us hedges of great age and strength. In the
cypresses was a nest of machine guns whose crews had a perfect view
of an advance from Katrah. The infantry had to advance over flat open
ground to the edge of the garden. The Turkish machine-gunners and
riflemen in the garden and village were supported by artillery firing
from behind the ridge at the back of the village, and although the
brigade made repeated efforts to get on, its advance was held up in
the early afternoon, and it seemed impossible to take the place by
infantry from the south in the clear light of a November afternoon.
The 6th Mounted Brigade commanded by Brigadier-General C.A.C. Godwin,
D.S.O., composed of the 1/1st Bucks Hussars, 1/1st Berkshire Yeomanry,
and 1/1st Dorset Yeomanry, the Berkshire battery Royal Horse
Artillery, and the 17th Machine Gun Squadron--old campaigners with
the Egyptian Expeditionary Force--had worked round to the left of
the Lowlanders and had reached a point about two miles south-west of
Yebnah, that place having been occupied by the 8th Mounted Brigade,
composed of the 1/1st City of London Yeomanry, 1/1st County of London
Yeomanry, and the 1/3rd County of London Yeomanry. At half-past twelve
the Bucks Hussars less one squadron and the Berks battery, which were
in the rear of the brigade, advanced _via_ Beshshit to the wadi Janus,
a deep watercourse with precipitous banks running across the plain
east of Yebnah and joining the wadi Rubin. One squadron of the Bucks
Hussars had entered Yebnah from the east, co-operating with the 8th
Brigade. General Godwin was told over the telephone that the infantry
attack was held up and that his brigade would advance to take Mughar.
This order was confirmed by telegram a quarter of an hour later as
the brigadier was about to reconnoitre a line of approach. The Berks
battery began shelling Mughar and the ridge behind the village from a
position half a mile north of Beshshit screened by some trees. Brigade
headquarters joined the Bucks Hussars headquarters in the wadi Janus
half a mile south-east of Yebnah, where Lieut.-Colonel the Hon. F.
Cripps commanding the Bucks Hussars had, with splendid judgment,
already commenced a valuable reconnaissance, the Dorset and Berks
Yeomanry being halted in a depression out of sight a few hundred yards
behind. The Turks had the best possible observation, and, knowing they
were holding up the infantry, concentrated their attention upon the
cavalry. Therein they sh