which you think the piquet commander should attend to, such as what localities should be patrolled, and estimate the number of men required. Any surplus sections should accompany you from this piquet, and you and they then go along the line to the other piquets which you arrange similarly, using the surplus to reinforce those piquets that need them, and if at the end you have still a surplus of men you may either form them as a support in rear or dismiss them to remain with their own platoons. For purposes of messing on service the latter is convenient, but, tactically, a support is often needed, in which case the men’s comfort must take second place. You must make a clear distinction between day and night outposts, though you practise the latter by daylight. Infantry outposts by day and until the enemy advances, are firstly patrols and look-out men, whose business is to look for any movement on the part of the enemy, and to prevent his seeing their own side’s doings, and to report what they see of the enemy’s, and, secondly, a line of piquets who occupy the line decided on as the line of resistance, and who may fall out and rest while things are quiet, with supports and sometimes a reserve behind them. The patrols are active agents in getting information in front of the outpost line, and they will mostly consist of mounted troops except in close country or thick weather. The look-out sentries are passive obstacles to the enemy’s patrols or scouts penetrating the line; the piquets are the reserve of force ready to be called into action when needed. But a line suitable for observation and resistance by day is seldom suitable by night also. Fighting by day is done by shooting, and rough ground affording cover is likely to be chosen for the advance of the attackers. By night, however, the attack will be made with the bayonet, and the attacker will avoid broken country, which will confuse and delay his advance. Choose your outpost line accordingly. By day seek for a good field of fire, mutually supporting positions, and good facilities for observation, and strengthen the position you mean to fight on. By night close the likely ways by which an enemy may advance by putting piquets on them in strengthened positions with obstacles prepared in front, and patrols lying out on intervening ground to intercept scouts. Thus, in an undulating hedge-covered country with many roads, by day your piquets would be behind the crests of the undulations, sentries only on the look-out, and patrols scouting in front. By night your piquets would be on the roads, which they would block with barbed wire or abattis of cut hedge stuff, and your patrols in the fields between and lying out along the road in front at some place where they could watch anything passing, and get back to the piquet line without running risks of being shot by their own side. We will see below what training is required for non-commissioned officers