however, that the strength of the vaults was far greater than they had imagined, and that, though they worked for hours, all was in vain.
While this was in progress, however, parties of engineers were making organised raids upon the banks in Lombard Street, Lothbury, Moorgate Street, and Broad Street, as well as upon branch banks in Oxford Street, the Strand, and other places in the West End.
At one bank on the left-hand side of Lombard Street, dynamite being used to force the strong-room, the first bullion was seized, while at nearly all the banks sooner or later the vaults were opened, and great bags and boxes of gold coin were taken out and conveyed in carefully-guarded carts to the Bank of England, now in the possession of Germany.
In some banks—those of more modern construction—the greatest resistance was offered by the huge steel doors and concrete and steel walls and other devices for security. But nothing could, alas! resist the high explosives used, and in the end breaches were made, in all cases, and wealth uncounted and untold extracted and conveyed to Threadneedle Street for safe keeping.
Engineers and infantry handled those heavy boxes and those big bundles of securities gleefully, officers carefully counting each box or bag or packet as it was taken out to be carted or carried away by hand.
German soldiers under guard struggled along Lothbury beneath great burdens of gold, and carts, requisitioned out of the East End, rumbled heavily all the afternoon, escorted by soldiers. Hammersmith, Camberwell, Hampstead, and Willesden yielded up their quota of the great wealth of London; but though soon after four o'clock a breach was made in the strong-rooms of the Bank of England by means of explosives, nothing in the vaults was touched. The Germans simply entered there and formally took possession.
The coin collected from other banks was carefully kept, each separate from another, and placed in various rooms under strong guards, for it seemed to be the
