Page:The Invasion of 1910.djvu/492

 County Council, living at Creek Road, Battersea. His story, written by himself, and subsequently published in the Daily Express, was as follows:—

"Five days have passed since the Germans bombarded us. I have been out of work since the seventh, when the Council suspended greater part of the tramway service, my line from Westminster Bridge included. I have a wife and four children dependent upon me, and, unfortunately, all of them are starving. We are waiting. The Defenders still urge us to wait. But this waiting is very wearisome. For nineteen days have I wandered about London in idleness. I have mixed with the crowds in the West End; I have listened to the orators in the parks; I helped to build the big barricade in the Caledonian Road; I watched the bombardment from the waterside at Wandsworth, and I saw, on the following day, German soldiers across on West Wharf.

"Since that day we South Londoners have barricaded ourselves so strongly that it will, I am certain, take Von Kronhelm all his time to turn us out. Our defences are abundant and strong. Not only are there huge barricades everywhere, but hundreds of houses and buildings have been put in a state of defence, especially the positions commanding the main thoroughfares leading to the bridges. As a member of the League of Defenders, I have been served with a gun, and practise daily with thousands of others upon the new range in Battersea Park. My post, however, is at the barricade across Tarn's Corner and Newington Causeway, opposite the Elephant and Castle.

"Every road to the bridges at that converging point is blocked. The entrances to St. George's Road, London Road, Walworth Road, and Newington Butts are all strongly barricaded, the great obstructions reaching up to the second storey windows. The New Kent Road remains open, as there is a barricade at the end of Great Dover Street. The houses all round are also fortified. From Tarn's, quantities of goods,