The unconquerable British Infantry have never displayed the qualities of dogged endurance so finely as in that eventful rearguard action. The Germans could neither outflank, pierce, nor crush the thin khaki line. It was the supreme test of a veteran regular army. It is of interest to recall that, on his return from the march to Kandahar, Lord Roberts, at the Mansion House, stated that he would never have undertaken the risk of covering 300 miles of country unless he had been accompanied by veteran troops. “The characteristics of young soldiers,” he said, “are to win a winning game; to attack with dash where success seems probable; or even to stand up to superior forces where courage has not been damped by previous reverses and faith in their leader remains unimpaired. Under such conditions they may even surpass their older comrades. But in times of danger and panic, when the bugle sounds the Retire, when everything seems to be going against us, and when danger can only be avoided by order and presence of mind; then it is that the old soldier element becomes of incalculable value; without it a commander would indeed be badly off.” [Illustration: THE ARGYLL AND SUTHERLANDS ENTERING BOULOGNE AUGUST 1914] During the retreat from Mons the Highland regiments lost very heavily in officers and men, and amongst them there fell the Master of Burleigh, a very gallant and popular officer in the Argyll and Sutherlands. “He was too brave for anything,” related a Highlander, “he simply wanted to be at ’em, and at ’em he went. I don’t know where his sword was, but he hadn’t it when I saw him—he had a rifle with the bayonet fixed, just like the rest of us. I saw him at the time he was wounded, and he just fought on gamely till he and his party of brave fellows were cut off and surrounded.” We learn that the Camerons were in close touch with the Black Watch at Mons, and at one point in the retreat when the 42nd were in danger of being surrounded, the 17th Battery R.F.A. and the Camerons staved off an outflanking movement of the Germans. The 1st battalion of the Gordons were practically annihilated in their first battle. For long they had the melancholy reputation of being the most badly hit regiment in the Army, until Neuve Chapelle and the losses of the Cameronians and the Seaforths, while in the first week in February 1915 the Black Watch fared no better.