And now it is the following Tuesday, and I will take you for our second excursion into the insurgent camp at Lichtenberg—the most easterly suburb of Berlin, where the main body still holds out. This morning's Government bulletin has told us that the victorious Government troops have cleared the whole East End, except Lichtenberg, which is encircled with a "ring of steel." That several thousand insurgents have barricaded all approaches and are sweeping them with field-guns. That they have destroyed hundreds of tons of flour. That they have shot sixty—a hundred—two hundred prisoners. That others have been torn in pieces by the mob, which has taken wounded from the ambulances and clubbed them to death. That no one in a decent coat can venture on the street without being murdered. That in consequence of these "bestial atrocities" anyone found with arms will be shot. But we've read war bulletins before!
On our way we pass a convoy of prisoners, hands handcuffed behind their backs, armed motor-cars before and behind. A young soldier blazes off several shots to scatter the crowd, at which a well-dressed woman remonstrates, but she is at once arrested and put with the convoy.
Here we are at the Warschauer Brücke over the Spree, where there is an imposing concourse of steel-helmeted troops and guns, and a cordon. We pass this after being searched for arms, and across the bridge come on a lot of guns and machine-guns firing fiercely down the Warschauer Strasse, though there is no audible reply or visible reason. After watching the shells holing houses, we start working our way round to the south through empty streets, keeping close to the house-fronts and taking cover when bullets whisper a warning. At last crowded streets again, and through them to a broad avenue crossed by shallow trenches and ramshackle barricades—the much-bulletined Frankfurter Allee. Here an insurgent picket takes charge of us and undertakes to bring us to the secret Headquarters.
"But where are your field-guns?" we ask.
"Field-guns? We haven't any," they say, surprised.
"And how do you keep the troops in check?"
"Oh, those boys! Two of us take machine-guns, charge with them down each side of the street, and they run."
"And how many of you are there?"
"Some two or three hundred perhaps—it varies, but we're all old soldiers—we allow no boys to fight for us."
"And have you shot the sixty policemen you took in the Lichtenberg station?"