comparative ease in light motor ambulances over the
Plain of Ajalon.

The arrangements for the withdrawal worked admirably. The 8th Mounted
Brigade, covering the retirement so successfully that the enemy knew
nothing about it, held on in front of Beitunia till three o'clock,
reaching Foka before dawn, while the 22nd Brigade remained covering
the northern flank till almost midnight, when it fell back to Tahta.
The Division's casualties during the day were 300 killed and wounded.
We still held the Zeitun ridge, observation was kept on Ain Arik from
El Hafy by one regiment, and troops were out on many parts north and
east of Tahta and Foka.

On the next two days there was nothing beyond enemy shelling and
patrol encounters. On the 24th demonstrations were made against
Beitunia to support the left of the 52nd Division's attack on El Jib,
but the enemy was too strong to permit of the yeomanry proceeding
more than two miles east of Foka. The roadmakers had done an enormous
amount of navvy work on the track between Foka and Tahta. They had
laboured without cessation, breaking up rock, levering out boulders
with crowbars, and doing a sort of rough-and-ready levelling, and by
the night of the 24th the track was reported passable for guns.
The Leicester battery R.H.A. came along it next morning without
difficulty. I did not see the road till some time later and its
surface had then been considerably improved, but even then one felt
the drivers of those gun teams had achieved the almost impossible. The
Leicester battery arrived at Foka just in time to unlimber and get
into action behind a fig orchard in order to disperse a couple of
companies of enemy infantry which were working round the left flank of
the Staffordshire Yeomanry at Khurbet Meita, below the Zeitun height.
The enemy brought up reinforcements and made an attack in the late
afternoon, but this was also broken up. The Berkshire battery reached
Tahta the following day and, with the Leicester gunners, answered the
Turks' long-range shelling throughout the day and night. On the 27th
the enemy made a determined attempt to compel us to withdraw from the
Zeitun ridge, which is an isolated hill commanding the valleys on both
sides. The 6th Mounted Brigade furnished the garrison of 3 officers
and 60 men, who occupied a stone building on the summit. Against them
the enemy put 600 infantry with machine guns, and they also brought a
heavy artillery fire to bear on the building