We were just about five minutes billeted in the various houses and
just stretching our legs when our officer came running in shouting,
“The Germans are upon us; outside, everyone.” We came out magazine
loaded, bayonets fixed, and eager to get a good bayonet fight with
them. It appears they do not like it, but we found none; they had not
yet arrived. It was 10 P.M. before they did so. In the meantime, the
poor people were leaving the town in crowds with as much goods and
chattels as they could carry away, and it was well for them, too. It
was a dark night when we formed up in the streets, and the lamps but
dimly burned. The noises of rifles and field guns were terrific. We
rushed to the heads of the various streets, where our German foe would
advance. Our field artillery and the Coldstream Guards went out to
delay their advance, whilst we stripped off our coats and commenced to
tear up the square setts, gather carts--in fact, everything that would
build a barricade to keep back our numerous German foe, and we did so
under perfect showers of shrapnel shell that fell around us and struck
the houses about us, but we were undaunted, and so succeeded: _Private
Spain_.