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The 180th Brigade, fresh and strong but still wet and muddy, went forward rapidly over the boulders on the hills east of the wadi Beit Hannina and occupied the rugged height of Shafat at half-past one. Shafat is about two miles north of Jerusalem.
When we reached the tableland we had to go a long way round to avoid a good many little wadis which were all quite steep, before we reached the water. At the edge of the tableland are some little shelters used by hunters to shoot gazelle, which come down the gullies that to us appeared, inaccessible. Near the water the soldiers made us climb down to the first story of a small wadi, where we sheltered under a shelf of rock which overhangs the whole end of it. When I was cool, I clambered up and found a hollow or depression above our heads, with a few tufts of grass and some shrubs, so I took down some bits of shrubs as 'samples on appro' to the horses, and as they did approve, they were sent up to graze. We lay on our saddle-cloths till three, pretty hungry, when the eight camels came, and a good long time after the others arrived also the relation of the sultan Sal
Immediately below this cave in the Wadi Nahast are the ruins of an extensive Sabæan town, in the centre of which is a natural hole 150 feet deep and about 50 feet in diameter; around this hole are the remains of walls, and the columns of a large entrance gate.
Still the men marched admirably and by 17.00 the Battalion was at the Wadi Hesi, twelve miles north of Gaza, where the B.G.C. gave orders to secure the ridges on the other side of the wadi. It was an interesting situation. The Battalion had halted on the shore, on which it had been marching all day, half a mile or so south of the Wadi Hesi.
"As soon as it was seen that the Turks had evacuated Gaza, on the morning of the 7th, a part of the force pushed along the coast to the mouth of the Wadi Hesi, some 8 miles north of Gaza, so as to turn the Wadi Hesi line and prevent the enemy making any stand there.
The main attack was to be pushed home south of the Wadi Saba by the 74th and 60th Divisions, and at the same time the enemy's extreme left flank was to be turned by the cavalry, who were to make a wide detour through very difficult and waterless country and attack Beersheba from the east, and, if possible, cut off the retreat of the garrison of the Beersheba area.
For obvious reasons the railway could not be brought too near the wadi; indeed, it was at this stage, I believe, that the branch line running eastward to our right flank was begun, and despite the constant attentions of enemy aircraft this work was carried on steadily and without pause.
We then marched back some four miles to the Dorset House area, where we at once got started on intensive training for open warfare, varied with some very hurried musketry in the Wadi Ghuzzeh.
The rough stones for the approaches and embankments came from higher up, where the Turks by their bombing activities had kindly saved the engineers the trouble of blasting. At the appointed place and time the line curved in towards the bridge, crossed it, and having reached Shellal proceeded along the wadi to Gamli, thence to Karm, some ten miles from Beersheba.
The Turkish force had been stiffened with Germans and Austrians, and was under the command of the German General Von Kressenstein. It moved from the Turkish railroad at Auja on the frontier, and advanced by way of Maghdaba and the Wadi El Arish to El Arish, and thence westward along the caravan route towards Egypt.
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