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by Norman MacLeod D. S. O. (Author), J. W. Sandilands D. S. O. (Author)
"Lieutenant-Colonel Sandilands of the 7th Camerons arrived on the hill. Being the senior officer present, he took command and planted the Headquarters flag of his Battalion on the top. It was his business to recall the van of the advance, now lost in the fog and smoke of the eastern slopes, and to entrench himself on the summit. The Redoubt was now out of our hands and the line taken ran just under the crest on the west, and was continued North of Loos by the 46th Brigade. To retire the van was no light task. Two officers whose names deserve to be remembered, Major Chrichton of the 10th Gordons, and Major Barron of the 7th Camerons, volunteered for the desperate mission. They fell in the task, but the order reached the stragglers, and they began to fight their way back. In the midst of encircling fire it was a forlorn hope, and few returned to the British lines on the hill. All down the slopes towards Loos lay the tartans Gordon and Black Watch, Seaforth and Cameron, like the drift left on the shore when the tide has ebbed."-John Buchan, in "Nelson's History of the War." This is a great story. A narrative of the adventures in training camps, in billets and trenches, in battles and in periods of rest, of one of the units of that splendid body of men known as the "New Armies" which sprang into being in 1914 under the inspiration of Lord Kitchener. A story of comradeship, endeavour and sacrifice in the great cause. By far the greater part of it deals with the periods of fighting, and it is doubtful whether any of the New Army units saw more, for the famous 15th Scottish Division, of which the 7th Camerons formed part, was one of the earliest of the new divisions to go to the front and take a place in the line, and its record includes the battles of Loos, the Somme, Arras 1917, Ypres 1917, the German attack on Arras in 1918, and the capture of Buzancy in the Soissons area in August 1918.
