5. The scouts from a position some distance from the company report a body of the enemy unaware of their presence and exposed to fire. Bring the company quickly up to the scouts’ position, halt, load, and adjust sights under cover and just short of the firing position, and on your whistle the men advance at once to the edge of the fire position and surprise the enemy by a simultaneous fire from all the rifles.
6. Taking up quickly an all-round defensive position; the platoons or sections go off and find the best positions in different directions which you merely indicate roughly.
7. Hastily organised attacks, to dislodge an enemy unexpectedly found in occupation of a position, also taking up action as flank and rearguards under fire.
EXERCISE XVII.
Night Operation Training.
I.T., 113, gives some instructions as to how men are to be taught to march and to use their ears and eyes at night, while F.S.R., chapter ix., goes into the subject at length. These operations are divided into night marches, night advances, and night attacks. The men of a company will not be fit to take a useful part in night tactical exercises either in company or in battalion, unless they have had some elementary training as laid down in “Infantry Training,” and have also been practised in the two indispensable duties of maintaining connection (F.S.R., 129 (4)) and in reconnaissance (F.S.R., 130 (1)). Night patrolling and the duties of night sentries have been dealt with under outposts, and I will not say anything more about them here. The rest of the elementary training contained in “Infantry Training” requires no explanation, and you can practise your men in it in small parties. There remains the maintenance of connection, and I have found that training for this is best done at first by daylight. It is very simple, and after one or two daylight lessons the men will work quite well by night, but to begin straight off under darkness will only lead to waste of time, as mistakes cannot easily be corrected, nor the working of a system made plain. The company should parade as strong as possible in this exercise, as, with only a few files on parade, the necessity of maintaining connection, and the difficulty of doing so, are not so obvious as when a fairly large body of men has to be handled without making a noise. Connection has to be maintained within the company itself, and also with the other companies in front or rear, if in column of route, or on the right and left, if deployed. In order to practise this connection with other companies, represent the front and rear, or flank section commanders of the supposed adjacent companies by a man for each company, who should move where those section commanders would be, i.e., in fours, at the head or tail of the directing flank, in line, on the flanks of the front rank. Use these dummies as the recipients of all orders and signals passed along, so that your company may get the habit of keeping touch with the others before it works with the battalion.
I. Connecting Files.
The only sure way of keeping connection between bodies of troops moving in separate parties is by connecting files, who keep within sight of each other and so can seldom be at more than twenty yards distance apart. These files must be taught to pass commands with exactitude, and never to open their mouths otherwise, i.e., they must never speculate between themselves “Are they advancing?” or so forth, or talk at all, because the next file may hear some word of their talk and mistake it for an order. When connecting files are needed they must take up their places without its being necessary to tell them off loudly, and when no longer needed they must close into company in silence and in good order.
Form the company into fours, turned to a flank as in column of route: tell the dummy section commander of the preceding company to march off; string the company out after him, the men marching off in files at about ten paces between each file without further command after the first one has gone, each as it moves off touching the next to follow, to give it notice. When they are all strung out, let the rear dummy section commander follow. Then pass orders up the line; use only the form given in I.T., 96 (3). To make sure that such verbal orders have reached the intended recipient, the only way, though a slow one, is to require him to send back a report that he has taken the action required. Thus, a message from the rear to the leading portion to halt would be answered from the leading portion by a report passed down the line to the commander “The leading portion, or, etc., has halted.” Let your first order be to halt, passed from the dummy company in rear up to that in front “From Colonel A. to all companies—halt.” On receiving the order one man of each file halts on his ground and turns to the rear, the other goes forward to the next file as quickly as he can without noise, delivers the order, and returns to his former place, when he halts and faces the other way from his comrade. Thus, on the completion of the order to halt, one man of each file will be facing each way. Bayonets will usually be fixed in night operations, and it is important, especially in Rifle Battalions, to accustom men to carry the rifle on the right shoulder, with the hand round the small of the butt and never at the trail, otherwise there is much danger of someone getting a stab as well as an order.
After the halt, get on the move again by passing up the word to advance, and practise any other likely orders:—“Go fast in front,” “Go slow in front,” “The rear cannot keep up,” and so on. Follow the orders up the line and see that men do not tamper with the form of the order en route, and that they speak in a whisper when giving it over. Section and platoon commanders must be told all orders as they pass, see that their units conform, and look after the maintenance of the distance between files.
Next practise lateral communication, the four platoons in one line in close order, with company intervals between each, representing the leading platoons of four companies drawn up in line of columns of platoons at deploying intervals and ready for a night advance. Lateral connecting files need to be closer than when following each other, so put out connecting files to the flanks in a similar way to what was done before, but at six, or eight yards interval. Then move, halt, and deploy the supposed column by means of these files, dressing and interval being kept up by the files moving up or stepping short, and closing on or inclining from any named company of direction without specific orders.