The Highland bagpipe

One cowardly piper—At Philiphaugh—At Bothwell Bridge—At Cromdale—The Peninsular War—At Waterloo—Reay Country pipers—At Candahar—At Lucknow—In America—In Ashanti—In the Soudan—In South Africa.

The pipers of a regiment are exposed to very much the same dangers as are the soldiers, and in all the history of British warfare we read of only one cowardly piper. This was Raoghull Odhar, a Highlander, who, being one day in the exercise of his duty in the battlefield along with his clan, was seized with such terror at the sight of the enemy, whom he thought too many for his party, that he left off playing and began to sing a most dolorous song to a lachrymose air. Some stanzas were picked up by his comrades, and afterwards when an adult was seen crying for some trifling cause he was said to be singing “Dun Ronald’s tune.” Likewise when a Highlander threatened vengeance for some boisterous mischief he would say, “I will make you sing Dun Ronald’s tune.” Where or when the incident which gave rise to the saying took place we cannot tell, and so the only story of a cowardly piper that we have on record is not very well authenticated.

On the other hand, we have numerous instances of the bravery of pipers. Away back as far as the battle of Philiphaugh we have a duplicate of the Dargai incident, only more so. There is a part of the Ettrick opposite the field of battle called “The Piper’s Pule.” Tradition says that a piper belonging to Montrose’s army planted himself on a knowe overhanging this part of the river, during the course of the engagement, cheered his companions, who were fighting below, with a well-known cavalier tune, the refrain of which was:—

until one of Leslie’s men sent a shot across the water which brought the piper tumbling down the brae and laid him snug in the pool which bears his name. Then, again depending on tradition, at the battle of Bothwell Bridge in 1679, the piper to Clavers’ own troop stood out on the brink of the Clyde playing “Awa’, Whigs, awa,” with great glee, but, being struck by a bullet, he rolled down the bank in the agonies of death, and always as he rolled over the bag, so intent was he on the old party tune, that with determined firmness of fingering he made the pipes to yell out two or three notes more of it, till at last he plunged into the river and was carried peaceably down the stream among a great number of Whigs. There is a striking resemblance between the two traditions, and possibly they are but variations of one, but I give them as I find them.

Another piper hero of these early days took part in the battle at the Haughs of Cromdale, an engagement which ended the civil war in Scotland in 1690. On the first day of May in that year the Jacobites were unexpectedly attacked by the Royalists, and were literally driven across Cromdale Hill. In the rout one of the Jacobite pipers was badly wounded, but he managed to climb on the top of a large boulder on the hillside, and on this elevated perch he played tune after tune until he fell off the stone, dead. The stone is known to this day as Clach-a-phiobair, or the Piper’s Stone.

Coming to times of which we have better historical records, we find similar incidents multiplying. The pibroch sounded at Waterloo where fire was hottest, at Lucknow it was heard above the din of battle; at Alma, when Sir Colin Campbell’s voice, clear and sharp as a trumpet, sounded “Forward Forty-second,” the notes of the bagpipes rose over Kourgave Hill, as the veteran rode through the river and up the slope. At Arroyo-de-Molinos the pipes wakened and frightened the Frenchmen in the grey dawn of a rainy morning and scattered a whole brigade to the tune of “Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waking yet?” At Puebla Heights, on the morning after Vittoria, they animated the Gordons in the face of immense odds to keep the position for many hours, and at Dargai, in our own day, the pipes played the Gordons up the steep slope, although the piper was too badly wounded to do more than play. Findlater’s gallantry has been widely extolled, and there is no desire to detract from the merit of his performance, but a very slight study of the history of the Highland regiments will show anyone that there have been many deeds just as brave, and done, too, by pipers of whom nothing whatever has been heard.

Here are a few good instances of the bravery of pipers in the story of the Peninsular War. At the battle of Assaye, when the Ross-shire Buffs charged, the pipers stood to their posts and kept up their music until they were disabled one after another by the fire of the enemy. At Cuidad Rodrigo, John Mac Lachlan, a piper of the 74th, was among the first to mount the walls. Once there he tuned up and played “The Campbells are coming.” John was a cool as well as a brave man, for when, on the ramparts, a shot penetrated the bag of his pipes, he calmly sat down where he was and repaired the damage, and soon he was up again and playing his comrades on to victory. At Vittoria the 92nd stormed the town, the band playing all the time amid a storm of shot and shell. Napier, in the History of the Peninsular War, referring to this, says: “The pipers contributed in no small degree to produce the enthusiasm. They headed the charge, striking up a favourite war tune composed centuries before. Their warlike music inspired their comrades with a fury nothing could resist.... How gloriously did that regiment come forth again to the charge, their colours flying and their pipes playing as if at review.” At Vimiera, George Clark, piper to the 71st, was wounded in the leg by a musket ball as the regiment was advancing. Sitting down, he put his pipes in order, and calling out, “Weel, lads, I am sorry I can gae nae farther wi’ you, but deil hae my saul if ye sall want music,” he struck up a favourite air with the utmost unconcern, and played until victory was secure. This piper afterwards appeared in a competition in the Edinburgh Theatre-Royal (Findlator’s story was but history repeating itself after all), where he was warmly greeted. Whether he was successful history sayeth not, but that he was a good performer is proved by the fact that he was afterwards piper to the Highland Society of London. Charles Mackay made one of his prettiest poems on this piper’s bravery, which, excusing the slip made in speaking of people dancing reels to pibroch music, a slip hardly excusable in Charles Mackay, is worth quoting entire:—

We have several stories of Waterloo which point the same moral. One piper was shot in the leg before he got properly started with his music, and this so roused his Highland blood that, dashing his pipes to the ground, he drew his broadsword and fought with the fury of a lion until he died from many wounds. A pipe-major of the Gordons placed himself on an eminence, amid a shower of shot, and proudly sounded the battle charge, and Piper Kenneth Mac Kay, a native of Tongue, and one of the 79th Cameron Highlanders, specially distinguished himself at Quatre Bras a few days earlier. During the formation of the regiment, while the brigade was threatened by a body of French cavalry, Piper Mac Kay calmly stepped outside the bayonets and played Cogadh na Sith with inspiring effect, almost right in front of the enemy. The incident is best told in a poem by Alice C. Mac Donnell, of Keppoch, contributed to the Celtic Monthly of June, 1895:—

There died at Melrose in 1899, a woman of ninety-eight, a daughter of the regiment, who heard the guns at Quatre Bras and saw a piper play the Highland Brigade past to the tune of “Hey, Johnnie Cope,” after his legs had been cut off below the knee. This can hardly have been Mac Kay, but it may well have been one of the same name, for at that time there were more pipers from the Reay Country in the army than from any other district of Scotland. Skye and Tongue produced more pipers and gave more pipers to the army than any other two districts, from which it is argued, quite legitimately, that there must have been a piping college at Tongue as well as at Dunvegan.

From the far east, too, we have instances of the bravery of pipers. There is living in Glasgow at the present day, William Middleton, who was for twenty-one years piper to the Gordon Highlanders. At the battle of Candahar, while playing to his company, his pipes suddenly stopped. He sat down to mend them, and his comrades said he was dead; but “Na, na,” said the piper, “I’m worth twa dead men yet,” and forthwith he got up, and blew away as hard as ever. He continued playing, and, when the engagement was over, it was found that one bullet had gone through his pipes, another had knocked the brass off his helmet, another gone through his kilt, another knocked a button off his coat, another gone through his water-bottle, another through his haversack, and another had struck the heel of his boot. And he himself escaped unscratched.

At Lucknow, no sooner had the 93rd forced their way through the breach than John Mac Leod, then pipe-major, who was right in the front, began to encourage the men by vigorously playing his pipes. The more hot and deadly the fire became, the more highly strung became the piper’s feelings, and the louder squealed the pipes, John standing the while in perfectly exposed positions, in which he must have appeared to the enemy like some unearthly visitant. There he stood for over two hours, while bayonet and rifle did their work. A similar story comes from the American War of Independence. The 42nd Highlanders helped to storm Fort-Washington, and a piper was one of the first to reach the top of the ramparts. Once there he began to play the slogan of his clan, which so roused his comrades that they rushed the heights, carrying everything before them. The brave piper, however, lost his life just as victory was assured. Another piper of the 42nd Highlanders distinguished himself in a more recent war. With the regiment at the Gold Coast there was James Wotherspoon, a native of Falkirk, and a piper. At the battle of Amoaful, in the heat of the action, when brave men were falling on every hand, Wotherspoon cheered them on with martial music, and afterwards assisted to carry Major William Baird, who was mortally wounded, off the field. For this act of devotion, Queen Victoria, at Windsor, presented the piper with the medal for distinguished conduct in the field.

In the Ashanti War there was an instance of bravery under circumstances more trying than open battle. When the Black Watch entered Coomassie, they had to march through a dense jungle infested by savages. But they formed in procession, and, headed by the pipers, and firing at hidden enemies on either side, they stepped—

And they got into Coomassie, but it must have taken no ordinary courage to make men play at the head of such a column, themselves with no weapons of defence. Firing at an unseen foe among the kopjes of the Transvaal was child’s play to it.

Recent wars have been equally fruitful in similar incidents. Piper James Stewart of the Cameron Highlanders, who was killed at the battle of the Atbara, was found to have seven bullets in his body. He gallantly led the charge, playing “The March of the Cameron Men,” and during a bit of rough and bloody work, he mounted a knoll and stood playing the tune until he fell mortally wounded. Piper Mac Lellan, of the Highland Light Infantry, kept playing his pipes at the battle of Magersfontein, amid a hail of bullets, encouraging the scattered Highlanders to re-unite in the attack, and he was mentioned by Lord Methuen in his despatches for bravery in charge of stretcher bearers. At the same engagement, Pipe-sergeant James Mac Kay of the 91st Highlanders, a native of the Reay Country and one of the official pipers to the Clan Mac Kay Society, standing in absolutely exposed positions, rallied parties of his regiment over and over, earning the admiration of all ranks. At Elandslaagate, a piper of the Gordon Highlanders, Sergeant Kenneth Mac Leod, a native of Lewis, continued playing after he had received several wounds, and only stopped when a bullet smashed his pipes.

The pipe-major of the 2nd Seaforth Highlanders, who also served in South Africa, is a son of the well-known military piper, Ronald Mac Kenzie, now in the service of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon at Gordon Castle, Fochabers. He was through Magersfontein and all the other battles with the Seaforths, and escaped with a scratch on the left leg and the loss of his chanter, which was smashed into bits by a bullet. More instances might be given, but these will suffice. Pipers have done quite as much as soldiers, in proportion to their numbers, to falsify estimates like that of the Soudanese women, who, when they first saw the kilted regiments of Kitchener’s expedition, thought they were men who had got into disgrace at home, been deprived of their trousers, and degraded to the level of women.