POSITION OF THE SAXON CORPS TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER LANDING IN ESSEX 148 POSITION OF THE GERMAN FORCES TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER LANDING AT GOOLE 157 GERMANY’S POINTS OF EMBARKATION 167 BATTLE OF PURLEIGH, 6TH SEPTEMBER 193 BATTLE OF SHEFFIELD 218 POSITIONS OF OPPOSING FORCES, 8TH SEPTEMBER 227 BATTLE OF ROYSTON, SUNDAY, 9TH SEPTEMBER 232 BATTLE OF CHELMSFORD. POSITION ON THE EVENING OF 11TH SEPTEMBER 258 THE DEFENCE OF SHEFFIELD 268 BOOK II THE LINES OF LONDON 288 BATTLE OF HARLOW--FIRST PHASE 296 BATTLE OF HARLOW--FINAL PHASE 307 GERMAN ATTACK ON THE LINES OF LONDON 315 THE BOMBARDMENT AND DEFENCES OF LONDON ON 20TH AND 21ST SEPTEMBER 337 LONDON AFTER THE BOMBARDMENT 365 DAMAGE DONE IN THE CITY BY THE BOMBARDMENT 369 DAMAGE DONE IN WESTMINSTER BY THE BOMBARDMENT 384 SHETLAND ISLANDS 433 THE DEFENCES OF SOUTH LONDON ON 26TH SEPTEMBER 457 SCENE OF THE STREET FIGHTING IN SHOREDITCH ON 27TH SEPTEMBER 478 BOOK I THE ATTACK CHAPTER I THE SURPRISE Two of the myriad of London’s night-workers were walking down Fleet Street together soon after dawn on Sunday morning, 2nd September. The sun had not yet risen. That main artery of London traffic, with its irregular rows of closed shops and newspaper offices, was quiet and pleasant in the calm, mystic light before the falling of the smoke-pall. Only at early morning does the dear old City look its best; in that one quiet, sweet hour when the night’s toil has ended and the day’s has not yet begun. Only in that brief interval at the birth of day, when the rose tints of the sky glow slowly into gold, does the giant metropolis repose--at least, as far as its business streets are concerned--for at five o’clock the toiling millions begin to again pour in from all points of the compass, and the stress and storm of London life at once recommences. And in that hour of silent charm the two grey-bearded sub-editors, though engaged in offices of rival newspapers, were making their way homeward to Dulwich to spend Sunday in a well-earned rest, and were chatting “shop” as Press men do. “I suppose you had the same trouble to get that Yarmouth story through?” asked Fergusson, the news-editor of the _Weekly Dispatch_, as they crossed Whitefriars Street. “We got about half a column, and then the wire shut down.”