With regard to their work in France in the very early days, the men of the Gordons have shown some reticence--that is, as regards the alleged cutting off and cutting up of the regiment. It may be, so curious is the information that reached this country in September, that the men of the regiment had not heard of this cutting off and cutting up. Certain it is that they were in several tight corners in the first actions of the great retreat--but then, so were other units, and there is plenty of evidence to prove that Gordons came through to the Marne and the Aisne, though, unfortunately, they came without their colonel and some of their officers. Round about Mons the Gordons were heavily engaged, and found the German infantry firing weak, but their artillery work not to be despised. The greatest damage was done by the shrapnel, and not by rifle fire--a statement which concurs with practically all accounts of engagements on the great retreat. "The losses of the Allies," said a wounded corporal of the Gordons, "were nothing to those of the Germans, who came on in a solid mass and were mowed down like sheep--close formation was their method of attack all along. The men themselves said they were driven to it by their officers at the point of the revolver, and they simply tried to be taken prisoners by the British. We passed through plundered villages, and saw windows smashed, furniture thrown out on the streets, and churches and other buildings destroyed." Another wounded non-commissioned officer speaks of "what was left of the battalion after Mons" being in the firing-line, when an order was given for a general retreat. A dispatch rider gave the message to a part of the division to which the Gordons belonged, but on his way to them he was killed by a shell, and the Gordons, not having received the order, stuck to their position. "The Germans advanced in such force that we were at last compelled to retire, and lost a lot of jolly good fellows. I doubt if any of us would have been left if it had not been for the 135th Battery of Field Artillery. They covered our retreat, sending out such a terrible fire that the enemy were afraid to approach any nearer."