more humanely it will be done.  I see no inconsistency in deploring the practice while perfecting the method.  But I am a civilian, and Kriegspiel is not my proper business.  I am deeply preoccupied with a novel I am writing, and so I think the best thing I can do is just to set down here all the ideas that have cropped up in my mind, in the footsteps, so to speak, of Colonel Sykes, and leave it to the military expert, if he cares to take the matter up, to reduce my scattered suggestions to a system.

Now, first, it is manifest that in Little Wars there is no equivalent for rifle-fire, and that the effect of the gun-fire has no resemblance to the effect of shell.  That may be altered very simply.  Let the rules as to gun-fire be as they are now, but let a different projectile be used—­a projectile that will drop down and stay where it falls.  I find that one can buy in ironmongers’ shops small brass screws of various sizes and weights, but all capable of being put in the muzzle of the 4’7 guns without slipping down the barrel.  If, with such a screw in the muzzle, the gun is loaded and fired, the wooden bolt remains in the gun and the screw flies and drops and stays near where it falls—­its range being determined by the size and weight of screw selected by the gunner.  Let us assume this is a shell, and it is quite easy to make a rule that will give the effect of its explosion.  Half, or, in the case of an odd number, one more than half, of the men within three inches of this shell are dead, and if there is a gun completely within the circle of three inches radius from the shell, it is destroyed.  If it is not completely within the circle, it is disabled for two moves.  A supply waggon is completely destroyed if it falls wholly or partially within the radius.  But if there is a wall, house, or entrenchment between any men and the shell, they are uninjured—­they do not count in the reckoning of the effect of the shell.

I think one can get a practical imitation of the effect of rifle-fire by deciding that for every five infantry-men who are roughly in a line, and who do not move in any particular move, there may be one (ordinary) shot taken with a 4’7 gun.  It may be fired from any convenient position behind the row of live men, so long as the shot passes roughly over the head of the middle man of the five.

Of course, while in Little Wars there are only three or four players, in any proper Kriegspiel the game will go on over a larger area—­in a drill-hall or some such place—­and each arm and service will be entrusted to a particular player.  This permits all sorts of complicated imitations of reality that are impossible to our parlour and playroom Little Wars.  We can consider transport, supply, ammunition, and the moral effect of cavalry impact, and of uphill and downhill movements.  We can also bring in the spade and entrenchment, and give scope to the Royal Engineers.  But before I write anything of Colonel Sykes’ suggestions about these, let me say a word or two about Kriegspiel “country.”