warfare for months, digging and sitting in trenches, putting
out wire, going out on listening patrols, sniping and doing all the
drudgery in the lines of earthworks. They were hard and strong, their
health having considerably improved since the early summer, but at the
end of September the infantry were by no means march fit. Realising
that, if General Allenby's operations were successful, and no one
doubted that, we should have a period of open warfare when troops
would be called upon to make long marches and undergo the privations
entailed by transport difficulties, General Bulfin brought as many
men as he could spare from the trenches back to Deir el Belah and the
coast, where they had route marches over the sand for the restoration
of their marching powers. Gradually he accumulated supplies in
sheltered positions just behind the front. In three dumps were
collected seven days' mobile rations, ammunition, water, and
engineers' material. Tracks were constructed, cables buried, concealed
gun positions and brigade and battalion headquarters made, and from
the 25th October troops were ready to move off with two days' rations
on the man. Should the enemy retire, General Hill's 52nd (Lowland)
Division was to march up the shore beneath the sand cliffs, get across
the wadi Hesi at the mouth, detach a force to proceed towards Askalon,
and then move eastward down to the ridge opposite Deir Sineid, and, by
securing the bridge and crossings of the wadi Hesi, prevent the enemy
establishing himself on the north bank of the wadi. The operations
on the night of November 1-2 were conducted by Major-General Hare,
commanding the 54th Division, to which General Leggatt's 156th
Infantry Brigade was temporarily attached. The latter brigade was
given the important task of capturing Umbrella Hill and El Arish
Redoubt. Umbrella Hill was to be taken first, and as it was
anticipated the enemy would keep up a strong artillery fire for a
considerable time after the position had been taken, and that his fire
would interfere with the assembly and advance of troops detailed
for the second phase, the first phase was timed to start four hours
earlier than the second. For several days the guns had opened intense
fire at midnight and again at 3 A.M. so that the enemy should not
attach particular importance to our artillery activity on the night of
action, and a creeping barrage nightly swept across No Man's Land to
clear off the chain of listening posts