As we study the morning's Roll of Honour, we realise that
never was a more truthful jest uttered. There is not a name in the
list of those who have died for Scotland which is not familiar to us.
If we did not know the man--too often the boy--himself, we knew his
people, or at least where his home was. In England, if you live in
Kent, and you read that the Northumberland Fusiliers have been cut
up or the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry badly knocked about, you
merely sigh that so many more good men should have fallen. Their names
are glorious names, but they are only names. But never a Scottish
regiment comes under fire but the whole of Scotland feels it. Scotland
is small enough to know all her sons by heart. You may live in
Berwickshire, and the man who has died may have come from Skye; but
his name is quite familiar to you. Big England's sorrow is national;
little Scotland's is personal.
Then we pass on to our letters. Many of us--particularly the senior
officers--have news direct from the trenches--scribbled scraps torn
out of field-message books. We get constant tidings of the Old
Regiment. They marched thirty-five miles on such a day; they captured
a position after being under continuous shell fire for eight hours on
another; they were personally thanked by the Field-Marshal on another.
Oh, we shall have to work hard to get up to that standard!
"They want more officers," announces the Colonel.
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