ARTILLERY IN THE FIELD. 
27 
Guns to be represented by a mounted Non-Commissioned Officer 
and horseholder. 
A waggon by a driver and a pair of horses, and so on. 
Battery-Sergeant-Majors to act as Adjutants; Quarter-Master- 
Sergeants as Captains, and keep an eye on the ammunition column. 
This is, of course, only a bare outline, and further instructions will 
be issued. 
The whole business that we have to face in the field is at once 
simple and yet most complex. Simple if looked at quietly by oneself 
with lots of time to do it in, but most difficult and most complex when 
called upon to do it rapidly over new and unknown ground amidst the 
rush and rattle of the field. How hard to avoid and yet how deadly 
under these circumstances is flurry ? 
The only possible remedy lies in accustoming Batteries to drill under 
service conditions, methodically that is, with constant casualties and 
ever-changing country with new and unrehearsed schemes, so that the 
excitement caused by a sudden attack, or unexpected circumstance, is 
only a matter of every-day drill and does not degenerate into flurry. 
But to be able to do this the machine must work regularly; must 
have every part in working order. Every man must know what he has 
to do under all sorts of possible conditions and why; and though I 
think that in most Batteries the men know their drill right well, yet I 
do not think that when it comes to matters outside the ordinary parade 
work (manoeuvres that is, or whatever we like to call it) they are 
carried out as intelligently as they might be, and the reason, or, at any 
rate, one of the reasons of this, lies I believe, in the fact that many 
Officers do not take their command sufficiently into their confidence, 
do not go beyond the Drill Book—in fact, do not explain to those who 
are working with them the why and the wherefore of the different 
phases of the engagements that occur in the various field-days in 
which they take part. 
Take, then, two instances, and here I must tell you that I have 
purposely taken throughout my lecture examples that have occurred 
in this command during the past drill season. 
On one occasion the division I was inspecting was fighting a retiring 
action. Just as they had limbered up on one position with a view 
to retiring to another, and before they had moved off, the guns were 
charged by a party of the enemy^s Cavalry, who had worked round 
somewhat to a flank and came out from cover some three hundred 
yards distant. Well ! the gunners on the axle-tree seats saw them, 
and sat complacently watching them till the enemy charged home. 
The Sectional Commander saw them, but it never seemed to dawn on 
him to take any action ; as far as I remember, he did not even pass 
the news to the Battery Commander! 
In the second instance (which I did not see, but read in an account 
of recent manoeuvres), a Battery in retirement got utterly pounded 
through not having the road of retreat properly reconnoitred, guns 
lost “ gratuitously,” the chief Umpire said. 
Now in each of these cases, an ‘ intelligent understanding / on the 
