On the third morning, close observation of a certain sector, involving sketches and notes, was undertaken, and visibility practices carried out. Later, the students were taken for an “observation march,” and having described the features of the country they had traversed, they had to write a report upon the new sector which they had observed in the morning, and upon this report they were later questioned.
On the fourth day, a new sector was visited, upon which they had previously made notes from a map. These notes they had to compare with reality, and to notice whether their imagination had been faulty. A lecture on obstacles commonly found on approach marches followed, and one on aerial photographs with practical work. Night work followed, with special reference to the study of the stars.
On the fifth day, oblique and other aerial photographs were compared with the actual ground, and a lecture was delivered summing up the special points of the course.
Sometimes, however, during the “Savage Rabbit” period, lectures were possible, and for these occasions a rather new type of discourse was evolved, in which the broader aspects of Reconnaissance and of the study of country were dealt with.
Local history was recalled:—how men had lived and fought in the villages and cornfields that lay immediately about them; how that great abbey church that stood alone was erected by a group of pious merchants as a thankoffering for their town’s escape from the plague; how to this little town the Revolution had brought a Committee of Public Safety, and how it had held its red assize in the coffee-room of the Hôtel de l’Europe, or how Bonaparte had lain at this or that château on his way to the Camp at Boulogne.
Or again, the lecture might be more strictly military and concern the place of Reconnaissance amongst the arts of war, and the action and reaction of one arm of the Service upon another—the ever-present trilogy of wire, trench and machine-gun, new theories of artillery work, the latest fashions in tactics or the effects of the latest poison-gas.
Then, where some isolated Tank Company or even section lay ready day and night by its machines and lectures were impossible, an itinerant instructor would set the exiles little schemes to carry out.
The two following exercises are typical:—
“Two small parties of officers go at different times to positions from which a good view is obtainable. They pick out landmarks, etc., and their peculiarities, taking notes or making sketches. From these notes or sketches each party writes out three or four questions on landmarks, general observation, routes taken, etc. On their return the two parties exchange their questions, answers are written, and these answers returned to the writers of the questioners to correct.
“Catch questions, such as ‘How many windows had such and such a house?’ will, of course, be discountenanced, and only useful tests permitted.