The men have been practised in retirement in pairs in Exercise II., and the sections and platoons have also learned their part in Exercise VI. It remains to train the company for this duty, which it might have to do either as acting as rearguard to the battalion, whether the latter was, or was not, in conjunction with other troops, or as if effecting its withdrawal when isolated. In both cases the procedure and distribution are pretty much alike. In the former case, the company, if it gets into difficulties, _may_ be able to get help from the rest of the force, but in the latter it will not be able to do so, and the commander should be especially careful to have in hand some portion of his company which he can use to extricate any detachment which gets “tied up.” On the other hand, it is very desirable that the main body should not be called on to reinforce the rearguard when the company is not acting alone. So that in both cases you should be prepared to meet eventualities from your own resources. Again, a rearguard is bound to have the majority of its force in action in order to hold back the enemy and present an appearance of force, so that it is not always possible to set apart a portion of so small a body as a company to act solely as reserve, and to remain continuously outside the actual combat. The solution of the difficulty seems to lie in an intelligent application of the principles of rearguard fighting given in F.S.R., 71 to 73, and the early but timeous withdrawal from the fighting line of a portion of the company who move back to a position in rear from which they can cover the withdrawal of the remainder, but are still available to be thrown into the fight, if it is necessary to inaugurate some sort of a counter attack to give portions heavily engaged a chance to break away from close grips. It is important in this exercise to teach non-commissioned officers and men to be ready to adopt quickly any method of withdrawal that may be ordered, because the nature of the ground must determine the way in which a withdrawal can best be effected, and the nature of the ground may vary every few hundred yards. Therefore I merely suggest some ways of practising retirements, and during the course of the exercise you should change from one to another, and also encourage commanders to act on their own initiative, when, as will probably happen, your system of inter-communication fails to act with sufficient speed and accuracy. I.T., 137, gives general rules as to the action of platoons and sections, and the standard set up in Exercises II. and VI. should be adhered to. Send out the skeleton enemy with orders to follow up the retirement, but not to close in under six hundred yards.