As soon as we were stationed on the line of defense, we began on the very first day to work with pickaxes and shovels. A special spot was assigned to each cavalry battalion and infantry company, and each group of men, in its own place, hurried day and night, digging trenches for skirmishers. The officers acted as “bosses,” the non-commissioned officers as foremen, and the men themselves as coolies,—all were engaged in digging earth. All the while scouts, both officers and non-commissioned officers, were being dispatched to find out the enemy’s movements. No alarm had come yet; the engineering work made daily progress. The trenches for skirmishers and bomb-proofs for the cavalry, forming the first line of defense, grew steadily, their breastworks strengthened by sand-bags the sacking for which had been brought from Dalny. A simple kind of wire-entanglement was also put up, a good road was made, short cuts connecting different bodies of men were laid out like cobwebs; thus our defenses assumed almost a half-permanent character. The soldiers either utilized village dwellings, or pitched tents in the yards or under the trees. When all these necessary preparations were fairly complete, more scouts and scouting parties began to go off to find out the movements and whereabouts of the enemy. At a military review or manœuvres in time of peace, the men look gay and comfortable, but on the real battle-field they have to try a true life-and-death match with the enemy. In the readiness and morale of the men while on the outposts lies the outcome of the actual encounter. Therefore men on the line of defense cannot sleep at ease at night, or kindle fires to warm themselves. The night is the time when they must be most vigilant and wide-awake. The patrols on the picket line and the scouts far in front must try to take in everything. However tired they may be from their day’s work, at night they must not allow even a singing insect or a flying bird to pass unnoticed. Holding their breath and keeping their heads cool, they must use their sight and hearing for the whole army behind them, with the utmost vigilance. When people talk of war, they usually forget the toil and responsibility of the men on the picket line, they talk only of their behavior on the field of battle. Because this duty was neglected, three regiments of the English army in the War of Independence, 1777, were annihilated by the Americans through the fault of one single sentinel. “Halt! Halt! Who goes there?”