"As soon as we found the Russian flagship within range, we opened fire upon her, and this action caused a perfect storm of projectiles to be directed upon us. The town was soon in flames, the shipping in the harbour sank, and the martello tower was blown to pieces. Our search-light was very soon brought into requisition, and by its aid some of the boats of the enemy's transports were sunk, while others came to grief on the Black Rocks.
"By this time the enemy had turned their search-lights in every direction where they could see firing, and very soon our Volunteer batteries were silenced, and then Granton harbour fell into the hands of the enemy's landing parties. Having first rendered their guns useless, the survivors fell back to Corstorphine Hill, outside Edinburgh, and we soon afterwards received intelligence that the Russians were landing at Granton in thousands. Meanwhile, although our garrison was so weak and inexperienced, we nevertheless kept up a vigorous fire.
"We saw how Inchkeith Fort had been silenced, and how our Volunteer batteries had been destroyed, and knew that sooner or later we must share the same fate, and abandon our position. As boatload after boatload of Russians attempted to land, we either sank them by shots from our guns or swept them with a salvo of bullets from our Maxims; yet as soon as we had hurled back one landing party others took its place.
"Many were the heroic deeds our gunners performed that night, as hand to hand they fought, and annihilated the Russians who succeeded in landing; but in this frightful struggle we lost heavily, and at length, when all hope of an effective defence had been abandoned, we placed electric wires in the magazine, and the order was given to retire. This we did, leaving our search-light in position in order to deceive the enemy.
"Half our number had been killed, and we sped across to Bonnington, running out a wire along the ground as we went. The Russians, now landing rapidly in great force, swarmed into the fort and captured the guns and ammunition, while a party of infantry pursued us. But we kept them back for fully a quarter of an hour, until we knew that the fort would be well garrisoned by the invaders; then we sent a current through the wire.