“I witnessed the frantic efforts of the people as they built one huge obstacle at the corner of Queen Street, facing the pier. Houses were ruthlessly entered, great pieces of heavy furniture--wardrobes, pianos, and sideboards--were piled anyhow upon each other. Men got coils of barbed wire, and lashed the various objects together with seamanlike alacrity. Even paving-stones were prised up with pickaxes and crowbars, and placed in position. The women, in deadly terror of the Germans, helped the men in this hastily improvised barrier, which even as I watched grew higher across the street until it reached the height of the first-storey windows in one great heterogeneous mass of every article conceivable--almost like a huge rubbish heap. “This was only one of many similar barricades. There were others in the narrow Pier Street, in Wellington Street, Castle Street, south of Prince’s Dock, in St. John’s Street, between Queen’s Dock and Prince’s Dock, while the bridges over the river Hull were all defended by hastily improvised obstructions. In Jennings Street, on Sculcoates Bridge, and also the two railway bridges of the Hull and Barnsley and North-Eastern Railways were similarly treated. Thus the whole of the town west of the river Hull was at any rate temporarily protected from any landing eastward. “The whole town now seemed in a perfect ferment. Wildest rumours were afloat everywhere, and the streets by six o’clock that morning were so crowded that it was almost impossible to move. “Hundreds found themselves outside the barriers; indeed, the people in the Southcoates, Drypool, and Alexandra Wards were in the threatened zone, and promptly began to force their way into the town by escalading the huge barricades and scrambling over their crests. “Foreigners--sailors and others--had a rough time of it, many of them being thrust back and threatened by the indignant townspeople. Each time a foreigner was discovered there was a cry of ‘spy,’ and many innocent men had fortunate escapes. “The river seemed clear, when about seven o’clock there suddenly loomed up from seaward a great, ugly, grey-hulled warship flying the German flag. The fear was realised. Her sight caused absolute panic, for with a sudden swerve she calmly moored opposite the Alexandra Dock. “Eager-eyed seamen, some of them Naval Reservists, recognised that she was cleared for action, and even while we were looking, two more similar vessels anchored in positions from which their guns could completely dominate the town. “No sooner had these swung to their anchors than, from the now sunlit horizon, there rose the distant smoke of many steamers, and as the moments of terror dragged by, there came slowly into the offing a perfect fleet of all sizes of steamers, escorted by cruisers and destroyers.