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Before dark they had advanced their line from the left of the 60th Division in Rafat past the east of Beitunia to the hill east of Abu el Ainein, and this strong line of hills once secured, everybody was satisfied that the Turks' possession of Ramallah and Bireh was only a question of hours.
The nature of the ground was entirely favourable to defence and for a time the Turk took full advantage of it, but our artillery soon made him lose his stomach for fighting, and doubtless the sound of many shell-bursts beyond Ramallah made him think that his rock sangars and the deep ravines in front of him were not protection against a foe who fought Nature with as much determination as he fought the Turkish soldier.
But the pride of the engine yard was the 'Jerusalem Cuckoo' some prophetic eye must have seen its future employment on the light line between Jerusalem and Ramallah though in popularity it was run close by the 'Bulfin-ch, a play upon the name of the Commander of the XXIst Corps, for which it did sterling service. The Navy formed part of the picture as well.
Ramallah had been taken at nine o'clock in the morning without opposition by the 230th and 229th Brigades, and at night the 74th Division held a strong line north of the picturesque village as far as Et Tireh.
The 22nd Mounted Brigade had made an attempt to get to Ramallah from Ain Arik, but the opposition from Muntar and the high ground to the east was much too severe. Our casualties had not been inconsiderable, and in face of the enemy's superiority in numbers and guns and the strength of his position it would have been dangerous and useless to make a further attack.
A regiment of the 8th Brigade sent to reinforce the 6th Brigade on their left got within 800 yards of the hill, when the guns about Bireh and Ramallah opened on them and they were compelled to withdraw, and a Turkish counter-attack forced our forward line back slightly in the afternoon. The enemy had a plentiful supply of ammunition and made a prodigal use of it.
By two o'clock in the afternoon the 22nd Brigade got into Ain Arik and found a strong force of the enemy holding Beitunia and the hill of Muntar, a few hundred yards to the north of it, thus barring the way to Ramallah and Bireh. Rain fell copiously and the wind was chilly. After a miserable night in bivouac, the 6th Brigade was astir before daylight on the 21st.
We could look away to the north to Nebi Samwil, where the Prophet Samuel is supposed by some to have been buried. Ramallah, the seat of a school maintained by the Society of Friends, is pointed out, along with Bireh, Bethel, and Geba. Swinging on around the circle to the east, the northern end of the Dead Sea is visible, while the Mount of Olives is only a little distance below us.
Six-inch howitzers of the 378th Siege Battery had been brought up to Foka in the early hours, and all the afternoon and evening they were plastering the road from Ramallah along which the enemy were retreating. The left group defied the nests of machine guns hidden among the rocks and broke down the defence.
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