"The scene was awful—a massacre, nothing more or less. For every German's life we had taken, a dozen of our own were now being sacrificed.
"A woman was pushed close to me, her grey hair streaming down her back, her eyes starting wildly from her head, her bony hands smeared with blood. Suddenly she realised that right before her red fire was spitting from the German guns.
"Screaming in despair, she clung frantically to me.
"I felt next second a sharp burning pain in my chest.... We fell forward together upon the bodies of our comrades.... When I came to myself I found myself here, in this church, close to where I fell."
On that same night desperate sorties were made from the London, Southwark, and Blackfriars Bridges, and terrible havoc was committed by the Defenders.
The German losses were enormous, for the South Londoners fought like demons and gave no quarter.