Show i WHILE PADDY PLAYED COCK OF THE NORTH Bullet Holes T InBoth of His Legs But Helped A the f Same j < PJSR PATKICK EOXUi HERO OP KOTAlJ 4It I i t c 11 1 III S L fii I 1 k 1 I J q4 rAt ii The Gordon Highlander Who Shot Through Both Leg Kept on Playing Till His Hejrlnl nt Won the Heights New York Press In the little village of insole in Aberdeenshire there is an echo of glory now and the farmers in whose veins runs the blood of those who frought in the wars of Wallace Bruce Prince Charlie and Dundee talky talk-y theii firesides at night of Paddy Mine the piper hero and the storming of Kotal while the children fight it over again in their play on the hillsides and the heart of the Scot youth leaps to join the gallant Gordons and fight for his queen How Paddy won his medal and glorified glo-rified his village has been partially i told in newspaper dispatches but every fresh report from the seat of war bring fresh details of how the Gordons and thE Gurkahs saved the day The British army lay before the Cha gru Kotal the first of three great mountain ranges that stretched across their path swarming with Afridis Between Be-tween the British position and the Ko tal < as an open plain swept by a hail of buifits from the tribesmen concealed in their sangars along the precipitous mountain side A san gar is a stone htau thrown up hastily but i prevents a tii1 > iSman from being hit i he keeps carefully behind it and he can shoot his enemies in the dpen as a sportsman shoots ducks from a blind There were a regiment of the Garb has a regiment of Derbyshire one from Dorsetshire and the Gordon Highlanders Highland-ers There were five pipers in the Gordon Gor-don Highlanders and the brightest nigh the youngest and the most anxious anx-ious to make his pipes skirl in the strongholds of the heather was Patrick Mine of Tnsch Had he not been in the Chitral campaign with the Gor dons and had not a tribesmans bullet pierced the bellows once just a he was going to battle so that he had to see his regiment go on to victory while his pipe could not inspire them with its breath He was 23 years old and as fine a lad and as ood a piper as ever sounded a pibroch Up on the hillside across the cpen the little putts of smoke here and there and little spits of dust on the plain below told that the tribesmen were covering with their rifles that broad and open place over which the troops must pass before they could win to the heights and get a chance to do some return firing The field guns were to have been brought up to shell the Afridi position but somehow the nature of the ground was unfavorable unfavora-ble or something else was the matter and never a gun had opened on the sangars to throw them about and demoralize de-moralize the natives hiding by many thousands there when the order came to storm the heights The Gurkahs went first and the two English regiments followed As they moved out on the plain all the moun tain side began to pour out lead which fell l on the plain l as hail falls driven Tl ibl r by a northern gale The black wicked little Gurkhas rushed across as fast as lithe legs could carry them leaving along a-long trail of turbaned corpses behind I as Piper Milnes scythe used to leave the hay behind when he mowed his fathers field The regiment from Derbyshire and I the one from Dorset were part way across but the Afridis had got their range now and the men were going I down right and left I was against human nature to go into that storm of lead Their rush slackened In vain I the officers strove to urge them oft Many of the officers were down and the two regiments first faltered and then I began to fall hack The Gurkhas had got to the foot of the mountains where they were flattening themselves against I the rocks to keep out of the fire of the Afridis but unsupported they could not I storm the Afridi position and it was death to retreat across the plain I Then Colonel Mathas called to his I Gordon Highlanders Men of the Gordon Gor-don Highlanders the general says that I the positiqn must be taken at all costs The Gordon Highlanders will take it I In the smother of sounds that rattled and roared from the mountain and covered cov-ered the plain with the shouts of orders j and the groans of dying men wherewith where-with noise and confusion the regiments crashed together and rattled and roared as they fell back his voice rose to a high shriek but the Gordons heard him and the next moment leaped forth upon the plain and waving tartans of Patrick Pa-trick Mime while clear and piercing I above the din swelled from his pipes the slogan of The Cock of the North I Then all the pipes let loose and with i a shout the Highlanders were into the I thick of i and rushing toward that black wall of mountain from which the I bullets streamed And every Mine led the rush and his pipes screamed their I I weIr notes They were almost across when an Afridi bullet went through I both legs of Paddy the piper and he fell for a moment keeping firm hold I of his pipes He struggled to 1 sitting position I quickly and as the kilted lines swept they heard clear and shrill I on < ar shri from I I behind the pipes of Paddy skirling The Cock of the North They carried car-ried the heights with a rush the Gurk has killing right and left and the two English regiments coming up in time I I to take a hand and drove the tribesmen tribes-men in a howling mob down the Khan ki valley Then they picked the up piper who had not stopped playing until he saw the tartans waving amid the Afridi sangars and this is why the farmers of Insch are proud people and that only Scotchmen hereafter will be enlisted I en-listed in the Gordon Highlanders New York Press |