he average non-expert
observer is that Lord Wensley was definitely promised reinforcements to
the number of twenty thousand horse and foot; that after the Westminster
Riot not a single man or horse reached him; _and he was never informed
of the Government's forced decision to surrender_.

And thus those half-trained boys and men laid down their lives for
England within a dozen miles of Westminster, almost twelve hours after a
weak-kneed, panic-stricken Cabinet had passed its word to the people
that England would surrender.

That, to my thinking, was the most burning feature of our disgrace;
that, as an indication of our parlous estate, is more terrible than
Martin's "pivot" of the tragic week.

XX

BLACK SATURDAY

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men.

WORDSWORTH.

In the afternoon of Black Saturday, General von Fuechter, the
Commander-in-Chief of the German Army in England, took up his quarters,
with his staff, in the residence of the German Ambassador to the Court
of St. James in Carlton House Terrace, and, so men said, enjoyed the
first sleep he had had for a week. (The German Ambassador had handed in
his credentials, and been escorted out of England on the previous
Monday.)

Throughout the small hours of Saturday morning I was at work near
Romford as one of the volunteer bearers attached to Constance Grey's
nursing corps. That is one reason why the memory of the north of London
massacre will never leave me. One may assume that the German Army had no
wish to kill nurses, but, as evidence of the terrible character of the
onslaught on the poor defences of London, I may recall the fact that
three of our portable nursing shelters were blown to pieces; while of
Constance Grey's nurses alone five were killed and fourteen were badly
wounded.

Myself, I had much to be thankful for, my only wound being the ploughing
of a little furrow over the biceps of my right arm by a bullet that
passed out through the back of my coat. But a circumstance for which my
gratitude was more deeply moved was the fact that Constance Grey,
despite a number of wonderfully narrow escapes, was entirely uninjured.

The actual entry of General