth of August, after a week's stiff training, we boarded the steamship Italian Prince and the next day disembarked at Havre.

What awaited us there was much like the reception later given to the first American troops to land in France. What followed was quite different. The American troops, and millions of their friends and relatives, are all wondering what awaits them — what war really will be like — what they will have to do and the conditions under which they will do it.

It is an axiom of war that the first troops almost invariably suffer the greatest losses.

The jBrst American units to go into the trenches have suffered a low average of casualties. In one respect they are far better off than were the first British and French troops to meet the Germans. They know what they are going up against. Modern warfare is a determined quantity. They know the methods of the men they will fight against and they have allies able to instruct them in the art of fighting as it is practised to-day.

We had nothing like that. It was as though we were groping in the dark while an unseen foe was striking at us. For days we tramped through France and Belgium hearing the roar of the German guns, feeling the sting of the shrapnel, but not seeing our foes. Then came the shifty, open fighting, now almost forgotten, which will not be resumed until the Germans are on the run. W^hen it comes it will be a welcome relief to the men who have been battling, like rats, in trenches not fit for human beings to inhabit.

Well, to get back to what happened to us, the first ''contemptible little army," in France and Flanders.

The 19th of August found us billeted in a town called Boue. We had to remain here a few days because the roads were blocked with transports going toward the front. The entire regiment was allowed to go swimming in a near-by canal and, as my chum and I were dressing, an old Frenchman gave us each a haM-franc piece, saying that it would give us good luck and bring us through alive. It was the first money he had made as a boy and he had kept it ever since. The last I heard of my chum was that he had been discharged from active service because of wounds, and so it would appear his half-franc piece really did bring him through, just as mine did me. We left Boue on the twenty-first at three o'clock in the morning, and we marched until three o'clock the next morning. All the time we could hear the muffled booming of the German heavy artillery. It sounded just like the noise they make on the stage when a battle is supposed to be in progress in the distance. It excited the men and buoyed them up wonderfully, but twenty-four hours is a long time to march without sleep, and wheneyer we halted the men lay down in the mud of the road and lost consciousness — but not for long.

Within a few minutes after every halt, the officers would come among us and rouse us, saying that we were badly needed up where the guns were growling. It was hard, tiring work, but it wasn't half so bad as what we got later, when we were retreating.

We didn't know it, but we were on our way to Mons to hold the left flank.

It was during a short halt in Grande Range that we had our first sight of a German airplane. We were billeted in the houses and stables of the village, and every one came running out to look at the plane when the thrumming of the engine was heard. When it was right over our heads it let fly a rack full of steel darts and they came clattering down into the village streets. One stuck into the pavement in front of our quarters. It was so deeply imbedded that not a man in the company could pull it out. [I have seen one of these missiles go right through a house from roof to cellar. They have been known to go through a horse and then bury themselves in the ground.]

These steel darts were from eight inches to a foot long, cut so that they would fall point downward. Dozens of them were contained in a single rack, whieli the aviator released when he was over his target; the speed of the machine caused them to scatter. They would go through anything they hit, but they were found to be too inaccurate and not so economical as explosives.

After the plane had passed we were rushed to the outskirts of the village, where we began to entrench. By morning, we had nearly finished the shallow trenches which, in that day, were regarded as suflicient protection for infantry in the field. At daybreak our High Command had information that our position along the highway would prove untenable. Wearily enough, we marched to a range of wooded hills where we again entrenched. German heavy shells found us there, so we were compelled to retire to another village, near which we entrenched once more, on still higher ground. The German air scouts were watching us, however, and in this new position a heavier fire from long-range artillery found us.

All of this was on August 25th, two days after our forced march of twenty-four hours.

The weather was extremely hot and we were well-nigh exhausted by the work of digging three sets of trenches. We lay and "took" the German fire. We had already had some casualties, the wooden steeple of the church in the village on our right was in flames, and several houses had been destroyed by the German shelling — and we hadn't yet seen a German, except the airplane scouts. But they were not long coming into view.

As we lay in our shallow trenches, a big shell every now and then falling amongst us, another regiment, retreating under heavy fire, broke into view from the woods, a mile or more in front of our line. We soon made them out — the Scots Guards, hotly pursued by a superior force of Uhlans, and, as the German commander fondly believed, near capture. We, in our trenches, were in a fever to get our fire on the Germans but they were so close upon the Guards that we dared not fire a shot. The Guards, putting up a stiff fight directly in front of our position, checked the Uhlans suflficiently to enable their own organization to continue its retreat, swinging over in the direction of our left flank. This gave us our chance and we poured a hot rifle and machine-gun fire into the pursuing force.

We were in action against the Boches, at last! and, furthermore, we had the satisfaction of seeing that our fire was effective. The Uhlans, whose attention now was forcibly distracted from the hard-pressed Guards to us, immediately advanced in our direction, dismounting at 1,200 yards distance and returning our fire. Leaving their horses behind a ridge, they crept up on us to within 500 yards.

At this point, a water cart belonging to the Guards, which had been hidden in a thicket, popped out, and was being driven in the direction of their regiment. A party of about thirty Uhlans galloped after it. We turned some of our fire on them. I think they were all toppled over, horses and men alike. Then another party of about five thousand Uhlans made toward us at a gallop and charged, but there were few of them that got to within one hundred yards of our single shallow trench. By this time the Scots Guards had got into position and opened fire on the Boche cavalry.

Three times the Germans tried to secure the water cart, thinking no doubt it was an ammunition wagon. When the cart was about one hundred and fifty yards from our trench the horses were shot down by the Uhlans. One of the men on it was wounded through the arm, and the other coolly filled his water bottle and bathed his comrade's wound, regardless of the Huns who were still peppering away. We shouted to the two boys to hurry and come into safety. The wounded one's answer was:

"Safety be damned! Some of you Jocks come out here and give us a pull with the water cart."

Men of our H company, nearest to the cart, asked permission to go to the rescue. Their officers acquiesced and sixteen of them rushed out, cut the cart loose from the dead horses, and dragged it to safety behind the ridge which we were holding. Three of the sixteen were hit. There were especial reasons for this bit of valour. Our own water bottles were empty, our water cart drained dry, and we were choking with thirst.

It was now the time of the Scots Guards to help us. They kept a steady fire on the

Uhlans while we retired behind the ridge to fair in on the main road to Hautmont and retreat to the next spot where we could make a temporary stand. While we were falling back to the main road, a man from each section filled three water bottles from the rescued cart. We didn't know when we would get water again, nor how far our tired feet must carry us. In this exhausted state we began the furious fatal struggle against an overwhelming and irresistible enemy which is known in history as the Retreat from Mons. Of that fearful time, I have lost track of dates. I do not want to remember them. All I recollect is that, under a blazing August sun — our mouths caked, our tongues parched — day after day we dragged ourselves along, always fighting rear-guard actions, our feet bleeding, our backs breaking, our hearts sore. Our unmounted officers limped amongst us, blood oozing through their spats. With a semblance of cheeriness they told us that we must retreat because the Russians were on their way to Berlin and we must keep the Germans moving in the opposite direction. When we got a few minutes' respite there would be an issue of ''gunfire" — the traditional British army term for tea served out to men in action. It was of a nondescript flavour, commingling the negative qualities of "bully-beef stew" and the very positive taste of kerosene oil, the cooks' hurricane lamps being stored in the camp-kettles during each of our retirements. Invariably — and I mean in twenty instances — the shells would begin to drop amongst us before we could finish our portions, eating, though we did, with ravenous haste; and when it was not artillery fire that stopped our feeding it would be a charge of Uhlans, compelling us to drop halfemptied mess-tins and seize rifles.

We had no artillery to speak of, and very few airplanes. If we had had more of the latter, there might have been another story. The Germans seemed to know every move we made, but we were blind. We dropped into a field and killed a bullock, skinned it and were cooking it. There came the roar of a powerful engine; a German plane circled over us and went sailing back, signalling our position. A few minutes later shrapnel fell among us and we went on, some of the men in ambulances. Those that were killed we hurriedly buried, but there was not time even to put improvised wooden crosses at their heads.

One of our slightly wounded, in the broad accents of lowland Scotch, cursed the Germans — ^not for wounding him, but for knocking over his canteen of tea. A hail of flying shrapnel struck down a cook; the men of his section cursed in chorus for the misfortune which meant that hunger would be added to their other miseries.

Not once alone did we spring up from eating to fight the Uhlans with rifle fire and bayonet. It happened a dozen times. Whenever the Uhlans came, we fought them off, but always we had to retreat in the end, for the German reserves were numberless while ours scarcely existed.

Chapter Two

OST of the time while we were dragging our exhausted, diminishing numbers ahead of the German wave of shot and steel, I was on scout duty. For a while, I was "connecting file" between the Black Watch and the Munster Fusiliers who were in rear of us and almost constantly in touch with the enemy. I had more than one narrow escape from capture or death.

On one occasion the regiment had been deployed to beat off a flank attack. When we resumed the march I was sent back to get in touch with the Fusiliers. My orders were to go to the rear until I got in touch with them. I was proceeding cautiously along the road when suddenly around a curve something appeared before me. My rifle was at my shoulder ready to fire. Then I recognized what had been a uniform of the Fusiliers.

Have you ever read Kipling's "Man Who

Came Back"?' If you have, you will have a better idea than I can give you of what this human being looked like. His face was covered with blood. One arm hung limply. Just as he made toward me, he fell exhausted by the roadside, like a dog that is spent. Literally, his tongue hung from his mouth. His shoes were cut up and his clothes dangled in ribbons beneath which red gashes showed in:his flesh where he had torn it in the barbed-wire fences he had encountered, crossing fields.

I asked him what had happened. His lips moved and his breath came in more difficult gasps, but no word could he utter. I wiped his face, and then I recognized in him an officer who had been a crack athlete when the Munsters were in India and against whom I had competed more than once. I pressed my water bottle to his lips. After a few moments he was able to speak.

"They are gone!" he gasped; "all of them are gone! By God, they died like men; but — they — died. "

"Let me understand you, sir," I begged him. "Tell me just what happened."

"Where are you going?" he almost shouted.

"I am going back to get in touch with the Munster Fusiliers," I said.

"You can't make the journey," he panted. "You'd have to go to heaven — or to hell. They caught them in a pocket. Shrapnel and machine-guns. There are no Munster Fusiliers any more, "

He was right, practically. The Germans had caught them between fires and the regiment was cut to pieces.

Helping the officer as best I could, I hurried forward to catch up with my own regiment. When I got in touch with it I left the Fusilier officer with the commander of the first company I met. Then I hurried to the Company commander.

"What are you doing here.f^" he asked.

"I am here, to report, sir," I said. "There is no use trying to get in touch with the Fusiliers. They have been cut off. "

"Your orders were to go back until you got in touch with them," he said gruffly. "Consider yourself under arrest."

A non-commissioned officer and two men, with fixed bayonets, were put on guard over me. I had disobeyed orders, technically, and during those first days in France many a stern act was necessary, for the army had to learn the discipHne of war.

I would have been tied to a spare wheel at the back of an artillery caisson, but as they were leading me away I asked to speak to my sergeant. I explained to him what had happened and he told my company commander, who found the officer of the Fusiliers. The latter, meanwhile, had been taken care of by our officers and was now in condition to talk. He spoke to the colonel (Col. Grant Duff) , explaining just what had happened and telling him that he had directed me to return to my regiment. I was liberated, but it was a mighty close escape from disgrace, which, after all, is worse than death, especially to a soldier.

After that I was sent out to scout on the left flank with my partner, Troolen, who was of a daredevil disposition and worked in a noisy fashion, and so when I saw something moving in the brushwood on a ridge we were approaching, and heard a sound like the trample of horses on the other side, I cautioned him to remain where he was while I explored it. Troolen swore he could hear nothing and was for muddling ahead and running into anything that might be there, but I was in command and I ordered him to wait. Sneaking from stone to stone and from tree to tree, I worked myself to a little pocket which seemed scalloped out of the crest of the ridge and found the ground there all freshly trampled, with other signs that horses had left it recently. There were no wheel marks, so I knew that it was cavalry, not artillery. From the marks of the iron shoes I could tell that they were of a different type from ours.

Uhlans had been there.

I signalled to Troolen and he joined me. Climbing to the crest of the ridge we saw the enemy in large numbers moving toward the road on which we were marching, and they were ahead of us. As we hurried toward our regiment we heard others in the rear.

As fast as I could, I made my way to the Company] commander and reported what I had seen. Almost at the same moment we were fired upon. The rifle fire was immediately followed by artillery shelling. Patrols on the other flank had made sketches of the country and orders were issued for the regiment to take cover in a gully which was across some fields and the other side of a small woods. The men ducked through a wire fence which was at the side of the road and sections of it were torn to let the combat wacgons through.

As we retreated we kept up a steady fire, forcing the Uhlans close to their cover, but the artillery continually sprayed over the field.

Thus began for us the Battle of the Oise.

We had little hope of any support. We knew we had to fight it out alone, and there was little enough ammunition. I was running and ducking for the next bit of cover from behind which I could use my rifle, when a shell exploded behind me. It threw me from my feet but I was unhurt and as I jumped up I heard a crashing and splintering a few feet away. One of the horses on an ammunition wagon had been struck. He was plunging on the ground, terrifying his team mate and kicking the wagon to pieces. The transport officer, C. R. B. Henderson, drew his revolver and shot the animal.

The Uhlans must have had reinforcements for they were getting bolder. The bullets were cutting up little spurts of dust and turf all about us. They were singing overhead like a gale in the ropes and spars of a transport at sea. The Germans were firing at the ammunition wagon in the hope of blowing it up.

I was just about to run for cover again when I saw Lieut. Henderson — he who had shot the transport horse — walk calmly up (leading his own animal) and cut the dead one from the traces. I didn't care about being killed, but I couldn't leave this officer, who was standing there as though he were on parade, except that his hands were working ten times as fast as they ever did at drill. Together we got the dead animal free and harnessed the lieutenant's horse to the wagon. We used one of the lieutenant's spiral puttees to mend the cut and broken harness. The driver of the ammunition wagon was holding the head of the other horse, shaking his fist at the Germans, and swearing at them with a heavy Scotch burr.

Men were running past us like rabbits. Some of them were tumbling like rabbits, too, when a steel-nosed bullet found its mark. I saw others stoop, just long enough to get an arm under the shoulders of a comrade and then drag him along. A few lay still and a single look into their faces showed that it would be useless to carry them. The running men dropped behind stones, hillocks, trees — anything that was likely to afford cover and stop bullets — and their rifles snapped angrily at the Germans whose fire was getting heavier, but who still did not dare an open attack.

At last the harness was ready. The ammunition driver leaped to his seat and the wagon went careening toward the ravine, swaying crazily, with a storm of shots tearing up the turf around its wheels. We needed that wagon badly. In a moment it would be over the crest of the rise and we would be sure of that much ammunition to fight with.

"Get on to the wagon, sir," I shouted to the ofiicer, as it dashed forward; but he did not heed me.

"In a second we shall be where we can fight them off," was all he said.

A Uhlan's horse, with empty saddle, galloped up to us. I seized the dangling reins.

"Mount him, sir," I shouted. He took the reins from my hand and attempted to leap into the saddle. The horse was cut and bleeding, and unmanageable from terror. He backed toward the ammunition wagon, which had not yet made the ridge, dragging the ojfficer with him. I followed.

Just as we thus neared the wagon, a shell exploded close at hand. The wagon humped up in the middle as if it had been made of whalebone. It rocked from side to side, almost upsetting. Then it settled back upon its wrecked wheels. A high explosive shell had struck directly under it. The two horses fell, dead from shrapnel or shock, and the driver toppled from his seat, dead, between them, a red smear across his face.

The small-arms ammunition in the wagon had not been exploded. The doors of the wagon were thrown open by the concussion of the shell, causing the bandoliers of cartridges to scatter. The officer motioned to me to help distribute the ammunition to our men as they ran past; upon finishing this task we joined the last of our party and were very soon over the crest. We had only a few machine guns, but we got them in place. The Uhlans were charging across the field."

A shrill whistle blew. ^The machine guns

began to rattle. Down went horses and riders, plunging about where some of our own men lay. Our rifle fire, too, was getting stronger, better controlled, more co-ordinated. We were sheltered; the enemy was in the open. His artillery was useless, for we were coming to grips. Line after line, they broke into the field, lances set. The horses were stretching out low over the turf — over the turf where a moment later they were to kick out the last of their breath, pinning under them many a rider to whom we were paying the debt of the Munster Fusiliers.

A bugle sounded. Those that were

left of the Uhlans galloped off. The little m^^chine guns had done their work.

Our attention was then attracted to a heavy fire, directed from some unknown quarter upon a near-by field in which was confined a large herd of light brown cattle, their colour identical with that of our khaki uniforms. The animals were milling about madly; a dozen of them already were down and others were falling each moment. Here was one of the humours of war. We laughed, believing that the Germans were firing upon the dying beasts, mistaking them for us — ''The Ladies from Hell," as they called us.

The Scots Greys, which regiment had come up at this critical moment to occupy the high ground on our right flank about six hundred yards away, through the fierceness of their enfilading fire, managed to keep the enemy at a standstill and so allowed the Black Watch to retreat to safety.

We owed our lives to kind fate in bringing the Scots Greys to our timely aid, and to them all honour! But for them we should have met the fate of the Munster Fusiliers.

Crawling on their bellies, some of our men went out and brought in those of the Black Watch who were lying wounded. The others we left, for their own men would be there presently. For us, it was retreat again. After traversing ditches, ravines and barbed-wire fences, we finally assembled on the road. The artillery was beginning to pound once more. We had to trudge on, watching for the next attack, planting one bleeding foot before another, with nobody knew how many days of forced marching before us — marching (so we thought) to let the Russians get to Berlin. I don't think anything else would have induced us to resume our retreat after the brush with the Uhlans.