The courage of countless generations

The most stirring sermon I ever heard was delivered by a company sergeant-major in the Black Watch to a cadre of young lance-corporals, barely 19 years old, who were about to experience their first deployment to Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Like an old-fashioned Presbyterian minister, he warned them of the dangers of the world, in this case roof-top snipers and stone-throwing rioters, and the temptation these presented to the unwary soul, in this case, as he put it, ‘to run like buggery’.

But they would not succumb, he said; indeed, they would lead their sections looking such dangers fearlessly in the face, because they were armed with a greater power — the red hackle, or feather, they wore in their khaki bonnets. The courage of countless generations before them, back to the battle of Fontenoy in 1745, had, he promised, imbued this symbol of the regiment with a steadfastness they would feel in their bones when the dustbin lids rattled and the petrol bombs exploded.