Farther south the front-lines of the 15th (Scottish) Division climbed over their parapets at six-thirty, and saw the open ground before them, and the dusky, paling sky above them, and broken wire in front of the enemy’s churned-up trenches; and through the smoke, faintly, and far away, three and a half miles away, the ghostly outline of the “Tower Bridge” of Loos, which was their goal. For an hour there were steady tides of men all streaming slowly up those narrow communication ways, cut through the chalk to get into the light also, where death was in ambush for many of them somewhere in the shadows of that dawn.
By seven-forty the two assaulting brigades of the 15th Division had left the trenches and were in the open. Shriller than the scream of shells above them was the skirl of pipes, going with them. The Pipe Major of the 8th Gordons was badly wounded, but refused to be touched until the other men were tended. He was a giant, too big for a stretcher, and had to be carried back on a tarpaulin. At the dressing-station his leg was amputated, but he died after two operations, and the Gordons mourned him.