human
valour could have sufficed to capture it, and that not once but four
times. There was none of the glamour of leadership about this fight. In
the pitch blackness every man had to lead himself and it says much that
all led enemywards.

A day's rest, and the Battalion was rear-guard to the Brigade as far as
el Butani, where the 5th A. & S.H. and the 7th H.L.I. were set to clear
the enemy from their positions on the ridges south-west of Esdud. The
6th H.L.I. were in support and our Battalion was not called upon. Next
day was Sunday and Colonel Morrison spent the day in reorganising the
Battalion into two companies; No. 1 company being commanded by Captain
W.L. Buchanan and No. 2 company by Captain R.H. Morrison, while six
Lewis guns went into battalion reserve. The Australian Mounted Division
were at Esdud next day and their innate love for chickens caused a large
picquet of the battalion to be sent into the town to preserve order. The
picquet squatted on the public square, gazed at solemnly by bearded and
unclean descendants of the Philistines and unmoved by the rustlings and
stifled laughter of hidden females. The town itself is almost certainly
built on the site of the ancient Ashdod, one of the Philistine
strongholds, but, if the architecture of the houses lends colour to the
story of Samson's pulling down a temple, it also makes it apparent that
Goliath must have had great difficulty in finding a lodging. No house in
Esdud could have afforded shelter for more than three quarters of him.

For three days the Battalion remained at Esdud and on the 12th moved out
against Yebnah. On the march signs were multiplying to assure us that
the enemy was not standing upon the order of his going, but this day we
expected to get into touch again. There is a long, low line of hills
running north and south through Katrah and Mughair to Zernukah, and here
the enemy stood to guard the road to Ramleh and his lateral
communications to Jerusalem. The Battalion was fortunate for Yebnah fell
without a shot. Not so fortunate the 155th Brigade, for they had a
very stiff day's fighting at Katrah, and only the arrival of the
Yeomanry Division enabled them to carry the position. However by 16.00
the Turks were again in flight on the road to Jaffa. At Yebnah the
Battalion remained for five days, holding an outpost line. From the roof
of a house, which was our observation post, we could see the gleaming
white tower of the monastery of Ramleh