Before beginning any exercise, call your non-commissioned officers out to the front, and explain to them and to the men, in very full detail, what the exercise is intended to be, what points particularly require attention, how you want it done, and the sequence of events, if it involves combined action between the different units; whether the company is supposed to be acting by itself or as part of the battalion, and, if the latter, whether your side are having the support of artillery fire or not, where the enemy is, and what he is, i.e., is he infantry only, or has he also cavalry and guns, what he is supposed to be doing, attacking, defending, retiring, marching, or what. Deal with all such points before you start, otherwise you will find your non-commissioned officers and men filling in the blanks each according to his own bent of imagination, and everyone in consequence playing at a different game. To be thus able to define the scope and arrangements of the exercise, you must have it clearly planned out in all detail in your head. This you should do if possible the day before the parade, so that you will have the thing well thought out, and events marshalled in logical sequence. At all exercises, if possible, have the enemy represented by a skeleton force, as directed by T. & M.R., 48, a few actual men with blank cartridge, and a red range flag or two to roughly define the enemy’s position. Use for this purpose old soldiers, if you have them, or, at least, men who have already performed the exercise you mean to do, and it is better to take one or two men from each platoon than to send off a whole section, and so break up the company organisation. Six or eight men are quite enough to form any skeleton enemy that is needed for a company to manœuvre against. You must give the skeleton enemy definite orders as to what they are to represent, where they are to go, and what to do and not to do. If they are given at all a free hand, especially if under the enterprising British subaltern, they are very apt to indulge in far-reaching manœuvres, and subject you to sudden raids and onslaughts which upset your scheme for the parade, and leave you no enemy at the very point you wished to have him. If you cannot arrange for a skeleton enemy, at least never fail to indicate some position as supposed to be held by an enemy. If your exercise ground is limited in extent, fix the enemy’s position outside it, regardless of whether you have, or have not, licence to traverse the intervening space, so as to avoid carrying out your exercise within impossibly close range of the enemy. In default of a skeleton enemy to provide you with a target, tell your men to aim at any members of the public who are about the enemy’s position. This is better than snapping at inanimate objects, as it gives more interest and so keeps up careful aiming. As regards the general method of training, follow commonsense and the manuals,