As soon as it was light enough to see, the troops commenced to move out into the Plain of Esdraelon. They were none too soon. As the 12th Brigade, forming the advanced guard of the division, debouched from the defile, a Turkish battalion, with several machine guns, was deploying in the plain below.
The 2nd Lancers were leading, accompanied by the armoured cars. Taking in the situation at a glance, Captain Davison, commanding the regiment, ordered the cars to engage the enemy in front with their machine guns, supported by one squadron of his regiment. Taking the other two squadrons with him, he galloped along a slight depression to the right, and charged the Turks on their left flank. The two squadrons went right through the enemy from left to right, killing forty-six with the lance. The survivors of the battalion, about 500 in all, were taken prisoners. The Turks fought well, firing steadily till they were ridden down, but the rapid work of the cavalry gave them no chance. The whole action did not take more than five minutes, and furnished a perfect little example of sound shock tactics--movement and fire at right angles to one another.
Had our cavalry been a few hours later, this battalion would have been at the defile at the top of the pass, and might have caused a delay that would have been fatal to the success of the operations. The battalion came from Afule, and had been ordered to cross the mountains and move down the coast to the support of the enemy right wing. The Turks knew that their line had been broken on the coast, but they had absolutely no idea that our cavalry were through the gap.
Without a pause the 12th Brigade poured out of the pass and cantered across the plain towards Afule. The leading troops charged into the station at eight o'clock, capturing the place with little opposition. A squadron from the 14th Brigade (4th Division) rode in from the north about the same time. The garrison of the place having just been disposed of at Lejjun, few enemy troops were found here, but the Germans had an aerodrome close to the station, and this was captured intact, with three aeroplanes and their pilots and all the mechanical staff. A fourth aeroplane succeeded in getting away in the general confusion. So unconscious was the enemy of the fact that our cavalry were on the plain, that, shortly after this, an enemy aeroplane, returning from a reconnaissance, actually landed on this aerodrome, and was promptly captured intact with its pilot and observer!