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That night the 21st and 23rd London of the 60th Division arrived to take over, and the Battalion moved back through Biddu and Kubeibeh to a rest area below Beit Anan, where No. 1 company had spent such a terrible night on the 20th. Rumours of rest and reserve, of letters and cigarettes, were current.
"On the morning of the 13th November, the situation was, that the enemy had strung out his force on a front of 20 miles from El Kubeibeh on the north to about Beit Jibrin to the south. The right half of his line ran roughly parallel to, and only about five miles in front of, the railway to the north of Junction Station, which was the main line of supply from the north."
For artillery it was practically impossible, and though they did wonders in bringing guns up over the roughest of roadless hills, the assistance they could render the infantry was very slight. Nor are the transport or camel leaders likely to forget that trek, and it was greatly to Mr Drysdale's credit that he managed to get them all safely to Kubeibeh early on the morning of the 8th December.
For twenty hours those men, in their tropical kit, endured the enemy's sniping and machine-gun firing, and the bitter cold and hunger and misery, hearing in the early morning the wind-borne chimes of the chapel bell in Kubeibeh calling the brothers to matins, until dawn found many of them unable to speak.
One officer and 30 other ranks formed a military cordon round Kubeibeh, and 1 officer and 50 men proceeded to Enab to represent Scotland in the Guard of Honour which it was hoped would be required for the entry into Jerusalem. Thirty more for A.S.C. fatigues at Kuryet-el-Enab, and another lot to fetch from Latron a lot of donkeys, which were to be added to our transport establishment.
The village did sit on a hill, but, unfortunately, the hill was commanded on every side by much higher hills and Dukka was of no tactical value. So the Brigadier decided to move on Beit Anan, a similar village situated on the hill commanding Dukka from the south, and on the road to Kubeibeh, the ancient Emmaus.
A new road was begun between Latron and Beit Likia, and another from Enab to Kubeibeh, and these, even in a rough state of completion, eased the situation very considerably. An enormous amount of labour was devoted to the main road. The surface was in bad order and was getting worse every hour with the passage of lorry traffic.
The wall was approached with some difficulty, climbed, and only then was it certain that the Turk had gone and had evacuated his stronghold. The Battalion then moved into the garden and occupied Kubeibeh. This village was mainly a colony of Franciscan brothers, Italian and Spanish, who had a magnificent church and hospice and under whose shadow the native houses were built.
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