Royal Engineers gives a comic picture of a Highlander who appears to
have lost nearly every article of clothing he left home in. When last
seen by this letter writer he was resplendent in a Guardsman's tunic,
the red breeches of a Frenchman, a pair of Belgian infantry boots, and
his own Glengarry! "And when he wants to look particularly smart," adds
the Engineer, "he puts on a Uhlan's cloak that he keeps handy!"

As another contribution to the humor of life in the trenches and,
incidentally, to the discussion of soldier songs, it is worth while
quoting from a letter signed "H.L.," in _The_ _Times_, this specimen
verse of the sort of lyric that delights Tommy Atkins. It is the work of
a Sergeant of the Gordon Highlanders, and as the marching song in high
favor at Aldershot, must come as a shock to the ideals of would-be army
laureates:

"Send out the Army and Navy,
Send out the rank and file,
(Have a banana!)
Send out the brave Territorials,
They easily can run a mile.
(I don't think!)
Send out the boys' and the girls' brigade,
They will keep old England free:
Send out my mother, my sister, and my brother,
But for goodness sake don't send me."

It is doggerel, of course, but it has a certain cleverness as a satire
on the music-hall song of the day, and the Gordons carried it gaily with
them to their battlefields, blending it in that odd mixture of humor and
tragedy that makes up the soldier's life. The bravest, it is truly said,