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Pte. A. Thomson.

Early next morning we were put to work sorting out blood-stained equipment salvaged from the wrecked train. It was a gruesome task and I’m quite sure that there was flesh stuck to some of it. Later we were diverted to carrying ammunition aboard ship. Then we were mustered and allocated our mess decks for the voyage.

Perhaps some officer had thought it best to keep the men busy after their ordeal, but the Divisional Commander thought differently and Major-General Egerton had wired with some indignation to the War Office. Shortly before sailing time a reply came back. The survivors could be sent back north and other Royal Scots whose relatives were known to have been killed or injured in the crash could go home too.

Pte. A. Thomson.

We were lined up on the quayside and marched off through the streets to Lime Street Station. Believe it or not, some children playing in the street threw stones at us. We had no equipment and we looked so bedraggled and disreputable that they took us for German prisoners!

The officers had volunteered and been given permission to stay on board, but Lieutenant Riddell was sent home in charge of the party of survivors. The men were unusually silent and subdued. Riddell tried to cheer them up with the news that the General had decreed that they should all be given fourteen days’ leave, but they were too tired and worried to care. Most went to sleep or stared blankly out of the windows.

As the train cleared the outskirts of Liverpool and began to pick up speed on the journey north, the Empress of Britain cast her moorings and began to slip down the Mersey carrying their comrades on the first stage of the voyage to Gallipoli.

The voyage was pleasant and uneventful. A collection for the dependants of the men who died in the disaster raised £612 which was cabled home from Gibraltar on the day of the mass funeral. Most of Leith and half of Edinburgh turned out for it and the Reverend William Swan who conducted the ceremony was assisted by the Dean of the Thistle and Chapel Royal. Two hundred and fourteen bodies were carried to Rosebank Cemetery in Leith, and so many were charred beyond recognition that all of them were buried together in a mass grave. All the survivors were present.

Afterwards they went home on leave, but few had the heart to enjoy themselves. One man, Private William Roach, spent most of his time composing a eulogy to his shattered battalion. He called it The Heroes of Gretna’:

We had been for some ten months in training,

And we found it was work and not play;

You may guess that each man was delighted

When we learned we were going away.

Off we sped, never thinking of danger;

Ah! I see every happy face still –

Now a joke, now a laugh, now ‘Where are we?’

‘Yes, the next box will be Quintinshill.’

And ’twas just then the terrible smash came;

Heavens! It caught us like rats in a trap,

Just when some of our boys, a bit drowsy,

Were enjoying a quiet little nap.

I was thrown to the right of our carriage,

My head and right arm were held fast;

Horror! Here were the flames coming near me.

What a death! Was next minute my last?

Yes, I shouted for help – and I listened,

‘Oh, God!’ I heard dying men shout;

And midst that came a second collision!

I can tell you no more! I got out.

Ask me not of the sights I beheld there,

As I lay on the ground all alone;

But I’ll tell of brave lads who leapt into the flames

And saved lives at the risk of their own!

Oh their deeds will aye live in my memory,

Their praises I sing them aloud,

But to soldier with such a Battalion,

It’s of that most of all, boys, I’m proud.

Yes the scenes of that woe-stricken morning

From my vision I never can blot;

But ‘twill ever for me be the boast of my life

That I once was a Seventh Royal Scot.

In the early hours of 13 June the remainder of the 7th Royal Scots landed with the 156th Brigade of the Lowland Division on the