If you are scouting near the enemy’s lines do not take cover on your side of rocks, bushes, etc., but on theirs, and turn your horses and pretend to look back at your own side. They will hesitate to fire on you at 700 yards or upwards, as they will think you are their own scouts riding in. But never permit a party of your own scouts to ride in to your line without sending one of their number to gallop on and tell you who they are. A shot “across the bows” of one of your own parties which is coming into a line of videttes or bivouac, without taking this precaution, will soon teach them all to do so. _À propos_ of this, “punishments should fit the crime,” they are more easily remembered; after all, punishments are for the prevention of similar conduct in others and not retaliatory. A high standard of conduct, zeal, and bravery comes from the example set in the first few encounters of coolness and light-heartedness. A C.O. whose men were under a wearing fire was sent a message by a troop leader, who did not quite enjoy the situation, asking, “What shall I do?” The reply was, “Give your men the second lecture on musketry.” No one likes to be out of the fashion, and it is desirable to lay stress on not coming off second best to the enemy; to give him more than you get; to make him pay for his audacity heavily, and so on. To do so distracts the men’s minds from your own losses in dead or wounded men, etc., of which you must make little.[58] Much mourning for the dead makes men sorry for themselves too, and has a bad effect. Shakespeare tells us: Wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss, But cheerly seek how to redress their harms. (3 _Henry VI._ v. 4.) Deceiving the enemy by ruses, and killing or taking him prisoner, is very desirable, and plans for doing so should be thought over and deliberately carried out. Henderson, _Science of War_, p. 101, says: To sustain the _moral_ of his own men; to break down the _moral_ of his enemy--these are the great objects which, if he be ambitious of success, the leader must always keep in view. Shaikh Sadi says: If thou art harsh the foe will fight shy of thee; if thou art lenient they will be audacious and forward. If the force to which you belong suffers reverses early in the war, “traitors,” “spies,” etc., are words which one may hear, and they will be applied ungenerously, indiscriminately, and invariably wrongly. Any talk of this sort should be sternly repressed; it is due to a craven desire to blame others for their own cowardice, which some men, curs and runaways themselves, are base enough to indulge in. This will certainly not help them to be brave on future occasions, whilst it serves to disintegrate a force. It will be found that on those men who are practised frequently in going up to the enemy’s pickets before dawn, and retiring gradually, there is not, even in a severe retreat, the same bad moral effect which there is on unpractised men.