My boy, John, had the same love for the kilt that I had.  He was proud and glad to wear the kilt, and to lead men who did the same.  While he was in training at Bedford he organized a corps of cyclists for dispatch-bearing work.  He was a crack cyclist himself, and it was a sport of which he was passionately fond.  So he took a great interest in the corps, and it soon gained wide fame for its efficiency.  So true was that that the authorities took note of the corps, and of John, who was responsible for it, and he was asked to go to France to take charge of organizing a similar corps behind the front.  But that would have involved a transfer to a different branch of the army, and detachment from his regiment.  And—­it would have meant that he must doff his kilt.  Since he had the chance to decline—­it was an offer, not an order, that had come to him—­he did, that he might keep his kilt and stay with his own men.

To my eyes there is no spectacle that begins to be so imposing as the sight of a parade of Scottish troops in full uniform.  And it is the unanimous testimony of German prisoners that this war has brought them no more terrifying sight than the charge of a kilted regiment.  The Highlanders come leaping forward, their bayonets gleaming, shouting old battle cries that rang through the glens years and centuries ago, and that have come down to the descendants of the warriors of an ancient time.  The Highlanders love to use cold steel; the claymore was their old weapon, and the bayonet is its nearest equivalent in modern war.  They are master hands with that, too—­and the bayonet is the one thing the Hun has no stomach for at all.

Fritz is brave enough when he is under such cover and shelter as the trenches give.  And he has shown a sort of stubborn courage when attacking in massed formations—­the Germans have made terrible sacrifices, at times, in their offensive efforts.  But his blood turns to water in his veins when he sees the big braw laddies from the Hielands come swooping toward him, their kilts flapping and their bayonets shining in whatever light there is.  Then he is mighty quick to throw up his hands and shout:  “Kamerad!  Kamerad!”

I might go on all night telling you some of the stories I heard along the front about the Scottish soldiers.  They illustrate and explain every phase of his character.  They exploit his humor, despite that base slander to which I have already referred, his courage, his stoicism.  And, of course, a vast fund of stories has sprung up that deals with the proverbial thrift of the Scot!  There was one tale that will bear repeating, perhaps.

Two Highlanders had captured a chicken—­a live chicken, not particularly fat, it may be, even a bit scrawny, but still, a live chicken.  That was a prize, since the bird seemed to have no owner who might get them into trouble with the military police.  One was for killing and eating the fowl at once.  But the other would have none of such a summary plan.