diamond formation at first, the three platoons in rear making their own way forward till they reinforce the leading portion which finally consists of the whole company. Put out the skeleton enemy on a front of, roughly, what your company will occupy in single rank, and let the position, if possible, have within it two, or at most, three points, which you can assign as objectives to the platoon commanders. You must consider this position as having been assigned to you as objective by your battalion commander, the ground on the right and left of it being the prey of other companies, and not the object of your assault, though it should, nevertheless, frequently be the object of your _fire_ during the advance. Draw up the company at about fourteen hundred yards from the enemy. Tell the platoon commanders the relative positions the platoons are to take up when the advance begins, roughly the distances between them (I.T., 123 (7)), the direction of the attack, if the enemy’s position is not quite clearly to be seen, the frontage on which the company is free to manœuvre, and the points which the sections are to regard as their objectives; the details contained in I.T., 123 and 124, may also be enumerated if the commanders are not experienced. As regards these details, I recommend that scouts be formed not in a line of men extended at wide intervals, but as a line of patrols of four or six men each, and you or a subaltern should halt them early in the attack and tell them to send back word that they are held up by fire, or that they have defined the enemy’s position; on this the nearest platoon reinforces them, and the process of building up the firing line begins from that point. As regards inter-communication, use connecting files and semaphore signalling to join up the various parts and make real use of them, but avoid sham messages. As soon as the object and manner of the attack have been detailed to all, tell the platoon commanders to move off their platoons to their positions and extend them ready to advance, and the scouts to get off in front. Five paces is the least extension to ensure that a bullet aimed at one man may miss him with a fair chance of not hitting his neighbour. Do not let the scouts go too far away, because at this time of getting to grips with the enemy, their usefulness, when acting with their companies is mainly limited to guarding against ambush at close range, and as ground scouts to prevent the company coming against some unseen obstacle, barbed wire, donga, canal, or what not.