No one, with the exception of the Boche, has a higher admiration for the scrapping abilities of the Scot than I have, but in matters musical we do not hear ear to ear. It is not that I have no soul; I have. I fairly throb with it. I rise in the mornings trilling trifles of Monckton and croon myself to sleep o' nights with snatches of Novello.  
I do not wish to boast, but to hear me pick the "Moonlight Sonata" out of a piano with one hand (the other strapped behind my back) is an unforgettable experience.
 
I would not yield to Paderewski himself on the comb, bones or Jew's harp, and I could give A. Gabriel a run for his money on the coachhorn. But these bagpipes!
 
It is not so much the execution of the bagpiper that I object to as his restricted repertoire. He can only play one noise. It is quite useless a Scot explaining to me that this is the "Lament of Sandy Macpherson" and that the "Dirge of Hamish MacNish"; it all sounds the same to me.
 
The brigade of infantry that is camped in front of my dug-out ("Mon Repos") is a Scots brigade. Not temporary Scots from the Highlands of Commissioner Street, Jo'burg, and Hastings Street, Vancouver (about whom I have nothing to say), but real pukka, law-abiding, kirk-going, God-fearing, bayonet-pushing Gaels, bred among the crags of the Grampians and reared on thistles and illicit whuskey. And every second man in this brigade is a confirmed bagpiper.
 
They have massed pipes for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner; pipes solos before, during, and after drinks. If one of them goes across the road to borrow a box of matches, a piper goes with him raising Cain. Their Officers' Mess is situated just behind "Mon Repos," so we live in the orchestra stalls, so to speak, and hear all there is to be heard.
 
One evening, while Sandy Macpherson's (or Hamish MacNish's) troubles were being very poignantly aired next door, Albert Edward came to the conclusion that the limit had been reached. "They've been killing the pig steadily for ten days and nights now," said he; "something's got to be done about it."
 
"I'm with you," said I; "but what are we two against a whole brigade? If they were to catch you pushing an impious pin into one of their sacred joy-bags there'd be another Second Lieutenant missing."
 
"Desist and let me think," said Albert Edward, and for the next hour he lay on his bed rolling and groaning—the usual signs that his so-called brain is active.
 
The following morning he rode over to the squadron, returning later with the Mess gramophone and a certain record. There are records and records, but for high velocity, armour-piercing and range this one bangs Banagher. It is a gem out of that "sparkling galaxy of melody, mirth and talent" (Press Agent speaking), "I Don't Think," which scintillates nightly at the Frivolity Theatre.
 
"When the Humming-birds are singing" is the title thereof, and Miss Birdie de Maie renders it—renders it as she alone can, in a voice like a file chafing corrugated iron.
 
We started the birds humming at 4 p.m., and let it rip steadily until 11.15 p.m., only stopping to change needles.
 
Albert Edward's batman unleashed the hub-bub again at six next morning; my batman relieved him at eight, and so on throughout the day in two-hour shifts. At night the line guards carried on. The following morning, as our batmen threatened to report sick, we crimed a trooper for "dumb insolence" and made him expiate his sin by tending the gramophone. O'Dwyer, of one of the neighbouring ammunition columns, came over in the afternoon to complain that his mules couldn't get a wink of sleep and were muttering among themselves; but we gave him a bottle of whiskey and he went away quietly.
 
Monk of the other column called an hour ............