“I stood in the wrecked room covered with dust and blood, wondering what the end was to be. To fire my rifle in that moment was useless. Not only did the German artillery train their guns upon the barricade, but on the houses which we had placed in a state of defence. They pounded away at them, and in a few minutes had reduced several to ruins, burying in the débris the gallant Londoners defending them. The house upon the roof of which I had, earlier in the day, taken up my position, was struck by two shells in rapid succession, and simply demolished, over forty brave men losing their lives in the terrible catastrophe. “Again the enemy, after wrecking our defences, retired smartly up the hill as the terrible bombardment of London ceased. Our losses in the shelling of the barricade had been terrible. The roadway behind us was strewn with dead and dying, and with others I helped to bandage the wounded and remove them to private houses in the Adelaide and King Henry’s Roads, where the doctors were attending to their injuries. In Haverstock Hill lay the bodies of many women, more than one with a revolver still grasped in her stiffened hand. Ah! the scenes at that barricade defy description. They were awful. The pavements were like those of slaughter-houses and the whole road to beyond the Adelaide had been utterly wrecked, there being not a single house intact. “And yet we rallied. Reinforcements came up from the direction of Regent’s Park--a great, unorganised crowd of armed men and women, doubly enraged by the cruel bombardment and the burning of their homes. With these reinforcements we resolved to still hold the débris of our barricade--to still dispute the advance of the invader, knowing that one division must certainly come down that road. So we reorganised our force and waited--waited while the sun sank with its crimson afterglow and darkness crept on, watching the red fires of London reflected upon the night sky, and wondering each one of us what was to be our fate.