Zululand and frontier work in India next claimed the attention of the regiment, and then in 1899 the 1st battalion sailed for South Africa, to join Lord Methuen's force and take part in the battle of the Modder River, at which the Argyll and Sutherland men lost heavily. Joining General Wauchope's Highland Brigade, the battalion marched on to Magersfontein, where the commanding officer was among the killed. With the rest of the brigade the Argylls moved on to Paardeberg and the capture of Cronje and his force; and from that time onward to the end of the war the record of the battalion is one continuous story of marching, fighting, and the general work of the campaign, up to the time of the signing of peace at Vereeniging. The total of marching accomplished by the battalion during the course of the war was not less than 3,500 miles. Seven Victoria Crosses had been won by members of the regiment up to 1902. The deeds of the regiment are rather scantily told by its men in France. The personal accounts begin with an appreciation of the bravery of the Hon. R. Bruce, Master of Burleigh, in the retreat from Mons. "He was too brave for anything," says a private who saw him at that time. "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." The next account concerns the battle of Soissons, on the Aisne--a place variously pronounced by the troops, many of whom gave it the name of "Scissors," as being a near thing to the real method of pronunciation. "For about a week," says the narrator, "it rained night and day. You may imagine us marching all day, from daylight in the morning till dark at night, and then having to lie down in a field on the wet ground--nothing to cover ourselves with and nothing underneath us--and living on biscuits and corned beef. I feel sorry for the poor French people, and you may be thankful you are living in England. We passed through village after village on the march, and there was not a living soul in the houses; doors and windows were smashed open, and everything was broken in the way of furniture and fittings. We passed one house where the two women who lived in it had just returned after the Germans had passed. As we went by they gave us a drink of water--it was the only thing the Germans had left them."