Chapter XV: The Black Watch

War with Egypt had been declared, and in the Castle of Edinburgh, as in every other fortress and barrack in the British Isles, the notes of preparation were sounding, and the Black Watch, ever so glorious in the annals of our army, was among the regiments bound for the land where, eighty years before, it had gathered such a crop of laurels under the gallant Abercrombie, in conflict, not against a feeble horde of Egyptians, but when encountering forty thousand of the veteran infantry of France.

From that day in the October of 1739 when the companies of _Freicudan Dhu_, or Black Watch (so called from their sombre green tartans), drawn from the Munroes of Ross, the Grants of Strathspey, and the Campbells of Lochnelland Carrick, were first enrolled as a regiment on the Birks of Aberfeldie, near the southern bank of the Tay, by the gallant old Earl of Crawford, the 42nd has been second to none in peace and war, and its very name and number are rendered dear to the people of Scotland by innumerable ties of friendship and clanship, by traditions and glorious exploits in battle.

In almost everything that has added strength or brilliance to the British Empire the regiment has borne a leading part, and to attempt to trace its annals would be to write the history of our wars since the days of the second George.

Suffice it that the second year after the companies were constituted a regiment, saw them fighting for the House of Austria against France and Bavaria, and covering the rear of that British army which was hurled from the heights of Fontenoy by the bayonets of the Irish Brigades, and where, we are told, 'the gallantry of Sir Robert Munroe of 'the gallantry of Sir Robert Munroe of Culcairn and his Highlanders was the theme of admiration through all Britain.'

So it was with them in the old Flanders war, till 1758 saw them attacking Ticonderoga in America, where, rushing from amid the Reserve, where they disdained to linger, they hewed down the dense abatis with their claymores, and, storming the breastworks, 'climbing up one another's shoulders, and placing their feet in the holes made in the face of the works by their swords and bayonets, no ladders having been provided,' exposed the while to a dreadful fire of cannon and musketry, under which six hundred and forty-seven of them fell; and hence a cry for vengeance went through the country of the clans, procuring so many recruits, and another battalion was formed, and fresh glories were won in the West India Isles, where, at Martinique and by the walls of the Moro, their pipes sent up the notes of victory.

In the fatal strife of the American revolt they were ever in the van, and the first years of the present century saw their tartans waving darkly amid the battle-smoke of Aboukir, under the shadow of Pompey's Pillar, and on the plains of Alexandria, where they cut to pieces the French Invincibles, slew six hundred and fifty of them, captured their colours, which were delivered to Major Stirling, together with the cannon they had also seized; and ere long the mosques and towers of Grand Cairo echoed to their martial music.

Who can record the brilliance of their valour in the long and glorious war of the Peninsula--that war of victories, which began on the banks of the Douro and continued to the hill of Toulouse? And anon, their never-to-be-forgotten prowess on the plains of Waterloo, when, under Macara, they formed the flower of Picton's superb division, and where, with the Greys and Gordon Highlanders, they sent up the cry which still finds echo in every Scottish heart, the _cri-de-guerre_ of 'Scotland for ever!' while plunging into those mighty French columns, which rolled away before their bayonets like smoke before the wind.

There their total casualties were two hundred and ninety-seven of all ranks.

'They fought like heroes, and like heroes fell--an honour to the country,' to quote the War Office Record, page 145. 'On many a Highland hill, and through many a Lowland valley, long will the deeds of these brave men be fondly remembered and their fate deeply deplored. Never did a finer body of men take the field; never did men march to battle that were destined to perform such services to their country, and to obtain such immortal renown.'

But equal renown did their services win on the banks of the Alma, when old Colin Campbell led them into action, exclaiming,

'Now, men, the whole army is watching us; make me proud of my Highland Brigade!'

And reason indeed had that grand old soldier to be proud of his lads in the kilt, as they swept up the green hillsides to glory. 'The ground they had to ascend,' says an eye-witness, the author of 'Eothen,' 'was a good deal more steep and broken than the slope beneath the redoubt. In the land where those Scots were bred, there are shadows of sailing clouds shimmering up the mountain side, and their paths are rugged and steep, yet their course is smooth, easy, and swift. Smoothly, easily, and swiftly the Black Watch seemed to glide up the hill. A few minutes before their tartans ranged dark in the valley; now their plumes were on the crest.'

Into the dense grey masses of the Kazan column, over which towered the miraculous figure of St. Sergius, their steady volley swept like a sheet of lead; anon their line of bayonets was flashing to the charge like a hedge of steel, and a wail of despair broke from the Muscovites, who, crying that 'the Angel of Death had come,' threw away all that might impede their speed and fled.

'Then,' says the brilliant author we have quoted, 'rose the cheers of the Highland Brigade. Along the Kourgané slopes, and thence west almost home to the causeway, the hillsides were made to resound with that joyous and assuring cry, which is the natural utterance of a northern people so long as it is warlike and free.'

Their furious onset struck terror to many an Indian heart during the dark years of the Sepoy revolt, and like sweetest music their pipes were heard by that desperate and despairing band who fought for their wives and children in beleaguered Lucknow; and as, of course, the old Black Watch must be in everything, they bore their share in the conquest of Coomassie, and were the first men in the sable city, as their pipes announced to the army of Wolseley.

While on this subject, we cannot help quoting a Frenchman's estimate of the Scottish troops. In the _Moniteur de Soir_ for 1868, a writer says,

'The Scottish soldiers form without distinction the cream of the British army, and the Highlander is the prototype of the excellent soldier. He has all the requisite qualities without one defect. Unluckily for Great Britain, the population of Scotland is not numerous. Saving, it is true, to the point of putting by penny after penny, the Scotsman, for all that, is honest, steadfast, and amiable in his intercourse with others, enthusiastic and proud, most chivalrous when the question is about shedding his blood. The old traditions of clanship subsist, each company is grouped round an illustrious name, and all and every man is sure to be the captain's cousin. The Highlanders have a strange sort of bravery, which partakes of French fire and English phlegm. They rush with impetuosity, they charge with vigour, but are not hurried away by anger. In the very hottest of an attack, a simple order suffices to stop them. Formed in square, you would take them for Englishmen, but in the bayonet charge you would swear they were French. For the rest they are of Celtic origin, and the blood of our fathers flows in their veins. In the eyes of the Turk, the Scots have one enormous fault--that of showing their bare legs. In _our_ eyes they have but one defect, but still excessively annoying--their depraved taste for the screaming of the bagpipes. We know that the Highlanders would not get under fire (with _élan_) without being excited by their national airs being played on this discordant instrument. One of their generals having put down this piercing music, they attacked the enemy so languidly that the bagpipes had to be restored to them, and then they took the position. In a word, we repeat that the Scots are magnificent soldiers.'

We may smile at the Frenchman's idea of the pipes, for as the old piper said of Count Flauhault when he expressed his disgust thereat, 'Maybe she heard owre muckle o' them at Waterloo.'

And now once again the Black Watch were going to the land of the sun and the desert, where Abercrombie received his death-wound while calling to them in the charge, 'My brave Highlanders, remember your country--remember your forefathers!' And these glories, with all 'the stirring memories of a thousand years,' were not forgotten on that day in the August of 1882 when, under the scion of a gallant house, Cluny the younger, the regiment received its orders of readiness and began to prepare for its departure from the Castle of Edinburgh, while a mighty throb seemed to pervade the heart of the city as its hour of departure approached.

All in its ranks, of course, had friends whom they sorrowed to leave--all save poor Evan Cameron; and all were impatient and full of ardour to join in the coming strife; but none, perhaps, were more impatient than he, for he had to seek forgetfulness--oblivion from his own thoughts--a refuge from his futile regrets--among other scenes for the lost love of one who could never be more to him than a tender memory now.