THE BLACK WATCH (ROYAL HIGHLANDERS) ("Heroes of Perthshire")

"We are but few, but of the right sort."—Nelson.

"Highlanders, remember Egypt!"—Sir John Moore at Corunna.

These men need a book to themselves. It is impossible here to give more than a short account of one or two of their most brilliant fights, but, as from the peck you may judge of the barrel, so one will find the invincible temper of the Black Watch in every line and every word.

It was at Fontenoy that the Black Watch first met a foreign foe, and their dealings with that foe were an emphatic earnest of their future honours. The fortune of war was not on their side; they were forced to retreat, covering it in such perfect order that Lord Crawford waved his hat to them, with the well-remembered approval that they had achieved as great honour as if they had gained an actual victory.

The Black Watch have acquired great reputation in America. They distinguished themselves notably at Bushey Run, and it was in the War of Independence that they contributed their severest and most difficult work. A chronicler of the doings of this regiment writes on this passage in their history: "In every field the Black Watch maintained their hardly earned reputation," and many are the recorded deeds of individual courage and readiness. Here is one instance by the same chronicler:

"In a skirmish with the Americans in 1776, Major Murray, of the 42nd, being separated from his men, was attacked by three of the enemy. His dirk slipped behind his back, and, being a big stout man, he could not reach it, but defended himself as well as he could with his fusil, and, watching his opportunity, seized the sword of one of his assailants, and put the three to flight."

The battle of Alexandria was perhaps one of the most brilliant in the whole career of the Black Watch. At a time when the two wings of their regiment stood some 200 yards apart, the Invincibles of France, valiant fighters, forced their way between, with one six-pounder. As soon as the Highlanders found that they had been, in a sense, caught napping, a roar of wrath rose from their ranks, and swiftly their right wing swung down on the interloping French, broke their ranks and captured their gun. The left wing, facing the other way, wheeled swiftly, and fell like mountain cats on the French rear. The enemy, who had thought to split the 42nd to some purpose, were thus themselves caught in a death trap. The Invincibles rushed helter-skelter for cover in the ruins near by, and after them, terrible in pursuit, went the Black Watch. The plaided ranks drew together, and charged again and again with fixed bayonets, while the pursued fled before those gleaming points until they were brought to bay in a position where they were forced to turn and fight. It was a brave and memorable fight then on both sides. The courage of despair was on the enemy's side, and the cool, relentless courage of the Caledonians was on ours. But in the end the enemy, having lost 700 of their men, were forced to yield.

This temporary victory, however, afforded no respite for the Black Watch. Hot upon the action came a strong column of French infantry swiftly advancing, and it was a matter of the utmost importance that they should be attacked at once. The Black Watch, dishevelled as they were, their great chests still heaving with their exertions, were flung forward by Sir Ralph Abercromby, who, in the urgency of the critical moment, himself hallooed them on.

It was a quick passage. After a clashing impact, the Black Watch broke the French column and scattered it in flight. Seeing the Highlanders eagerly pursuing, and in danger of being cut off by three squadrons of cavalry, General Moore ordered the pursuers to retire. It appears that, in the crash and roar of the battle, this order was lost upon the foremost pursuers, who were dealing death right and left, and they were not aware of what threatened until the French cavalry was thundering down upon them. It was so sudden that the Highlanders had barely time to retrieve their scattered state, and rally back to back. Thus, raising their fierce northern battle-cry, they fought against fearful odds, a small body of men surrounded on every hand. But even from this they emerged victorious, routing the very flower of the French cavalry. So it was that in one day this regiment won three brilliant victories, each one of which had seemed at first almost a forlorn hope.

It must be remembered that the Royal Highlander has always been a perfect swordsman, terrible with his rifle, and deadly with his pistol. His strength is renowned in history. There have been men among them who have claimed no great superiority over their fellows from the fact of being able to twist a horseshoe, or drive a skeandhu up to the hilt in a pine log. Fatigue, hunger, thirst, the extremes of heat and cold—all these are with those men the mere commonplace foes of a Spartan existence—foes which have always found and left them silent, patiently contemptuous, where foes of flesh and blood would at once arouse them to anger of the grimmest kind.

Perhaps no part of the world has seen the Black Watch in as true a light as the Peninsula. From all quarters of it their honours are drawn. They were with Moore at Corunna on that memorable occasion, when on a sudden he cried out to them: "Highlanders, remember Egypt!"

With reference to this speech, and the moment it was delivered, tradition has clothed it with romance. At many a Highland fireside, when the eerie spirit sits in the glen and whispers round the lonely sheilings, it has been said by aged warriors, who had lived on in peace perhaps into the sixties, that, at those words, the men around him, who loved him best, saw, with the uncanny second sight of their race, a misty shimmering shroud enclosing their commander's form, portentous of his coming death.

The words "Highlanders, remember Egypt!" referred to the occasion when, at Alexandria, Sir Ralph Abercromby being taken prisoner, and his captor being shot by a Royal Highlander, the regiment, though broken, continued to fight individually. It is no wonder that Sir John Moore, who had marvelled at their prowess, should exhort them, eight years later, at Corunna, to remember Egypt.

At Toulouse, Pack, as he galloped swiftly up with General Clinton's orders, drew rein in silence before the Black Watch. Then he spoke calmly, but with elation: "General Clinton has been pleased to grant my request that the 42nd shall have the honour of leading the attack. The 42nd will advance!" There were 500 who went in, and there were about ninety who came out alive. One can imagine then their terrible passage up to the fatal redoubt, and all the more clearly may be pictured the determination of it from the fact that, when they reached it, the enemy had fled.

When they were before the heights of Alma, Sir Colin Campbell turned to them, and cried: "Men, the army is watching us. Make me proud of my Highland brigade!" From the future, near and far, the whole wide world watches them, and a great Empire has been made proud of them. Kinglake tells this part of the story with a fine touch. "Smoothly, easily, and swiftly," he says, "the Black Watch seemed to glide up the hill. A few instants before, and their tartans ranged dark in the valley; now their plumes waved on the crest." The enemy did not stay for the coming onslaught, for, as many said afterwards, they "did not like those men in the petticoats, with their red vulture plumes and their coloured tartans."

At Ticonderoga, in 1758, they suffered heavily, in blood, though not in honour. Of that encounter an officer of the 55th, who was in the engagement, says: "It is with a mixture of esteem, grief, and envy, that I considered the great loss and immortal glory won by the Scots Highlanders in the late bloody affair." From all historical accounts it seems that the enemy was very strongly entrenched, in front by ditches, and on the battle side by barricades of felled trees. From this cover they sent volley upon volley into the ranks of the advancing Highlanders. "Yet," says one chronicler:

"The Scots hewed their way through the obstacles with their broadswords, and—no ladders having been provided—made strenuous efforts to carry the breastwork, partly by mounting on each other's shoulders, and partly by placing their feet in holes which they dug with their swords and bayonets in the face of the works. After a desperate struggle, which lasted nearly four hours, General Abercromby, seeing no possible chance of success, ordered a retreat—an order which had to be thrice repeated before the Highlanders would withdraw from the unequal contest!"

What the Black Watch would have done at Balaclava and Inkerman, had they been there, can be conjectured, but, sufficient to say that Sevastopol bears witness to their many deeds of outright bravery.

The officers of the Black Watch have always been, needless to say, the soul of honour of the body of their men. In the following letter—a letter which might form part of a great poem—Colonel Macleod writes to the Sultan Tippoo:

"You, or your interpreter have said in your letter to me that I have lied, or made a mensonge. Permit me to inform you, Prince, that this thing is not good for you to give, or for me to receive, and if I were alone with you in the desert, you would not dare to say these words to me. An Englishman scorns to lie; this is an irreparable affront to an English warrior. If you have courage enough to meet me, take 100 of your bravest men on foot; meet me on the sea shore; I will fight you, and 100 men of mine will fight yours."

This has the true epic ring of all time, even back to the state and condition of the heroic savage who, instinct with honour, said: "Friend, if I had an axe, and thou hadst an axe, then we should see where the truth stands." But, alas! in some parts of the world where savagery is no longer heroic, the days of the true epic have gone by, its local death warrant being writ upon a "scrap of paper" crumpled in an Emperor's hand.

But the Black Watch, though it has fed, as it were, upon the hearts of lions in its immortal traditions of the far past, can live more intimately in the atmosphere of recent glories. Evan McGregor, Robert Dick, Stewart of Garth, Gordon Drummond, Hope Grant—these are immortal names appended to half its story only. Its later history is lit by the fame of the Eighth Earl of Airlie, who was killed at Diamond Hill in 1900. When he sailed from our shores for South Africa, almost his last words were: "Remember, if I am killed in action, whatever memorial you put for me, that you say on it I had died as I wished." And, in confirmation of this, after Magersfontein: "I like the Boers, and am very proud to be fighting against them…. I am very happy." A sentiment which we, in later years, can parallel with the fact that Botha's son (aged seventeen years) has enlisted to fight for Britain—a step approved by his heroic father.

It was the old 73rd (now the 2nd Battalion Black Watch) which, under General Wauchope, their former colonel, fought so heroically in the Boer War, losing their brave commander at Magersfontein. The 73rd was, from 1809 to 1881, an ordinary line regiment, the Scottish dress and kilt having been abandoned. As such it fought at Waterloo, which, among others, it gives as an "honour" to the Black Watch. In 1881 it was made the 2nd Battalion Black Watch, and resumed the doublet, kilt and feather bonnet.

The spirit of the Earl of Airlie is alive to-day—as much alive as it was in Scotland, when the "Heroes of Perthshire" laid their lives at the feet of him they believed to be their rightful king. Then, as since, they lived and died fighting; and, out of their brave deeds from that to this, there has arisen the peculiar significance of those three words—thrilling and dear to British hearts, chilling and terrible to Britain's foes—The Black Watch.

THEIR BADGES AND BATTLE HONOURS, ETC.

Badges.—The Royal Cypher within the Garter. The badge and motto of the Order of the Thistle. In each of the four corners the Royal Cypher, ensigned with the Royal Crown.

Battle Honours.—The Sphinx, superscribed Egypt. Mysore, Mangalore, Seringapatam, Corunna, Fuentes d'Onoro, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Orthes, Toulouse, Peninsula, Waterloo, S. Africa 1846-47, 1851-53, Alma, Sevastopol, Lucknow, Ashantee, Egypt 1882-84, Tel-el-Kebir, Nile 1884-85, Kirbekan, S. Africa 1899-1902, Paardeberg.

Uniform.—Regular and Reserve Batts., scarlet and blue facings.

[The 1st Battn. was first formed from the independent companies raised in 1729 from the Highland clans, and received the name of Black Watch from the hue of its tartan. The newly-formed regiment greatly distinguished itself at Fontenoy and against the French in N. America. At Ticonderoga it lost 25 officers, 19 sergeants, and 603 rank and file in killed and wounded, and received the title of Royal Highlanders in recognition of its bravery. The 2nd Battn., raised in 1780, became a separate regiment in 1786, and it was this Battn. a detachment of which was in the wreck of the Birkenhead. The Black Watch gained the red hackle during the campaign in Flanders (1794-95). The 42nd was one of the four regiments mentioned in dispatches after Waterloo. The 2nd Battn. was at Magersfontein in 1899, where it lost 19 officers and over 300 killed and wounded. This regiment has a record which is only equalled by one or two regiments in the British Army.]