I have already shown the lines on which such instruction should be conducted. I would here, however, like to add that the patrol leader, if he is in any doubt, can clear up the situation in his mind by cross-questioning himself. It should never suffice to him that the authority who set him the task veiled his responsibility by general verbiage. The task must be definitely determined; whether negative reports are required or not, and when and where reports are to be sent, more especially when touch has been lost with the squadron. The complete instructions must of course be confided to the second in command of the patrol, and the general task to be fulfilled to each member of it.
For the conduct of the patrol it is a matter of still greater importance than for the squadron, which has a certain fighting strength, whether it is acting in its own or in hostile country. It will have the same points to consider as in the case of a squadron, but in hostile country its conduct must be still more circumspect, while in friendly country, where concealment is more easy, its action can be correspondingly bolder.
If long distances are to be covered, the patrol should remain on the road until it reaches country where an encounter with the enemy is likely. The passage through large villages peopled by hostile inhabitants is to be avoided.
Horses should not be fed, at least in hostile country, in the neighbourhood of villages or on the main road, but always in a safe place, and a proportion of them only at a time. In friendly country they may best be fed in the larger villages, which the hostile patrols will avoid, but should not halt on the main road.
When the locality is reached where a meeting with hostile detachments may be expected, the patrol should advance in _bonds successifs_. It must, unfortunately, be admitted that such methods appear to be quite foreign to most patrol leaders; at all events, they are seldom applied in manoeuvres. Most of them ride forward with praiseworthy speed along the road until they collide with the enemy; then, indeed, they begin to observe him, without asking themselves whether in war the result of such tactics would not have already compromised their chances of success. For if they are once discovered by the enemy they may count on being relentlessly hunted and pursued, so that there will no longer be, in most cases, any further possibility of deliberate observation.
