DEADLY FIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 36, 13 February 1933, Page 3

DEADLY FIGHT

A LONDON AFFRAY

"PETER THE PAINTER"

y A FAMOUS SIEGE i

On the morning of 17th December, 1910, all England was startled by the accounts which filled the newspapers of an extraordinary, crime. At halfpast ten on the previous night a Mr. Isenstein, the owner of a fancy goods shop in Houndsditch, became alarmed by mysterious rappings at the back of his premises.

These rappings had been noticed a fortnight earlier, and the police had already made inquiries about them. But now they were louder and nearer, and evidently came from the house next door, writes Winston Churchill in the "Sunday Graphic."

Mr.lsenstein sent for the police. A party of six officers and constables arrived; two were posted at the rear of the premises, and the sergeant, followed by three others, went up to the door of the house whence the rapping was believed to proceed and knocked. Following the custom, which, till then, had long been almost invariable in England, all the police were unarmed. \The door was opened about six inches by a mam

'fHave you been working here f" asked the sergeant. _...-; Ko answer. "Do you understand English? Have you anyone in the house who can speak English?"

The man closed the door all but an inch, and leaving the ' question unanswered, disappeared upstairs. The seageant pushed the door open and entered a gas-lighted room. There seemed no special reason for precautions. The ' sergeant was only making an ordinary police' inquiry, and he stood ; for a minute waiting. It was his last. SHOT DEAD. .Suddenly a door was flung open, a pistol shot rang out, and the sergeant fell in the doorway.' Another shot, this time from the dark stairway, drove the advancing police from the door,; through that door a man's hand with a long automatic pistol appeared, a succession of shots was fired, and in a few seconds all four constables lay dead, dying, or wounded in the street.

A figure sprang from the house, firing light and left. There remained only Ctfnstable Choatc, unarmed, and already wounded. This officer unhesitatingly grappled with the assassin, and, in spite of being twice more shot in the body, was still holding him when lie was shot again from behind by another of the criminals and fell dying from twelve separate wounds.

The gang of murderers shook off the pursuit of .the sixth policeman at the rear of the premises arid disappeared into the darkness and movement of London by night, leaving for the moment neither trace nor clue.

Such in brief outline -was the stbty ■which the newspapers of the next few days gradually unfolded. We were clearly in the presence of a class of crime and a type of criminal which for generations^ had found no counterpart in England. The ruthless ferocity of the criminals, their intelligence, unerring marksmanship, their modern ■weapons and equipment, all disclosed the characteristics of the Russian anarchist. •; ' .

It -was ascertained in the days that followed that the murderers belonged to a, small eojony of about twenty Letts JErom Baltic Bussia, who, under the leadership of an Anarchist known, as fPeter the tPainter," had --^pnsconced themselves in the heart of London. .

, At about 10 o'clock on the morning of 3rd January I was in my bath, "when I was surprised by an urgent knocking at the door. ■

"There is a message Irom the Home Office on the telephone absolutely .immediate."

Dripping wet and shrouded in a ftowel I hurried to the instrument, and received the following news: "The Anarchists who murdered the police have been surrounded in a house in the East End—No. 100, Sidney street—-and are firing on the police i automatic pistols. They .have shot one man and appear to have plenty of ammunition. Authority is requested to send for troops to arrest or j kill them." '' . '.: . . . ON THE SCENE. I replied at once, giving the neeesfeary permission and directing the police to use whatever force was necessary. In about twenty minutes-I was at. the Home Ofiice. There I found my prin"cipal adviser, \Mr. Ernley Blackwell, jwho told me that no further information had been received, except that the anarchists had been effectually surrounded, but were still firing in all directions. . ■"• /' . v

"We started once in a motor-car, nnAil at length at about noon we reached the point where all traffic was stopped. ,"We got out of the car. There was a considerable crowd of angry and alarmed people, and I noticed the unusual spectacle of Metropolitan constables armed with shotguns hastily procured from a local gunsmith.

Just at this moment a, shot rang out perhaps a couple of hundred yards away, followed by another and another, nntil there was a regular fusillade.

Accompanied by an inspector, we proceeded down the empty street, turned a corner, turned another corner, and reached a group of policemen, several of whom were armed.

Another street ran at right angles across our path. TJp this street fifty or sixty yards to the left was the house (So. 100) in which the murderers had barricaded themselves. On the opposite sidfr in front of us, police, Scots Guardsmen, and spectators wem crouching behind'the projecting corners of the buildings; and from both sides of the street, from the street itself and from numerous windows, policemen and other persons were firing rifles, pistols, and shotguns with increasing frequency at vthe house which harboured the desperadoes. These replied every minute or two, shooting sometimes up and down the street and sometimes at their assailants in front. The bufiets; struck the brickwork and ricocheted hither and thither.

Plans were now made to storm the building from several sides at once. One party, emerging from the nextdoor house, was to Tush the front door and charge up the stairs; another party of police and soldiers would break into the second floor at the back through a window; a third, smashing in the roof, would leap down on the assassins from above.

There could be no doubt about the result of such an attack, but it certainly seemed that loss of life would be caused, not only by the fire of the anarchists, but also from shots fired by the attackers in the confusion.

My own instincts turned at once to a direct advance up the staircase behind a steel plate of shield, and search ■was made in the foundries of the neighbourhood for one of a suitable size. TIRE BREAKS OUT. Meanwhile, the problem settled itself. At about half-past one a wisp of smoke curled out of the shattered upper windowß of the besieged house, and in a few minutee it was plainly on fire. The conflagration gained apace, burning downwards. To the crackling of wood succeeded the roar of flames. Still the anarchists, descending story by story, kept up their fire, and bullets

continued to strike the brickwork of the surrounding houses and pavements. Now occurred a curious incident, which, for the first time, made my presence on the spot useful. The ordinary functions o.f British life had been proceeding inflexibly to within a few feet of the danger zone, and the postman on his rounds actually delivered his letters at the house next door. Suddenly, with a stir ,and a clatter, up came the fire brigade, scattering the crowds gathered on the, approaches to the scene and thrusting through them until they reached the police cordon at the beginning of the danger zone. The inspector of police forbade further progress, and. the fire brigade officer declared it his duty to advance. A fire was raging, and he was bound to extinguish it. Anarchists, automatic pistols, danger-zones, nothing of this sort was mentioned in the Regulations of the London Fire Brigade. When the police officer pointed out that his men would be shot down, he replied simply that orders were orders and that he had /no alternative. I now intervened to settle this dispute, at one moment quito heated. I told the fire brigade officer, on my authority W&ome Secretary, that the house was to be allowed to burn down and that he was to stand by. in readiness 'to prevent the conflagration from spreading. I then returned to ;my coign of vantage on the opposite side of the road.

The flames were now beginning to invade the ground floor of the doomed house. Some minutes had passed "without a shot being fired by the anarchists. No human being could live longer in the building. Everyone expected to see the anarchists—how many there were was not known for certain—sally out, pistol in hand, into the open street. A hundred rifles, revolvers, and shotguns were levelled at the smouldering doorway. The minutes passed in intense excitement, and the flames invaded the whole ground floor. At last it became'certain that these human fiends had perished. , Suddenly, upon a spontaneous impulse which led everyone into the open, a detective inspector walked quickly to the door and kicked it open) There was nothing but smoke and flame inside the building. ■