On this occasion, however, there was little doubt. The odds were so clearly against the Conservatives that, unless they had some stratagem up their sleeve (which was always very possible), it was decidedly to be the Liberals' night. The good-natured and even sympathetic police-inspector in charge capped the official sanction by consenting to blow his whistle to start us. He stood, watch in hand, with the whistle between his lips and his eyes on the minute-hand. Dead silence prevailed all around. Suddenly the whistle shrilled out, the crowd shouted, and the two forces rushed at one another, the narrowing space between them netted with the parabolas of pease-meal bags, which burst like shells where they struck. The concussion of the adversaries took place somewhere in the midst of a dense cloud of fine yellow dust. But out of that cloud, in the direction of the Blue rooms, there emerged a writhing bulk of men. It was body to body now; there was throwing only on the outskirts. The Liberals were as three to one, and the Blues were crumpled up and driven before us. Our advance was irresistible; there was no stand or halt until they had retreated right into their rooms. In less than thirty seconds from the whistle we were in the Conservative doorway. But there we stopped, for all their defence was opposed to us. In that doorway there was a tight, breathless jam--as severe an experience as I ever want to have. Our own men from the outside and the Tories from the back poured in a steady fusillade of pease-meal, of which the doorway was the focus. The pease-meal bag does not injure, but if it explodes in the face it fills mouth, nose, ears, and lungs with its nauseous, choking dust. Here there were hundreds bursting within a few square feet. The atmosphere was unimaginable. With eyes tightly shut--one could not see an eighth of an inch if they were open--jammed off one's feet, and with a roaring in the ears, we remained there, unable even to think, but possessed with one insensate idea--to shove, shove, shove, whenever we could get the slightest purchase. And presently the hoses were at it. The enemy had brought them away from the loopholes (where they were useless) and taken them back into the room. From there they played relentlessly on the jam in the door, the solid jets striking like rods of iron. Behind us there were gusts of charging that shook our wedged mass. Parties of half-a-dozen would run back ten yards and then hurl themselves in a solid body at the pack. But still the Tories defended their citadel most pluckily, holding on to the doorway with desperate tenacity.