On the same day another wanderer returned, whose Odyssey was even more remarkable. When the headquarters of the Australian Mounted Division had been at Khurbet Jeladiyeh on the 13th, the divisional interpreter, a Greek named Theodore, had overheard certain remarks made by a man in the village, who was dressed as a native. The man was arrested, and proved to be a Turkish spy. Terrified at finding himself discovered, the miserable wretch begged for his life, and promised, if he was spared, to put us on the track of the man who, he said, was the head of the native spy organisation of the Turkish Army. He was told to say what he knew, and we would consider whether his information was worth his life. He then gave particulars of the man, who, it appeared, was _his own father_, and said that he believed him to be at Beit Jibrin.
Accordingly the A.P.M. of the division set off next day with two cars of a light car patrol[13] and the interpreter, to try and surprise the arch spy at Beit Jibrin. The party arrived at the village about nine o'clock in the morning, to find the bird flown. On making inquiries, they learnt that he had gone on--to quote the report of the A.P.M.--'to a place called Ram Allah Rakhman, which we took to be somewhere near Bethlehem, but subsequently discovered to be the same place!' The enemy's right group was at this time in the neighbourhood of Hebron, and his left group was west of Junction Station, so that Bethlehem was a good fifteen miles behind his line. But this trifling fact did not in any way deter the pursuers. What could the Turkish Army do against two Ford cars _and_ two machine guns? They blithely took the track to Bethlehem.
Shortly afterwards they came suddenly upon a patrol of six Turkish cavalrymen. 'We opened fire at once,' so runs the A.P.M.'s report, 'and killed the men and five of the horses. The sixth horse unluckily escaped, but we came up with it later on and destroyed it, thus leaving no trace of the enemy patrol!' A few miles farther on, they encountered another, and larger, body of enemy cavalry. 'This time,' says the report, 'there were about thirty of them, but, as we came upon them unawares, we had no difficulty in driving them off, after killing a good few, and we then proceeded on our way.'