The Invasion Part 28

WILL YOU REMAIN IN COWARDLY INACTIVITY?

The German Eagle flies over London. Hull, Newcastle and Birmingham are in ruins. Manchester is a German City. Norfolk, Ess.e.x, and Suffolk form a German colony.

The Kaiser's troops have brought death, ruin, and starvation upon you.

WILL YOU BECOME GERMANS?

=NO!=

Join THE DEFENDERS and fight for England.

You have England's Millions beside you.

=LET US RISE!=

Let us drive back the Kaiser's men.

Let us shoot them at sight.

Let us exterminate every single man who has desecrated English soil.

Join the New League of Defenders.

Fight for your homes. Fight for your wives. Fight for England.

FIGHT FOR YOUR KING!

The National League of Defenders' Head Offices.

Bristol, September 21st, 1910.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A COPY OF THE MANIFESTO OF THE LEAGUE OF DEFENDERS ISSUED ON SEPTEMBER 21, 1910.]

In the Channel, too, a number of German vessels had been seized, and one that showed fight off the North Foreland was fired upon and sunk. The public at home, however, were more interested in supremacy on land. It was all very well to have command of the sea, they argued, but it did not appear to alleviate perceptibly the hunger and privations on land.

The Germans occupied London, and while they did so all freedom in England was at an end.

A great poster headed "Englishmen," here reproduced, was seen everywhere. The whole country was flooded with it, and thousands upon thousands of heroic Britons, from the poorest to the wealthiest, clamoured to enrol themselves. The movement was an absolutely national one in every sense of the word. The name of Gerald Graham, the new champion of England's power, was upon every one's tongue. Daily he spoke in the various towns in the West of England, in Plymouth, Taunton, Cardiff, Portsmouth, and Southampton, and, a.s.sisted by the influential committee among whom were many brilliant speakers and men whose names were as household words, he aroused the country to the highest pitch of hatred against the enemy. The defenders, as they drilled in various centres through the whole of the West of England, were a strange and incongruous body. Grey-bearded Army pensioners ranged side by side with keen, enthusiastic youths, advised them and gave them the benefit of their expert knowledge. Volunteer officers in many cases a.s.sumed command, together with retired drill sergeants. The digging of trenches and the making of fortifications were a.s.signed to navvies, bricklayers, platelayers, and agricultural labourers, large bodies of whom were under railway gangers, and were ready to perform any excavation work.

The Maxims and other machine guns were mostly manned by Volunteer artillery; but instruction in the working of the Maxim was given to select cla.s.ses in Plymouth, Bristol, Portsmouth, and Cardiff. Time was of utmost value, therefore the drilling was pushed forward day and night. It was known that Von Kronhelm was already watchful of the movements of the League, and was aware daily of its growth.

In London, with the greatest secrecy, the defenders were banding together. In face of the German proclamation posted upon the walls, Londoners were holding meetings in secret and enrolling themselves.

Though the German eagle flew in Whitehall and from the summit of St.

Stephen's Tower, and though the heavy tramp of German sentries echoed in Trafalgar Square, in the quiet, trafficless streets in the vicinity, England was not yet vanquished.

The valiant men of London were still determined to sell their liberty dearly, and to lay down their lives for the freedom of their country and honour of their King.

BOOK III.

THE REVENGE.

CHAPTER I.

A BLOW FOR FREEDOM.

"'DAILY TELEGRAPH' OFFICE.

"_Oct._ 1, 2 P.M.

"Three days have pa.s.sed since the revolt at King's Cross, and each day, both on the Horse Guards' Parade and in the Park, opposite Dorchester House, there have been summary executions. Von Kronhelm is in evident fear of the excited London populace, and is endeavouring to cow them by his plain-spoken and threatening proclamations, and by these wholesale executions of any person found with arms in his or her possession. But the word of command does not abolish the responsibility of conscience, and we are now awaiting breathlessly for the word to strike the blow in revenge.

"The other newspapers are reappearing, but all that is printed each morning is first subjected to a rigorous censors.h.i.+p, and nothing is allowed to be printed before it is pa.s.sed and initialled by the two gold-spectacled censors who sit and smoke their pipes in an office to themselves. Below, we have German sentries on guard, for our journal is one of the official organs of Von Kronhelm, and what now appears in it is surely sufficient to cause our blood to boil."

"To-day, there are everywhere signs of rapidly increasing unrest.

Londoners are starving, and are now refusing to remain patient any longer. The "Daily Bulletin" of the League of Defenders, though the posting of it is punishable by imprisonment, and it is everywhere torn down where discovered by the Germans, still gives daily brief news of what is in progress, and still urges the people to wait in patience, for 'the action of the Government,' as it is sarcastically put.

"Soon after eleven o'clock this morning a sudden and clearly premeditated attack was made upon a body of the Bremen infantry, who were pa.s.sing along Oxford Street from Holborn to the Marble Arch. The soldiers were suddenly fired upon from windows of a row of shops between Newman Street and Rathbone Place, and before they could halt and return the fire they found themselves surrounded by a great armed rabble, who were emerging from all the streets leading into Oxford Street.

"While the Germans were manoeuvring, some unknown hand launched from a window a bomb into the centre of them. Next second there was a red flash, a loud report, and twenty-five of the enemy were blown to atoms.

For a few moments the soldiers were demoralised, but orders were shouted loudly by their officers, and they began a most vigorous defence. In a few seconds the fight was as fierce as that at King's Cross; for out of every street in that working-cla.s.s district lying between the Tottenham Court Road and Great Portland Street on the north, and out of Soho on the South, poured thousands upon thousands of fierce Londoners, all bent upon doing their utmost to kill their oppressors. From almost every window along Oxford Street a rain of lead was now being poured upon the troops, who vainly strove to keep their ground. Gradually, however, they were, by slow degrees, forced back into the narrow side-turnings up Newman Street, and Rathbone Place into Mortimer Street, Foley Street, Goodge Street, and Charlotte Street; and there they were slaughtered almost to a man.

"Two officers were captured by the armed mob in Tottenham Street and, after being beaten, were stood up and shot in cold blood as vengeance for those shot during the past three days at Von Kleppen's orders at Dorchester House.

"The fierce fight lasted quite an hour; and though reinforcements were sent for, yet curiously none arrived.

"The great mob, however, were well aware that very soon the iron hand of Germany would fall heavily upon them; therefore, in frantic haste, they began soon after noon to build barricades and block up the narrow streets in every direction. At the end of Rathbone Place, Newman Street, Berners Street, Wells Street, and Great Tichfield Street, huge obstructions soon appeared, while on the east all by-streets leading into Tottenham Court Road were blocked up, and the same on the west in Great Portland Street, and on the north where the district was flanked by the Euston Road. So that by two o'clock the populous neighbourhood bounded by the four great thoroughfares was rendered a fortress in itself.

"Within that area were thousands of armed men and women from Soho, Bloomsbury, Marylebone, and even from Camden Town. There they remained in defiance of Von Kronhelm's newest proclamation, which stared one in the face from every wall."

"_Later._

"The enemy were unaware of the grave significance of the position of affairs, because Londoners betrayed no outward sign of the truth. Now, however, nearly every man and woman wore pinned upon their b.r.e.a.s.t.s a small piece of silk about two inches square, printed as a miniature Union Jack--the badge adopted by the League of Defenders. Though Von Kronhelm was unaware of it, Lord Byfield, in council with Greatorex and Bamford, had decided that, in order to demoralise the enemy and give him plenty of work to do, a number of local uprisings should take place north of the Thames. These would occupy Von Kronhelm, who would experience great difficulty in quelling them, and would no doubt eventually recall the Saxons from West Middles.e.x to a.s.sist. If the latter retired upon London they would find the barricades held by Londoners in their rear and Lord Byfield in their front, and be thus caught between two fires.

"In each district of London there is a chief of the Defenders, and to each chief these orders had been conveyed in strictest confidence.

Therefore, to-day, while the outbreak occurred in Oxford Street, there were fully a dozen others in various parts of the metropolis, each of a more or less serious character. Every district has already prepared its own secret defences, its fortified houses, and its barricades in hidden by-ways. Besides the quant.i.ty of arms smuggled into London, every dead German has had his rifle, pistol, and ammunition stolen from him.

Hundreds of the enemy have been surrept.i.tiously killed for that very reason. Lawlessness is everywhere, Government and Army have failed them, and Londoners are now taking the law into their own hands.

"In King Street, Hammersmith; in Notting Dale, in Forest Road, Dalston; in Wick Road, Hackney; in Commercial Road East, near Stepney Station; and in Prince of Wales Road, Kentish Town, the League of Defenders this morning--at about the same hour--first made their organisation public by displaying our national emblem, together with the white flags, with the scarlet St. George's Cross, the ancient battle flag of England.

"For that reason, then, no reinforcements were sent to Oxford Street.

Von Kronhelm was far too busy in other quarters. In Kentish Town, it is reported, the Germans gained a complete and decisive victory, for the people had not barricaded themselves strongly; besides, there were large reinforcements of Germans ready in Regent's Park, and these came upon the scene before the Defenders were sufficiently prepared. The flag was captured from the barricade in Prince of Wales Road, and the men of Kentish Town lost over four hundred killed and wounded.