Attacking a detachment of the French at Tooting, they captured several guns, destroyed the enemy's field telegraph, and proceeded at once to Streatham, where the most desperate resistance was offered. A fierce fight occurred across Streatham Common, and over to Lower Norwood and Gipsy Hill, in which both sides lost very heavily. Nevertheless our Volunteers from Essex, although they had been on the march the greater part of the night, fought bravely, and inflicted terrible punishment upon their foe. The 3rd and 4th Volunteer Battalions of the Gordon Highlanders and the 1st Norfolk, attacking a French position near the mouth of the railway tunnel, displayed conspicuous bravery, and succeeded in completely annihilating their opponents; while in an opposite direction, towards Tooting, several troops of French cavalry were cut up and taken prisoners by two battalions of Royal Highlanders.
The batteries on Streatham Hill having been assaulted and taken, the force of defenders pushed quickly onward to Upper Norwood, where our cavalry, sweeping along Westow Hill and Church Street, fell upon the battery in front of the Crystal Palace. The enemy, owing to the interruption of their field telegraph, were unaware of their presence, and were completely surprised. Nevertheless French infantrymen rushed into the Crystal Palace Hotel, the White Swan, Stanton Harcourt, the Knoll, Rocklands, and other houses at both ends of the Parade, and from the windows poured forth withering volleys from their Lebels. Our cavalry, riding down the broad Parade, used their sabres upon the artillerymen, and the whole of the French troops were quickly in a confused mass, unable to act with effect, and suffering appallingly from the steady fire of our Volunteers, who very soon cleared the enemy from the White Swan, and, having been drawn up outside, poured forth a galling rifle fire right along the enemy's position. Suddenly there was loud shouting, and the British "Cease fire" sounded. The French, though fighting hard, were falling back gradually down the hill towards Sydenham Station, when suddenly shots were heard, and turbaned cavalry came riding into them at a terrific pace from the rear.
The British officers recognised the new-comers as a squadron of Bengal Lancers! At last India had sent us help, and our men sent up a loud cheer. A large force of cavalry and infantry, together with two regiments of Goorkas, had, it appeared, been landed at Sheerness. They had contemplated landing in Hampshire, but, more unfortunate than some of their compatriots who had effected a landing near Southampton, they were driven through the Straits of Dover by the enemy's cruisers. Marching north in company with a force from Chatham, they had earlier that morning attacked and routed the enemy's right flank at Blackheath, and, after capturing the battery of the foe at Greenwich, greater part of the escort of which had been sent over to Lewisham an hour before, they slaughtered a battalion of Zouaves, and had then extended across to Denmark Hill, where a sanguinary struggle occurred.
The French on Dog Kennel, Red Post, Herne, and Tulse Hills turned their deadly machine guns upon them, and for a long time all the positions held out. At length, however, by reason of a splendid charge made by the Bengal Lancers, the battery at Red Post Hill was taken and the enemy slaughtered. During the next half-hour a fierce hand-to-hand struggle took place up Dog Kennel Hill from St. Saviour's Infirmary, and presently, when the defenders gained the spur of the hill, they fought the enemy gallantly in Grove Lane, Private Road, Bromar Road, Camberwell Grove, and adjoining roads. Time after time the Indian cavalry charged, and the Goorkas, with their keen knives, hacked their way into those of the enemy who rallied. For nearly an hour the struggle continued desperately, showers of bullets from magazine rifles sweeping along the usually quiet suburban thoroughfares, until the roads were heaped with dead and dying, and the houses on either side bore evidence of the bloody fray. Then at last the guns placed along the hills all fell into our hands, and the French were almost completely swept out of existence.
Many were the terrible scenes witnessed in the gardens of the quaint last-century houses on Denmark Hill. Around those old-world residences, standing along the road leading down to Half Moon Lane, time-mellowed relics of an age bygone, Indians fought with Zouaves, and British Volunteers struggled fiercely hand to hand with French infantrymen. The quiet old-fashioned quarter, that was an aristocratic retreat when Camberwell was but a sylvan village with an old toll gate, when cows chewed the cud upon Walworth Common, and when the Walworth Road had not a house in the whole of it, was now the scene of a frightful massacre. The deafening explosions of cordite from magazine rifles, the exultant shouts of the victors and the hoarse shrieks of the dying, awakened the echoes in those quaint old gardens, with their Dutch-cut zigzag walks, enclosed by ancient red brick walls, moss-grown, lichen covered, and half hidden by ivy, honeysuckle, and creepers. Those spacious grounds, where men were now being mercilessly slaughtered, had been the scene of many a brilliant fête champêtre, where splendid satin-coated beaux, all smiles and ailes de pigeon, whispered scandal behind the fans of dainty dames in high-dressed wigs and patches, or, clad as Watteau shepherds, had danced the al fresco minuet with similarly attired shepherdesses, and later on played piquet and drank champagne till dawn.
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.