[Illustration: GOORKAS SLAUGHTERING THE FRENCH ARTILLERY AT GREENWICH OBSERVATORY.]
In the good old Georgian days, when Johnson walked daily under the trees in Gough Square, when Macklin was playing the "Man of the World," and when traitors' heads blackened on Temple Bar, this colony was one of the most rural, exclusive, and gay in the vicinity of London. Alas, how it has decayed! Cheap "desirable residences" have sprung up around it, the hand of the jerry-building Vandal has touched it, the sound of traffic roars about it; yet still there is a charm in those quaint old gardens of a forgotten era. From under the dark yew hedges the jonquils still peep out early--the flowers themselves are those old-fashioned sweet ones beloved of our grandmothers--and the tea roses still blossom on the crumbling walls and fill the air with their fragrance. But in this terrible struggle the walls were used as defences, the bushes were torn down and trampled under foot, and the flowers hung broken on their stalks, bespattered with men's blood!
Proceeding south again, the defenders successfully attacked the strong batteries on One Tree Hill at Honor Oak, and on Sydenham Hill and Forest Hill, and then extending across to the Crystal Palace, had joined hands with our Volunteers from Essex, where they were now wreaking vengeance for the ruthless destruction caused in London.
The bloodshed along the Crystal Palace Parade was fearful. The French infantry and artillery, overwhelmed by the onward rush of the defenders, and now under the British crossfire, fell in hundreds. Dark-faced Bengal Lancers and Goorkas, with British Hussars and Volunteers, descended upon them with appalling swiftness; and so complete was the slaughter, that of the whole force that had effected that terribly effectual bombardment from Sydenham, not more than a dozen survived.
By noon many of the shops on Westow Hill and private residences on College Hill and Sydenham Hill had been wantonly ignited by the enemy; but when the firing ceased some hours later, the roads were heaped with the corpses of those whose mission it had been to destroy London.
Of all those batteries which had caused such frightful desolation and loss of life during the night, not one now remained. The two French columns had been swiftly wiped out of existence; and although our forces had suffered very considerably, they nevertheless were able to go south to Croydon later that afternoon, in order to take part in resisting the vigorous and desperate attack which they knew would sooner or later be made by the whole French army massed beyond the Surrey Hills. The sun was on the horizon, and the shadows were already deepening.