When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait (for the people were distressed), then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in coverts, and in pits.
Samuel’s departure from the battlefield (1 Samuel 13:15) was symbolic of the breach that now opened up between Samuel and Saul. Saul’s presumptuous plan also failed to bring his departing soldiers back to him.