Organisations > Roll of honour of Caxton House Printing Office, Dundee

Colin D. Smith
of the six or seven Bulgarians who were guarding the
place. Scouts therefore were sent out daring the day-
time to ascertain the exact situation of the post. Then
at night one platoon set out to make its way round to
the back of the Bulgarians and another platoon prepared
to attack them in front. Colin will never forget the
eerie feeling which came over him as in the darkness he
crept stealthily up one bank of the railway, down the
other bank, then along a sunken road to Kavakli wood.
Suddenly there rang out upon the night a solitary
shout— " Stoi ! " (halt!). Then followed the wild rush
of men hither and thither, the firing of rifles, and the
splashing of water as the Bulgarians made for the
marshes. Our plans miscarried to some extent, for
the scout had led our first platoon upon the post
before the second platoon had got into position. Only
one little fellow was captured, but not before he had
wounded some of his captors.
A grim, dreary, depressing kind of life our boys lived
on the Struma. At Bala, for instance, their daily rations
consisted of only a one-pound tin of bully beef to every
three men. along with two biscuits and a small piece of
cheese to each man. For three long months this
meagre fare continued, as the road by which the supplies
had to be brought up was impassable. There were
no cigarettes either all these three months, a de-
privation which seemed to the boys to be worse than
the scarcity of food. Colin saw one old soldier picking
leaves from a tobacco plant, drying them over the
brazier, and then sprinkling them with his rum ration,
so that he might have the pleasure of a smoke.
But were there no humanising, elevating influences
round these boys of ours on the river Struma? No,
scarcely any. There were not even parcels from home.
The lack of these the lads felt very keenly. There
was a good minister, indeed, who used to come up some-
times from Stavros. He often spoke about Macedonia,
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