simple rules to meet these two bad cases and prevent such scandalous
possibilities. We did at last contrive to do so; we invented what we call
the melee, and our revised rules in the event of a melee will be found
set out upon a later page. They do really permit something like an actual
result to hand-to-hand encounters. They abolish Horatius Cocles.

We also found difficulties about the capturing of guns. At first we had
merely provided that a gun was captured when it was out of action and
four men of the opposite force were within six inches of it, but we
found a number of cases for which this rule was too vague. A gun, for
example, would be disabled and left with only three men within six
inches; the enemy would then come up eight or ten strong within six
inches on the other side, but not really reaching the gun. At the next
move the original possessor of the gun would bring up half a dozen men
within six inches. To whom did the gun belong? By the original wording
of our rule, it might be supposed to belong to the attack which had
never really touched the gun yet, and they could claim to turn it upon
its original side. We had to meet a number of such cases. We met them
by requiring the capturing force--or, to be precise, four men of
it--actually to pass the axle of the gun before it could be taken.

All sorts of odd little difficulties arose too, connected with the use
of the guns as a shelter from fire, and very exact rules had to be made
to avoid tilting the nose and raising the breech of a gun in order to
use it as cover. . . .

We still found it difficult to introduce any imitation into our game of
either retreat or the surrender of men not actually taken prisoners in a
melee. Both things were possible by the rules, but nobody did them
because there was no inducement to do them. Games were apt to end