Each lot was quickly hustled out of sight, and the squadrons returned to their lairs, to await the coming of the next. Only one battalion, a German one, tried to put up any fight, and succeeded in getting a machine gun into action, but it was ridden down at once. None of the other German troops did any better than the Turks.
Some time during the night, information of the state of affairs at Jenin evidently got back to the enemy in the hills about Nablus, for the supply of prisoners suddenly ran dry. By this time the brigade had got over 8000, and needed help in handling them. In response to a message sent back to the divisional headquarters at Lejjun, the 4th A.L.H. Brigade, with a section of the Notts Battery R.H.A., left that place at half-past four on the morning of September the 21st, and marched to Jenin. An extraordinary sight met the brigade on its arrival. The whole plain seemed to be covered with prisoners, motor cars, lorries, wagons, animals, and stores, in an inextricable confusion. In and out of this mass the sorely tried Australian troopers pushed their way, sweating and swearing, every now and then riding savagely at the hordes of natives hovering on the outskirts of the crowd like a flock of vultures, and looting the stores that strewed the ground; anon pressing into the throng again, to round up a group of straying prisoners. Over all presided the stocky figure of the brigadier,[25] like the leader of a gigantic school picnic, unhurried and efficient.
Jenin was the enemy's main supply and ordnance depot for his VIIth and VIIIth Armies, and very large quantities of valuable stores of all sorts were captured here, together with several well-equipped workshops and three hospitals. There were twenty-four burnt aeroplanes, and one intact, on the aerodrome, and a number of engines and a quantity of rolling stock in the station. In some caves near by were found large stores of German beer and wine, and a lot of excellent tinned food, and, in a wagon abandoned on the road, there were nearly £20,000 in gold. The two troopers who were detailed to guard this money sat on the boxes of bullion all day, without knowing what was in them, and have been kicking themselves ever since! This gold was of the greatest use to the Corps later on, when we were living on the country, and had to buy all our food and forage. Among the minor captures was a quantity of photographic negatives belonging to the official photographer with the German forces, one of which depicted some of our guns which were lost in the second Amman raid. Also a British motor cycle, captured from us at the first battle of Gaza, eighteen months before.