this fighting was going on about Burkah the 155th Brigade went ahead up a road which the cavalry said was strongly held.  They got eight miles north of Esdud, and were in advance of the cavalry, intending to try to secure the two heights and villages of Katrah and Mughar on the following day.  Katrah was a village on a long mound south of Mughar, native mud huts constituting its southern part, whilst separated from it on the northern side by some gardens was a pretty little Jewish settlement whose red-tiled houses and orderly well-cared-for orchards spoke of the industry of these settlers in Zion.  All over the hill right up to the houses the cactus flourished, and the hedges were a replica of the terrible obstacles at Gaza.  From Katrah the ground sloped down to the flat on all four sides, so that the village seemed to stand on an island in the plain.  A mile due west of it was Beshshit, while one mile to the north across more than one wadi stood El Mughar at the southern end of an irregular line of hills which separated Yebnah and Akir, which will be more readily recognised, the former as the Jamnia of the Jews and the latter as Ekron, one of the famous Philistine cities.  While the 75th Division was forcing back the line Turmus-Kustineh-Yasur and Mesmiyeh athwart the road to Junction Station the 155th Brigade attacked Katrah.  The whole of the artillery of two divisions opened a bombardment of the line at eight o’clock, but the Turks showed more willingness to concede ground on the east than at Katrah, where the machine-gun fire was exceptionally heavy.  General Pollak M’Call decided to assault the village with the bulk of his brigade, and seizing a rifle and bayonet from a wounded man, led the charge himself, took the village, and gradually cleared the enemy out of the cactus-enclosed gardens.  The enemy losses at Katrah were very heavy.  In crossing a rectangular field many Turks were caught in a cross fire from our machine guns, and over 400 dead were counted in this one field.

CHAPTER XI

TWO YEOMANRY CHARGES

In front of the mud huts of Mughar, so closely packed together on the southern slope of the hill that the dwellings at the bottom seemed to keep the upper houses from falling into the plain, there was a long oval garden with a clump of cypresses in the centre, the whole surrounded by cactus 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.