were impossible and suicidal, and each position had to be turned by a wide movement started a long way in rear.  All units in the Division did well, the Gurkhas particularly well, and by a continual encircling of their flanks the Turks were compelled to leave their fastnesses and fall back to new hill crests.  Thus outwitted and outmatched the enemy retreated to Saris, a high hill with a commanding view of the pass for half a mile.  The hill is covered with olive trees and has a village on its eastern slope, and as the road winds at its foot and then takes a left-handed turn to Kuryet el Enab its value for defence was considerable.

The Turks had taken advantage of the cover to place a large body of defenders with machine guns on the hill, but with every condition unfavourable to us the 75th Division had routed out the enemy before three o’clock and were ready to move forward as soon as the guns could get up the pass.  Rain was falling heavily, the road surface was clinging and treacherous, and, worse still, the road had been blown up in several places.  The guns could not advance to be of service that day, and the infantry had, therefore, to remain where they were for the night.  There was a good deal of sniping, but Nature was more unkind than the enemy, who received more than he gave.  The troops were wearing light summer clothing, drill shorts and tunics, and the sudden change from the heat and dryness of the plain to bitter cold and wet was a desperate trial, especially to the Indian units, who had little sleep that night.  They needed rest to prepare them for the rigour of the succeeding day.  A drenching rain turned the whole face of the mountains, where earth covered rock, into a sea of mud.  On the positions about Saris being searched a number of prisoners were taken, among them a battalion commander.  Men captured in the morning told us there were six Turkish battalions holding Enab, which is something under two miles from Saris.

The road proceeds up a rise from Saris, then falling slightly it passes below the crest of a ridge and again climbs to the foot of a hill on which a red-roofed convent church and buildings stand as a landmark that can be seen from Jaffa.  On the opposite side of the road is a substantial house, the summer retreat of the German Consul in Jerusalem, whose staff traded in Jordan Holy Water; and this house, now empty, sheltered a divisional general from the bad weather while the operations for the capture of the Holy City were in preparation.  I have a grateful recollection of this building, for in it the military attaches and I stayed before the Official Entry into Jerusalem, and its roof saved us from one inclement night on the bleak hills.  On the 20th November the Turks did their best to keep the place under German ownership.  The hill on which it stands was well occupied by men under cover of thick stone walls, the convent gardens on the opposite side of the highway was packed with Turkish infantry, and across the deep valley to the