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Updated: June 16, 2025
The first phase of the operations having thus ended successfully quite early in the day, the second stage was entered upon. Field guns were rushed forward at the gallop over ground broken by shallow wadis and up and down a very uneven stony surface.
In many of the wadis, and particularly in the gorges between Wadi Feiran and Wadi Esh Sheikh, there are water-worn banks showing that, at no very remote period, the winter floods must have risen fifty feet in channels where the growth of acacias and tamarisks and the testimony of the Arabs concur to prove that they have not risen six feet within the memory or tradition of the present inhabitants.
Except in the wadis the plain between Yebnah and Mughar offered no cover and was within easy range of the enemy's guns. The wadi Janus was a deep slit in the ground with sides of clay falling almost sheer to the stony bottom.
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.
The intermediate country consisted of approximately flat "merjs," intersected with wadis, and dotted about with hills, villages, and other features of tactical importance. At this time of the year it somewhat resembled the general appearance of Exmoor.
It was epic fighting, and I have not described it when narrating the infantry's daily work because it is best told in a connected story. If the foot sloggers had a bad time, the conditions were infinitely worse for mounted troops. The ground was as steep, but the hillsides were rougher, the wadis narrower, the patches of open flat fewer than in the districts where infantry operated.
From a height of two thousand feet above sea level it descended in a series of jerks, sometimes abruptly, sometimes across a short plateau; it wound round innumerable and execrable corners, it was crossed by wadis and streams from all directions, through nearly twenty miles of unimaginable desolation, and finally, after passing the awful travesty that once was Jericho, it reached the river.
Meanwhile two brigades of the Anzac Mounted Division were moving eastwards from Muntar over the hills and wadis down to the Dead Sea, whence turning northwards they marched towards Nebi Musa to try to get on to the Jordan valley flats to threaten the Turks in rear. The terrain was appallingly bad and horses had to be led, the troops frequently proceeding in Indian file.
Flowers also abound, and though they are usually small, I have counted as many as twenty varieties in an area of as many feet, and in some of the deep "wadis," as the mountain valleys are called, wild plants grow in such profusion as to give them the appearance of rock gardens. In aspect the desert varies very much, according to the time of day or changing effect of light.
The country beyond was very much cut up with smaller wadis, which at this time of year were a mass of wild flowers which grew most luxuriantly, and would have been welcome in most herbaceous borders; the anchusas to name one were several feet high, and covered with brilliant blue blooms, but the brightest effect was that of fields of mauve daisies.
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