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We got into camp on a rocky slope near Latron about dusk, and almost at once were warned to be ready to start again at 9 P.M. to march another ten miles and take over part of the line in the hills. This was soon altered to starting at 3 A.M. owing to better news from the front, and again to 8 A.M. the next morning as the situation calmed down.

For nearly three miles from Latron the road passes through a flat valley flanked by hills till it reaches a guardhouse and khan at the foot of the pass which then rises rapidly to Saris, the difference in elevation in less than four miles being 1400 feet. Close to the guardhouse begin the hills which tower above the road.

The scheme was that the 75th Division would advance along the main Jerusalem road, which cuts into the hills about three miles east of Latron, and occupy Kuryet el Enab, and that the Lowland Division should go through Ludd, strike eastwards and advance to Beit Likia to turn from the north the hills through which the road passes, the Yeomanry Mounted Division on the left flank of the 52nd Division to press on to Bireh, on the Nablus road about a dozen miles north of Jerusalem.

General Bulfin realised it would be risking heavy losses to ask his troops to make another immediate effort against a numerically stronger enemy in positions of his own choice, and he therefore applied to General Allenby that the XXth Corps the 60th Division was already at Latron attached to the XXIst Corps might take over the line.

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.

There was still a strong and virile force on the seaside, though that was adequately dealt with, but the centre was very weak, and the enemy's only chance of preventing the mounted troops from working through and round his right centre was to fall back on Abu Shushe and Tel Jezar to cover Latron, with its good water supply and the main metalled road where it enters the hills on the way to Jerusalem.

On the 17th November, the yeomanry commenced to move from Ramleh through the hills direct on Bireh, viâ the valley of Ajalon and Lower Beth-horon; and, by the evening of the 18th, one portion of the yeomanry had reached Lower Beth-horon, while another portion had occupied Shilta. On the 19th, the infantry commenced its advance. Latron and Anwas were captured in the morning.

Those who did not say so behaved in a way to show that they felt it. They were very gallant, perfect knights, these soldiers of the King. When the 52nd Division were moving out of Ludd on the 19th November the 75th Division were fighting hard about Latron, where the Turks held the monastery and its beautiful gardens and the hill about Amwas until late in the morning.

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 corps which actually took Jerusalem advanced up the new road from Latron through Kuryet el Enab, identified by some as Kirjath-jearim where the Philistines returned the Ark, but that road would have been denied to us if we had not made good the ancient path from the Vale of Ajalon to Gibeon.