_The Director_: “Lieutenant Hunt, there are five dead or wounded men of the enemy lying out there in the road. Would you do anything about them?”
_Lieutenant Hunt_: “Except to secure the identification, I would not. The men of the enemy who made their escape probably did not have a very clear idea of where the fire came from and I would not want to surrender any of the advantages I now possess with respect to position and concealment. When the enemy learns of the disaster to his patrol he may send out a strong detachment to secure their dead and wounded and punish us. Our own main body is marching away from us and our position is becoming momentarily more dangerous. I could do nothing for the enemy wounded. They would have to stay where they are for the time being.”
_The Director_: “When do you estimate that you should leave here?”
_Lieutenant Hunt_: “In the absence of orders or other circumstances which I do not now see, I will leave here when the time designated by the flank guard commander is up.”
The Director states the following situation orally:
“At this moment you hear quite heavy firing which you estimate comes from the direction of the main body. There are a few shots from the direction of the flank guard. The time you were ordered to remain out here is about up.”
_The Director_: “Lieutenant Williams, how do you size up the situation now?”
_Lieutenant Williams_: “Our original mission was to cover this road for a certain number of minutes. That time is about up now when we will have completed the mission. New conditions have arisen which could not have been provided for when Lieutenant A gave us our original orders and a new situation confronts us. It would seem to me that our mission would now be to ‘continue to cover the road.’
“From the firing we have heard, it is possible that our main body has run into a considerable force of the enemy on the main road. If this is a Cavalry force covering one of Infantry it will soon transfer its activities to the flanks and try and cut in on the flanks of our main body. Under those circumstances our flank guard will have a very important role to play. The road that we are on leads directly to the flank and rear of our main body and must be guarded for the time being. The fact that we have already encountered the enemy indicates that he intends to make use of it if practicable and the presence of even our small force here will make him more cautious and delay and hamper his operations. If our main body has run into only a small Cavalry force of the enemy it will be quickly brushed aside and the situation will be cleared up in a few minutes.