be hard for attackers to retain the trenches in front of them.  There was much dead ground below the entrenchments, but the defences were so arranged that cross fire from one system swept the dead ground on the next spur, and, if the hills were properly held, an advance up them would have been a stupendous task.  The Turk had put all his eggs into one basket.  Perhaps he considered his positions impregnable—­they would have been practically impregnable in British hands—­and he made no attempt to cut support trenches behind the crest.  There was one system only, and his failure to provide defences in depth cost him dear.

Looking eastwards from Kustul, the Turkish positions south of the Jaffa-Jerusalem road, each of them on a hill, were called by us the ‘Liver Redoubt’ (near Lifta), the ‘Heart Redoubt,’ ‘Deir Yesin,’ and ‘Khurbet Subr,’ with the village of Ain Karim in a fold of the hills and a line of trenches south-west of it running down to the railway.  Against the 74th Division’s front the nature of the country was equally difficult.  From Beit Surik down to the Kulonieh road the hills fell sharply with the ground strewn with boulders.  Our men had to advance across ravines and beds of watercourses covered with large stones, and up the wooded slopes of hills where stone walls constituted ready-made sangars easily capable of defence.  The hardest position they had to tackle was the hill covering Beit Iksa, due north of the road as it issued from Kulonieh, where long semicircular trenches had been cut to command at least half a mile of the main road.  In front of the 53rd Division was an ideal rearguard country where enterprising cavalry could have delayed an advance by infantry for a lengthened period.  To the south of Bethlehem, around Beit Jala and near Urtas, covering the Pools of Solomon, an invaluable water supply, there were prepared defences, but though the Division was much delayed by heavy rain and dense mist, the fog was used to their advantage, for the whole of the Division’s horses were watered at Solomon’s Pools one afternoon without opposition from the Urtas garrison.

December 8 was the date fixed for the attack.  On December 7 rain fell unceasingly.  The roads, which had been drying, became a mass of slippery mud to the west of Jerusalem, and on the Hebron side the Welsh troops had to trudge ankle deep through a soft limy surface.  It was soon a most difficult task to move transport on the roads.  Lorries skidded, and double teams of horses could only make slow progress with limbers.  Off the road it became almost impossible to move.  The ground was a quagmire.  On the sodden hills the troops bivouacked without a stick to shelter them.  The wind was strong and drove walls of water before it, and there was not a man in the attacking force with a dry skin.  Sleep on those perishing heights was quite out of the question, and on the day when it was hoped the men would get rest to prepare them for the morrow’s fatigue