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How Sergeant Norman McGregor Lowe, Of The London Scottish, Won The D.C.M. As A Daring And Deviceful Scout

In the Peninsula the art of military scouting had found its expression higher than ever before in the British Army in colonel Colquhoun Grant, Wellington’s chief "intelligence officer," who performed the most daring feats in this respect, as may be gathered from the glowing pages of Napier; while in the Victorian era perhaps the most brilliant practitioner and exponent of this highly difficult and dangerous part of the soldier’s trade was General Baden-Powell better known to his admiring countrymen as "B.-P," who took such a conspicuous part both in the Boer War and in the previous Matabele campaign, pitting his cultured mind against the natural cunning of savages.

Lord Roberts thought so highly of the importance of "B. -P’s" art that he brought over to South Africa a famous American, or Canadian-American, scout, Major Burnham, who proved to be of the greatest help to us; but it was only after this that our army began to make a serious study of the art which had been so brilliantly represented by Publius Considius, Caesar’s scoutmaster in his war with Dumnorix the Aeduan, of Colquhoun-Grant in the Peninsula, and Baden Powell and Burnham in South Africa. Our Territorials, too, took the thing up, and perhaps the more zealous students of this most necessary branch of modern war were the London Scottish, whose athletic records, including Marathon marching were second to those of no other battalion in the same force. Not the least ardent of those war students was Norman McGregor Lowe, who joining the London Scottish as a simple bugler, rose to be scout officer to the 1^st Brigade of the British army in the field, and to lay down his life in this capacity with his face very much to the foe. This was when he had been advanced to commissioned rank in his own battalion-a very exceptional honour; but it was when he was still a sergeant, and chief of his own Battalion Scouts, that the D.C.N. was conferred upon him for the following official reason:

"For conspicuous gallantry and marked ability, and resource consistently shown throughout the campaign, when he constantly acted as a scout in front of the entrenchments often under a heavy fire from snipers and machine guns. He supplied sketches and much invaluable information connection with the enemy’s trenches and wire entanglements."

Thus Sergeant McGregor Lowe’s D.C.M. was the reward-not of one, but of a succession of meritorious actions. Yet perhaps the most conspicuous and determining of these was a scouting feat performed by him at Givenchy, near La Bassee in January 1915, which was thus described by a comrade. In between the opposing lines of German ad British trenches-that is, in "no man’s land"-stood a little cottage or farm building. From it a trench ran back to the Huns, who could thus approach it under cover and unobserved. More over, it obscured our view of the enemy trenches. It was further suspected that the enemy was making use of the shelter provided by the house both as a sniper’s post and an advanced point from which to hurl bombs and grenades at night. A further danger was its suitability as a convenient starting point for hostile mining. It was therefore decided to blow it up, its proximity to our own lines not rendering it an ideal target for our guns. Volunteers were asked for to undertake a preliminary reconnaissance, and in due course a plan of action was devised. A sunken track led from our lines to the little cottage, and our kilted hero crept and crawled long it, followed at short intervals by two other trusty scouts. They’re every motion and step was watched with breathless interest by the men in out front line as he gradually drew nearer to his object-almost one hundred yards away. Would a volley of bullets receive him? Were the house and the track occupied by day as well as by night? Each one asked him. Meantime sergeant Lowe had reached the immediate precints of the house which he had approached as stealthily as a cat, and found his path encumbered by dead Germans, Indians and British; for this very spot had been the centre of some fierce hand to hand fighting prior to our settling into the trenches we then occupied.