In dealing with a company, the onus of choosing what localities it is tactically necessary to occupy and strengthen rests with the company commander, subject to the orders of his battalion commander. In the same way as on outpost, you will be given a bit of ground to defend, either acting with the battalion or as an isolated company, and the rest will be on your head. I do not propose to deliver a treatise on the tactical occupation of ground, but instead I will ask you to procure and read two books. The first is “The Defence of Duffer’s Drift,” by Backsight Forethought (W. Clowes and Sons), the second is “A Staff Officer’s Scrap Book,” by Sir Ian Hamilton (Edward Arnold). They are both most readable books, and are quite free of soporific effects. The first is small, and deals with the efforts of a half-company, under Lieutenant B. F., to defend a drift over a South African river. In the second the author takes you along with him through the Russo-Japanese War, of which he was a privileged spectator, and in your journeyings you look on at victories and defeats in the making, while the causes that led to them, great and small, are set forth, along with many shrewd comments on human nature and how it translates itself in the day of battle. Every fight bears its own lesson of what to do and what not to do in defence, and this told in no pedantic strain, but with the saving grace of humour, to mitigate the darker side of human carnage. Read them both, get to yourself the wisdom and understanding with which they are filled, and you will know how to take up a position for defence. Having educated yourself to choose the points of a defensive position that must be occupied if the position is to be effectively held, you have still to train your men to the work of defending them, and they must learn to be able to do without the help of a supervising officer, as will often be the case on service. Daylight defence is almost entirely a matter of fire, the immediate object being to make it impossible for the enemy to come to close quarters. Platoon and section commanders then must be able to dispose their men with this in view to the best advantage within the limits of the ground allotted to their units, and the men must be able to site their trenches or whatever form of cover has to be constructed so as to use their rifles to the best effect. It is no good to teach men to dig trenches and make loop-holes unless they know the proper places for them. (M.F.E., 18 (7)). At the same time, practice in digging and the use of tools is very necessary for men who are not accustomed to such work. The hands of the untrained man blister and his muscles tire under the unusual effort, while he expends much energy with results small in comparison with what he can accomplish once he has learnt to use his strength well. Moreover, a certain amount of technical skill is required in making any but the most simple cover.