The advance of a company into an engagement (whether for attack or defense) is conducted in close order, preferably column of squads, until the probability of encountering hostile fire makes it advisable to deploy.

The bursts were, like volcanoes above the German lines, vomiting upwards a vast column of black smoke which stood solid on the sky- line for a minute or more before being torn down by the wind.

At length we moved with the column, already unnerved by long-continued expectation, westward upon the Williamsburg road.