"I am doing less than the men," adds the writer. "Just think of them: march, march, march, and then when we sleep it falls to the lot of many to guard the outposts with no chance of shelter, and then go on marching through the next day, wet, and hoping to dry as they go. Only the highest praise can be given to these men.
"At present [on the Aisne] we are entrenched. Our first day in this place, where we have been for five days, was awful, for we were under fire the whole of the day, with practically no protection, and our total of killed and wounded amounted to seventy. The men never wavered, and gaps were always filled. Grand are the Highland men, and grander still will be the account they will render; I am lucky to be with such men."
These various accounts of the work of the regiment form a fairly detailed description of the work at the Aisne. Of how the regiment was moved up to the Flanders front there is no account to hand, but the work done on the new front has been fairly fully described. First of all comes the account of Captain Methven's death, which took place in the fighting round Lille, where Captain Methven and his company were set to drive the Germans from their trenches with the bayonet. The German trenches were at the top of a steep little hill, and up this hill Captain Methven rushed, with his men following. He paused at the edge of the enemy's trenches and turned to wave the men on--they saw him silhouetted against the skyline for a second, and then he fell, shot through the heart at what must have been point-blank range. But the trenches were won, the small force of Germans who had been holding them surrendered--Captain Methven had not died in vain. "I had read about this single-handed taking of a position," writes a spectator, "but until I saw Captain Methven's action I thought these things only happened in story-books."
A little later the brigade of which the 2nd Seaforths formed a part was engaged in the storming of a position, an action in which they drove back the enemy for several miles. For the greater part of the day the British position had been commanded by the fire of the enemy, who held a position on a hill in the neighbourhood and maintained a steady fire on the British brigade. The brigade commander saw that if the enemy were given time to bring up heavy artillery they would render their own position impregnable and that of the British force untenable--the height had to be taken that day, if at all. So the "Charge!" was sounded, and the brigade advanced across the intervening ground, with the men cheering and shouting as they rushed forward--and above all the rest of the cries rose the "Caber-feidh," the rallying-cry of the Seaforths. The German position was taken in about a quarter of an hour--and in rear were a fleet of motor vehicles, in which the retreating Germans decamped. Pursuit was out of the question, and there was only snap-shooting at the flying enemy by way of consolation.