e Turks
held the monastery and its beautiful gardens and the hill about Amwas
until late in the morning. Having driven them out, the 75th pushed
on to gain the pass into the hills and to begin two days of fighting
which earned the unstinted praise of General Bulfin who witnessed it.
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 Turks had
constructed defences on these hills and held them with riflemen and
machine guns, so that these positions dominated all approaches. Our
guns had few positions from which to assist the infantry, but they did
sterling service wherever possible. In General Palin the Division
had a commander with wide experience of hill fighting on the Indian
frontier, and he brought that experience to bear in a way which must
have dumb-founded the enemy. Frontal attacks were impossible and
suicidal, and each position had to be turned by a wide movement
started a long way in rear. All units in the Division did well, the
Gurkhas particularly well, and by a continual encircling of their
flanks the Turks were compelled to leave their fastnesses and fall
back to new hill crests. Thus outwitted and outmatched the enemy
retreated to Saris, a high hill with a commanding view of the pass for
half a mile. The hill is covered with olive trees and has a village on
its eastern slope, and as the road winds at its foot and then takes
a left-handed turn to Kuryet el Enab its value for defence was
considerable.

The Turks had taken advantage of the cover to place a large body of
defenders with machine guns on the hill, but with every condition
unfavourable to us the 75th Division had routed out the enemy before
three o'clock and were ready to move forward as soon as the guns
could get up the pass. Rain was falling heavily, the road surface was
clinging and treacherous, and, worse still, the road had been blown up
in several places. The guns could not advance to be of service that
day, and the infantry had, therefore, to remain where they were for
the night. There was a good deal of sniping, but Nature was more
unkind than the enemy, who received more than he gave. The troops were
wearing light summer clothing, drill shorts and tunics, and the su