Yet in those days, as before and afterward, as at the beginning and as at the end, the spirits of British soldiers kept high unless their bodies were laid low. Between battles they enjoyed their spells of rest behind the lines. In that early summer of ’17 there was laughter in Arras, lots of fun in spite of high velocities, the music of massed pipers and brass bands, jolly comradeship in billets with paneled walls upon which perhaps Robespierre’s shadow had fallen in the candlelight before the Revolution, when he was the good young man of Arras.

As a guest of the Gordons, of the 15th Division, I listened to the pipers who marched round the table and stood behind the colonel’s chair and mine, and played the martial music of Scotland, until something seemed to break in my soul and my eardrums. I introduced a French friend to the mess, and as a guest of honor he sat next to the colonel, and the eight pipers played behind his chair. He went pale, deadly white, and presently swooned off his chair⁠ ⁠… and the Gordons thought it the finest tribute to their pipes!