Admonition to a Piper

 

 

Fraser as a new lieutenant in the Gordon Highlanders recorded this one-sided conversation between a Pipe-sergeant and a piper just outside his tent one morning at 5:30 AM at the top of the Pipe-sergeant's voice:

"God be kind to me!! Your not plowin' up a ploody palloon, Wilson! You're summoning the clans for the destruction of the damned Hanovers, aren't you? Your music is to charm the claymores out of the thatch and the dirks out of the peat, so it is! Now, tuck it into your oxter and wake the hills with your challenge. It is enough to make my Celtic blood turn to effluent. Itsa gatherin' of fightin' men you're meant to be inspirin',boy. The noise you're makin' wouldnae collect a parcel o' Caithness tinkers! Uplift yourself, man! It's not bobby-soxers you're tryin' to attract, it's men of might from the ends of the mountains, wi' ther bunnets down and their shoes kicked off for the charge."

And that is the way they wake up new lieutenants in the British army---at least in the Highlanders.