shown in the village instantly drew a hail of bullets from three sides.  Reinforcements were on the way up, and the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry battalion of the Royal Highlanders were prepared to make a flank attack from their outpost line three-quarters of a mile south-east of Foka to relieve the Devons, but this would have endangered the safety of the outpost line without reducing the fire from the heights, and as the Fife and Forfar men would have had to cross two deep wadis under enfilade fire on their way to Foka their adventure would have been a perilous one.  By this time three out of four of the Devons’ company commanders were wounded and the casualties were increasing.  The officer commanding the battalion therefore decided, after seven hours of terrific fighting, that the village of Foka was no longer tenable, and authority was given him to withdraw.  In their last attack the enemy put 1000 men against the village, and it was not until the O.C.  Devons had seen this strength that he proposed the place should be evacuated.  His men had put up a great fight.  The battalion went into action 762 strong; it came out 488.  Three officers were killed and nine wounded, and 49 other ranks killed and 132 wounded.  Thirteen were wounded and missing and 78 missing.  In Foka to-day you will see most of the battered houses repaired, but progress through the streets is partially barred by the graves of Devon yeomen who were buried where they fell.  It was not possible to hew a grave in rock, therefore earth and stone were piled up round the bodies, so that in at least two spots you find several graves serving as buttresses to rude dwellings.  On one of these graves, beside the identification tablet of two strong sons of Devon, you will find, on a piece of paper inserted in a slit cut into wood torn from an ammunition box, the words ‘Grave of unknown Turk.’  Friend and foe share a common resting-place.  The natives of this village are more than usually friendly, and those graves seem safe in their keeping.

Between the 4th and 7th December there was a reshuffling of the troops holding the line to enable a concentration of the divisions entrusted with the attack on the defences covering Jerusalem.  The 10th Division relieved the 229th and 230th Brigades of the 74th Division and extended its line to cover Beit Dukku, a point near and west of Et Tireh, to Tahta, and when the enemy retired from the immediate front of the 10th Division’s left, Hellabi and Suffa were occupied.  The Australian Mounted Division also slightly advanced its line.  On the night of December 5 the 231st Brigade relieved the 60th Division in the Beit Izza and Nebi Samwil positions, and on December 6 the line held by the 74th was extended to a point about a mile and a half north of Kulonieh.  The 53rd Division had passed through Hebron, and its advance was timed to reach the Bethlehem-Beit Jala district on December 7.  The information gained by the XXth Corps led the staff to estimate the strength of the enemy opposite