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diff --git a/search-engine/books/The War of the Worlds.txt b/search-engine/books/The War of the Worlds.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd94a80 --- /dev/null +++ b/search-engine/books/The War of the Worlds.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6370 @@ +Title: The War of the Worlds +Author: H. G. Wells + +The War of the Worlds + +by H. G. Wells + + + + + ‘But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited? + . . . Are we or they Lords of the World? . . . And + how are all things made for man?’ + KEPLER (quoted in _The Anatomy of Melancholy_) + + + + +Contents + + + BOOK ONE.—THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS + + I. THE EVE OF THE WAR. + II. THE FALLING STAR. + III. ON HORSELL COMMON. + IV. THE CYLINDER OPENS. + V. THE HEAT-RAY. + VI. THE HEAT-RAY IN THE CHOBHAM ROAD. + VII. HOW I REACHED HOME. + VIII. FRIDAY NIGHT. + IX. THE FIGHTING BEGINS. + X. IN THE STORM. + XI. AT THE WINDOW. + XII. WHAT I SAW OF THE DESTRUCTION OF WEYBRIDGE AND SHEPPERTON. + XIII. HOW I FELL IN WITH THE CURATE. + XIV. IN LONDON. + XV. WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN SURREY. + XVI. THE EXODUS FROM LONDON. + XVII. THE “THUNDER CHILD”. + + BOOK TWO.—THE EARTH UNDER THE MARTIANS + + I. UNDER FOOT. + II. WHAT WE SAW FROM THE RUINED HOUSE. + III. THE DAYS OF IMPRISONMENT. + IV. THE DEATH OF THE CURATE. + V. THE STILLNESS. + VI. THE WORK OF FIFTEEN DAYS. + VII. THE MAN ON PUTNEY HILL. + VIII. DEAD LONDON. + IX. WRECKAGE. + X. THE EPILOGUE. + + + + +BOOK ONE +THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS + + + + +I. +THE EVE OF THE WAR. + + +No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century +that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences +greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied +themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and +studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might +scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of +water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe +about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire +over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do +the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources +of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life +upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of +the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men +fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to +themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the +gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the +beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, +regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their +plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great +disillusionment. + +The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the +sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it +receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It +must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; +and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface +must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of +the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the +temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all +that is necessary for the support of animated existence. + +Yet so vain is man, and so blinded by his vanity, that no writer, up to +the very end of the nineteenth century, expressed any idea that +intelligent life might have developed there far, or indeed at all, +beyond its earthly level. Nor was it generally understood that since +Mars is older than our earth, with scarcely a quarter of the +superficial area and remoter from the sun, it necessarily follows that +it is not only more distant from time’s beginning but nearer its end. + +The secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet has already +gone far indeed with our neighbour. Its physical condition is still +largely a mystery, but we know now that even in its equatorial region +the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter. +Its air is much more attenuated than ours, its oceans have shrunk until +they cover but a third of its surface, and as its slow seasons change +huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and periodically +inundate its temperate zones. That last stage of exhaustion, which to +us is still incredibly remote, has become a present-day problem for the +inhabitants of Mars. The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened +their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts. And +looking across space with instruments, and intelligences such as we +have scarcely dreamed of, they see, at its nearest distance only +35,000,000 of miles sunward of them, a morning star of hope, our own +warmer planet, green with vegetation and grey with water, with a cloudy +atmosphere eloquent of fertility, with glimpses through its drifting +cloud wisps of broad stretches of populous country and narrow, +navy-crowded seas. + +And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at +least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The +intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant +struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief +of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this +world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they +regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their +only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, +creeps upon them. + +And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless +and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon +animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior +races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely +swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European +immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy +as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit? + +The Martians seem to have calculated their descent with amazing +subtlety—their mathematical learning is evidently far in excess of +ours—and to have carried out their preparations with a well-nigh +perfect unanimity. Had our instruments permitted it, we might have seen +the gathering trouble far back in the nineteenth century. Men like +Schiaparelli watched the red planet—it is odd, by-the-bye, that for +countless centuries Mars has been the star of war—but failed to +interpret the fluctuating appearances of the markings they mapped so +well. All that time the Martians must have been getting ready. + +During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen on the illuminated +part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by Perrotin of +Nice, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in +the issue of _Nature_ dated August 2. I am inclined to think that this +blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in the vast pit sunk +into their planet, from which their shots were fired at us. Peculiar +markings, as yet unexplained, were seen near the site of that outbreak +during the next two oppositions. + +The storm burst upon us six years ago now. As Mars approached +opposition, Lavelle of Java set the wires of the astronomical exchange +palpitating with the amazing intelligence of a huge outbreak of +incandescent gas upon the planet. It had occurred towards midnight of +the twelfth; and the spectroscope, to which he had at once resorted, +indicated a mass of flaming gas, chiefly hydrogen, moving with an +enormous velocity towards this earth. This jet of fire had become +invisible about a quarter past twelve. He compared it to a colossal +puff of flame suddenly and violently squirted out of the planet, “as +flaming gases rushed out of a gun.” + +A singularly appropriate phrase it proved. Yet the next day there was +nothing of this in the papers except a little note in the _Daily +Telegraph_, and the world went in ignorance of one of the gravest +dangers that ever threatened the human race. I might not have heard of +the eruption at all had I not met Ogilvy, the well-known astronomer, at +Ottershaw. He was immensely excited at the news, and in the excess of +his feelings invited me up to take a turn with him that night in a +scrutiny of the red planet. + +In spite of all that has happened since, I still remember that vigil +very distinctly: the black and silent observatory, the shadowed lantern +throwing a feeble glow upon the floor in the corner, the steady ticking +of the clockwork of the telescope, the little slit in the roof—an +oblong profundity with the stardust streaked across it. Ogilvy moved +about, invisible but audible. Looking through the telescope, one saw a +circle of deep blue and the little round planet swimming in the field. +It seemed such a little thing, so bright and small and still, faintly +marked with transverse stripes, and slightly flattened from the perfect +round. But so little it was, so silvery warm—a pin’s head of light! It +was as if it quivered, but really this was the telescope vibrating with +the activity of the clockwork that kept the planet in view. + +As I watched, the planet seemed to grow larger and smaller and to +advance and recede, but that was simply that my eye was tired. Forty +millions of miles it was from us—more than forty millions of miles of +void. Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of +the material universe swims. + +Near it in the field, I remember, were three faint points of light, +three telescopic stars infinitely remote, and all around it was the +unfathomable darkness of empty space. You know how that blackness looks +on a frosty starlight night. In a telescope it seems far profounder. +And invisible to me because it was so remote and small, flying swiftly +and steadily towards me across that incredible distance, drawing nearer +every minute by so many thousands of miles, came the Thing they were +sending us, the Thing that was to bring so much struggle and calamity +and death to the earth. I never dreamed of it then as I watched; no one +on earth dreamed of that unerring missile. + +That night, too, there was another jetting out of gas from the distant +planet. I saw it. A reddish flash at the edge, the slightest projection +of the outline just as the chronometer struck midnight; and at that I +told Ogilvy and he took my place. The night was warm and I was thirsty, +and I went stretching my legs clumsily and feeling my way in the +darkness, to the little table where the siphon stood, while Ogilvy +exclaimed at the streamer of gas that came out towards us. + +That night another invisible missile started on its way to the earth +from Mars, just a second or so under twenty-four hours after the first +one. I remember how I sat on the table there in the blackness, with +patches of green and crimson swimming before my eyes. I wished I had a +light to smoke by, little suspecting the meaning of the minute gleam I +had seen and all that it would presently bring me. Ogilvy watched till +one, and then gave it up; and we lit the lantern and walked over to his +house. Down below in the darkness were Ottershaw and Chertsey and all +their hundreds of people, sleeping in peace. + +He was full of speculation that night about the condition of Mars, and +scoffed at the vulgar idea of its having inhabitants who were +signalling us. His idea was that meteorites might be falling in a heavy +shower upon the planet, or that a huge volcanic explosion was in +progress. He pointed out to me how unlikely it was that organic +evolution had taken the same direction in the two adjacent planets. + +“The chances against anything manlike on Mars are a million to one,” he +said. + +Hundreds of observers saw the flame that night and the night after +about midnight, and again the night after; and so for ten nights, a +flame each night. Why the shots ceased after the tenth no one on earth +has attempted to explain. It may be the gases of the firing caused the +Martians inconvenience. Dense clouds of smoke or dust, visible through +a powerful telescope on earth as little grey, fluctuating patches, +spread through the clearness of the planet’s atmosphere and obscured +its more familiar features. + +Even the daily papers woke up to the disturbances at last, and popular +notes appeared here, there, and everywhere concerning the volcanoes +upon Mars. The seriocomic periodical _Punch_, I remember, made a happy +use of it in the political cartoon. And, all unsuspected, those +missiles the Martians had fired at us drew earthward, rushing now at a +pace of many miles a second through the empty gulf of space, hour by +hour and day by day, nearer and nearer. It seems to me now almost +incredibly wonderful that, with that swift fate hanging over us, men +could go about their petty concerns as they did. I remember how +jubilant Markham was at securing a new photograph of the planet for the +illustrated paper he edited in those days. People in these latter times +scarcely realise the abundance and enterprise of our nineteenth-century +papers. For my own part, I was much occupied in learning to ride the +bicycle, and busy upon a series of papers discussing the probable +developments of moral ideas as civilisation progressed. + +One night (the first missile then could scarcely have been 10,000,000 +miles away) I went for a walk with my wife. It was starlight and I +explained the Signs of the Zodiac to her, and pointed out Mars, a +bright dot of light creeping zenithward, towards which so many +telescopes were pointed. It was a warm night. Coming home, a party of +excursionists from Chertsey or Isleworth passed us singing and playing +music. There were lights in the upper windows of the houses as the +people went to bed. From the railway station in the distance came the +sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into +melody by the distance. My wife pointed out to me the brightness of the +red, green, and yellow signal lights hanging in a framework against the +sky. It seemed so safe and tranquil. + + + + +II. +THE FALLING STAR. + + +Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the +morning, rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high in the +atmosphere. Hundreds must have seen it, and taken it for an ordinary +falling star. Albin described it as leaving a greenish streak behind it +that glowed for some seconds. Denning, our greatest authority on +meteorites, stated that the height of its first appearance was about +ninety or one hundred miles. It seemed to him that it fell to earth +about one hundred miles east of him. + +I was at home at that hour and writing in my study; and although my +French windows face towards Ottershaw and the blind was up (for I loved +in those days to look up at the night sky), I saw nothing of it. Yet +this strangest of all things that ever came to earth from outer space +must have fallen while I was sitting there, visible to me had I only +looked up as it passed. Some of those who saw its flight say it +travelled with a hissing sound. I myself heard nothing of that. Many +people in Berkshire, Surrey, and Middlesex must have seen the fall of +it, and, at most, have thought that another meteorite had descended. No +one seems to have troubled to look for the fallen mass that night. + +But very early in the morning poor Ogilvy, who had seen the shooting +star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere on the common +between Horsell, Ottershaw, and Woking, rose early with the idea of +finding it. Find it he did, soon after dawn, and not far from the +sand-pits. An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the +projectile, and the sand and gravel had been flung violently in every +direction over the heath, forming heaps visible a mile and a half away. +The heather was on fire eastward, and a thin blue smoke rose against +the dawn. + +The Thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand, amidst the +scattered splinters of a fir tree it had shivered to fragments in its +descent. The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder, +caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-coloured +incrustation. It had a diameter of about thirty yards. He approached +the mass, surprised at the size and more so at the shape, since most +meteorites are rounded more or less completely. It was, however, still +so hot from its flight through the air as to forbid his near approach. +A stirring noise within its cylinder he ascribed to the unequal cooling +of its surface; for at that time it had not occurred to him that it +might be hollow. + +He remained standing at the edge of the pit that the Thing had made for +itself, staring at its strange appearance, astonished chiefly at its +unusual shape and colour, and dimly perceiving even then some evidence +of design in its arrival. The early morning was wonderfully still, and +the sun, just clearing the pine trees towards Weybridge, was already +warm. He did not remember hearing any birds that morning, there was +certainly no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were the faint +movements from within the cindery cylinder. He was all alone on the +common. + +Then suddenly he noticed with a start that some of the grey clinker, +the ashy incrustation that covered the meteorite, was falling off the +circular edge of the end. It was dropping off in flakes and raining +down upon the sand. A large piece suddenly came off and fell with a +sharp noise that brought his heart into his mouth. + +For a minute he scarcely realised what this meant, and, although the +heat was excessive, he clambered down into the pit close to the bulk to +see the Thing more clearly. He fancied even then that the cooling of +the body might account for this, but what disturbed that idea was the +fact that the ash was falling only from the end of the cylinder. + +And then he perceived that, very slowly, the circular top of the +cylinder was rotating on its body. It was such a gradual movement that +he discovered it only through noticing that a black mark that had been +near him five minutes ago was now at the other side of the +circumference. Even then he scarcely understood what this indicated, +until he heard a muffled grating sound and saw the black mark jerk +forward an inch or so. Then the thing came upon him in a flash. The +cylinder was artificial—hollow—with an end that screwed out! Something +within the cylinder was unscrewing the top! + +“Good heavens!” said Ogilvy. “There’s a man in it—men in it! Half +roasted to death! Trying to escape!” + +At once, with a quick mental leap, he linked the Thing with the flash +upon Mars. + +The thought of the confined creature was so dreadful to him that he +forgot the heat and went forward to the cylinder to help turn. But +luckily the dull radiation arrested him before he could burn his hands +on the still-glowing metal. At that he stood irresolute for a moment, +then turned, scrambled out of the pit, and set off running wildly into +Woking. The time then must have been somewhere about six o’clock. He +met a waggoner and tried to make him understand, but the tale he told +and his appearance were so wild—his hat had fallen off in the pit—that +the man simply drove on. He was equally unsuccessful with the potman +who was just unlocking the doors of the public-house by Horsell Bridge. +The fellow thought he was a lunatic at large and made an unsuccessful +attempt to shut him into the taproom. That sobered him a little; and +when he saw Henderson, the London journalist, in his garden, he called +over the palings and made himself understood. + +“Henderson,” he called, “you saw that shooting star last night?” + +“Well?” said Henderson. + +“It’s out on Horsell Common now.” + +“Good Lord!” said Henderson. “Fallen meteorite! That’s good.” + +“But it’s something more than a meteorite. It’s a cylinder—an +artificial cylinder, man! And there’s something inside.” + +Henderson stood up with his spade in his hand. + +“What’s that?” he said. He was deaf in one ear. + +Ogilvy told him all that he had seen. Henderson was a minute or so +taking it in. Then he dropped his spade, snatched up his jacket, and +came out into the road. The two men hurried back at once to the common, +and found the cylinder still lying in the same position. But now the +sounds inside had ceased, and a thin circle of bright metal showed +between the top and the body of the cylinder. Air was either entering +or escaping at the rim with a thin, sizzling sound. + +They listened, rapped on the scaly burnt metal with a stick, and, +meeting with no response, they both concluded the man or men inside +must be insensible or dead. + +Of course the two were quite unable to do anything. They shouted +consolation and promises, and went off back to the town again to get +help. One can imagine them, covered with sand, excited and disordered, +running up the little street in the bright sunlight just as the shop +folks were taking down their shutters and people were opening their +bedroom windows. Henderson went into the railway station at once, in +order to telegraph the news to London. The newspaper articles had +prepared men’s minds for the reception of the idea. + +By eight o’clock a number of boys and unemployed men had already +started for the common to see the “dead men from Mars.” That was the +form the story took. I heard of it first from my newspaper boy about a +quarter to nine when I went out to get my _Daily Chronicle_. I was +naturally startled, and lost no time in going out and across the +Ottershaw bridge to the sand-pits. + + + + +III. +ON HORSELL COMMON. + + +I found a little crowd of perhaps twenty people surrounding the huge +hole in which the cylinder lay. I have already described the appearance +of that colossal bulk, embedded in the ground. The turf and gravel +about it seemed charred as if by a sudden explosion. No doubt its +impact had caused a flash of fire. Henderson and Ogilvy were not there. +I think they perceived that nothing was to be done for the present, and +had gone away to breakfast at Henderson’s house. + +There were four or five boys sitting on the edge of the Pit, with their +feet dangling, and amusing themselves—until I stopped them—by throwing +stones at the giant mass. After I had spoken to them about it, they +began playing at “touch” in and out of the group of bystanders. + +Among these were a couple of cyclists, a jobbing gardener I employed +sometimes, a girl carrying a baby, Gregg the butcher and his little +boy, and two or three loafers and golf caddies who were accustomed to +hang about the railway station. There was very little talking. Few of +the common people in England had anything but the vaguest astronomical +ideas in those days. Most of them were staring quietly at the big table +like end of the cylinder, which was still as Ogilvy and Henderson had +left it. I fancy the popular expectation of a heap of charred corpses +was disappointed at this inanimate bulk. Some went away while I was +there, and other people came. I clambered into the pit and fancied I +heard a faint movement under my feet. The top had certainly ceased to +rotate. + +It was only when I got thus close to it that the strangeness of this +object was at all evident to me. At the first glance it was really no +more exciting than an overturned carriage or a tree blown across the +road. Not so much so, indeed. It looked like a rusty gas float. It +required a certain amount of scientific education to perceive that the +grey scale of the Thing was no common oxide, that the yellowish-white +metal that gleamed in the crack between the lid and the cylinder had an +unfamiliar hue. “Extra-terrestrial” had no meaning for most of the +onlookers. + +At that time it was quite clear in my own mind that the Thing had come +from the planet Mars, but I judged it improbable that it contained any +living creature. I thought the unscrewing might be automatic. In spite +of Ogilvy, I still believed that there were men in Mars. My mind ran +fancifully on the possibilities of its containing manuscript, on the +difficulties in translation that might arise, whether we should find +coins and models in it, and so forth. Yet it was a little too large for +assurance on this idea. I felt an impatience to see it opened. About +eleven, as nothing seemed happening, I walked back, full of such +thought, to my home in Maybury. But I found it difficult to get to work +upon my abstract investigations. + +In the afternoon the appearance of the common had altered very much. +The early editions of the evening papers had startled London with +enormous headlines: + +“A MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM MARS.” + + +“REMARKABLE STORY FROM WOKING,” + + +and so forth. In addition, Ogilvy’s wire to the Astronomical Exchange +had roused every observatory in the three kingdoms. + +There were half a dozen flys or more from the Woking station standing +in the road by the sand-pits, a basket-chaise from Chobham, and a +rather lordly carriage. Besides that, there was quite a heap of +bicycles. In addition, a large number of people must have walked, in +spite of the heat of the day, from Woking and Chertsey, so that there +was altogether quite a considerable crowd—one or two gaily dressed +ladies among the others. + +It was glaringly hot, not a cloud in the sky nor a breath of wind, and +the only shadow was that of the few scattered pine trees. The burning +heather had been extinguished, but the level ground towards Ottershaw +was blackened as far as one could see, and still giving off vertical +streamers of smoke. An enterprising sweet-stuff dealer in the Chobham +Road had sent up his son with a barrow-load of green apples and ginger +beer. + +Going to the edge of the pit, I found it occupied by a group of about +half a dozen men—Henderson, Ogilvy, and a tall, fair-haired man that I +afterwards learned was Stent, the Astronomer Royal, with several +workmen wielding spades and pickaxes. Stent was giving directions in a +clear, high-pitched voice. He was standing on the cylinder, which was +now evidently much cooler; his face was crimson and streaming with +perspiration, and something seemed to have irritated him. + +A large portion of the cylinder had been uncovered, though its lower +end was still embedded. As soon as Ogilvy saw me among the staring +crowd on the edge of the pit he called to me to come down, and asked me +if I would mind going over to see Lord Hilton, the lord of the manor. + +The growing crowd, he said, was becoming a serious impediment to their +excavations, especially the boys. They wanted a light railing put up, +and help to keep the people back. He told me that a faint stirring was +occasionally still audible within the case, but that the workmen had +failed to unscrew the top, as it afforded no grip to them. The case +appeared to be enormously thick, and it was possible that the faint +sounds we heard represented a noisy tumult in the interior. + +I was very glad to do as he asked, and so become one of the privileged +spectators within the contemplated enclosure. I failed to find Lord +Hilton at his house, but I was told he was expected from London by the +six o’clock train from Waterloo; and as it was then about a quarter +past five, I went home, had some tea, and walked up to the station to +waylay him. + + + + +IV. +THE CYLINDER OPENS. + + +When I returned to the common the sun was setting. Scattered groups +were hurrying from the direction of Woking, and one or two persons were +returning. The crowd about the pit had increased, and stood out black +against the lemon yellow of the sky—a couple of hundred people, +perhaps. There were raised voices, and some sort of struggle appeared +to be going on about the pit. Strange imaginings passed through my +mind. As I drew nearer I heard Stent’s voice: + +“Keep back! Keep back!” + +A boy came running towards me. + +“It’s a-movin’,” he said to me as he passed; “a-screwin’ and a-screwin’ +out. I don’t like it. I’m a-goin’ ’ome, I am.” + +I went on to the crowd. There were really, I should think, two or three +hundred people elbowing and jostling one another, the one or two ladies +there being by no means the least active. + +“He’s fallen in the pit!” cried some one. + +“Keep back!” said several. + +The crowd swayed a little, and I elbowed my way through. Every one +seemed greatly excited. I heard a peculiar humming sound from the pit. + +“I say!” said Ogilvy; “help keep these idiots back. We don’t know +what’s in the confounded thing, you know!” + +I saw a young man, a shop assistant in Woking I believe he was, +standing on the cylinder and trying to scramble out of the hole again. +The crowd had pushed him in. + +The end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within. Nearly two +feet of shining screw projected. Somebody blundered against me, and I +narrowly missed being pitched onto the top of the screw. I turned, and +as I did so the screw must have come out, for the lid of the cylinder +fell upon the gravel with a ringing concussion. I stuck my elbow into +the person behind me, and turned my head towards the Thing again. For a +moment that circular cavity seemed perfectly black. I had the sunset in +my eyes. + +I think everyone expected to see a man emerge—possibly something a +little unlike us terrestrial men, but in all essentials a man. I know I +did. But, looking, I presently saw something stirring within the +shadow: greyish billowy movements, one above another, and then two +luminous disks—like eyes. Then something resembling a little grey +snake, about the thickness of a walking stick, coiled up out of the +writhing middle, and wriggled in the air towards me—and then another. + +A sudden chill came over me. There was a loud shriek from a woman +behind. I half turned, keeping my eyes fixed upon the cylinder still, +from which other tentacles were now projecting, and began pushing my +way back from the edge of the pit. I saw astonishment giving place to +horror on the faces of the people about me. I heard inarticulate +exclamations on all sides. There was a general movement backwards. I +saw the shopman struggling still on the edge of the pit. I found myself +alone, and saw the people on the other side of the pit running off, +Stent among them. I looked again at the cylinder, and ungovernable +terror gripped me. I stood petrified and staring. + +A big greyish rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising +slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. As it bulged up and caught +the light, it glistened like wet leather. + +Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly. The mass +that framed them, the head of the thing, was rounded, and had, one +might say, a face. There was a mouth under the eyes, the lipless brim +of which quivered and panted, and dropped saliva. The whole creature +heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank tentacular appendage gripped +the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in the air. + +Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the +strange horror of its appearance. The peculiar V-shaped mouth with its +pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a chin +beneath the wedgelike lower lip, the incessant quivering of this mouth, +the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the lungs +in a strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness of +movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the earth—above +all, the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyes—were at once +vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous. There was something +fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the clumsy deliberation of +the tedious movements unspeakably nasty. Even at this first encounter, +this first glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and dread. + +Suddenly the monster vanished. It had toppled over the brim of the +cylinder and fallen into the pit, with a thud like the fall of a great +mass of leather. I heard it give a peculiar thick cry, and forthwith +another of these creatures appeared darkly in the deep shadow of the +aperture. + +I turned and, running madly, made for the first group of trees, perhaps +a hundred yards away; but I ran slantingly and stumbling, for I could +not avert my face from these things. + +There, among some young pine trees and furze bushes, I stopped, +panting, and waited further developments. The common round the +sand-pits was dotted with people, standing like myself in a +half-fascinated terror, staring at these creatures, or rather at the +heaped gravel at the edge of the pit in which they lay. And then, with +a renewed horror, I saw a round, black object bobbing up and down on +the edge of the pit. It was the head of the shopman who had fallen in, +but showing as a little black object against the hot western sun. Now +he got his shoulder and knee up, and again he seemed to slip back until +only his head was visible. Suddenly he vanished, and I could have +fancied a faint shriek had reached me. I had a momentary impulse to go +back and help him that my fears overruled. + +Everything was then quite invisible, hidden by the deep pit and the +heap of sand that the fall of the cylinder had made. Anyone coming +along the road from Chobham or Woking would have been amazed at the +sight—a dwindling multitude of perhaps a hundred people or more +standing in a great irregular circle, in ditches, behind bushes, behind +gates and hedges, saying little to one another and that in short, +excited shouts, and staring, staring hard at a few heaps of sand. The +barrow of ginger beer stood, a queer derelict, black against the +burning sky, and in the sand-pits was a row of deserted vehicles with +their horses feeding out of nosebags or pawing the ground. + + + + +V. +THE HEAT-RAY. + + +After the glimpse I had had of the Martians emerging from the cylinder +in which they had come to the earth from their planet, a kind of +fascination paralysed my actions. I remained standing knee-deep in the +heather, staring at the mound that hid them. I was a battleground of +fear and curiosity. + +I did not dare to go back towards the pit, but I felt a passionate +longing to peer into it. I began walking, therefore, in a big curve, +seeking some point of vantage and continually looking at the sand-heaps +that hid these new-comers to our earth. Once a leash of thin black +whips, like the arms of an octopus, flashed across the sunset and was +immediately withdrawn, and afterwards a thin rod rose up, joint by +joint, bearing at its apex a circular disk that spun with a wobbling +motion. What could be going on there? + +Most of the spectators had gathered in one or two groups—one a little +crowd towards Woking, the other a knot of people in the direction of +Chobham. Evidently they shared my mental conflict. There were few near +me. One man I approached—he was, I perceived, a neighbour of mine, +though I did not know his name—and accosted. But it was scarcely a time +for articulate conversation. + +“What ugly _brutes_!” he said. “Good God! What ugly brutes!” He +repeated this over and over again. + +“Did you see a man in the pit?” I said; but he made no answer to that. +We became silent, and stood watching for a time side by side, deriving, +I fancy, a certain comfort in one another’s company. Then I shifted my +position to a little knoll that gave me the advantage of a yard or more +of elevation and when I looked for him presently he was walking towards +Woking. + +The sunset faded to twilight before anything further happened. The +crowd far away on the left, towards Woking, seemed to grow, and I heard +now a faint murmur from it. The little knot of people towards Chobham +dispersed. There was scarcely an intimation of movement from the pit. + +It was this, as much as anything, that gave people courage, and I +suppose the new arrivals from Woking also helped to restore confidence. +At any rate, as the dusk came on a slow, intermittent movement upon the +sand-pits began, a movement that seemed to gather force as the +stillness of the evening about the cylinder remained unbroken. Vertical +black figures in twos and threes would advance, stop, watch, and +advance again, spreading out as they did so in a thin irregular +crescent that promised to enclose the pit in its attenuated horns. I, +too, on my side began to move towards the pit. + +Then I saw some cabmen and others had walked boldly into the sand-pits, +and heard the clatter of hoofs and the gride of wheels. I saw a lad +trundling off the barrow of apples. And then, within thirty yards of +the pit, advancing from the direction of Horsell, I noted a little +black knot of men, the foremost of whom was waving a white flag. + +This was the Deputation. There had been a hasty consultation, and since +the Martians were evidently, in spite of their repulsive forms, +intelligent creatures, it had been resolved to show them, by +approaching them with signals, that we too were intelligent. + +Flutter, flutter, went the flag, first to the right, then to the left. +It was too far for me to recognise anyone there, but afterwards I +learned that Ogilvy, Stent, and Henderson were with others in this +attempt at communication. This little group had in its advance dragged +inward, so to speak, the circumference of the now almost complete +circle of people, and a number of dim black figures followed it at +discreet distances. + +Suddenly there was a flash of light, and a quantity of luminous +greenish smoke came out of the pit in three distinct puffs, which drove +up, one after the other, straight into the still air. + +This smoke (or flame, perhaps, would be the better word for it) was so +bright that the deep blue sky overhead and the hazy stretches of brown +common towards Chertsey, set with black pine trees, seemed to darken +abruptly as these puffs arose, and to remain the darker after their +dispersal. At the same time a faint hissing sound became audible. + +Beyond the pit stood the little wedge of people with the white flag at +its apex, arrested by these phenomena, a little knot of small vertical +black shapes upon the black ground. As the green smoke arose, their +faces flashed out pallid green, and faded again as it vanished. Then +slowly the hissing passed into a humming, into a long, loud, droning +noise. Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a +beam of light seemed to flicker out from it. + +Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to +another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some +invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It was +as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire. + +Then, by the light of their own destruction, I saw them staggering and +falling, and their supporters turning to run. + +I stood staring, not as yet realising that this was death leaping from +man to man in that little distant crowd. All I felt was that it was +something very strange. An almost noiseless and blinding flash of +light, and a man fell headlong and lay still; and as the unseen shaft +of heat passed over them, pine trees burst into fire, and every dry +furze bush became with one dull thud a mass of flames. And far away +towards Knaphill I saw the flashes of trees and hedges and wooden +buildings suddenly set alight. + +It was sweeping round swiftly and steadily, this flaming death, this +invisible, inevitable sword of heat. I perceived it coming towards me +by the flashing bushes it touched, and was too astounded and stupefied +to stir. I heard the crackle of fire in the sand-pits and the sudden +squeal of a horse that was as suddenly stilled. Then it was as if an +invisible yet intensely heated finger were drawn through the heather +between me and the Martians, and all along a curving line beyond the +sand-pits the dark ground smoked and crackled. Something fell with a +crash far away to the left where the road from Woking station opens out +on the common. Forth-with the hissing and humming ceased, and the +black, dome-like object sank slowly out of sight into the pit. + +All this had happened with such swiftness that I had stood motionless, +dumbfounded and dazzled by the flashes of light. Had that death swept +through a full circle, it must inevitably have slain me in my surprise. +But it passed and spared me, and left the night about me suddenly dark +and unfamiliar. + +The undulating common seemed now dark almost to blackness, except where +its roadways lay grey and pale under the deep blue sky of the early +night. It was dark, and suddenly void of men. Overhead the stars were +mustering, and in the west the sky was still a pale, bright, almost +greenish blue. The tops of the pine trees and the roofs of Horsell came +out sharp and black against the western afterglow. The Martians and +their appliances were altogether invisible, save for that thin mast +upon which their restless mirror wobbled. Patches of bush and isolated +trees here and there smoked and glowed still, and the houses towards +Woking station were sending up spires of flame into the stillness of +the evening air. + +Nothing was changed save for that and a terrible astonishment. The +little group of black specks with the flag of white had been swept out +of existence, and the stillness of the evening, so it seemed to me, had +scarcely been broken. + +It came to me that I was upon this dark common, helpless, unprotected, +and alone. Suddenly, like a thing falling upon me from without, +came—fear. + +With an effort I turned and began a stumbling run through the heather. + +The fear I felt was no rational fear, but a panic terror not only of +the Martians, but of the dusk and stillness all about me. Such an +extraordinary effect in unmanning me it had that I ran weeping silently +as a child might do. Once I had turned, I did not dare to look back. + +I remember I felt an extraordinary persuasion that I was being played +with, that presently, when I was upon the very verge of safety, this +mysterious death—as swift as the passage of light—would leap after me +from the pit about the cylinder, and strike me down. + + + + +VI. +THE HEAT-RAY IN THE CHOBHAM ROAD. + + +It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so +swiftly and so silently. Many think that in some way they are able to +generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute +non-conductivity. This intense heat they project in a parallel beam +against any object they choose, by means of a polished parabolic mirror +of unknown composition, much as the parabolic mirror of a lighthouse +projects a beam of light. But no one has absolutely proved these +details. However it is done, it is certain that a beam of heat is the +essence of the matter. Heat, and invisible, instead of visible, light. +Whatever is combustible flashes into flame at its touch, lead runs like +water, it softens iron, cracks and melts glass, and when it falls upon +water, incontinently that explodes into steam. + +That night nearly forty people lay under the starlight about the pit, +charred and distorted beyond recognition, and all night long the common +from Horsell to Maybury was deserted and brightly ablaze. + +The news of the massacre probably reached Chobham, Woking, and +Ottershaw about the same time. In Woking the shops had closed when the +tragedy happened, and a number of people, shop people and so forth, +attracted by the stories they had heard, were walking over the Horsell +Bridge and along the road between the hedges that runs out at last upon +the common. You may imagine the young people brushed up after the +labours of the day, and making this novelty, as they would make any +novelty, the excuse for walking together and enjoying a trivial +flirtation. You may figure to yourself the hum of voices along the road +in the gloaming. . . . + +As yet, of course, few people in Woking even knew that the cylinder had +opened, though poor Henderson had sent a messenger on a bicycle to the +post office with a special wire to an evening paper. + +As these folks came out by twos and threes upon the open, they found +little knots of people talking excitedly and peering at the spinning +mirror over the sand-pits, and the newcomers were, no doubt, soon +infected by the excitement of the occasion. + +By half past eight, when the Deputation was destroyed, there may have +been a crowd of three hundred people or more at this place, besides +those who had left the road to approach the Martians nearer. There were +three policemen too, one of whom was mounted, doing their best, under +instructions from Stent, to keep the people back and deter them from +approaching the cylinder. There was some booing from those more +thoughtless and excitable souls to whom a crowd is always an occasion +for noise and horse-play. + +Stent and Ogilvy, anticipating some possibilities of a collision, had +telegraphed from Horsell to the barracks as soon as the Martians +emerged, for the help of a company of soldiers to protect these strange +creatures from violence. After that they returned to lead that +ill-fated advance. The description of their death, as it was seen by +the crowd, tallies very closely with my own impressions: the three +puffs of green smoke, the deep humming note, and the flashes of flame. + +But that crowd of people had a far narrower escape than mine. Only the +fact that a hummock of heathery sand intercepted the lower part of the +Heat-Ray saved them. Had the elevation of the parabolic mirror been a +few yards higher, none could have lived to tell the tale. They saw the +flashes and the men falling and an invisible hand, as it were, lit the +bushes as it hurried towards them through the twilight. Then, with a +whistling note that rose above the droning of the pit, the beam swung +close over their heads, lighting the tops of the beech trees that line +the road, and splitting the bricks, smashing the windows, firing the +window frames, and bringing down in crumbling ruin a portion of the +gable of the house nearest the corner. + +In the sudden thud, hiss, and glare of the igniting trees, the +panic-stricken crowd seems to have swayed hesitatingly for some +moments. Sparks and burning twigs began to fall into the road, and +single leaves like puffs of flame. Hats and dresses caught fire. Then +came a crying from the common. There were shrieks and shouts, and +suddenly a mounted policeman came galloping through the confusion with +his hands clasped over his head, screaming. + +“They’re coming!” a woman shrieked, and incontinently everyone was +turning and pushing at those behind, in order to clear their way to +Woking again. They must have bolted as blindly as a flock of sheep. +Where the road grows narrow and black between the high banks the crowd +jammed, and a desperate struggle occurred. All that crowd did not +escape; three persons at least, two women and a little boy, were +crushed and trampled there, and left to die amid the terror and the +darkness. + + + + +VII. +HOW I REACHED HOME. + + +For my own part, I remember nothing of my flight except the stress of +blundering against trees and stumbling through the heather. All about +me gathered the invisible terrors of the Martians; that pitiless sword +of heat seemed whirling to and fro, flourishing overhead before it +descended and smote me out of life. I came into the road between the +crossroads and Horsell, and ran along this to the crossroads. + +At last I could go no further; I was exhausted with the violence of my +emotion and of my flight, and I staggered and fell by the wayside. That +was near the bridge that crosses the canal by the gasworks. I fell and +lay still. + +I must have remained there some time. + +I sat up, strangely perplexed. For a moment, perhaps, I could not +clearly understand how I came there. My terror had fallen from me like +a garment. My hat had gone, and my collar had burst away from its +fastener. A few minutes before, there had only been three real things +before me—the immensity of the night and space and nature, my own +feebleness and anguish, and the near approach of death. Now it was as +if something turned over, and the point of view altered abruptly. There +was no sensible transition from one state of mind to the other. I was +immediately the self of every day again—a decent, ordinary citizen. The +silent common, the impulse of my flight, the starting flames, were as +if they had been in a dream. I asked myself had these latter things +indeed happened? I could not credit it. + +I rose and walked unsteadily up the steep incline of the bridge. My +mind was blank wonder. My muscles and nerves seemed drained of their +strength. I dare say I staggered drunkenly. A head rose over the arch, +and the figure of a workman carrying a basket appeared. Beside him ran +a little boy. He passed me, wishing me good night. I was minded to +speak to him, but did not. I answered his greeting with a meaningless +mumble and went on over the bridge. + +Over the Maybury arch a train, a billowing tumult of white, firelit +smoke, and a long caterpillar of lighted windows, went flying +south—clatter, clatter, clap, rap, and it had gone. A dim group of +people talked in the gate of one of the houses in the pretty little row +of gables that was called Oriental Terrace. It was all so real and so +familiar. And that behind me! It was frantic, fantastic! Such things, I +told myself, could not be. + +Perhaps I am a man of exceptional moods. I do not know how far my +experience is common. At times I suffer from the strangest sense of +detachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it all +from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out +of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all. This feeling was +very strong upon me that night. Here was another side to my dream. + +But the trouble was the blank incongruity of this serenity and the +swift death flying yonder, not two miles away. There was a noise of +business from the gasworks, and the electric lamps were all alight. I +stopped at the group of people. + +“What news from the common?” said I. + +There were two men and a woman at the gate. + +“Eh?” said one of the men, turning. + +“What news from the common?” I said. + +“Ain’t yer just _been_ there?” asked the men. + +“People seem fair silly about the common,” said the woman over the +gate. “What’s it all abart?” + +“Haven’t you heard of the men from Mars?” said I; “the creatures from +Mars?” + +“Quite enough,” said the woman over the gate. “Thenks”; and all three +of them laughed. + +I felt foolish and angry. I tried and found I could not tell them what +I had seen. They laughed again at my broken sentences. + +“You’ll hear more yet,” I said, and went on to my home. + +I startled my wife at the doorway, so haggard was I. I went into the +dining room, sat down, drank some wine, and so soon as I could collect +myself sufficiently I told her the things I had seen. The dinner, which +was a cold one, had already been served, and remained neglected on the +table while I told my story. + +“There is one thing,” I said, to allay the fears I had aroused; “they +are the most sluggish things I ever saw crawl. They may keep the pit +and kill people who come near them, but they cannot get out of it. . . +. But the horror of them!” + +“Don’t, dear!” said my wife, knitting her brows and putting her hand on +mine. + +“Poor Ogilvy!” I said. “To think he may be lying dead there!” + +My wife at least did not find my experience incredible. When I saw how +deadly white her face was, I ceased abruptly. + +“They may come here,” she said again and again. + +I pressed her to take wine, and tried to reassure her. + +“They can scarcely move,” I said. + +I began to comfort her and myself by repeating all that Ogilvy had told +me of the impossibility of the Martians establishing themselves on the +earth. In particular I laid stress on the gravitational difficulty. On +the surface of the earth the force of gravity is three times what it is +on the surface of Mars. A Martian, therefore, would weigh three times +more than on Mars, albeit his muscular strength would be the same. His +own body would be a cope of lead to him, therefore. That, indeed, was +the general opinion. Both _The Times_ and the _Daily Telegraph_, for +instance, insisted on it the next morning, and both overlooked, just as +I did, two obvious modifying influences. + +The atmosphere of the earth, we now know, contains far more oxygen or +far less argon (whichever way one likes to put it) than does Mars’. The +invigorating influences of this excess of oxygen upon the Martians +indisputably did much to counterbalance the increased weight of their +bodies. And, in the second place, we all overlooked the fact that such +mechanical intelligence as the Martian possessed was quite able to +dispense with muscular exertion at a pinch. + +But I did not consider these points at the time, and so my reasoning +was dead against the chances of the invaders. With wine and food, the +confidence of my own table, and the necessity of reassuring my wife, I +grew by insensible degrees courageous and secure. + +“They have done a foolish thing,” said I, fingering my wineglass. “They +are dangerous because, no doubt, they are mad with terror. Perhaps they +expected to find no living things—certainly no intelligent living +things.” + +“A shell in the pit,” said I, “if the worst comes to the worst, will +kill them all.” + +The intense excitement of the events had no doubt left my perceptive +powers in a state of erethism. I remember that dinner table with +extraordinary vividness even now. My dear wife’s sweet anxious face +peering at me from under the pink lamp shade, the white cloth with its +silver and glass table furniture—for in those days even philosophical +writers had many little luxuries—the crimson-purple wine in my glass, +are photographically distinct. At the end of it I sat, tempering nuts +with a cigarette, regretting Ogilvy’s rashness, and denouncing the +short-sighted timidity of the Martians. + +So some respectable dodo in the Mauritius might have lorded it in his +nest, and discussed the arrival of that shipful of pitiless sailors in +want of animal food. “We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear.” + +I did not know it, but that was the last civilised dinner I was to eat +for very many strange and terrible days. + + + + +VIII. +FRIDAY NIGHT. + + +The most extraordinary thing to my mind, of all the strange and +wonderful things that happened upon that Friday, was the dovetailing of +the commonplace habits of our social order with the first beginnings of +the series of events that was to topple that social order headlong. If +on Friday night you had taken a pair of compasses and drawn a circle +with a radius of five miles round the Woking sand-pits, I doubt if you +would have had one human being outside it, unless it were some relation +of Stent or of the three or four cyclists or London people lying dead +on the common, whose emotions or habits were at all affected by the +new-comers. Many people had heard of the cylinder, of course, and +talked about it in their leisure, but it certainly did not make the +sensation that an ultimatum to Germany would have done. + +In London that night poor Henderson’s telegram describing the gradual +unscrewing of the shot was judged to be a canard, and his evening +paper, after wiring for authentication from him and receiving no +reply—the man was killed—decided not to print a special edition. + +Even within the five-mile circle the great majority of people were +inert. I have already described the behaviour of the men and women to +whom I spoke. All over the district people were dining and supping; +working men were gardening after the labours of the day, children were +being put to bed, young people were wandering through the lanes +love-making, students sat over their books. + +Maybe there was a murmur in the village streets, a novel and dominant +topic in the public-houses, and here and there a messenger, or even an +eye-witness of the later occurrences, caused a whirl of excitement, a +shouting, and a running to and fro; but for the most part the daily +routine of working, eating, drinking, sleeping, went on as it had done +for countless years—as though no planet Mars existed in the sky. Even +at Woking station and Horsell and Chobham that was the case. + +In Woking junction, until a late hour, trains were stopping and going +on, others were shunting on the sidings, passengers were alighting and +waiting, and everything was proceeding in the most ordinary way. A boy +from the town, trenching on Smith’s monopoly, was selling papers with +the afternoon’s news. The ringing impact of trucks, the sharp whistle +of the engines from the junction, mingled with their shouts of “Men +from Mars!” Excited men came into the station about nine o’clock with +incredible tidings, and caused no more disturbance than drunkards might +have done. People rattling Londonwards peered into the darkness outside +the carriage windows, and saw only a rare, flickering, vanishing spark +dance up from the direction of Horsell, a red glow and a thin veil of +smoke driving across the stars, and thought that nothing more serious +than a heath fire was happening. It was only round the edge of the +common that any disturbance was perceptible. There were half a dozen +villas burning on the Woking border. There were lights in all the +houses on the common side of the three villages, and the people there +kept awake till dawn. + +A curious crowd lingered restlessly, people coming and going but the +crowd remaining, both on the Chobham and Horsell bridges. One or two +adventurous souls, it was afterwards found, went into the darkness and +crawled quite near the Martians; but they never returned, for now and +again a light-ray, like the beam of a warship’s searchlight swept the +common, and the Heat-Ray was ready to follow. Save for such, that big +area of common was silent and desolate, and the charred bodies lay +about on it all night under the stars, and all the next day. A noise of +hammering from the pit was heard by many people. + +So you have the state of things on Friday night. In the centre, +sticking into the skin of our old planet Earth like a poisoned dart, +was this cylinder. But the poison was scarcely working yet. Around it +was a patch of silent common, smouldering in places, and with a few +dark, dimly seen objects lying in contorted attitudes here and there. +Here and there was a burning bush or tree. Beyond was a fringe of +excitement, and farther than that fringe the inflammation had not crept +as yet. In the rest of the world the stream of life still flowed as it +had flowed for immemorial years. The fever of war that would presently +clog vein and artery, deaden nerve and destroy brain, had still to +develop. + +All night long the Martians were hammering and stirring, sleepless, +indefatigable, at work upon the machines they were making ready, and +ever and again a puff of greenish-white smoke whirled up to the starlit +sky. + +About eleven a company of soldiers came through Horsell, and deployed +along the edge of the common to form a cordon. Later a second company +marched through Chobham to deploy on the north side of the common. +Several officers from the Inkerman barracks had been on the common +earlier in the day, and one, Major Eden, was reported to be missing. +The colonel of the regiment came to the Chobham bridge and was busy +questioning the crowd at midnight. The military authorities were +certainly alive to the seriousness of the business. About eleven, the +next morning’s papers were able to say, a squadron of hussars, two +Maxims, and about four hundred men of the Cardigan regiment started +from Aldershot. + +A few seconds after midnight the crowd in the Chertsey road, Woking, +saw a star fall from heaven into the pine woods to the northwest. It +had a greenish colour, and caused a silent brightness like summer +lightning. This was the second cylinder. + + + + +IX. +THE FIGHTING BEGINS. + + +Saturday lives in my memory as a day of suspense. It was a day of +lassitude too, hot and close, with, I am told, a rapidly fluctuating +barometer. I had slept but little, though my wife had succeeded in +sleeping, and I rose early. I went into my garden before breakfast and +stood listening, but towards the common there was nothing stirring but +a lark. + +The milkman came as usual. I heard the rattle of his chariot and I went +round to the side gate to ask the latest news. He told me that during +the night the Martians had been surrounded by troops, and that guns +were expected. Then—a familiar, reassuring note—I heard a train running +towards Woking. + +“They aren’t to be killed,” said the milkman, “if that can possibly be +avoided.” + +I saw my neighbour gardening, chatted with him for a time, and then +strolled in to breakfast. It was a most unexceptional morning. My +neighbour was of opinion that the troops would be able to capture or to +destroy the Martians during the day. + +“It’s a pity they make themselves so unapproachable,” he said. “It +would be curious to know how they live on another planet; we might +learn a thing or two.” + +He came up to the fence and extended a handful of strawberries, for his +gardening was as generous as it was enthusiastic. At the same time he +told me of the burning of the pine woods about the Byfleet Golf Links. + +“They say,” said he, “that there’s another of those blessed things +fallen there—number two. But one’s enough, surely. This lot’ll cost the +insurance people a pretty penny before everything’s settled.” He +laughed with an air of the greatest good humour as he said this. The +woods, he said, were still burning, and pointed out a haze of smoke to +me. “They will be hot under foot for days, on account of the thick soil +of pine needles and turf,” he said, and then grew serious over “poor +Ogilvy.” + +After breakfast, instead of working, I decided to walk down towards the +common. Under the railway bridge I found a group of soldiers—sappers, I +think, men in small round caps, dirty red jackets unbuttoned, and +showing their blue shirts, dark trousers, and boots coming to the calf. +They told me no one was allowed over the canal, and, looking along the +road towards the bridge, I saw one of the Cardigan men standing +sentinel there. I talked with these soldiers for a time; I told them of +my sight of the Martians on the previous evening. None of them had seen +the Martians, and they had but the vaguest ideas of them, so that they +plied me with questions. They said that they did not know who had +authorised the movements of the troops; their idea was that a dispute +had arisen at the Horse Guards. The ordinary sapper is a great deal +better educated than the common soldier, and they discussed the +peculiar conditions of the possible fight with some acuteness. I +described the Heat-Ray to them, and they began to argue among +themselves. + +“Crawl up under cover and rush ’em, say I,” said one. + +“Get aht!” said another. “What’s cover against this ’ere ’eat? Sticks +to cook yer! What we got to do is to go as near as the ground’ll let +us, and then drive a trench.” + +“Blow yer trenches! You always want trenches; you ought to ha’ been +born a rabbit Snippy.” + +“Ain’t they got any necks, then?” said a third, abruptly—a little, +contemplative, dark man, smoking a pipe. + +I repeated my description. + +“Octopuses,” said he, “that’s what I calls ’em. Talk about fishers of +men—fighters of fish it is this time!” + +“It ain’t no murder killing beasts like that,” said the first speaker. + +“Why not shell the darned things strite off and finish ’em?” said the +little dark man. “You carn tell what they might do.” + +“Where’s your shells?” said the first speaker. “There ain’t no time. Do +it in a rush, that’s my tip, and do it at once.” + +So they discussed it. After a while I left them, and went on to the +railway station to get as many morning papers as I could. + +But I will not weary the reader with a description of that long morning +and of the longer afternoon. I did not succeed in getting a glimpse of +the common, for even Horsell and Chobham church towers were in the +hands of the military authorities. The soldiers I addressed didn’t know +anything; the officers were mysterious as well as busy. I found people +in the town quite secure again in the presence of the military, and I +heard for the first time from Marshall, the tobacconist, that his son +was among the dead on the common. The soldiers had made the people on +the outskirts of Horsell lock up and leave their houses. + +I got back to lunch about two, very tired for, as I have said, the day +was extremely hot and dull; and in order to refresh myself I took a +cold bath in the afternoon. About half past four I went up to the +railway station to get an evening paper, for the morning papers had +contained only a very inaccurate description of the killing of Stent, +Henderson, Ogilvy, and the others. But there was little I didn’t know. +The Martians did not show an inch of themselves. They seemed busy in +their pit, and there was a sound of hammering and an almost continuous +streamer of smoke. Apparently they were busy getting ready for a +struggle. “Fresh attempts have been made to signal, but without +success,” was the stereotyped formula of the papers. A sapper told me +it was done by a man in a ditch with a flag on a long pole. The +Martians took as much notice of such advances as we should of the +lowing of a cow. + +I must confess the sight of all this armament, all this preparation, +greatly excited me. My imagination became belligerent, and defeated the +invaders in a dozen striking ways; something of my schoolboy dreams of +battle and heroism came back. It hardly seemed a fair fight to me at +that time. They seemed very helpless in that pit of theirs. + +About three o’clock there began the thud of a gun at measured intervals +from Chertsey or Addlestone. I learned that the smouldering pine wood +into which the second cylinder had fallen was being shelled, in the +hope of destroying that object before it opened. It was only about +five, however, that a field gun reached Chobham for use against the +first body of Martians. + +About six in the evening, as I sat at tea with my wife in the +summerhouse talking vigorously about the battle that was lowering upon +us, I heard a muffled detonation from the common, and immediately after +a gust of firing. Close on the heels of that came a violent rattling +crash, quite close to us, that shook the ground; and, starting out upon +the lawn, I saw the tops of the trees about the Oriental College burst +into smoky red flame, and the tower of the little church beside it +slide down into ruin. The pinnacle of the mosque had vanished, and the +roof line of the college itself looked as if a hundred-ton gun had been +at work upon it. One of our chimneys cracked as if a shot had hit it, +flew, and a piece of it came clattering down the tiles and made a heap +of broken red fragments upon the flower bed by my study window. + +I and my wife stood amazed. Then I realised that the crest of Maybury +Hill must be within range of the Martians’ Heat-Ray now that the +college was cleared out of the way. + +At that I gripped my wife’s arm, and without ceremony ran her out into +the road. Then I fetched out the servant, telling her I would go +upstairs myself for the box she was clamouring for. + +“We can’t possibly stay here,” I said; and as I spoke the firing +reopened for a moment upon the common. + +“But where are we to go?” said my wife in terror. + +I thought perplexed. Then I remembered her cousins at Leatherhead. + +“Leatherhead!” I shouted above the sudden noise. + +She looked away from me downhill. The people were coming out of their +houses, astonished. + +“How are we to get to Leatherhead?” she said. + +Down the hill I saw a bevy of hussars ride under the railway bridge; +three galloped through the open gates of the Oriental College; two +others dismounted, and began running from house to house. The sun, +shining through the smoke that drove up from the tops of the trees, +seemed blood red, and threw an unfamiliar lurid light upon everything. + +“Stop here,” said I; “you are safe here”; and I started off at once for +the Spotted Dog, for I knew the landlord had a horse and dog cart. I +ran, for I perceived that in a moment everyone upon this side of the +hill would be moving. I found him in his bar, quite unaware of what was +going on behind his house. A man stood with his back to me, talking to +him. + +“I must have a pound,” said the landlord, “and I’ve no one to drive +it.” + +“I’ll give you two,” said I, over the stranger’s shoulder. + +“What for?” + +“And I’ll bring it back by midnight,” I said. + +“Lord!” said the landlord; “what’s the hurry? I’m selling my bit of a +pig. Two pounds, and you bring it back? What’s going on now?” + +I explained hastily that I had to leave my home, and so secured the dog +cart. At the time it did not seem to me nearly so urgent that the +landlord should leave his. I took care to have the cart there and then, +drove it off down the road, and, leaving it in charge of my wife and +servant, rushed into my house and packed a few valuables, such plate as +we had, and so forth. The beech trees below the house were burning +while I did this, and the palings up the road glowed red. While I was +occupied in this way, one of the dismounted hussars came running up. He +was going from house to house, warning people to leave. He was going on +as I came out of my front door, lugging my treasures, done up in a +tablecloth. I shouted after him: + +“What news?” + +He turned, stared, bawled something about “crawling out in a thing like +a dish cover,” and ran on to the gate of the house at the crest. A +sudden whirl of black smoke driving across the road hid him for a +moment. I ran to my neighbour’s door and rapped to satisfy myself of +what I already knew, that his wife had gone to London with him and had +locked up their house. I went in again, according to my promise, to get +my servant’s box, lugged it out, clapped it beside her on the tail of +the dog cart, and then caught the reins and jumped up into the driver’s +seat beside my wife. In another moment we were clear of the smoke and +noise, and spanking down the opposite slope of Maybury Hill towards Old +Woking. + +In front was a quiet sunny landscape, a wheat field ahead on either +side of the road, and the Maybury Inn with its swinging sign. I saw the +doctor’s cart ahead of me. At the bottom of the hill I turned my head +to look at the hillside I was leaving. Thick streamers of black smoke +shot with threads of red fire were driving up into the still air, and +throwing dark shadows upon the green treetops eastward. The smoke +already extended far away to the east and west—to the Byfleet pine +woods eastward, and to Woking on the west. The road was dotted with +people running towards us. And very faint now, but very distinct +through the hot, quiet air, one heard the whirr of a machine-gun that +was presently stilled, and an intermittent cracking of rifles. +Apparently the Martians were setting fire to everything within range of +their Heat-Ray. + +I am not an expert driver, and I had immediately to turn my attention +to the horse. When I looked back again the second hill had hidden the +black smoke. I slashed the horse with the whip, and gave him a loose +rein until Woking and Send lay between us and that quivering tumult. I +overtook and passed the doctor between Woking and Send. + + + + +X. +IN THE STORM. + + +Leatherhead is about twelve miles from Maybury Hill. The scent of hay +was in the air through the lush meadows beyond Pyrford, and the hedges +on either side were sweet and gay with multitudes of dog-roses. The +heavy firing that had broken out while we were driving down Maybury +Hill ceased as abruptly as it began, leaving the evening very peaceful +and still. We got to Leatherhead without misadventure about nine +o’clock, and the horse had an hour’s rest while I took supper with my +cousins and commended my wife to their care. + +My wife was curiously silent throughout the drive, and seemed oppressed +with forebodings of evil. I talked to her reassuringly, pointing out +that the Martians were tied to the pit by sheer heaviness, and at the +utmost could but crawl a little out of it; but she answered only in +monosyllables. Had it not been for my promise to the innkeeper, she +would, I think, have urged me to stay in Leatherhead that night. Would +that I had! Her face, I remember, was very white as we parted. + +For my own part, I had been feverishly excited all day. Something very +like the war fever that occasionally runs through a civilised community +had got into my blood, and in my heart I was not so very sorry that I +had to return to Maybury that night. I was even afraid that that last +fusillade I had heard might mean the extermination of our invaders from +Mars. I can best express my state of mind by saying that I wanted to be +in at the death. + +It was nearly eleven when I started to return. The night was +unexpectedly dark; to me, walking out of the lighted passage of my +cousins’ house, it seemed indeed black, and it was as hot and close as +the day. Overhead the clouds were driving fast, albeit not a breath +stirred the shrubs about us. My cousins’ man lit both lamps. Happily, I +knew the road intimately. My wife stood in the light of the doorway, +and watched me until I jumped up into the dog cart. Then abruptly she +turned and went in, leaving my cousins side by side wishing me good +hap. + +I was a little depressed at first with the contagion of my wife’s +fears, but very soon my thoughts reverted to the Martians. At that time +I was absolutely in the dark as to the course of the evening’s +fighting. I did not know even the circumstances that had precipitated +the conflict. As I came through Ockham (for that was the way I +returned, and not through Send and Old Woking) I saw along the western +horizon a blood-red glow, which as I drew nearer, crept slowly up the +sky. The driving clouds of the gathering thunderstorm mingled there +with masses of black and red smoke. + +Ripley Street was deserted, and except for a lighted window or so the +village showed not a sign of life; but I narrowly escaped an accident +at the corner of the road to Pyrford, where a knot of people stood with +their backs to me. They said nothing to me as I passed. I do not know +what they knew of the things happening beyond the hill, nor do I know +if the silent houses I passed on my way were sleeping securely, or +deserted and empty, or harassed and watching against the terror of the +night. + +From Ripley until I came through Pyrford I was in the valley of the +Wey, and the red glare was hidden from me. As I ascended the little +hill beyond Pyrford Church the glare came into view again, and the +trees about me shivered with the first intimation of the storm that was +upon me. Then I heard midnight pealing out from Pyrford Church behind +me, and then came the silhouette of Maybury Hill, with its tree-tops +and roofs black and sharp against the red. + +Even as I beheld this a lurid green glare lit the road about me and +showed the distant woods towards Addlestone. I felt a tug at the reins. +I saw that the driving clouds had been pierced as it were by a thread +of green fire, suddenly lighting their confusion and falling into the +field to my left. It was the third falling star! + +Close on its apparition, and blindingly violet by contrast, danced out +the first lightning of the gathering storm, and the thunder burst like +a rocket overhead. The horse took the bit between his teeth and bolted. + +A moderate incline runs towards the foot of Maybury Hill, and down this +we clattered. Once the lightning had begun, it went on in as rapid a +succession of flashes as I have ever seen. The thunderclaps, treading +one on the heels of another and with a strange crackling accompaniment, +sounded more like the working of a gigantic electric machine than the +usual detonating reverberations. The flickering light was blinding and +confusing, and a thin hail smote gustily at my face as I drove down the +slope. + +At first I regarded little but the road before me, and then abruptly my +attention was arrested by something that was moving rapidly down the +opposite slope of Maybury Hill. At first I took it for the wet roof of +a house, but one flash following another showed it to be in swift +rolling movement. It was an elusive vision—a moment of bewildering +darkness, and then, in a flash like daylight, the red masses of the +Orphanage near the crest of the hill, the green tops of the pine trees, +and this problematical object came out clear and sharp and bright. + +And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it? A monstrous tripod, higher +than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them +aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now +across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, and the +clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder. +A flash, and it came out vividly, heeling over one way with two feet in +the air, to vanish and reappear almost instantly as it seemed, with the +next flash, a hundred yards nearer. Can you imagine a milking stool +tilted and bowled violently along the ground? That was the impression +those instant flashes gave. But instead of a milking stool imagine it a +great body of machinery on a tripod stand. + +Then suddenly the trees in the pine wood ahead of me were parted, as +brittle reeds are parted by a man thrusting through them; they were +snapped off and driven headlong, and a second huge tripod appeared, +rushing, as it seemed, headlong towards me. And I was galloping hard to +meet it! At the sight of the second monster my nerve went altogether. +Not stopping to look again, I wrenched the horse’s head hard round to +the right and in another moment the dog cart had heeled over upon the +horse; the shafts smashed noisily, and I was flung sideways and fell +heavily into a shallow pool of water. + +I crawled out almost immediately, and crouched, my feet still in the +water, under a clump of furze. The horse lay motionless (his neck was +broken, poor brute!) and by the lightning flashes I saw the black bulk +of the overturned dog cart and the silhouette of the wheel still +spinning slowly. In another moment the colossal mechanism went striding +by me, and passed uphill towards Pyrford. + +Seen nearer, the Thing was incredibly strange, for it was no mere +insensate machine driving on its way. Machine it was, with a ringing +metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering tentacles (one of which +gripped a young pine tree) swinging and rattling about its strange +body. It picked its road as it went striding along, and the brazen hood +that surmounted it moved to and fro with the inevitable suggestion of a +head looking about. Behind the main body was a huge mass of white metal +like a gigantic fisherman’s basket, and puffs of green smoke squirted +out from the joints of the limbs as the monster swept by me. And in an +instant it was gone. + +So much I saw then, all vaguely for the flickering of the lightning, in +blinding highlights and dense black shadows. + +As it passed it set up an exultant deafening howl that drowned the +thunder—“Aloo! Aloo!”—and in another minute it was with its companion, +half a mile away, stooping over something in the field. I have no doubt +this Thing in the field was the third of the ten cylinders they had +fired at us from Mars. + +For some minutes I lay there in the rain and darkness watching, by the +intermittent light, these monstrous beings of metal moving about in the +distance over the hedge tops. A thin hail was now beginning, and as it +came and went their figures grew misty and then flashed into clearness +again. Now and then came a gap in the lightning, and the night +swallowed them up. + +I was soaked with hail above and puddle water below. It was some time +before my blank astonishment would let me struggle up the bank to a +drier position, or think at all of my imminent peril. + +Not far from me was a little one-roomed squatter’s hut of wood, +surrounded by a patch of potato garden. I struggled to my feet at last, +and, crouching and making use of every chance of cover, I made a run +for this. I hammered at the door, but I could not make the people hear +(if there were any people inside), and after a time I desisted, and, +availing myself of a ditch for the greater part of the way, succeeded +in crawling, unobserved by these monstrous machines, into the pine +woods towards Maybury. + +Under cover of this I pushed on, wet and shivering now, towards my own +house. I walked among the trees trying to find the footpath. It was +very dark indeed in the wood, for the lightning was now becoming +infrequent, and the hail, which was pouring down in a torrent, fell in +columns through the gaps in the heavy foliage. + +If I had fully realised the meaning of all the things I had seen I +should have immediately worked my way round through Byfleet to Street +Cobham, and so gone back to rejoin my wife at Leatherhead. But that +night the strangeness of things about me, and my physical wretchedness, +prevented me, for I was bruised, weary, wet to the skin, deafened and +blinded by the storm. + +I had a vague idea of going on to my own house, and that was as much +motive as I had. I staggered through the trees, fell into a ditch and +bruised my knees against a plank, and finally splashed out into the +lane that ran down from the College Arms. I say splashed, for the storm +water was sweeping the sand down the hill in a muddy torrent. There in +the darkness a man blundered into me and sent me reeling back. + +He gave a cry of terror, sprang sideways, and rushed on before I could +gather my wits sufficiently to speak to him. So heavy was the stress of +the storm just at this place that I had the hardest task to win my way +up the hill. I went close up to the fence on the left and worked my way +along its palings. + +Near the top I stumbled upon something soft, and, by a flash of +lightning, saw between my feet a heap of black broadcloth and a pair of +boots. Before I could distinguish clearly how the man lay, the flicker +of light had passed. I stood over him waiting for the next flash. When +it came, I saw that he was a sturdy man, cheaply but not shabbily +dressed; his head was bent under his body, and he lay crumpled up close +to the fence, as though he had been flung violently against it. + +Overcoming the repugnance natural to one who had never before touched a +dead body, I stooped and turned him over to feel for his heart. He was +quite dead. Apparently his neck had been broken. The lightning flashed +for a third time, and his face leaped upon me. I sprang to my feet. It +was the landlord of the Spotted Dog, whose conveyance I had taken. + +I stepped over him gingerly and pushed on up the hill. I made my way by +the police station and the College Arms towards my own house. Nothing +was burning on the hillside, though from the common there still came a +red glare and a rolling tumult of ruddy smoke beating up against the +drenching hail. So far as I could see by the flashes, the houses about +me were mostly uninjured. By the College Arms a dark heap lay in the +road. + +Down the road towards Maybury Bridge there were voices and the sound of +feet, but I had not the courage to shout or to go to them. I let myself +in with my latchkey, closed, locked and bolted the door, staggered to +the foot of the staircase, and sat down. My imagination was full of +those striding metallic monsters, and of the dead body smashed against +the fence. + +I crouched at the foot of the staircase with my back to the wall, +shivering violently. + + + + +XI. +AT THE WINDOW. + + +I have already said that my storms of emotion have a trick of +exhausting themselves. After a time I discovered that I was cold and +wet, and with little pools of water about me on the stair carpet. I got +up almost mechanically, went into the dining room and drank some +whisky, and then I was moved to change my clothes. + +After I had done that I went upstairs to my study, but why I did so I +do not know. The window of my study looks over the trees and the +railway towards Horsell Common. In the hurry of our departure this +window had been left open. The passage was dark, and, by contrast with +the picture the window frame enclosed, the side of the room seemed +impenetrably dark. I stopped short in the doorway. + +The thunderstorm had passed. The towers of the Oriental College and the +pine trees about it had gone, and very far away, lit by a vivid red +glare, the common about the sand-pits was visible. Across the light +huge black shapes, grotesque and strange, moved busily to and fro. + +It seemed indeed as if the whole country in that direction was on +fire—a broad hillside set with minute tongues of flame, swaying and +writhing with the gusts of the dying storm, and throwing a red +reflection upon the cloud scud above. Every now and then a haze of +smoke from some nearer conflagration drove across the window and hid +the Martian shapes. I could not see what they were doing, nor the clear +form of them, nor recognise the black objects they were busied upon. +Neither could I see the nearer fire, though the reflections of it +danced on the wall and ceiling of the study. A sharp, resinous tang of +burning was in the air. + +I closed the door noiselessly and crept towards the window. As I did +so, the view opened out until, on the one hand, it reached to the +houses about Woking station, and on the other to the charred and +blackened pine woods of Byfleet. There was a light down below the hill, +on the railway, near the arch, and several of the houses along the +Maybury road and the streets near the station were glowing ruins. The +light upon the railway puzzled me at first; there were a black heap and +a vivid glare, and to the right of that a row of yellow oblongs. Then I +perceived this was a wrecked train, the fore part smashed and on fire, +the hinder carriages still upon the rails. + +Between these three main centres of light—the houses, the train, and +the burning county towards Chobham—stretched irregular patches of dark +country, broken here and there by intervals of dimly glowing and +smoking ground. It was the strangest spectacle, that black expanse set +with fire. It reminded me, more than anything else, of the Potteries at +night. At first I could distinguish no people at all, though I peered +intently for them. Later I saw against the light of Woking station a +number of black figures hurrying one after the other across the line. + +And this was the little world in which I had been living securely for +years, this fiery chaos! What had happened in the last seven hours I +still did not know; nor did I know, though I was beginning to guess, +the relation between these mechanical colossi and the sluggish lumps I +had seen disgorged from the cylinder. With a queer feeling of +impersonal interest I turned my desk chair to the window, sat down, and +stared at the blackened country, and particularly at the three gigantic +black things that were going to and fro in the glare about the +sand-pits. + +They seemed amazingly busy. I began to ask myself what they could be. +Were they intelligent mechanisms? Such a thing I felt was impossible. +Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, using, much as a +man’s brain sits and rules in his body? I began to compare the things +to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an +ironclad or a steam engine would seem to an intelligent lower animal. + +The storm had left the sky clear, and over the smoke of the burning +land the little fading pinpoint of Mars was dropping into the west, +when a soldier came into my garden. I heard a slight scraping at the +fence, and rousing myself from the lethargy that had fallen upon me, I +looked down and saw him dimly, clambering over the palings. At the +sight of another human being my torpor passed, and I leaned out of the +window eagerly. + +“Hist!” said I, in a whisper. + +He stopped astride of the fence in doubt. Then he came over and across +the lawn to the corner of the house. He bent down and stepped softly. + +“Who’s there?” he said, also whispering, standing under the window and +peering up. + +“Where are you going?” I asked. + +“God knows.” + +“Are you trying to hide?” + +“That’s it.” + +“Come into the house,” I said. + +I went down, unfastened the door, and let him in, and locked the door +again. I could not see his face. He was hatless, and his coat was +unbuttoned. + +“My God!” he said, as I drew him in. + +“What has happened?” I asked. + +“What hasn’t?” In the obscurity I could see he made a gesture of +despair. “They wiped us out—simply wiped us out,” he repeated again and +again. + +He followed me, almost mechanically, into the dining room. + +“Take some whisky,” I said, pouring out a stiff dose. + +He drank it. Then abruptly he sat down before the table, put his head +on his arms, and began to sob and weep like a little boy, in a perfect +passion of emotion, while I, with a curious forgetfulness of my own +recent despair, stood beside him, wondering. + +It was a long time before he could steady his nerves to answer my +questions, and then he answered perplexingly and brokenly. He was a +driver in the artillery, and had only come into action about seven. At +that time firing was going on across the common, and it was said the +first party of Martians were crawling slowly towards their second +cylinder under cover of a metal shield. + +Later this shield staggered up on tripod legs and became the first of +the fighting-machines I had seen. The gun he drove had been unlimbered +near Horsell, in order to command the sand-pits, and its arrival it was +that had precipitated the action. As the limber gunners went to the +rear, his horse trod in a rabbit hole and came down, throwing him into +a depression of the ground. At the same moment the gun exploded behind +him, the ammunition blew up, there was fire all about him, and he found +himself lying under a heap of charred dead men and dead horses. + +“I lay still,” he said, “scared out of my wits, with the fore quarter +of a horse atop of me. We’d been wiped out. And the smell—good God! +Like burnt meat! I was hurt across the back by the fall of the horse, +and there I had to lie until I felt better. Just like parade it had +been a minute before—then stumble, bang, swish!” + +“Wiped out!” he said. + +He had hid under the dead horse for a long time, peeping out furtively +across the common. The Cardigan men had tried a rush, in skirmishing +order, at the pit, simply to be swept out of existence. Then the +monster had risen to its feet and had begun to walk leisurely to and +fro across the common among the few fugitives, with its headlike hood +turning about exactly like the head of a cowled human being. A kind of +arm carried a complicated metallic case, about which green flashes +scintillated, and out of the funnel of this there smoked the Heat-Ray. + +In a few minutes there was, so far as the soldier could see, not a +living thing left upon the common, and every bush and tree upon it that +was not already a blackened skeleton was burning. The hussars had been +on the road beyond the curvature of the ground, and he saw nothing of +them. He heard the Maxims rattle for a time and then become still. The +giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses until the last; +then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear, and the town became +a heap of fiery ruins. Then the Thing shut off the Heat-Ray, and +turning its back upon the artilleryman, began to waddle away towards +the smouldering pine woods that sheltered the second cylinder. As it +did so a second glittering Titan built itself up out of the pit. + +The second monster followed the first, and at that the artilleryman +began to crawl very cautiously across the hot heather ash towards +Horsell. He managed to get alive into the ditch by the side of the +road, and so escaped to Woking. There his story became ejaculatory. The +place was impassable. It seems there were a few people alive there, +frantic for the most part and many burned and scalded. He was turned +aside by the fire, and hid among some almost scorching heaps of broken +wall as one of the Martian giants returned. He saw this one pursue a +man, catch him up in one of its steely tentacles, and knock his head +against the trunk of a pine tree. At last, after nightfall, the +artilleryman made a rush for it and got over the railway embankment. + +Since then he had been skulking along towards Maybury, in the hope of +getting out of danger Londonward. People were hiding in trenches and +cellars, and many of the survivors had made off towards Woking village +and Send. He had been consumed with thirst until he found one of the +water mains near the railway arch smashed, and the water bubbling out +like a spring upon the road. + +That was the story I got from him, bit by bit. He grew calmer telling +me and trying to make me see the things he had seen. He had eaten no +food since midday, he told me early in his narrative, and I found some +mutton and bread in the pantry and brought it into the room. We lit no +lamp for fear of attracting the Martians, and ever and again our hands +would touch upon bread or meat. As he talked, things about us came +darkly out of the darkness, and the trampled bushes and broken rose +trees outside the window grew distinct. It would seem that a number of +men or animals had rushed across the lawn. I began to see his face, +blackened and haggard, as no doubt mine was also. + +When we had finished eating we went softly upstairs to my study, and I +looked again out of the open window. In one night the valley had become +a valley of ashes. The fires had dwindled now. Where flames had been +there were now streamers of smoke; but the countless ruins of shattered +and gutted houses and blasted and blackened trees that the night had +hidden stood out now gaunt and terrible in the pitiless light of dawn. +Yet here and there some object had had the luck to escape—a white +railway signal here, the end of a greenhouse there, white and fresh +amid the wreckage. Never before in the history of warfare had +destruction been so indiscriminate and so universal. And shining with +the growing light of the east, three of the metallic giants stood about +the pit, their cowls rotating as though they were surveying the +desolation they had made. + +It seemed to me that the pit had been enlarged, and ever and again +puffs of vivid green vapour streamed up and out of it towards the +brightening dawn—streamed up, whirled, broke, and vanished. + +Beyond were the pillars of fire about Chobham. They became pillars of +bloodshot smoke at the first touch of day. + + + + +XII. +WHAT I SAW OF THE DESTRUCTION OF WEYBRIDGE AND SHEPPERTON. + + +As the dawn grew brighter we withdrew from the window from which we had +watched the Martians, and went very quietly downstairs. + +The artilleryman agreed with me that the house was no place to stay in. +He proposed, he said, to make his way Londonward, and thence rejoin his +battery—No. 12, of the Horse Artillery. My plan was to return at once +to Leatherhead; and so greatly had the strength of the Martians +impressed me that I had determined to take my wife to Newhaven, and go +with her out of the country forthwith. For I already perceived clearly +that the country about London must inevitably be the scene of a +disastrous struggle before such creatures as these could be destroyed. + +Between us and Leatherhead, however, lay the third cylinder, with its +guarding giants. Had I been alone, I think I should have taken my +chance and struck across country. But the artilleryman dissuaded me: +“It’s no kindness to the right sort of wife,” he said, “to make her a +widow”; and in the end I agreed to go with him, under cover of the +woods, northward as far as Street Cobham before I parted with him. +Thence I would make a big detour by Epsom to reach Leatherhead. + +I should have started at once, but my companion had been in active +service and he knew better than that. He made me ransack the house for +a flask, which he filled with whisky; and we lined every available +pocket with packets of biscuits and slices of meat. Then we crept out +of the house, and ran as quickly as we could down the ill-made road by +which I had come overnight. The houses seemed deserted. In the road lay +a group of three charred bodies close together, struck dead by the +Heat-Ray; and here and there were things that people had dropped—a +clock, a slipper, a silver spoon, and the like poor valuables. At the +corner turning up towards the post office a little cart, filled with +boxes and furniture, and horseless, heeled over on a broken wheel. A +cash box had been hastily smashed open and thrown under the debris. + +Except the lodge at the Orphanage, which was still on fire, none of the +houses had suffered very greatly here. The Heat-Ray had shaved the +chimney tops and passed. Yet, save ourselves, there did not seem to be +a living soul on Maybury Hill. The majority of the inhabitants had +escaped, I suppose, by way of the Old Woking road—the road I had taken +when I drove to Leatherhead—or they had hidden. + +We went down the lane, by the body of the man in black, sodden now from +the overnight hail, and broke into the woods at the foot of the hill. +We pushed through these towards the railway without meeting a soul. The +woods across the line were but the scarred and blackened ruins of +woods; for the most part the trees had fallen, but a certain proportion +still stood, dismal grey stems, with dark brown foliage instead of +green. + +On our side the fire had done no more than scorch the nearer trees; it +had failed to secure its footing. In one place the woodmen had been at +work on Saturday; trees, felled and freshly trimmed, lay in a clearing, +with heaps of sawdust by the sawing-machine and its engine. Hard by was +a temporary hut, deserted. There was not a breath of wind this morning, +and everything was strangely still. Even the birds were hushed, and as +we hurried along I and the artilleryman talked in whispers and looked +now and again over our shoulders. Once or twice we stopped to listen. + +After a time we drew near the road, and as we did so we heard the +clatter of hoofs and saw through the tree stems three cavalry soldiers +riding slowly towards Woking. We hailed them, and they halted while we +hurried towards them. It was a lieutenant and a couple of privates of +the 8th Hussars, with a stand like a theodolite, which the artilleryman +told me was a heliograph. + +“You are the first men I’ve seen coming this way this morning,” said +the lieutenant. “What’s brewing?” + +His voice and face were eager. The men behind him stared curiously. The +artilleryman jumped down the bank into the road and saluted. + +“Gun destroyed last night, sir. Have been hiding. Trying to rejoin +battery, sir. You’ll come in sight of the Martians, I expect, about +half a mile along this road.” + +“What the dickens are they like?” asked the lieutenant. + +“Giants in armour, sir. Hundred feet high. Three legs and a body like +’luminium, with a mighty great head in a hood, sir.” + +“Get out!” said the lieutenant. “What confounded nonsense!” + +“You’ll see, sir. They carry a kind of box, sir, that shoots fire and +strikes you dead.” + +“What d’ye mean—a gun?” + +“No, sir,” and the artilleryman began a vivid account of the Heat-Ray. +Halfway through, the lieutenant interrupted him and looked up at me. I +was still standing on the bank by the side of the road. + +“It’s perfectly true,” I said. + +“Well,” said the lieutenant, “I suppose it’s my business to see it too. +Look here”—to the artilleryman—“we’re detailed here clearing people out +of their houses. You’d better go along and report yourself to +Brigadier-General Marvin, and tell him all you know. He’s at Weybridge. +Know the way?” + +“I do,” I said; and he turned his horse southward again. + +“Half a mile, you say?” said he. + +“At most,” I answered, and pointed over the treetops southward. He +thanked me and rode on, and we saw them no more. + +Farther along we came upon a group of three women and two children in +the road, busy clearing out a labourer’s cottage. They had got hold of +a little hand truck, and were piling it up with unclean-looking bundles +and shabby furniture. They were all too assiduously engaged to talk to +us as we passed. + +By Byfleet station we emerged from the pine trees, and found the +country calm and peaceful under the morning sunlight. We were far +beyond the range of the Heat-Ray there, and had it not been for the +silent desertion of some of the houses, the stirring movement of +packing in others, and the knot of soldiers standing on the bridge over +the railway and staring down the line towards Woking, the day would +have seemed very like any other Sunday. + +Several farm waggons and carts were moving creakily along the road to +Addlestone, and suddenly through the gate of a field we saw, across a +stretch of flat meadow, six twelve-pounders standing neatly at equal +distances pointing towards Woking. The gunners stood by the guns +waiting, and the ammunition waggons were at a business-like distance. +The men stood almost as if under inspection. + +“That’s good!” said I. “They will get one fair shot, at any rate.” + +The artilleryman hesitated at the gate. + +“I shall go on,” he said. + +Farther on towards Weybridge, just over the bridge, there were a number +of men in white fatigue jackets throwing up a long rampart, and more +guns behind. + +“It’s bows and arrows against the lightning, anyhow,” said the +artilleryman. “They ’aven’t seen that fire-beam yet.” + +The officers who were not actively engaged stood and stared over the +treetops southwestward, and the men digging would stop every now and +again to stare in the same direction. + +Byfleet was in a tumult; people packing, and a score of hussars, some +of them dismounted, some on horseback, were hunting them about. Three +or four black government waggons, with crosses in white circles, and an +old omnibus, among other vehicles, were being loaded in the village +street. There were scores of people, most of them sufficiently +sabbatical to have assumed their best clothes. The soldiers were having +the greatest difficulty in making them realise the gravity of their +position. We saw one shrivelled old fellow with a huge box and a score +or more of flower pots containing orchids, angrily expostulating with +the corporal who would leave them behind. I stopped and gripped his +arm. + +“Do you know what’s over there?” I said, pointing at the pine tops that +hid the Martians. + +“Eh?” said he, turning. “I was explainin’ these is vallyble.” + +“Death!” I shouted. “Death is coming! Death!” and leaving him to digest +that if he could, I hurried on after the artillery-man. At the corner I +looked back. The soldier had left him, and he was still standing by his +box, with the pots of orchids on the lid of it, and staring vaguely +over the trees. + +No one in Weybridge could tell us where the headquarters were +established; the whole place was in such confusion as I had never seen +in any town before. Carts, carriages everywhere, the most astonishing +miscellany of conveyances and horseflesh. The respectable inhabitants +of the place, men in golf and boating costumes, wives prettily dressed, +were packing, river-side loafers energetically helping, children +excited, and, for the most part, highly delighted at this astonishing +variation of their Sunday experiences. In the midst of it all the +worthy vicar was very pluckily holding an early celebration, and his +bell was jangling out above the excitement. + +I and the artilleryman, seated on the step of the drinking fountain, +made a very passable meal upon what we had brought with us. Patrols of +soldiers—here no longer hussars, but grenadiers in white—were warning +people to move now or to take refuge in their cellars as soon as the +firing began. We saw as we crossed the railway bridge that a growing +crowd of people had assembled in and about the railway station, and the +swarming platform was piled with boxes and packages. The ordinary +traffic had been stopped, I believe, in order to allow of the passage +of troops and guns to Chertsey, and I have heard since that a savage +struggle occurred for places in the special trains that were put on at +a later hour. + +We remained at Weybridge until midday, and at that hour we found +ourselves at the place near Shepperton Lock where the Wey and Thames +join. Part of the time we spent helping two old women to pack a little +cart. The Wey has a treble mouth, and at this point boats are to be +hired, and there was a ferry across the river. On the Shepperton side +was an inn with a lawn, and beyond that the tower of Shepperton +Church—it has been replaced by a spire—rose above the trees. + +Here we found an excited and noisy crowd of fugitives. As yet the +flight had not grown to a panic, but there were already far more people +than all the boats going to and fro could enable to cross. People came +panting along under heavy burdens; one husband and wife were even +carrying a small outhouse door between them, with some of their +household goods piled thereon. One man told us he meant to try to get +away from Shepperton station. + +There was a lot of shouting, and one man was even jesting. The idea +people seemed to have here was that the Martians were simply formidable +human beings, who might attack and sack the town, to be certainly +destroyed in the end. Every now and then people would glance nervously +across the Wey, at the meadows towards Chertsey, but everything over +there was still. + +Across the Thames, except just where the boats landed, everything was +quiet, in vivid contrast with the Surrey side. The people who landed +there from the boats went tramping off down the lane. The big ferryboat +had just made a journey. Three or four soldiers stood on the lawn of +the inn, staring and jesting at the fugitives, without offering to +help. The inn was closed, as it was now within prohibited hours. + +“What’s that?” cried a boatman, and “Shut up, you fool!” said a man +near me to a yelping dog. Then the sound came again, this time from the +direction of Chertsey, a muffled thud—the sound of a gun. + +The fighting was beginning. Almost immediately unseen batteries across +the river to our right, unseen because of the trees, took up the +chorus, firing heavily one after the other. A woman screamed. Everyone +stood arrested by the sudden stir of battle, near us and yet invisible +to us. Nothing was to be seen save flat meadows, cows feeding +unconcernedly for the most part, and silvery pollard willows motionless +in the warm sunlight. + +“The sojers’ll stop ’em,” said a woman beside me, doubtfully. A +haziness rose over the treetops. + +Then suddenly we saw a rush of smoke far away up the river, a puff of +smoke that jerked up into the air and hung; and forthwith the ground +heaved under foot and a heavy explosion shook the air, smashing two or +three windows in the houses near, and leaving us astonished. + +“Here they are!” shouted a man in a blue jersey. “Yonder! D’yer see +them? Yonder!” + +Quickly, one after the other, one, two, three, four of the armoured +Martians appeared, far away over the little trees, across the flat +meadows that stretched towards Chertsey, and striding hurriedly towards +the river. Little cowled figures they seemed at first, going with a +rolling motion and as fast as flying birds. + +Then, advancing obliquely towards us, came a fifth. Their armoured +bodies glittered in the sun as they swept swiftly forward upon the +guns, growing rapidly larger as they drew nearer. One on the extreme +left, the remotest that is, flourished a huge case high in the air, and +the ghostly, terrible Heat-Ray I had already seen on Friday night smote +towards Chertsey, and struck the town. + +At sight of these strange, swift, and terrible creatures the crowd near +the water’s edge seemed to me to be for a moment horror-struck. There +was no screaming or shouting, but a silence. Then a hoarse murmur and a +movement of feet—a splashing from the water. A man, too frightened to +drop the portmanteau he carried on his shoulder, swung round and sent +me staggering with a blow from the corner of his burden. A woman thrust +at me with her hand and rushed past me. I turned with the rush of the +people, but I was not too terrified for thought. The terrible Heat-Ray +was in my mind. To get under water! That was it! + +“Get under water!” I shouted, unheeded. + +I faced about again, and rushed towards the approaching Martian, rushed +right down the gravelly beach and headlong into the water. Others did +the same. A boatload of people putting back came leaping out as I +rushed past. The stones under my feet were muddy and slippery, and the +river was so low that I ran perhaps twenty feet scarcely waist-deep. +Then, as the Martian towered overhead scarcely a couple of hundred +yards away, I flung myself forward under the surface. The splashes of +the people in the boats leaping into the river sounded like +thunderclaps in my ears. People were landing hastily on both sides of +the river. But the Martian machine took no more notice for the moment +of the people running this way and that than a man would of the +confusion of ants in a nest against which his foot has kicked. When, +half suffocated, I raised my head above water, the Martian’s hood +pointed at the batteries that were still firing across the river, and +as it advanced it swung loose what must have been the generator of the +Heat-Ray. + +In another moment it was on the bank, and in a stride wading halfway +across. The knees of its foremost legs bent at the farther bank, and in +another moment it had raised itself to its full height again, close to +the village of Shepperton. Forthwith the six guns which, unknown to +anyone on the right bank, had been hidden behind the outskirts of that +village, fired simultaneously. The sudden near concussion, the last +close upon the first, made my heart jump. The monster was already +raising the case generating the Heat-Ray as the first shell burst six +yards above the hood. + +I gave a cry of astonishment. I saw and thought nothing of the other +four Martian monsters; my attention was riveted upon the nearer +incident. Simultaneously two other shells burst in the air near the +body as the hood twisted round in time to receive, but not in time to +dodge, the fourth shell. + +The shell burst clean in the face of the Thing. The hood bulged, +flashed, was whirled off in a dozen tattered fragments of red flesh and +glittering metal. + +“Hit!” shouted I, with something between a scream and a cheer. + +I heard answering shouts from the people in the water about me. I could +have leaped out of the water with that momentary exultation. + +The decapitated colossus reeled like a drunken giant; but it did not +fall over. It recovered its balance by a miracle, and, no longer +heeding its steps and with the camera that fired the Heat-Ray now +rigidly upheld, it reeled swiftly upon Shepperton. The living +intelligence, the Martian within the hood, was slain and splashed to +the four winds of heaven, and the Thing was now but a mere intricate +device of metal whirling to destruction. It drove along in a straight +line, incapable of guidance. It struck the tower of Shepperton Church, +smashing it down as the impact of a battering ram might have done, +swerved aside, blundered on and collapsed with tremendous force into +the river out of my sight. + +A violent explosion shook the air, and a spout of water, steam, mud, +and shattered metal shot far up into the sky. As the camera of the +Heat-Ray hit the water, the latter had immediately flashed into steam. +In another moment a huge wave, like a muddy tidal bore but almost +scaldingly hot, came sweeping round the bend upstream. I saw people +struggling shorewards, and heard their screaming and shouting faintly +above the seething and roar of the Martian’s collapse. + +For a moment I heeded nothing of the heat, forgot the patent need of +self-preservation. I splashed through the tumultuous water, pushing +aside a man in black to do so, until I could see round the bend. Half a +dozen deserted boats pitched aimlessly upon the confusion of the waves. +The fallen Martian came into sight downstream, lying across the river, +and for the most part submerged. + +Thick clouds of steam were pouring off the wreckage, and through the +tumultuously whirling wisps I could see, intermittently and vaguely, +the gigantic limbs churning the water and flinging a splash and spray +of mud and froth into the air. The tentacles swayed and struck like +living arms, and, save for the helpless purposelessness of these +movements, it was as if some wounded thing were struggling for its life +amid the waves. Enormous quantities of a ruddy-brown fluid were +spurting up in noisy jets out of the machine. + +My attention was diverted from this death flurry by a furious yelling, +like that of the thing called a siren in our manufacturing towns. A +man, knee-deep near the towing path, shouted inaudibly to me and +pointed. Looking back, I saw the other Martians advancing with gigantic +strides down the riverbank from the direction of Chertsey. The +Shepperton guns spoke this time unavailingly. + +At that I ducked at once under water, and, holding my breath until +movement was an agony, blundered painfully ahead under the surface as +long as I could. The water was in a tumult about me, and rapidly +growing hotter. + +When for a moment I raised my head to take breath and throw the hair +and water from my eyes, the steam was rising in a whirling white fog +that at first hid the Martians altogether. The noise was deafening. +Then I saw them dimly, colossal figures of grey, magnified by the mist. +They had passed by me, and two were stooping over the frothing, +tumultuous ruins of their comrade. + +The third and fourth stood beside him in the water, one perhaps two +hundred yards from me, the other towards Laleham. The generators of the +Heat-Rays waved high, and the hissing beams smote down this way and +that. + +The air was full of sound, a deafening and confusing conflict of +noises—the clangorous din of the Martians, the crash of falling houses, +the thud of trees, fences, sheds flashing into flame, and the crackling +and roaring of fire. Dense black smoke was leaping up to mingle with +the steam from the river, and as the Heat-Ray went to and fro over +Weybridge its impact was marked by flashes of incandescent white, that +gave place at once to a smoky dance of lurid flames. The nearer houses +still stood intact, awaiting their fate, shadowy, faint and pallid in +the steam, with the fire behind them going to and fro. + +For a moment perhaps I stood there, breast-high in the almost boiling +water, dumbfounded at my position, hopeless of escape. Through the reek +I could see the people who had been with me in the river scrambling out +of the water through the reeds, like little frogs hurrying through +grass from the advance of a man, or running to and fro in utter dismay +on the towing path. + +Then suddenly the white flashes of the Heat-Ray came leaping towards +me. The houses caved in as they dissolved at its touch, and darted out +flames; the trees changed to fire with a roar. The Ray flickered up and +down the towing path, licking off the people who ran this way and that, +and came down to the water’s edge not fifty yards from where I stood. +It swept across the river to Shepperton, and the water in its track +rose in a boiling weal crested with steam. I turned shoreward. + +In another moment the huge wave, well-nigh at the boiling-point had +rushed upon me. I screamed aloud, and scalded, half blinded, agonised, +I staggered through the leaping, hissing water towards the shore. Had +my foot stumbled, it would have been the end. I fell helplessly, in +full sight of the Martians, upon the broad, bare gravelly spit that +runs down to mark the angle of the Wey and Thames. I expected nothing +but death. + +I have a dim memory of the foot of a Martian coming down within a score +of yards of my head, driving straight into the loose gravel, whirling +it this way and that and lifting again; of a long suspense, and then of +the four carrying the debris of their comrade between them, now clear +and then presently faint through a veil of smoke, receding +interminably, as it seemed to me, across a vast space of river and +meadow. And then, very slowly, I realised that by a miracle I had +escaped. + + + + +XIII. +HOW I FELL IN WITH THE CURATE. + + +After getting this sudden lesson in the power of terrestrial weapons, +the Martians retreated to their original position upon Horsell Common; +and in their haste, and encumbered with the debris of their smashed +companion, they no doubt overlooked many such a stray and negligible +victim as myself. Had they left their comrade and pushed on forthwith, +there was nothing at that time between them and London but batteries of +twelve-pounder guns, and they would certainly have reached the capital +in advance of the tidings of their approach; as sudden, dreadful, and +destructive their advent would have been as the earthquake that +destroyed Lisbon a century ago. + +But they were in no hurry. Cylinder followed cylinder on its +interplanetary flight; every twenty-four hours brought them +reinforcement. And meanwhile the military and naval authorities, now +fully alive to the tremendous power of their antagonists, worked with +furious energy. Every minute a fresh gun came into position until, +before twilight, every copse, every row of suburban villas on the hilly +slopes about Kingston and Richmond, masked an expectant black muzzle. +And through the charred and desolated area—perhaps twenty square miles +altogether—that encircled the Martian encampment on Horsell Common, +through charred and ruined villages among the green trees, through the +blackened and smoking arcades that had been but a day ago pine +spinneys, crawled the devoted scouts with the heliographs that were +presently to warn the gunners of the Martian approach. But the Martians +now understood our command of artillery and the danger of human +proximity, and not a man ventured within a mile of either cylinder, +save at the price of his life. + +It would seem that these giants spent the earlier part of the afternoon +in going to and fro, transferring everything from the second and third +cylinders—the second in Addlestone Golf Links and the third at +Pyrford—to their original pit on Horsell Common. Over that, above the +blackened heather and ruined buildings that stretched far and wide, +stood one as sentinel, while the rest abandoned their vast +fighting-machines and descended into the pit. They were hard at work +there far into the night, and the towering pillar of dense green smoke +that rose therefrom could be seen from the hills about Merrow, and +even, it is said, from Banstead and Epsom Downs. + +And while the Martians behind me were thus preparing for their next +sally, and in front of me Humanity gathered for the battle, I made my +way with infinite pains and labour from the fire and smoke of burning +Weybridge towards London. + +I saw an abandoned boat, very small and remote, drifting down-stream; +and throwing off the most of my sodden clothes, I went after it, gained +it, and so escaped out of that destruction. There were no oars in the +boat, but I contrived to paddle, as well as my parboiled hands would +allow, down the river towards Halliford and Walton, going very +tediously and continually looking behind me, as you may well +understand. I followed the river, because I considered that the water +gave me my best chance of escape should these giants return. + +The hot water from the Martian’s overthrow drifted downstream with me, +so that for the best part of a mile I could see little of either bank. +Once, however, I made out a string of black figures hurrying across the +meadows from the direction of Weybridge. Halliford, it seemed, was +deserted, and several of the houses facing the river were on fire. It +was strange to see the place quite tranquil, quite desolate under the +hot blue sky, with the smoke and little threads of flame going straight +up into the heat of the afternoon. Never before had I seen houses +burning without the accompaniment of an obstructive crowd. A little +farther on the dry reeds up the bank were smoking and glowing, and a +line of fire inland was marching steadily across a late field of hay. + +For a long time I drifted, so painful and weary was I after the +violence I had been through, and so intense the heat upon the water. +Then my fears got the better of me again, and I resumed my paddling. +The sun scorched my bare back. At last, as the bridge at Walton was +coming into sight round the bend, my fever and faintness overcame my +fears, and I landed on the Middlesex bank and lay down, deadly sick, +amid the long grass. I suppose the time was then about four or five +o’clock. I got up presently, walked perhaps half a mile without meeting +a soul, and then lay down again in the shadow of a hedge. I seem to +remember talking, wanderingly, to myself during that last spurt. I was +also very thirsty, and bitterly regretful I had drunk no more water. It +is a curious thing that I felt angry with my wife; I cannot account for +it, but my impotent desire to reach Leatherhead worried me excessively. + +I do not clearly remember the arrival of the curate, so that probably I +dozed. I became aware of him as a seated figure in soot-smudged shirt +sleeves, and with his upturned, clean-shaven face staring at a faint +flickering that danced over the sky. The sky was what is called a +mackerel sky—rows and rows of faint down-plumes of cloud, just tinted +with the midsummer sunset. + +I sat up, and at the rustle of my motion he looked at me quickly. + +“Have you any water?” I asked abruptly. + +He shook his head. + +“You have been asking for water for the last hour,” he said. + +For a moment we were silent, taking stock of each other. I dare say he +found me a strange enough figure, naked, save for my water-soaked +trousers and socks, scalded, and my face and shoulders blackened by the +smoke. His face was a fair weakness, his chin retreated, and his hair +lay in crisp, almost flaxen curls on his low forehead; his eyes were +rather large, pale blue, and blankly staring. He spoke abruptly, +looking vacantly away from me. + +“What does it mean?” he said. “What do these things mean?” + +I stared at him and made no answer. + +He extended a thin white hand and spoke in almost a complaining tone. + +“Why are these things permitted? What sins have we done? The morning +service was over, I was walking through the roads to clear my brain for +the afternoon, and then—fire, earthquake, death! As if it were Sodom +and Gomorrah! All our work undone, all the work—— What are these +Martians?” + +“What are we?” I answered, clearing my throat. + +He gripped his knees and turned to look at me again. For half a minute, +perhaps, he stared silently. + +“I was walking through the roads to clear my brain,” he said. “And +suddenly—fire, earthquake, death!” + +He relapsed into silence, with his chin now sunken almost to his knees. + +Presently he began waving his hand. + +“All the work—all the Sunday schools—What have we done—what has +Weybridge done? Everything gone—everything destroyed. The church! We +rebuilt it only three years ago. Gone! Swept out of existence! Why?” + +Another pause, and he broke out again like one demented. + +“The smoke of her burning goeth up for ever and ever!” he shouted. + +His eyes flamed, and he pointed a lean finger in the direction of +Weybridge. + +By this time I was beginning to take his measure. The tremendous +tragedy in which he had been involved—it was evident he was a fugitive +from Weybridge—had driven him to the very verge of his reason. + +“Are we far from Sunbury?” I said, in a matter-of-fact tone. + +“What are we to do?” he asked. “Are these creatures everywhere? Has the +earth been given over to them?” + +“Are we far from Sunbury?” + +“Only this morning I officiated at early celebration——” + +“Things have changed,” I said, quietly. “You must keep your head. There +is still hope.” + +“Hope!” + +“Yes. Plentiful hope—for all this destruction!” + +I began to explain my view of our position. He listened at first, but +as I went on the interest dawning in his eyes gave place to their +former stare, and his regard wandered from me. + +“This must be the beginning of the end,” he said, interrupting me. “The +end! The great and terrible day of the Lord! When men shall call upon +the mountains and the rocks to fall upon them and hide them—hide them +from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne!” + +I began to understand the position. I ceased my laboured reasoning, +struggled to my feet, and, standing over him, laid my hand on his +shoulder. + +“Be a man!” said I. “You are scared out of your wits! What good is +religion if it collapses under calamity? Think of what earthquakes and +floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men! Did you think God +had exempted Weybridge? He is not an insurance agent.” + +For a time he sat in blank silence. + +“But how can we escape?” he asked, suddenly. “They are invulnerable, +they are pitiless.” + +“Neither the one nor, perhaps, the other,” I answered. “And the +mightier they are the more sane and wary should we be. One of them was +killed yonder not three hours ago.” + +“Killed!” he said, staring about him. “How can God’s ministers be +killed?” + +“I saw it happen.” I proceeded to tell him. “We have chanced to come in +for the thick of it,” said I, “and that is all.” + +“What is that flicker in the sky?” he asked abruptly. + +I told him it was the heliograph signalling—that it was the sign of +human help and effort in the sky. + +“We are in the midst of it,” I said, “quiet as it is. That flicker in +the sky tells of the gathering storm. Yonder, I take it are the +Martians, and Londonward, where those hills rise about Richmond and +Kingston and the trees give cover, earthworks are being thrown up and +guns are being placed. Presently the Martians will be coming this way +again.” + +And even as I spoke he sprang to his feet and stopped me by a gesture. + +“Listen!” he said. + +From beyond the low hills across the water came the dull resonance of +distant guns and a remote weird crying. Then everything was still. A +cockchafer came droning over the hedge and past us. High in the west +the crescent moon hung faint and pale above the smoke of Weybridge and +Shepperton and the hot, still splendour of the sunset. + +“We had better follow this path,” I said, “northward.” + + + + +XIV. +IN LONDON. + + +My younger brother was in London when the Martians fell at Woking. He +was a medical student working for an imminent examination, and he heard +nothing of the arrival until Saturday morning. The morning papers on +Saturday contained, in addition to lengthy special articles on the +planet Mars, on life in the planets, and so forth, a brief and vaguely +worded telegram, all the more striking for its brevity. + +The Martians, alarmed by the approach of a crowd, had killed a number +of people with a quick-firing gun, so the story ran. The telegram +concluded with the words: “Formidable as they seem to be, the Martians +have not moved from the pit into which they have fallen, and, indeed, +seem incapable of doing so. Probably this is due to the relative +strength of the earth’s gravitational energy.” On that last text their +leader-writer expanded very comfortingly. + +Of course all the students in the crammer’s biology class, to which my +brother went that day, were intensely interested, but there were no +signs of any unusual excitement in the streets. The afternoon papers +puffed scraps of news under big headlines. They had nothing to tell +beyond the movements of troops about the common, and the burning of the +pine woods between Woking and Weybridge, until eight. Then the _St. +James’s Gazette_, in an extra-special edition, announced the bare fact +of the interruption of telegraphic communication. This was thought to +be due to the falling of burning pine trees across the line. Nothing +more of the fighting was known that night, the night of my drive to +Leatherhead and back. + +My brother felt no anxiety about us, as he knew from the description in +the papers that the cylinder was a good two miles from my house. He +made up his mind to run down that night to me, in order, as he says, to +see the Things before they were killed. He dispatched a telegram, which +never reached me, about four o’clock, and spent the evening at a music +hall. + +In London, also, on Saturday night there was a thunderstorm, and my +brother reached Waterloo in a cab. On the platform from which the +midnight train usually starts he learned, after some waiting, that an +accident prevented trains from reaching Woking that night. The nature +of the accident he could not ascertain; indeed, the railway authorities +did not clearly know at that time. There was very little excitement in +the station, as the officials, failing to realise that anything further +than a breakdown between Byfleet and Woking junction had occurred, were +running the theatre trains which usually passed through Woking round by +Virginia Water or Guildford. They were busy making the necessary +arrangements to alter the route of the Southampton and Portsmouth +Sunday League excursions. A nocturnal newspaper reporter, mistaking my +brother for the traffic manager, to whom he bears a slight resemblance, +waylaid and tried to interview him. Few people, excepting the railway +officials, connected the breakdown with the Martians. + +I have read, in another account of these events, that on Sunday morning +“all London was electrified by the news from Woking.” As a matter of +fact, there was nothing to justify that very extravagant phrase. Plenty +of Londoners did not hear of the Martians until the panic of Monday +morning. Those who did took some time to realise all that the hastily +worded telegrams in the Sunday papers conveyed. The majority of people +in London do not read Sunday papers. + +The habit of personal security, moreover, is so deeply fixed in the +Londoner’s mind, and startling intelligence so much a matter of course +in the papers, that they could read without any personal tremors: +“About seven o’clock last night the Martians came out of the cylinder, +and, moving about under an armour of metallic shields, have completely +wrecked Woking station with the adjacent houses, and massacred an +entire battalion of the Cardigan Regiment. No details are known. Maxims +have been absolutely useless against their armour; the field guns have +been disabled by them. Flying hussars have been galloping into +Chertsey. The Martians appear to be moving slowly towards Chertsey or +Windsor. Great anxiety prevails in West Surrey, and earthworks are +being thrown up to check the advance Londonward.” That was how the +_Sunday Sun_ put it, and a clever and remarkably prompt “handbook” +article in the _Referee_ compared the affair to a menagerie suddenly +let loose in a village. + +No one in London knew positively of the nature of the armoured +Martians, and there was still a fixed idea that these monsters must be +sluggish: “crawling,” “creeping painfully”—such expressions occurred in +almost all the earlier reports. None of the telegrams could have been +written by an eyewitness of their advance. The Sunday papers printed +separate editions as further news came to hand, some even in default of +it. But there was practically nothing more to tell people until late in +the afternoon, when the authorities gave the press agencies the news in +their possession. It was stated that the people of Walton and +Weybridge, and all the district were pouring along the roads +Londonward, and that was all. + +My brother went to church at the Foundling Hospital in the morning, +still in ignorance of what had happened on the previous night. There he +heard allusions made to the invasion, and a special prayer for peace. +Coming out, he bought a _Referee_. He became alarmed at the news in +this, and went again to Waterloo station to find out if communication +were restored. The omnibuses, carriages, cyclists, and innumerable +people walking in their best clothes seemed scarcely affected by the +strange intelligence that the newsvendors were disseminating. People +were interested, or, if alarmed, alarmed only on account of the local +residents. At the station he heard for the first time that the Windsor +and Chertsey lines were now interrupted. The porters told him that +several remarkable telegrams had been received in the morning from +Byfleet and Chertsey stations, but that these had abruptly ceased. My +brother could get very little precise detail out of them. + +“There’s fighting going on about Weybridge” was the extent of their +information. + +The train service was now very much disorganised. Quite a number of +people who had been expecting friends from places on the South-Western +network were standing about the station. One grey-headed old gentleman +came and abused the South-Western Company bitterly to my brother. “It +wants showing up,” he said. + +One or two trains came in from Richmond, Putney, and Kingston, +containing people who had gone out for a day’s boating and found the +locks closed and a feeling of panic in the air. A man in a blue and +white blazer addressed my brother, full of strange tidings. + +“There’s hosts of people driving into Kingston in traps and carts and +things, with boxes of valuables and all that,” he said. “They come from +Molesey and Weybridge and Walton, and they say there’s been guns heard +at Chertsey, heavy firing, and that mounted soldiers have told them to +get off at once because the Martians are coming. We heard guns firing +at Hampton Court station, but we thought it was thunder. What the +dickens does it all mean? The Martians can’t get out of their pit, can +they?” + +My brother could not tell him. + +Afterwards he found that the vague feeling of alarm had spread to the +clients of the underground railway, and that the Sunday excursionists +began to return from all over the South-Western “lung”—Barnes, +Wimbledon, Richmond Park, Kew, and so forth—at unnaturally early hours; +but not a soul had anything more than vague hearsay to tell of. +Everyone connected with the terminus seemed ill-tempered. + +About five o’clock the gathering crowd in the station was immensely +excited by the opening of the line of communication, which is almost +invariably closed, between the South-Eastern and the South-Western +stations, and the passage of carriage trucks bearing huge guns and +carriages crammed with soldiers. These were the guns that were brought +up from Woolwich and Chatham to cover Kingston. There was an exchange +of pleasantries: “You’ll get eaten!” “We’re the beast-tamers!” and so +forth. A little while after that a squad of police came into the +station and began to clear the public off the platforms, and my brother +went out into the street again. + +The church bells were ringing for evensong, and a squad of Salvation +Army lassies came singing down Waterloo Road. On the bridge a number of +loafers were watching a curious brown scum that came drifting down the +stream in patches. The sun was just setting, and the Clock Tower and +the Houses of Parliament rose against one of the most peaceful skies it +is possible to imagine, a sky of gold, barred with long transverse +stripes of reddish-purple cloud. There was talk of a floating body. One +of the men there, a reservist he said he was, told my brother he had +seen the heliograph flickering in the west. + +In Wellington Street my brother met a couple of sturdy roughs who had +just been rushed out of Fleet Street with still-wet newspapers and +staring placards. “Dreadful catastrophe!” they bawled one to the other +down Wellington Street. “Fighting at Weybridge! Full description! +Repulse of the Martians! London in Danger!” He had to give threepence +for a copy of that paper. + +Then it was, and then only, that he realised something of the full +power and terror of these monsters. He learned that they were not +merely a handful of small sluggish creatures, but that they were minds +swaying vast mechanical bodies; and that they could move swiftly and +smite with such power that even the mightiest guns could not stand +against them. + +They were described as “vast spiderlike machines, nearly a hundred feet +high, capable of the speed of an express train, and able to shoot out a +beam of intense heat.” Masked batteries, chiefly of field guns, had +been planted in the country about Horsell Common, and especially +between the Woking district and London. Five of the machines had been +seen moving towards the Thames, and one, by a happy chance, had been +destroyed. In the other cases the shells had missed, and the batteries +had been at once annihilated by the Heat-Rays. Heavy losses of soldiers +were mentioned, but the tone of the dispatch was optimistic. + +The Martians had been repulsed; they were not invulnerable. They had +retreated to their triangle of cylinders again, in the circle about +Woking. Signallers with heliographs were pushing forward upon them from +all sides. Guns were in rapid transit from Windsor, Portsmouth, +Aldershot, Woolwich—even from the north; among others, long wire-guns +of ninety-five tons from Woolwich. Altogether one hundred and sixteen +were in position or being hastily placed, chiefly covering London. +Never before in England had there been such a vast or rapid +concentration of military material. + +Any further cylinders that fell, it was hoped, could be destroyed at +once by high explosives, which were being rapidly manufactured and +distributed. No doubt, ran the report, the situation was of the +strangest and gravest description, but the public was exhorted to avoid +and discourage panic. No doubt the Martians were strange and terrible +in the extreme, but at the outside there could not be more than twenty +of them against our millions. + +The authorities had reason to suppose, from the size of the cylinders, +that at the outside there could not be more than five in each +cylinder—fifteen altogether. And one at least was disposed of—perhaps +more. The public would be fairly warned of the approach of danger, and +elaborate measures were being taken for the protection of the people in +the threatened southwestern suburbs. And so, with reiterated assurances +of the safety of London and the ability of the authorities to cope with +the difficulty, this quasi-proclamation closed. + +This was printed in enormous type on paper so fresh that it was still +wet, and there had been no time to add a word of comment. It was +curious, my brother said, to see how ruthlessly the usual contents of +the paper had been hacked and taken out to give this place. + +All down Wellington Street people could be seen fluttering out the pink +sheets and reading, and the Strand was suddenly noisy with the voices +of an army of hawkers following these pioneers. Men came scrambling off +buses to secure copies. Certainly this news excited people intensely, +whatever their previous apathy. The shutters of a map shop in the +Strand were being taken down, my brother said, and a man in his Sunday +raiment, lemon-yellow gloves even, was visible inside the window +hastily fastening maps of Surrey to the glass. + +Going on along the Strand to Trafalgar Square, the paper in his hand, +my brother saw some of the fugitives from West Surrey. There was a man +with his wife and two boys and some articles of furniture in a cart +such as greengrocers use. He was driving from the direction of +Westminster Bridge; and close behind him came a hay waggon with five or +six respectable-looking people in it, and some boxes and bundles. The +faces of these people were haggard, and their entire appearance +contrasted conspicuously with the Sabbath-best appearance of the people +on the omnibuses. People in fashionable clothing peeped at them out of +cabs. They stopped at the Square as if undecided which way to take, and +finally turned eastward along the Strand. Some way behind these came a +man in workday clothes, riding one of those old-fashioned tricycles +with a small front wheel. He was dirty and white in the face. + +My brother turned down towards Victoria, and met a number of such +people. He had a vague idea that he might see something of me. He +noticed an unusual number of police regulating the traffic. Some of the +refugees were exchanging news with the people on the omnibuses. One was +professing to have seen the Martians. “Boilers on stilts, I tell you, +striding along like men.” Most of them were excited and animated by +their strange experience. + +Beyond Victoria the public-houses were doing a lively trade with these +arrivals. At all the street corners groups of people were reading +papers, talking excitedly, or staring at these unusual Sunday visitors. +They seemed to increase as night drew on, until at last the roads, my +brother said, were like Epsom High Street on a Derby Day. My brother +addressed several of these fugitives and got unsatisfactory answers +from most. + +None of them could tell him any news of Woking except one man, who +assured him that Woking had been entirely destroyed on the previous +night. + +“I come from Byfleet,” he said; “a man on a bicycle came through the +place in the early morning, and ran from door to door warning us to +come away. Then came soldiers. We went out to look, and there were +clouds of smoke to the south—nothing but smoke, and not a soul coming +that way. Then we heard the guns at Chertsey, and folks coming from +Weybridge. So I’ve locked up my house and come on.” + +At that time there was a strong feeling in the streets that the +authorities were to blame for their incapacity to dispose of the +invaders without all this inconvenience. + +About eight o’clock a noise of heavy firing was distinctly audible all +over the south of London. My brother could not hear it for the traffic +in the main thoroughfares, but by striking through the quiet back +streets to the river he was able to distinguish it quite plainly. + +He walked from Westminster to his apartments near Regent’s Park, about +two. He was now very anxious on my account, and disturbed at the +evident magnitude of the trouble. His mind was inclined to run, even as +mine had run on Saturday, on military details. He thought of all those +silent, expectant guns, of the suddenly nomadic countryside; he tried +to imagine “boilers on stilts” a hundred feet high. + +There were one or two cartloads of refugees passing along Oxford +Street, and several in the Marylebone Road, but so slowly was the news +spreading that Regent Street and Portland Place were full of their +usual Sunday-night promenaders, albeit they talked in groups, and along +the edge of Regent’s Park there were as many silent couples “walking +out” together under the scattered gas lamps as ever there had been. The +night was warm and still, and a little oppressive; the sound of guns +continued intermittently, and after midnight there seemed to be sheet +lightning in the south. + +He read and re-read the paper, fearing the worst had happened to me. He +was restless, and after supper prowled out again aimlessly. He returned +and tried in vain to divert his attention to his examination notes. He +went to bed a little after midnight, and was awakened from lurid dreams +in the small hours of Monday by the sound of door knockers, feet +running in the street, distant drumming, and a clamour of bells. Red +reflections danced on the ceiling. For a moment he lay astonished, +wondering whether day had come or the world gone mad. Then he jumped +out of bed and ran to the window. + +His room was an attic and as he thrust his head out, up and down the +street there were a dozen echoes to the noise of his window sash, and +heads in every kind of night disarray appeared. Enquiries were being +shouted. “They are coming!” bawled a policeman, hammering at the door; +“the Martians are coming!” and hurried to the next door. + +The sound of drumming and trumpeting came from the Albany Street +Barracks, and every church within earshot was hard at work killing +sleep with a vehement disorderly tocsin. There was a noise of doors +opening, and window after window in the houses opposite flashed from +darkness into yellow illumination. + +Up the street came galloping a closed carriage, bursting abruptly into +noise at the corner, rising to a clattering climax under the window, +and dying away slowly in the distance. Close on the rear of this came a +couple of cabs, the forerunners of a long procession of flying +vehicles, going for the most part to Chalk Farm station, where the +North-Western special trains were loading up, instead of coming down +the gradient into Euston. + +For a long time my brother stared out of the window in blank +astonishment, watching the policemen hammering at door after door, and +delivering their incomprehensible message. Then the door behind him +opened, and the man who lodged across the landing came in, dressed only +in shirt, trousers, and slippers, his braces loose about his waist, his +hair disordered from his pillow. + +“What the devil is it?” he asked. “A fire? What a devil of a row!” + +They both craned their heads out of the window, straining to hear what +the policemen were shouting. People were coming out of the side +streets, and standing in groups at the corners talking. + +“What the devil is it all about?” said my brother’s fellow lodger. + +My brother answered him vaguely and began to dress, running with each +garment to the window in order to miss nothing of the growing +excitement. And presently men selling unnaturally early newspapers came +bawling into the street: + +“London in danger of suffocation! The Kingston and Richmond defences +forced! Fearful massacres in the Thames Valley!” + +And all about him—in the rooms below, in the houses on each side and +across the road, and behind in the Park Terraces and in the hundred +other streets of that part of Marylebone, and the Westbourne Park +district and St. Pancras, and westward and northward in Kilburn and St. +John’s Wood and Hampstead, and eastward in Shoreditch and Highbury and +Haggerston and Hoxton, and, indeed, through all the vastness of London +from Ealing to East Ham—people were rubbing their eyes, and opening +windows to stare out and ask aimless questions, dressing hastily as the +first breath of the coming storm of Fear blew through the streets. It +was the dawn of the great panic. London, which had gone to bed on +Sunday night oblivious and inert, was awakened, in the small hours of +Monday morning, to a vivid sense of danger. + +Unable from his window to learn what was happening, my brother went +down and out into the street, just as the sky between the parapets of +the houses grew pink with the early dawn. The flying people on foot and +in vehicles grew more numerous every moment. “Black Smoke!” he heard +people crying, and again “Black Smoke!” The contagion of such a +unanimous fear was inevitable. As my brother hesitated on the +door-step, he saw another newsvendor approaching, and got a paper +forthwith. The man was running away with the rest, and selling his +papers for a shilling each as he ran—a grotesque mingling of profit and +panic. + +And from this paper my brother read that catastrophic dispatch of the +Commander-in-Chief: + +“The Martians are able to discharge enormous clouds of a black and +poisonous vapour by means of rockets. They have smothered our +batteries, destroyed Richmond, Kingston, and Wimbledon, and are +advancing slowly towards London, destroying everything on the way. It +is impossible to stop them. There is no safety from the Black Smoke but +in instant flight.” + + +That was all, but it was enough. The whole population of the great +six-million city was stirring, slipping, running; presently it would be +pouring _en masse_ northward. + +“Black Smoke!” the voices cried. “Fire!” + +The bells of the neighbouring church made a jangling tumult, a cart +carelessly driven smashed, amid shrieks and curses, against the water +trough up the street. Sickly yellow lights went to and fro in the +houses, and some of the passing cabs flaunted unextinguished lamps. And +overhead the dawn was growing brighter, clear and steady and calm. + +He heard footsteps running to and fro in the rooms, and up and down +stairs behind him. His landlady came to the door, loosely wrapped in +dressing gown and shawl; her husband followed, ejaculating. + +As my brother began to realise the import of all these things, he +turned hastily to his own room, put all his available money—some ten +pounds altogether—into his pockets, and went out again into the +streets. + + + + +XV. +WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN SURREY. + + +It was while the curate had sat and talked so wildly to me under the +hedge in the flat meadows near Halliford, and while my brother was +watching the fugitives stream over Westminster Bridge, that the +Martians had resumed the offensive. So far as one can ascertain from +the conflicting accounts that have been put forth, the majority of them +remained busied with preparations in the Horsell pit until nine that +night, hurrying on some operation that disengaged huge volumes of green +smoke. + +But three certainly came out about eight o’clock and, advancing slowly +and cautiously, made their way through Byfleet and Pyrford towards +Ripley and Weybridge, and so came in sight of the expectant batteries +against the setting sun. These Martians did not advance in a body, but +in a line, each perhaps a mile and a half from his nearest fellow. They +communicated with one another by means of sirenlike howls, running up +and down the scale from one note to another. + +It was this howling and firing of the guns at Ripley and St. George’s +Hill that we had heard at Upper Halliford. The Ripley gunners, +unseasoned artillery volunteers who ought never to have been placed in +such a position, fired one wild, premature, ineffectual volley, and +bolted on horse and foot through the deserted village, while the +Martian, without using his Heat-Ray, walked serenely over their guns, +stepped gingerly among them, passed in front of them, and so came +unexpectedly upon the guns in Painshill Park, which he destroyed. + +The St. George’s Hill men, however, were better led or of a better +mettle. Hidden by a pine wood as they were, they seem to have been +quite unsuspected by the Martian nearest to them. They laid their guns +as deliberately as if they had been on parade, and fired at about a +thousand yards’ range. + +The shells flashed all round him, and he was seen to advance a few +paces, stagger, and go down. Everybody yelled together, and the guns +were reloaded in frantic haste. The overthrown Martian set up a +prolonged ululation, and immediately a second glittering giant, +answering him, appeared over the trees to the south. It would seem that +a leg of the tripod had been smashed by one of the shells. The whole of +the second volley flew wide of the Martian on the ground, and, +simultaneously, both his companions brought their Heat-Rays to bear on +the battery. The ammunition blew up, the pine trees all about the guns +flashed into fire, and only one or two of the men who were already +running over the crest of the hill escaped. + +After this it would seem that the three took counsel together and +halted, and the scouts who were watching them report that they remained +absolutely stationary for the next half hour. The Martian who had been +overthrown crawled tediously out of his hood, a small brown figure, +oddly suggestive from that distance of a speck of blight, and +apparently engaged in the repair of his support. About nine he had +finished, for his cowl was then seen above the trees again. + +It was a few minutes past nine that night when these three sentinels +were joined by four other Martians, each carrying a thick black tube. A +similar tube was handed to each of the three, and the seven proceeded +to distribute themselves at equal distances along a curved line between +St. George’s Hill, Weybridge, and the village of Send, southwest of +Ripley. + +A dozen rockets sprang out of the hills before them so soon as they +began to move, and warned the waiting batteries about Ditton and Esher. +At the same time four of their fighting machines, similarly armed with +tubes, crossed the river, and two of them, black against the western +sky, came into sight of myself and the curate as we hurried wearily and +painfully along the road that runs northward out of Halliford. They +moved, as it seemed to us, upon a cloud, for a milky mist covered the +fields and rose to a third of their height. + +At this sight the curate cried faintly in his throat, and began +running; but I knew it was no good running from a Martian, and I turned +aside and crawled through dewy nettles and brambles into the broad +ditch by the side of the road. He looked back, saw what I was doing, +and turned to join me. + +The two halted, the nearer to us standing and facing Sunbury, the +remoter being a grey indistinctness towards the evening star, away +towards Staines. + +The occasional howling of the Martians had ceased; they took up their +positions in the huge crescent about their cylinders in absolute +silence. It was a crescent with twelve miles between its horns. Never +since the devising of gunpowder was the beginning of a battle so still. +To us and to an observer about Ripley it would have had precisely the +same effect—the Martians seemed in solitary possession of the darkling +night, lit only as it was by the slender moon, the stars, the afterglow +of the daylight, and the ruddy glare from St. George’s Hill and the +woods of Painshill. + +But facing that crescent everywhere—at Staines, Hounslow, Ditton, +Esher, Ockham, behind hills and woods south of the river, and across +the flat grass meadows to the north of it, wherever a cluster of trees +or village houses gave sufficient cover—the guns were waiting. The +signal rockets burst and rained their sparks through the night and +vanished, and the spirit of all those watching batteries rose to a +tense expectation. The Martians had but to advance into the line of +fire, and instantly those motionless black forms of men, those guns +glittering so darkly in the early night, would explode into a +thunderous fury of battle. + +No doubt the thought that was uppermost in a thousand of those vigilant +minds, even as it was uppermost in mine, was the riddle—how much they +understood of us. Did they grasp that we in our millions were +organized, disciplined, working together? Or did they interpret our +spurts of fire, the sudden stinging of our shells, our steady +investment of their encampment, as we should the furious unanimity of +onslaught in a disturbed hive of bees? Did they dream they might +exterminate us? (At that time no one knew what food they needed.) A +hundred such questions struggled together in my mind as I watched that +vast sentinel shape. And in the back of my mind was the sense of all +the huge unknown and hidden forces Londonward. Had they prepared +pitfalls? Were the powder mills at Hounslow ready as a snare? Would the +Londoners have the heart and courage to make a greater Moscow of their +mighty province of houses? + +Then, after an interminable time, as it seemed to us, crouching and +peering through the hedge, came a sound like the distant concussion of +a gun. Another nearer, and then another. And then the Martian beside us +raised his tube on high and discharged it, gunwise, with a heavy report +that made the ground heave. The one towards Staines answered him. There +was no flash, no smoke, simply that loaded detonation. + +I was so excited by these heavy minute-guns following one another that +I so far forgot my personal safety and my scalded hands as to clamber +up into the hedge and stare towards Sunbury. As I did so a second +report followed, and a big projectile hurtled overhead towards +Hounslow. I expected at least to see smoke or fire, or some such +evidence of its work. But all I saw was the deep blue sky above, with +one solitary star, and the white mist spreading wide and low beneath. +And there had been no crash, no answering explosion. The silence was +restored; the minute lengthened to three. + +“What has happened?” said the curate, standing up beside me. + +“Heaven knows!” said I. + +A bat flickered by and vanished. A distant tumult of shouting began and +ceased. I looked again at the Martian, and saw he was now moving +eastward along the riverbank, with a swift, rolling motion. + +Every moment I expected the fire of some hidden battery to spring upon +him; but the evening calm was unbroken. The figure of the Martian grew +smaller as he receded, and presently the mist and the gathering night +had swallowed him up. By a common impulse we clambered higher. Towards +Sunbury was a dark appearance, as though a conical hill had suddenly +come into being there, hiding our view of the farther country; and +then, remoter across the river, over Walton, we saw another such +summit. These hill-like forms grew lower and broader even as we stared. + +Moved by a sudden thought, I looked northward, and there I perceived a +third of these cloudy black kopjes had risen. + +Everything had suddenly become very still. Far away to the southeast, +marking the quiet, we heard the Martians hooting to one another, and +then the air quivered again with the distant thud of their guns. But +the earthly artillery made no reply. + +Now at the time we could not understand these things, but later I was +to learn the meaning of these ominous kopjes that gathered in the +twilight. Each of the Martians, standing in the great crescent I have +described, had discharged, by means of the gunlike tube he carried, a +huge canister over whatever hill, copse, cluster of houses, or other +possible cover for guns, chanced to be in front of him. Some fired only +one of these, some two—as in the case of the one we had seen; the one +at Ripley is said to have discharged no fewer than five at that time. +These canisters smashed on striking the ground—they did not explode—and +incontinently disengaged an enormous volume of heavy, inky vapour, +coiling and pouring upward in a huge and ebony cumulus cloud, a gaseous +hill that sank and spread itself slowly over the surrounding country. +And the touch of that vapour, the inhaling of its pungent wisps, was +death to all that breathes. + +It was heavy, this vapour, heavier than the densest smoke, so that, +after the first tumultuous uprush and outflow of its impact, it sank +down through the air and poured over the ground in a manner rather +liquid than gaseous, abandoning the hills, and streaming into the +valleys and ditches and watercourses even as I have heard the +carbonic-acid gas that pours from volcanic clefts is wont to do. And +where it came upon water some chemical action occurred, and the surface +would be instantly covered with a powdery scum that sank slowly and +made way for more. The scum was absolutely insoluble, and it is a +strange thing, seeing the instant effect of the gas, that one could +drink without hurt the water from which it had been strained. The +vapour did not diffuse as a true gas would do. It hung together in +banks, flowing sluggishly down the slope of the land and driving +reluctantly before the wind, and very slowly it combined with the mist +and moisture of the air, and sank to the earth in the form of dust. +Save that an unknown element giving a group of four lines in the blue +of the spectrum is concerned, we are still entirely ignorant of the +nature of this substance. + +Once the tumultuous upheaval of its dispersion was over, the black +smoke clung so closely to the ground, even before its precipitation, +that fifty feet up in the air, on the roofs and upper stories of high +houses and on great trees, there was a chance of escaping its poison +altogether, as was proved even that night at Street Cobham and Ditton. + +The man who escaped at the former place tells a wonderful story of the +strangeness of its coiling flow, and how he looked down from the church +spire and saw the houses of the village rising like ghosts out of its +inky nothingness. For a day and a half he remained there, weary, +starving and sun-scorched, the earth under the blue sky and against the +prospect of the distant hills a velvet-black expanse, with red roofs, +green trees, and, later, black-veiled shrubs and gates, barns, +outhouses, and walls, rising here and there into the sunlight. + +But that was at Street Cobham, where the black vapour was allowed to +remain until it sank of its own accord into the ground. As a rule the +Martians, when it had served its purpose, cleared the air of it again +by wading into it and directing a jet of steam upon it. + +This they did with the vapour banks near us, as we saw in the starlight +from the window of a deserted house at Upper Halliford, whither we had +returned. From there we could see the searchlights on Richmond Hill and +Kingston Hill going to and fro, and about eleven the windows rattled, +and we heard the sound of the huge siege guns that had been put in +position there. These continued intermittently for the space of a +quarter of an hour, sending chance shots at the invisible Martians at +Hampton and Ditton, and then the pale beams of the electric light +vanished, and were replaced by a bright red glow. + +Then the fourth cylinder fell—a brilliant green meteor—as I learned +afterwards, in Bushey Park. Before the guns on the Richmond and +Kingston line of hills began, there was a fitful cannonade far away in +the southwest, due, I believe, to guns being fired haphazard before the +black vapour could overwhelm the gunners. + +So, setting about it as methodically as men might smoke out a wasps’ +nest, the Martians spread this strange stifling vapour over the +Londonward country. The horns of the crescent slowly moved apart, until +at last they formed a line from Hanwell to Coombe and Malden. All night +through their destructive tubes advanced. Never once, after the Martian +at St. George’s Hill was brought down, did they give the artillery the +ghost of a chance against them. Wherever there was a possibility of +guns being laid for them unseen, a fresh canister of the black vapour +was discharged, and where the guns were openly displayed the Heat-Ray +was brought to bear. + +By midnight the blazing trees along the slopes of Richmond Park and the +glare of Kingston Hill threw their light upon a network of black smoke, +blotting out the whole valley of the Thames and extending as far as the +eye could reach. And through this two Martians slowly waded, and turned +their hissing steam jets this way and that. + +They were sparing of the Heat-Ray that night, either because they had +but a limited supply of material for its production or because they did +not wish to destroy the country but only to crush and overawe the +opposition they had aroused. In the latter aim they certainly +succeeded. Sunday night was the end of the organised opposition to +their movements. After that no body of men would stand against them, so +hopeless was the enterprise. Even the crews of the torpedo-boats and +destroyers that had brought their quick-firers up the Thames refused to +stop, mutinied, and went down again. The only offensive operation men +ventured upon after that night was the preparation of mines and +pitfalls, and even in that their energies were frantic and spasmodic. + +One has to imagine, as well as one may, the fate of those batteries +towards Esher, waiting so tensely in the twilight. Survivors there were +none. One may picture the orderly expectation, the officers alert and +watchful, the gunners ready, the ammunition piled to hand, the limber +gunners with their horses and waggons, the groups of civilian +spectators standing as near as they were permitted, the evening +stillness, the ambulances and hospital tents with the burned and +wounded from Weybridge; then the dull resonance of the shots the +Martians fired, and the clumsy projectile whirling over the trees and +houses and smashing amid the neighbouring fields. + +One may picture, too, the sudden shifting of the attention, the swiftly +spreading coils and bellyings of that blackness advancing headlong, +towering heavenward, turning the twilight to a palpable darkness, a +strange and horrible antagonist of vapour striding upon its victims, +men and horses near it seen dimly, running, shrieking, falling +headlong, shouts of dismay, the guns suddenly abandoned, men choking +and writhing on the ground, and the swift broadening-out of the opaque +cone of smoke. And then night and extinction—nothing but a silent mass +of impenetrable vapour hiding its dead. + +Before dawn the black vapour was pouring through the streets of +Richmond, and the disintegrating organism of government was, with a +last expiring effort, rousing the population of London to the necessity +of flight. + + + + +XVI. +THE EXODUS FROM LONDON. + + +So you understand the roaring wave of fear that swept through the +greatest city in the world just as Monday was dawning—the stream of +flight rising swiftly to a torrent, lashing in a foaming tumult round +the railway stations, banked up into a horrible struggle about the +shipping in the Thames, and hurrying by every available channel +northward and eastward. By ten o’clock the police organisation, and by +midday even the railway organisations, were losing coherency, losing +shape and efficiency, guttering, softening, running at last in that +swift liquefaction of the social body. + +All the railway lines north of the Thames and the South-Eastern people +at Cannon Street had been warned by midnight on Sunday, and trains were +being filled. People were fighting savagely for standing-room in the +carriages even at two o’clock. By three, people were being trampled and +crushed even in Bishopsgate Street, a couple of hundred yards or more +from Liverpool Street station; revolvers were fired, people stabbed, +and the policemen who had been sent to direct the traffic, exhausted +and infuriated, were breaking the heads of the people they were called +out to protect. + +And as the day advanced and the engine drivers and stokers refused to +return to London, the pressure of the flight drove the people in an +ever-thickening multitude away from the stations and along the +northward-running roads. By midday a Martian had been seen at Barnes, +and a cloud of slowly sinking black vapour drove along the Thames and +across the flats of Lambeth, cutting off all escape over the bridges in +its sluggish advance. Another bank drove over Ealing, and surrounded a +little island of survivors on Castle Hill, alive, but unable to escape. + +After a fruitless struggle to get aboard a North-Western train at Chalk +Farm—the engines of the trains that had loaded in the goods yard there +_ploughed_ through shrieking people, and a dozen stalwart men fought to +keep the crowd from crushing the driver against his furnace—my brother +emerged upon the Chalk Farm road, dodged across through a hurrying +swarm of vehicles, and had the luck to be foremost in the sack of a +cycle shop. The front tire of the machine he got was punctured in +dragging it through the window, but he got up and off, notwithstanding, +with no further injury than a cut wrist. The steep foot of Haverstock +Hill was impassable owing to several overturned horses, and my brother +struck into Belsize Road. + +So he got out of the fury of the panic, and, skirting the Edgware Road, +reached Edgware about seven, fasting and wearied, but well ahead of the +crowd. Along the road people were standing in the roadway, curious, +wondering. He was passed by a number of cyclists, some horsemen, and +two motor cars. A mile from Edgware the rim of the wheel broke, and the +machine became unridable. He left it by the roadside and trudged +through the village. There were shops half opened in the main street of +the place, and people crowded on the pavement and in the doorways and +windows, staring astonished at this extraordinary procession of +fugitives that was beginning. He succeeded in getting some food at an +inn. + +For a time he remained in Edgware not knowing what next to do. The +flying people increased in number. Many of them, like my brother, +seemed inclined to loiter in the place. There was no fresh news of the +invaders from Mars. + +At that time the road was crowded, but as yet far from congested. Most +of the fugitives at that hour were mounted on cycles, but there were +soon motor cars, hansom cabs, and carriages hurrying along, and the +dust hung in heavy clouds along the road to St. Albans. + +It was perhaps a vague idea of making his way to Chelmsford, where some +friends of his lived, that at last induced my brother to strike into a +quiet lane running eastward. Presently he came upon a stile, and, +crossing it, followed a footpath northeastward. He passed near several +farmhouses and some little places whose names he did not learn. He saw +few fugitives until, in a grass lane towards High Barnet, he happened +upon two ladies who became his fellow travellers. He came upon them +just in time to save them. + +He heard their screams, and, hurrying round the corner, saw a couple of +men struggling to drag them out of the little pony-chaise in which they +had been driving, while a third with difficulty held the frightened +pony’s head. One of the ladies, a short woman dressed in white, was +simply screaming; the other, a dark, slender figure, slashed at the man +who gripped her arm with a whip she held in her disengaged hand. + +My brother immediately grasped the situation, shouted, and hurried +towards the struggle. One of the men desisted and turned towards him, +and my brother, realising from his antagonist’s face that a fight was +unavoidable, and being an expert boxer, went into him forthwith and +sent him down against the wheel of the chaise. + +It was no time for pugilistic chivalry and my brother laid him quiet +with a kick, and gripped the collar of the man who pulled at the +slender lady’s arm. He heard the clatter of hoofs, the whip stung +across his face, a third antagonist struck him between the eyes, and +the man he held wrenched himself free and made off down the lane in the +direction from which he had come. + +Partly stunned, he found himself facing the man who had held the +horse’s head, and became aware of the chaise receding from him down the +lane, swaying from side to side, and with the women in it looking back. +The man before him, a burly rough, tried to close, and he stopped him +with a blow in the face. Then, realising that he was deserted, he +dodged round and made off down the lane after the chaise, with the +sturdy man close behind him, and the fugitive, who had turned now, +following remotely. + +Suddenly he stumbled and fell; his immediate pursuer went headlong, and +he rose to his feet to find himself with a couple of antagonists again. +He would have had little chance against them had not the slender lady +very pluckily pulled up and returned to his help. It seems she had had +a revolver all this time, but it had been under the seat when she and +her companion were attacked. She fired at six yards’ distance, narrowly +missing my brother. The less courageous of the robbers made off, and +his companion followed him, cursing his cowardice. They both stopped in +sight down the lane, where the third man lay insensible. + +“Take this!” said the slender lady, and she gave my brother her +revolver. + +“Go back to the chaise,” said my brother, wiping the blood from his +split lip. + +She turned without a word—they were both panting—and they went back to +where the lady in white struggled to hold back the frightened pony. + +The robbers had evidently had enough of it. When my brother looked +again they were retreating. + +“I’ll sit here,” said my brother, “if I may”; and he got upon the empty +front seat. The lady looked over her shoulder. + +“Give me the reins,” she said, and laid the whip along the pony’s side. +In another moment a bend in the road hid the three men from my +brother’s eyes. + +So, quite unexpectedly, my brother found himself, panting, with a cut +mouth, a bruised jaw, and bloodstained knuckles, driving along an +unknown lane with these two women. + +He learned they were the wife and the younger sister of a surgeon +living at Stanmore, who had come in the small hours from a dangerous +case at Pinner, and heard at some railway station on his way of the +Martian advance. He had hurried home, roused the women—their servant +had left them two days before—packed some provisions, put his revolver +under the seat—luckily for my brother—and told them to drive on to +Edgware, with the idea of getting a train there. He stopped behind to +tell the neighbours. He would overtake them, he said, at about half +past four in the morning, and now it was nearly nine and they had seen +nothing of him. They could not stop in Edgware because of the growing +traffic through the place, and so they had come into this side lane. + +That was the story they told my brother in fragments when presently +they stopped again, nearer to New Barnet. He promised to stay with +them, at least until they could determine what to do, or until the +missing man arrived, and professed to be an expert shot with the +revolver—a weapon strange to him—in order to give them confidence. + +They made a sort of encampment by the wayside, and the pony became +happy in the hedge. He told them of his own escape out of London, and +all that he knew of these Martians and their ways. The sun crept higher +in the sky, and after a time their talk died out and gave place to an +uneasy state of anticipation. Several wayfarers came along the lane, +and of these my brother gathered such news as he could. Every broken +answer he had deepened his impression of the great disaster that had +come on humanity, deepened his persuasion of the immediate necessity +for prosecuting this flight. He urged the matter upon them. + +“We have money,” said the slender woman, and hesitated. + +Her eyes met my brother’s, and her hesitation ended. + +“So have I,” said my brother. + +She explained that they had as much as thirty pounds in gold, besides a +five-pound note, and suggested that with that they might get upon a +train at St. Albans or New Barnet. My brother thought that was +hopeless, seeing the fury of the Londoners to crowd upon the trains, +and broached his own idea of striking across Essex towards Harwich and +thence escaping from the country altogether. + +Mrs. Elphinstone—that was the name of the woman in white—would listen +to no reasoning, and kept calling upon “George”; but her sister-in-law +was astonishingly quiet and deliberate, and at last agreed to my +brother’s suggestion. So, designing to cross the Great North Road, they +went on towards Barnet, my brother leading the pony to save it as much +as possible. As the sun crept up the sky the day became excessively +hot, and under foot a thick, whitish sand grew burning and blinding, so +that they travelled only very slowly. The hedges were grey with dust. +And as they advanced towards Barnet a tumultuous murmuring grew +stronger. + +They began to meet more people. For the most part these were staring +before them, murmuring indistinct questions, jaded, haggard, unclean. +One man in evening dress passed them on foot, his eyes on the ground. +They heard his voice, and, looking back at him, saw one hand clutched +in his hair and the other beating invisible things. His paroxysm of +rage over, he went on his way without once looking back. + +As my brother’s party went on towards the crossroads to the south of +Barnet they saw a woman approaching the road across some fields on +their left, carrying a child and with two other children; and then +passed a man in dirty black, with a thick stick in one hand and a small +portmanteau in the other. Then round the corner of the lane, from +between the villas that guarded it at its confluence with the high +road, came a little cart drawn by a sweating black pony and driven by a +sallow youth in a bowler hat, grey with dust. There were three girls, +East End factory girls, and a couple of little children crowded in the +cart. + +“This’ll tike us rahnd Edgware?” asked the driver, wild-eyed, +white-faced; and when my brother told him it would if he turned to the +left, he whipped up at once without the formality of thanks. + +My brother noticed a pale grey smoke or haze rising among the houses in +front of them, and veiling the white façade of a terrace beyond the +road that appeared between the backs of the villas. Mrs. Elphinstone +suddenly cried out at a number of tongues of smoky red flame leaping up +above the houses in front of them against the hot, blue sky. The +tumultuous noise resolved itself now into the disorderly mingling of +many voices, the gride of many wheels, the creaking of waggons, and the +staccato of hoofs. The lane came round sharply not fifty yards from the +crossroads. + +“Good heavens!” cried Mrs. Elphinstone. “What is this you are driving +us into?” + +My brother stopped. + +For the main road was a boiling stream of people, a torrent of human +beings rushing northward, one pressing on another. A great bank of +dust, white and luminous in the blaze of the sun, made everything +within twenty feet of the ground grey and indistinct and was +perpetually renewed by the hurrying feet of a dense crowd of horses and +of men and women on foot, and by the wheels of vehicles of every +description. + +“Way!” my brother heard voices crying. “Make way!” + +It was like riding into the smoke of a fire to approach the meeting +point of the lane and road; the crowd roared like a fire, and the dust +was hot and pungent. And, indeed, a little way up the road a villa was +burning and sending rolling masses of black smoke across the road to +add to the confusion. + +Two men came past them. Then a dirty woman, carrying a heavy bundle and +weeping. A lost retriever dog, with hanging tongue, circled dubiously +round them, scared and wretched, and fled at my brother’s threat. + +So much as they could see of the road Londonward between the houses to +the right was a tumultuous stream of dirty, hurrying people, pent in +between the villas on either side; the black heads, the crowded forms, +grew into distinctness as they rushed towards the corner, hurried past, +and merged their individuality again in a receding multitude that was +swallowed up at last in a cloud of dust. + +“Go on! Go on!” cried the voices. “Way! Way!” + +One man’s hands pressed on the back of another. My brother stood at the +pony’s head. Irresistibly attracted, he advanced slowly, pace by pace, +down the lane. + +Edgware had been a scene of confusion, Chalk Farm a riotous tumult, but +this was a whole population in movement. It is hard to imagine that +host. It had no character of its own. The figures poured out past the +corner, and receded with their backs to the group in the lane. Along +the margin came those who were on foot threatened by the wheels, +stumbling in the ditches, blundering into one another. + +The carts and carriages crowded close upon one another, making little +way for those swifter and more impatient vehicles that darted forward +every now and then when an opportunity showed itself of doing so, +sending the people scattering against the fences and gates of the +villas. + +“Push on!” was the cry. “Push on! They are coming!” + +In one cart stood a blind man in the uniform of the Salvation Army, +gesticulating with his crooked fingers and bawling, “Eternity! +Eternity!” His voice was hoarse and very loud so that my brother could +hear him long after he was lost to sight in the dust. Some of the +people who crowded in the carts whipped stupidly at their horses and +quarrelled with other drivers; some sat motionless, staring at nothing +with miserable eyes; some gnawed their hands with thirst, or lay +prostrate in the bottoms of their conveyances. The horses’ bits were +covered with foam, their eyes bloodshot. + +There were cabs, carriages, shop-carts, waggons, beyond counting; a +mail cart, a road-cleaner’s cart marked “Vestry of St. Pancras,” a huge +timber waggon crowded with roughs. A brewer’s dray rumbled by with its +two near wheels splashed with fresh blood. + +“Clear the way!” cried the voices. “Clear the way!” + +“Eter-nity! Eter-nity!” came echoing down the road. + +There were sad, haggard women tramping by, well dressed, with children +that cried and stumbled, their dainty clothes smothered in dust, their +weary faces smeared with tears. With many of these came men, sometimes +helpful, sometimes lowering and savage. Fighting side by side with them +pushed some weary street outcast in faded black rags, wide-eyed, +loud-voiced, and foul-mouthed. There were sturdy workmen thrusting +their way along, wretched, unkempt men, clothed like clerks or shopmen, +struggling spasmodically; a wounded soldier my brother noticed, men +dressed in the clothes of railway porters, one wretched creature in a +nightshirt with a coat thrown over it. + +But varied as its composition was, certain things all that host had in +common. There were fear and pain on their faces, and fear behind them. +A tumult up the road, a quarrel for a place in a waggon, sent the whole +host of them quickening their pace; even a man so scared and broken +that his knees bent under him was galvanised for a moment into renewed +activity. The heat and dust had already been at work upon this +multitude. Their skins were dry, their lips black and cracked. They +were all thirsty, weary, and footsore. And amid the various cries one +heard disputes, reproaches, groans of weariness and fatigue; the voices +of most of them were hoarse and weak. Through it all ran a refrain: + +“Way! Way! The Martians are coming!” + +Few stopped and came aside from that flood. The lane opened slantingly +into the main road with a narrow opening, and had a delusive appearance +of coming from the direction of London. Yet a kind of eddy of people +drove into its mouth; weaklings elbowed out of the stream, who for the +most part rested but a moment before plunging into it again. A little +way down the lane, with two friends bending over him, lay a man with a +bare leg, wrapped about with bloody rags. He was a lucky man to have +friends. + +A little old man, with a grey military moustache and a filthy black +frock coat, limped out and sat down beside the trap, removed his +boot—his sock was blood-stained—shook out a pebble, and hobbled on +again; and then a little girl of eight or nine, all alone, threw +herself under the hedge close by my brother, weeping. + +“I can’t go on! I can’t go on!” + +My brother woke from his torpor of astonishment and lifted her up, +speaking gently to her, and carried her to Miss Elphinstone. So soon as +my brother touched her she became quite still, as if frightened. + +“Ellen!” shrieked a woman in the crowd, with tears in her +voice—“Ellen!” And the child suddenly darted away from my brother, +crying “Mother!” + +“They are coming,” said a man on horseback, riding past along the lane. + +“Out of the way, there!” bawled a coachman, towering high; and my +brother saw a closed carriage turning into the lane. + +The people crushed back on one another to avoid the horse. My brother +pushed the pony and chaise back into the hedge, and the man drove by +and stopped at the turn of the way. It was a carriage, with a pole for +a pair of horses, but only one was in the traces. My brother saw dimly +through the dust that two men lifted out something on a white stretcher +and put it gently on the grass beneath the privet hedge. + +One of the men came running to my brother. + +“Where is there any water?” he said. “He is dying fast, and very +thirsty. It is Lord Garrick.” + +“Lord Garrick!” said my brother; “the Chief Justice?” + +“The water?” he said. + +“There may be a tap,” said my brother, “in some of the houses. We have +no water. I dare not leave my people.” + +The man pushed against the crowd towards the gate of the corner house. + +“Go on!” said the people, thrusting at him. “They are coming! Go on!” + +Then my brother’s attention was distracted by a bearded, eagle-faced +man lugging a small handbag, which split even as my brother’s eyes +rested on it and disgorged a mass of sovereigns that seemed to break up +into separate coins as it struck the ground. They rolled hither and +thither among the struggling feet of men and horses. The man stopped +and looked stupidly at the heap, and the shaft of a cab struck his +shoulder and sent him reeling. He gave a shriek and dodged back, and a +cartwheel shaved him narrowly. + +“Way!” cried the men all about him. “Make way!” + +So soon as the cab had passed, he flung himself, with both hands open, +upon the heap of coins, and began thrusting handfuls in his pocket. A +horse rose close upon him, and in another moment, half rising, he had +been borne down under the horse’s hoofs. + +“Stop!” screamed my brother, and pushing a woman out of his way, tried +to clutch the bit of the horse. + +Before he could get to it, he heard a scream under the wheels, and saw +through the dust the rim passing over the poor wretch’s back. The +driver of the cart slashed his whip at my brother, who ran round behind +the cart. The multitudinous shouting confused his ears. The man was +writhing in the dust among his scattered money, unable to rise, for the +wheel had broken his back, and his lower limbs lay limp and dead. My +brother stood up and yelled at the next driver, and a man on a black +horse came to his assistance. + +“Get him out of the road,” said he; and, clutching the man’s collar +with his free hand, my brother lugged him sideways. But he still +clutched after his money, and regarded my brother fiercely, hammering +at his arm with a handful of gold. “Go on! Go on!” shouted angry voices +behind. “Way! Way!” + +There was a smash as the pole of a carriage crashed into the cart that +the man on horseback stopped. My brother looked up, and the man with +the gold twisted his head round and bit the wrist that held his collar. +There was a concussion, and the black horse came staggering sideways, +and the carthorse pushed beside it. A hoof missed my brother’s foot by +a hair’s breadth. He released his grip on the fallen man and jumped +back. He saw anger change to terror on the face of the poor wretch on +the ground, and in a moment he was hidden and my brother was borne +backward and carried past the entrance of the lane, and had to fight +hard in the torrent to recover it. + +He saw Miss Elphinstone covering her eyes, and a little child, with all +a child’s want of sympathetic imagination, staring with dilated eyes at +a dusty something that lay black and still, ground and crushed under +the rolling wheels. “Let us go back!” he shouted, and began turning the +pony round. “We cannot cross this—hell,” he said and they went back a +hundred yards the way they had come, until the fighting crowd was +hidden. As they passed the bend in the lane my brother saw the face of +the dying man in the ditch under the privet, deadly white and drawn, +and shining with perspiration. The two women sat silent, crouching in +their seat and shivering. + +Then beyond the bend my brother stopped again. Miss Elphinstone was +white and pale, and her sister-in-law sat weeping, too wretched even to +call upon “George.” My brother was horrified and perplexed. So soon as +they had retreated he realised how urgent and unavoidable it was to +attempt this crossing. He turned to Miss Elphinstone, suddenly +resolute. + +“We must go that way,” he said, and led the pony round again. + +For the second time that day this girl proved her quality. To force +their way into the torrent of people, my brother plunged into the +traffic and held back a cab horse, while she drove the pony across its +head. A waggon locked wheels for a moment and ripped a long splinter +from the chaise. In another moment they were caught and swept forward +by the stream. My brother, with the cabman’s whip marks red across his +face and hands, scrambled into the chaise and took the reins from her. + +“Point the revolver at the man behind,” he said, giving it to her, “if +he presses us too hard. No!—point it at his horse.” + +Then he began to look out for a chance of edging to the right across +the road. But once in the stream he seemed to lose volition, to become +a part of that dusty rout. They swept through Chipping Barnet with the +torrent; they were nearly a mile beyond the centre of the town before +they had fought across to the opposite side of the way. It was din and +confusion indescribable; but in and beyond the town the road forks +repeatedly, and this to some extent relieved the stress. + +They struck eastward through Hadley, and there on either side of the +road, and at another place farther on they came upon a great multitude +of people drinking at the stream, some fighting to come at the water. +And farther on, from a lull near East Barnet, they saw two trains +running slowly one after the other without signal or order—trains +swarming with people, with men even among the coals behind the +engines—going northward along the Great Northern Railway. My brother +supposes they must have filled outside London, for at that time the +furious terror of the people had rendered the central termini +impossible. + +Near this place they halted for the rest of the afternoon, for the +violence of the day had already utterly exhausted all three of them. +They began to suffer the beginnings of hunger; the night was cold, and +none of them dared to sleep. And in the evening many people came +hurrying along the road nearby their stopping place, fleeing from +unknown dangers before them, and going in the direction from which my +brother had come. + + + + +XVII. +THE “THUNDER CHILD”. + + +Had the Martians aimed only at destruction, they might on Monday have +annihilated the entire population of London, as it spread itself slowly +through the home counties. Not only along the road through Barnet, but +also through Edgware and Waltham Abbey, and along the roads eastward to +Southend and Shoeburyness, and south of the Thames to Deal and +Broadstairs, poured the same frantic rout. If one could have hung that +June morning in a balloon in the blazing blue above London every +northward and eastward road running out of the tangled maze of streets +would have seemed stippled black with the streaming fugitives, each dot +a human agony of terror and physical distress. I have set forth at +length in the last chapter my brother’s account of the road through +Chipping Barnet, in order that my readers may realise how that swarming +of black dots appeared to one of those concerned. Never before in the +history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered +together. The legendary hosts of Goths and Huns, the hugest armies Asia +has ever seen, would have been but a drop in that current. And this was +no disciplined march; it was a stampede—a stampede gigantic and +terrible—without order and without a goal, six million people unarmed +and unprovisioned, driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout +of civilisation, of the massacre of mankind. + +Directly below him the balloonist would have seen the network of +streets far and wide, houses, churches, squares, crescents, +gardens—already derelict—spread out like a huge map, and in the +southward _blotted_. Over Ealing, Richmond, Wimbledon, it would have +seemed as if some monstrous pen had flung ink upon the chart. Steadily, +incessantly, each black splash grew and spread, shooting out +ramifications this way and that, now banking itself against rising +ground, now pouring swiftly over a crest into a new-found valley, +exactly as a gout of ink would spread itself upon blotting paper. + +And beyond, over the blue hills that rise southward of the river, the +glittering Martians went to and fro, calmly and methodically spreading +their poison cloud over this patch of country and then over that, +laying it again with their steam jets when it had served its purpose, +and taking possession of the conquered country. They do not seem to +have aimed at extermination so much as at complete demoralisation and +the destruction of any opposition. They exploded any stores of powder +they came upon, cut every telegraph, and wrecked the railways here and +there. They were hamstringing mankind. They seemed in no hurry to +extend the field of their operations, and did not come beyond the +central part of London all that day. It is possible that a very +considerable number of people in London stuck to their houses through +Monday morning. Certain it is that many died at home suffocated by the +Black Smoke. + +Until about midday the Pool of London was an astonishing scene. +Steamboats and shipping of all sorts lay there, tempted by the enormous +sums of money offered by fugitives, and it is said that many who swam +out to these vessels were thrust off with boathooks and drowned. About +one o’clock in the afternoon the thinning remnant of a cloud of the +black vapour appeared between the arches of Blackfriars Bridge. At that +the Pool became a scene of mad confusion, fighting, and collision, and +for some time a multitude of boats and barges jammed in the northern +arch of the Tower Bridge, and the sailors and lightermen had to fight +savagely against the people who swarmed upon them from the riverfront. +People were actually clambering down the piers of the bridge from +above. + +When, an hour later, a Martian appeared beyond the Clock Tower and +waded down the river, nothing but wreckage floated above Limehouse. + +Of the falling of the fifth cylinder I have presently to tell. The +sixth star fell at Wimbledon. My brother, keeping watch beside the +women in the chaise in a meadow, saw the green flash of it far beyond +the hills. On Tuesday the little party, still set upon getting across +the sea, made its way through the swarming country towards Colchester. +The news that the Martians were now in possession of the whole of +London was confirmed. They had been seen at Highgate, and even, it was +said, at Neasden. But they did not come into my brother’s view until +the morrow. + +That day the scattered multitudes began to realise the urgent need of +provisions. As they grew hungry the rights of property ceased to be +regarded. Farmers were out to defend their cattle-sheds, granaries, and +ripening root crops with arms in their hands. A number of people now, +like my brother, had their faces eastward, and there were some +desperate souls even going back towards London to get food. These were +chiefly people from the northern suburbs, whose knowledge of the Black +Smoke came by hearsay. He heard that about half the members of the +government had gathered at Birmingham, and that enormous quantities of +high explosives were being prepared to be used in automatic mines +across the Midland counties. + +He was also told that the Midland Railway Company had replaced the +desertions of the first day’s panic, had resumed traffic, and was +running northward trains from St. Albans to relieve the congestion of +the home counties. There was also a placard in Chipping Ongar +announcing that large stores of flour were available in the northern +towns and that within twenty-four hours bread would be distributed +among the starving people in the neighbourhood. But this intelligence +did not deter him from the plan of escape he had formed, and the three +pressed eastward all day, and heard no more of the bread distribution +than this promise. Nor, as a matter of fact, did anyone else hear more +of it. That night fell the seventh star, falling upon Primrose Hill. It +fell while Miss Elphinstone was watching, for she took that duty +alternately with my brother. She saw it. + +On Wednesday the three fugitives—they had passed the night in a field +of unripe wheat—reached Chelmsford, and there a body of the +inhabitants, calling itself the Committee of Public Supply, seized the +pony as provisions, and would give nothing in exchange for it but the +promise of a share in it the next day. Here there were rumours of +Martians at Epping, and news of the destruction of Waltham Abbey Powder +Mills in a vain attempt to blow up one of the invaders. + +People were watching for Martians here from the church towers. My +brother, very luckily for him as it chanced, preferred to push on at +once to the coast rather than wait for food, although all three of them +were very hungry. By midday they passed through Tillingham, which, +strangely enough, seemed to be quite silent and deserted, save for a +few furtive plunderers hunting for food. Near Tillingham they suddenly +came in sight of the sea, and the most amazing crowd of shipping of all +sorts that it is possible to imagine. + +For after the sailors could no longer come up the Thames, they came on +to the Essex coast, to Harwich and Walton and Clacton, and afterwards +to Foulness and Shoebury, to bring off the people. They lay in a huge +sickle-shaped curve that vanished into mist at last towards the Naze. +Close inshore was a multitude of fishing smacks—English, Scotch, +French, Dutch, and Swedish; steam launches from the Thames, yachts, +electric boats; and beyond were ships of larger burden, a multitude of +filthy colliers, trim merchantmen, cattle ships, passenger boats, +petroleum tanks, ocean tramps, an old white transport even, neat white +and grey liners from Southampton and Hamburg; and along the blue coast +across the Blackwater my brother could make out dimly a dense swarm of +boats chaffering with the people on the beach, a swarm which also +extended up the Blackwater almost to Maldon. + +About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad, very low in the water, +almost, to my brother’s perception, like a water-logged ship. This was +the ram _Thunder Child_. It was the only warship in sight, but far away +to the right over the smooth surface of the sea—for that day there was +a dead calm—lay a serpent of black smoke to mark the next ironclads of +the Channel Fleet, which hovered in an extended line, steam up and +ready for action, across the Thames estuary during the course of the +Martian conquest, vigilant and yet powerless to prevent it. + +At the sight of the sea, Mrs. Elphinstone, in spite of the assurances +of her sister-in-law, gave way to panic. She had never been out of +England before, she would rather die than trust herself friendless in a +foreign country, and so forth. She seemed, poor woman, to imagine that +the French and the Martians might prove very similar. She had been +growing increasingly hysterical, fearful, and depressed during the two +days’ journeyings. Her great idea was to return to Stanmore. Things had +been always well and safe at Stanmore. They would find George at +Stanmore.... + +It was with the greatest difficulty they could get her down to the +beach, where presently my brother succeeded in attracting the attention +of some men on a paddle steamer from the Thames. They sent a boat and +drove a bargain for thirty-six pounds for the three. The steamer was +going, these men said, to Ostend. + +It was about two o’clock when my brother, having paid their fares at +the gangway, found himself safely aboard the steamboat with his +charges. There was food aboard, albeit at exorbitant prices, and the +three of them contrived to eat a meal on one of the seats forward. + +There were already a couple of score of passengers aboard, some of whom +had expended their last money in securing a passage, but the captain +lay off the Blackwater until five in the afternoon, picking up +passengers until the seated decks were even dangerously crowded. He +would probably have remained longer had it not been for the sound of +guns that began about that hour in the south. As if in answer, the +ironclad seaward fired a small gun and hoisted a string of flags. A jet +of smoke sprang out of her funnels. + +Some of the passengers were of opinion that this firing came from +Shoeburyness, until it was noticed that it was growing louder. At the +same time, far away in the southeast the masts and upperworks of three +ironclads rose one after the other out of the sea, beneath clouds of +black smoke. But my brother’s attention speedily reverted to the +distant firing in the south. He fancied he saw a column of smoke rising +out of the distant grey haze. + +The little steamer was already flapping her way eastward of the big +crescent of shipping, and the low Essex coast was growing blue and +hazy, when a Martian appeared, small and faint in the remote distance, +advancing along the muddy coast from the direction of Foulness. At that +the captain on the bridge swore at the top of his voice with fear and +anger at his own delay, and the paddles seemed infected with his +terror. Every soul aboard stood at the bulwarks or on the seats of the +steamer and stared at that distant shape, higher than the trees or +church towers inland, and advancing with a leisurely parody of a human +stride. + +It was the first Martian my brother had seen, and he stood, more amazed +than terrified, watching this Titan advancing deliberately towards the +shipping, wading farther and farther into the water as the coast fell +away. Then, far away beyond the Crouch, came another, striding over +some stunted trees, and then yet another, still farther off, wading +deeply through a shiny mudflat that seemed to hang halfway up between +sea and sky. They were all stalking seaward, as if to intercept the +escape of the multitudinous vessels that were crowded between Foulness +and the Naze. In spite of the throbbing exertions of the engines of the +little paddle-boat, and the pouring foam that her wheels flung behind +her, she receded with terrifying slowness from this ominous advance. + +Glancing northwestward, my brother saw the large crescent of shipping +already writhing with the approaching terror; one ship passing behind +another, another coming round from broadside to end on, steamships +whistling and giving off volumes of steam, sails being let out, +launches rushing hither and thither. He was so fascinated by this and +by the creeping danger away to the left that he had no eyes for +anything seaward. And then a swift movement of the steamboat (she had +suddenly come round to avoid being run down) flung him headlong from +the seat upon which he was standing. There was a shouting all about +him, a trampling of feet, and a cheer that seemed to be answered +faintly. The steamboat lurched and rolled him over upon his hands. + +He sprang to his feet and saw to starboard, and not a hundred yards +from their heeling, pitching boat, a vast iron bulk like the blade of a +plough tearing through the water, tossing it on either side in huge +waves of foam that leaped towards the steamer, flinging her paddles +helplessly in the air, and then sucking her deck down almost to the +waterline. + +A douche of spray blinded my brother for a moment. When his eyes were +clear again he saw the monster had passed and was rushing landward. Big +iron upperworks rose out of this headlong structure, and from that twin +funnels projected and spat a smoking blast shot with fire. It was the +torpedo ram, _Thunder Child_, steaming headlong, coming to the rescue +of the threatened shipping. + +Keeping his footing on the heaving deck by clutching the bulwarks, my +brother looked past this charging leviathan at the Martians again, and +he saw the three of them now close together, and standing so far out to +sea that their tripod supports were almost entirely submerged. Thus +sunken, and seen in remote perspective, they appeared far less +formidable than the huge iron bulk in whose wake the steamer was +pitching so helplessly. It would seem they were regarding this new +antagonist with astonishment. To their intelligence, it may be, the +giant was even such another as themselves. The _Thunder Child_ fired no +gun, but simply drove full speed towards them. It was probably her not +firing that enabled her to get so near the enemy as she did. They did +not know what to make of her. One shell, and they would have sent her +to the bottom forthwith with the Heat-Ray. + +She was steaming at such a pace that in a minute she seemed halfway +between the steamboat and the Martians—a diminishing black bulk against +the receding horizontal expanse of the Essex coast. + +Suddenly the foremost Martian lowered his tube and discharged a +canister of the black gas at the ironclad. It hit her larboard side and +glanced off in an inky jet that rolled away to seaward, an unfolding +torrent of Black Smoke, from which the ironclad drove clear. To the +watchers from the steamer, low in the water and with the sun in their +eyes, it seemed as though she were already among the Martians. + +They saw the gaunt figures separating and rising out of the water as +they retreated shoreward, and one of them raised the camera-like +generator of the Heat-Ray. He held it pointing obliquely downward, and +a bank of steam sprang from the water at its touch. It must have driven +through the iron of the ship’s side like a white-hot iron rod through +paper. + +A flicker of flame went up through the rising steam, and then the +Martian reeled and staggered. In another moment he was cut down, and a +great body of water and steam shot high in the air. The guns of the +_Thunder Child_ sounded through the reek, going off one after the +other, and one shot splashed the water high close by the steamer, +ricocheted towards the other flying ships to the north, and smashed a +smack to matchwood. + +But no one heeded that very much. At the sight of the Martian’s +collapse the captain on the bridge yelled inarticulately, and all the +crowding passengers on the steamer’s stern shouted together. And then +they yelled again. For, surging out beyond the white tumult, drove +something long and black, the flames streaming from its middle parts, +its ventilators and funnels spouting fire. + +She was alive still; the steering gear, it seems, was intact and her +engines working. She headed straight for a second Martian, and was +within a hundred yards of him when the Heat-Ray came to bear. Then with +a violent thud, a blinding flash, her decks, her funnels, leaped +upward. The Martian staggered with the violence of her explosion, and +in another moment the flaming wreckage, still driving forward with the +impetus of its pace, had struck him and crumpled him up like a thing of +cardboard. My brother shouted involuntarily. A boiling tumult of steam +hid everything again. + +“Two!” yelled the captain. + +Everyone was shouting. The whole steamer from end to end rang with +frantic cheering that was taken up first by one and then by all in the +crowding multitude of ships and boats that was driving out to sea. + +The steam hung upon the water for many minutes, hiding the third +Martian and the coast altogether. And all this time the boat was +paddling steadily out to sea and away from the fight; and when at last +the confusion cleared, the drifting bank of black vapour intervened, +and nothing of the _Thunder Child_ could be made out, nor could the +third Martian be seen. But the ironclads to seaward were now quite +close and standing in towards shore past the steamboat. + +The little vessel continued to beat its way seaward, and the ironclads +receded slowly towards the coast, which was hidden still by a marbled +bank of vapour, part steam, part black gas, eddying and combining in +the strangest way. The fleet of refugees was scattering to the +northeast; several smacks were sailing between the ironclads and the +steamboat. After a time, and before they reached the sinking cloud +bank, the warships turned northward, and then abruptly went about and +passed into the thickening haze of evening southward. The coast grew +faint, and at last indistinguishable amid the low banks of clouds that +were gathering about the sinking sun. + +Then suddenly out of the golden haze of the sunset came the vibration +of guns, and a form of black shadows moving. Everyone struggled to the +rail of the steamer and peered into the blinding furnace of the west, +but nothing was to be distinguished clearly. A mass of smoke rose +slanting and barred the face of the sun. The steamboat throbbed on its +way through an interminable suspense. + +The sun sank into grey clouds, the sky flushed and darkened, the +evening star trembled into sight. It was deep twilight when the captain +cried out and pointed. My brother strained his eyes. Something rushed +up into the sky out of the greyness—rushed slantingly upward and very +swiftly into the luminous clearness above the clouds in the western +sky; something flat and broad, and very large, that swept round in a +vast curve, grew smaller, sank slowly, and vanished again into the grey +mystery of the night. And as it flew it rained down darkness upon the +land. + + + + +BOOK TWO +THE EARTH UNDER THE MARTIANS. + + + + +I. +UNDER FOOT. + + +In the first book I have wandered so much from my own adventures to +tell of the experiences of my brother that all through the last two +chapters I and the curate have been lurking in the empty house at +Halliford whither we fled to escape the Black Smoke. There I will +resume. We stopped there all Sunday night and all the next day—the day +of the panic—in a little island of daylight, cut off by the Black Smoke +from the rest of the world. We could do nothing but wait in aching +inactivity during those two weary days. + +My mind was occupied by anxiety for my wife. I figured her at +Leatherhead, terrified, in danger, mourning me already as a dead man. I +paced the rooms and cried aloud when I thought of how I was cut off +from her, of all that might happen to her in my absence. My cousin I +knew was brave enough for any emergency, but he was not the sort of man +to realise danger quickly, to rise promptly. What was needed now was +not bravery, but circumspection. My only consolation was to believe +that the Martians were moving Londonward and away from her. Such vague +anxieties keep the mind sensitive and painful. I grew very weary and +irritable with the curate’s perpetual ejaculations; I tired of the +sight of his selfish despair. After some ineffectual remonstrance I +kept away from him, staying in a room—evidently a children’s +schoolroom—containing globes, forms, and copybooks. When he followed me +thither, I went to a box room at the top of the house and, in order to +be alone with my aching miseries, locked myself in. + +We were hopelessly hemmed in by the Black Smoke all that day and the +morning of the next. There were signs of people in the next house on +Sunday evening—a face at a window and moving lights, and later the +slamming of a door. But I do not know who these people were, nor what +became of them. We saw nothing of them next day. The Black Smoke +drifted slowly riverward all through Monday morning, creeping nearer +and nearer to us, driving at last along the roadway outside the house +that hid us. + +A Martian came across the fields about midday, laying the stuff with a +jet of superheated steam that hissed against the walls, smashed all the +windows it touched, and scalded the curate’s hand as he fled out of the +front room. When at last we crept across the sodden rooms and looked +out again, the country northward was as though a black snowstorm had +passed over it. Looking towards the river, we were astonished to see an +unaccountable redness mingling with the black of the scorched meadows. + +For a time we did not see how this change affected our position, save +that we were relieved of our fear of the Black Smoke. But later I +perceived that we were no longer hemmed in, that now we might get away. +So soon as I realised that the way of escape was open, my dream of +action returned. But the curate was lethargic, unreasonable. + +“We are safe here,” he repeated; “safe here.” + +I resolved to leave him—would that I had! Wiser now for the +artilleryman’s teaching, I sought out food and drink. I had found oil +and rags for my burns, and I also took a hat and a flannel shirt that I +found in one of the bedrooms. When it was clear to him that I meant to +go alone—had reconciled myself to going alone—he suddenly roused +himself to come. And all being quiet throughout the afternoon, we +started about five o’clock, as I should judge, along the blackened road +to Sunbury. + +In Sunbury, and at intervals along the road, were dead bodies lying in +contorted attitudes, horses as well as men, overturned carts and +luggage, all covered thickly with black dust. That pall of cindery +powder made me think of what I had read of the destruction of Pompeii. +We got to Hampton Court without misadventure, our minds full of strange +and unfamiliar appearances, and at Hampton Court our eyes were relieved +to find a patch of green that had escaped the suffocating drift. We +went through Bushey Park, with its deer going to and fro under the +chestnuts, and some men and women hurrying in the distance towards +Hampton, and so we came to Twickenham. These were the first people we +saw. + +Away across the road the woods beyond Ham and Petersham were still +afire. Twickenham was uninjured by either Heat-Ray or Black Smoke, and +there were more people about here, though none could give us news. For +the most part they were like ourselves, taking advantage of a lull to +shift their quarters. I have an impression that many of the houses here +were still occupied by scared inhabitants, too frightened even for +flight. Here too the evidence of a hasty rout was abundant along the +road. I remember most vividly three smashed bicycles in a heap, pounded +into the road by the wheels of subsequent carts. We crossed Richmond +Bridge about half past eight. We hurried across the exposed bridge, of +course, but I noticed floating down the stream a number of red masses, +some many feet across. I did not know what these were—there was no time +for scrutiny—and I put a more horrible interpretation on them than they +deserved. Here again on the Surrey side were black dust that had once +been smoke, and dead bodies—a heap near the approach to the station; +but we had no glimpse of the Martians until we were some way towards +Barnes. + +We saw in the blackened distance a group of three people running down a +side street towards the river, but otherwise it seemed deserted. Up the +hill Richmond town was burning briskly; outside the town of Richmond +there was no trace of the Black Smoke. + +Then suddenly, as we approached Kew, came a number of people running, +and the upperworks of a Martian fighting-machine loomed in sight over +the housetops, not a hundred yards away from us. We stood aghast at our +danger, and had the Martian looked down we must immediately have +perished. We were so terrified that we dared not go on, but turned +aside and hid in a shed in a garden. There the curate crouched, weeping +silently, and refusing to stir again. + +But my fixed idea of reaching Leatherhead would not let me rest, and in +the twilight I ventured out again. I went through a shrubbery, and +along a passage beside a big house standing in its own grounds, and so +emerged upon the road towards Kew. The curate I left in the shed, but +he came hurrying after me. + +That second start was the most foolhardy thing I ever did. For it was +manifest the Martians were about us. No sooner had the curate overtaken +me than we saw either the fighting-machine we had seen before or +another, far away across the meadows in the direction of Kew Lodge. +Four or five little black figures hurried before it across the +green-grey of the field, and in a moment it was evident this Martian +pursued them. In three strides he was among them, and they ran +radiating from his feet in all directions. He used no Heat-Ray to +destroy them, but picked them up one by one. Apparently he tossed them +into the great metallic carrier which projected behind him, much as a +workman’s basket hangs over his shoulder. + +It was the first time I realised that the Martians might have any other +purpose than destruction with defeated humanity. We stood for a moment +petrified, then turned and fled through a gate behind us into a walled +garden, fell into, rather than found, a fortunate ditch, and lay there, +scarce daring to whisper to each other until the stars were out. + +I suppose it was nearly eleven o’clock before we gathered courage to +start again, no longer venturing into the road, but sneaking along +hedgerows and through plantations, and watching keenly through the +darkness, he on the right and I on the left, for the Martians, who +seemed to be all about us. In one place we blundered upon a scorched +and blackened area, now cooling and ashen, and a number of scattered +dead bodies of men, burned horribly about the heads and trunks but with +their legs and boots mostly intact; and of dead horses, fifty feet, +perhaps, behind a line of four ripped guns and smashed gun carriages. + +Sheen, it seemed, had escaped destruction, but the place was silent and +deserted. Here we happened on no dead, though the night was too dark +for us to see into the side roads of the place. In Sheen my companion +suddenly complained of faintness and thirst, and we decided to try one +of the houses. + +The first house we entered, after a little difficulty with the window, +was a small semi-detached villa, and I found nothing eatable left in +the place but some mouldy cheese. There was, however, water to drink; +and I took a hatchet, which promised to be useful in our next +house-breaking. + +We then crossed to a place where the road turns towards Mortlake. Here +there stood a white house within a walled garden, and in the pantry of +this domicile we found a store of food—two loaves of bread in a pan, an +uncooked steak, and the half of a ham. I give this catalogue so +precisely because, as it happened, we were destined to subsist upon +this store for the next fortnight. Bottled beer stood under a shelf, +and there were two bags of haricot beans and some limp lettuces. This +pantry opened into a kind of wash-up kitchen, and in this was firewood; +there was also a cupboard, in which we found nearly a dozen of +burgundy, tinned soups and salmon, and two tins of biscuits. + +We sat in the adjacent kitchen in the dark—for we dared not strike a +light—and ate bread and ham, and drank beer out of the same bottle. The +curate, who was still timorous and restless, was now, oddly enough, for +pushing on, and I was urging him to keep up his strength by eating when +the thing happened that was to imprison us. + +“It can’t be midnight yet,” I said, and then came a blinding glare of +vivid green light. Everything in the kitchen leaped out, clearly +visible in green and black, and vanished again. And then followed such +a concussion as I have never heard before or since. So close on the +heels of this as to seem instantaneous came a thud behind me, a clash +of glass, a crash and rattle of falling masonry all about us, and the +plaster of the ceiling came down upon us, smashing into a multitude of +fragments upon our heads. I was knocked headlong across the floor +against the oven handle and stunned. I was insensible for a long time, +the curate told me, and when I came to we were in darkness again, and +he, with a face wet, as I found afterwards, with blood from a cut +forehead, was dabbing water over me. + +For some time I could not recollect what had happened. Then things came +to me slowly. A bruise on my temple asserted itself. + +“Are you better?” asked the curate in a whisper. + +At last I answered him. I sat up. + +“Don’t move,” he said. “The floor is covered with smashed crockery from +the dresser. You can’t possibly move without making a noise, and I +fancy _they_ are outside.” + +We both sat quite silent, so that we could scarcely hear each other +breathing. Everything seemed deadly still, but once something near us, +some plaster or broken brickwork, slid down with a rumbling sound. +Outside and very near was an intermittent, metallic rattle. + +“That!” said the curate, when presently it happened again. + +“Yes,” I said. “But what is it?” + +“A Martian!” said the curate. + +I listened again. + +“It was not like the Heat-Ray,” I said, and for a time I was inclined +to think one of the great fighting-machines had stumbled against the +house, as I had seen one stumble against the tower of Shepperton +Church. + +Our situation was so strange and incomprehensible that for three or +four hours, until the dawn came, we scarcely moved. And then the light +filtered in, not through the window, which remained black, but through +a triangular aperture between a beam and a heap of broken bricks in the +wall behind us. The interior of the kitchen we now saw greyly for the +first time. + +The window had been burst in by a mass of garden mould, which flowed +over the table upon which we had been sitting and lay about our feet. +Outside, the soil was banked high against the house. At the top of the +window frame we could see an uprooted drainpipe. The floor was littered +with smashed hardware; the end of the kitchen towards the house was +broken into, and since the daylight shone in there, it was evident the +greater part of the house had collapsed. Contrasting vividly with this +ruin was the neat dresser, stained in the fashion, pale green, and with +a number of copper and tin vessels below it, the wallpaper imitating +blue and white tiles, and a couple of coloured supplements fluttering +from the walls above the kitchen range. + +As the dawn grew clearer, we saw through the gap in the wall the body +of a Martian, standing sentinel, I suppose, over the still glowing +cylinder. At the sight of that we crawled as circumspectly as possible +out of the twilight of the kitchen into the darkness of the scullery. + +Abruptly the right interpretation dawned upon my mind. + +“The fifth cylinder,” I whispered, “the fifth shot from Mars, has +struck this house and buried us under the ruins!” + +For a time the curate was silent, and then he whispered: + +“God have mercy upon us!” + +I heard him presently whimpering to himself. + +Save for that sound we lay quite still in the scullery; I for my part +scarce dared breathe, and sat with my eyes fixed on the faint light of +the kitchen door. I could just see the curate’s face, a dim, oval +shape, and his collar and cuffs. Outside there began a metallic +hammering, then a violent hooting, and then again, after a quiet +interval, a hissing like the hissing of an engine. These noises, for +the most part problematical, continued intermittently, and seemed if +anything to increase in number as time wore on. Presently a measured +thudding and a vibration that made everything about us quiver and the +vessels in the pantry ring and shift, began and continued. Once the +light was eclipsed, and the ghostly kitchen doorway became absolutely +dark. For many hours we must have crouched there, silent and shivering, +until our tired attention failed. . . . + +At last I found myself awake and very hungry. I am inclined to believe +we must have spent the greater portion of a day before that awakening. +My hunger was at a stride so insistent that it moved me to action. I +told the curate I was going to seek food, and felt my way towards the +pantry. He made me no answer, but so soon as I began eating the faint +noise I made stirred him up and I heard him crawling after me. + + + + +II. +WHAT WE SAW FROM THE RUINED HOUSE. + + +After eating we crept back to the scullery, and there I must have dozed +again, for when presently I looked round I was alone. The thudding +vibration continued with wearisome persistence. I whispered for the +curate several times, and at last felt my way to the door of the +kitchen. It was still daylight, and I perceived him across the room, +lying against the triangular hole that looked out upon the Martians. +His shoulders were hunched, so that his head was hidden from me. + +I could hear a number of noises almost like those in an engine shed; +and the place rocked with that beating thud. Through the aperture in +the wall I could see the top of a tree touched with gold and the warm +blue of a tranquil evening sky. For a minute or so I remained watching +the curate, and then I advanced, crouching and stepping with extreme +care amid the broken crockery that littered the floor. + +I touched the curate’s leg, and he started so violently that a mass of +plaster went sliding down outside and fell with a loud impact. I +gripped his arm, fearing he might cry out, and for a long time we +crouched motionless. Then I turned to see how much of our rampart +remained. The detachment of the plaster had left a vertical slit open +in the debris, and by raising myself cautiously across a beam I was +able to see out of this gap into what had been overnight a quiet +suburban roadway. Vast, indeed, was the change that we beheld. + +The fifth cylinder must have fallen right into the midst of the house +we had first visited. The building had vanished, completely smashed, +pulverised, and dispersed by the blow. The cylinder lay now far beneath +the original foundations—deep in a hole, already vastly larger than the +pit I had looked into at Woking. The earth all round it had splashed +under that tremendous impact—“splashed” is the only word—and lay in +heaped piles that hid the masses of the adjacent houses. It had behaved +exactly like mud under the violent blow of a hammer. Our house had +collapsed backward; the front portion, even on the ground floor, had +been destroyed completely; by a chance the kitchen and scullery had +escaped, and stood buried now under soil and ruins, closed in by tons +of earth on every side save towards the cylinder. Over that aspect we +hung now on the very edge of the great circular pit the Martians were +engaged in making. The heavy beating sound was evidently just behind +us, and ever and again a bright green vapour drove up like a veil +across our peephole. + +The cylinder was already opened in the centre of the pit, and on the +farther edge of the pit, amid the smashed and gravel-heaped shrubbery, +one of the great fighting-machines, deserted by its occupant, stood +stiff and tall against the evening sky. At first I scarcely noticed the +pit and the cylinder, although it has been convenient to describe them +first, on account of the extraordinary glittering mechanism I saw busy +in the excavation, and on account of the strange creatures that were +crawling slowly and painfully across the heaped mould near it. + +The mechanism it certainly was that held my attention first. It was one +of those complicated fabrics that have since been called +handling-machines, and the study of which has already given such an +enormous impetus to terrestrial invention. As it dawned upon me first, +it presented a sort of metallic spider with five jointed, agile legs, +and with an extraordinary number of jointed levers, bars, and reaching +and clutching tentacles about its body. Most of its arms were +retracted, but with three long tentacles it was fishing out a number of +rods, plates, and bars which lined the covering and apparently +strengthened the walls of the cylinder. These, as it extracted them, +were lifted out and deposited upon a level surface of earth behind it. + +Its motion was so swift, complex, and perfect that at first I did not +see it as a machine, in spite of its metallic glitter. The +fighting-machines were coordinated and animated to an extraordinary +pitch, but nothing to compare with this. People who have never seen +these structures, and have only the ill-imagined efforts of artists or +the imperfect descriptions of such eye-witnesses as myself to go upon, +scarcely realise that living quality. + +I recall particularly the illustration of one of the first pamphlets to +give a consecutive account of the war. The artist had evidently made a +hasty study of one of the fighting-machines, and there his knowledge +ended. He presented them as tilted, stiff tripods, without either +flexibility or subtlety, and with an altogether misleading monotony of +effect. The pamphlet containing these renderings had a considerable +vogue, and I mention them here simply to warn the reader against the +impression they may have created. They were no more like the Martians I +saw in action than a Dutch doll is like a human being. To my mind, the +pamphlet would have been much better without them. + +At first, I say, the handling-machine did not impress me as a machine, +but as a crablike creature with a glittering integument, the +controlling Martian whose delicate tentacles actuated its movements +seeming to be simply the equivalent of the crab’s cerebral portion. But +then I perceived the resemblance of its grey-brown, shiny, leathery +integument to that of the other sprawling bodies beyond, and the true +nature of this dexterous workman dawned upon me. With that realisation +my interest shifted to those other creatures, the real Martians. +Already I had had a transient impression of these, and the first nausea +no longer obscured my observation. Moreover, I was concealed and +motionless, and under no urgency of action. + +They were, I now saw, the most unearthly creatures it is possible to +conceive. They were huge round bodies—or, rather, heads—about four feet +in diameter, each body having in front of it a face. This face had no +nostrils—indeed, the Martians do not seem to have had any sense of +smell, but it had a pair of very large dark-coloured eyes, and just +beneath this a kind of fleshy beak. In the back of this head or body—I +scarcely know how to speak of it—was the single tight tympanic surface, +since known to be anatomically an ear, though it must have been almost +useless in our dense air. In a group round the mouth were sixteen +slender, almost whiplike tentacles, arranged in two bunches of eight +each. These bunches have since been named rather aptly, by that +distinguished anatomist, Professor Howes, the _hands_. Even as I saw +these Martians for the first time they seemed to be endeavouring to +raise themselves on these hands, but of course, with the increased +weight of terrestrial conditions, this was impossible. There is reason +to suppose that on Mars they may have progressed upon them with some +facility. + +The internal anatomy, I may remark here, as dissection has since shown, +was almost equally simple. The greater part of the structure was the +brain, sending enormous nerves to the eyes, ear, and tactile tentacles. +Besides this were the bulky lungs, into which the mouth opened, and the +heart and its vessels. The pulmonary distress caused by the denser +atmosphere and greater gravitational attraction was only too evident in +the convulsive movements of the outer skin. + +And this was the sum of the Martian organs. Strange as it may seem to a +human being, all the complex apparatus of digestion, which makes up the +bulk of our bodies, did not exist in the Martians. They were +heads—merely heads. Entrails they had none. They did not eat, much less +digest. Instead, they took the fresh, living blood of other creatures, +and _injected_ it into their own veins. I have myself seen this being +done, as I shall mention in its place. But, squeamish as I may seem, I +cannot bring myself to describe what I could not endure even to +continue watching. Let it suffice to say, blood obtained from a still +living animal, in most cases from a human being, was run directly by +means of a little pipette into the recipient canal. . . . + +The bare idea of this is no doubt horribly repulsive to us, but at the +same time I think that we should remember how repulsive our carnivorous +habits would seem to an intelligent rabbit. + +The physiological advantages of the practice of injection are +undeniable, if one thinks of the tremendous waste of human time and +energy occasioned by eating and the digestive process. Our bodies are +half made up of glands and tubes and organs, occupied in turning +heterogeneous food into blood. The digestive processes and their +reaction upon the nervous system sap our strength and colour our minds. +Men go happy or miserable as they have healthy or unhealthy livers, or +sound gastric glands. But the Martians were lifted above all these +organic fluctuations of mood and emotion. + +Their undeniable preference for men as their source of nourishment is +partly explained by the nature of the remains of the victims they had +brought with them as provisions from Mars. These creatures, to judge +from the shrivelled remains that have fallen into human hands, were +bipeds with flimsy, silicious skeletons (almost like those of the +silicious sponges) and feeble musculature, standing about six feet high +and having round, erect heads, and large eyes in flinty sockets. Two or +three of these seem to have been brought in each cylinder, and all were +killed before earth was reached. It was just as well for them, for the +mere attempt to stand upright upon our planet would have broken every +bone in their bodies. + +And while I am engaged in this description, I may add in this place +certain further details which, although they were not all evident to us +at the time, will enable the reader who is unacquainted with them to +form a clearer picture of these offensive creatures. + +In three other points their physiology differed strangely from ours. +Their organisms did not sleep, any more than the heart of man sleeps. +Since they had no extensive muscular mechanism to recuperate, that +periodical extinction was unknown to them. They had little or no sense +of fatigue, it would seem. On earth they could never have moved without +effort, yet even to the last they kept in action. In twenty-four hours +they did twenty-four hours of work, as even on earth is perhaps the +case with the ants. + +In the next place, wonderful as it seems in a sexual world, the +Martians were absolutely without sex, and therefore without any of the +tumultuous emotions that arise from that difference among men. A young +Martian, there can now be no dispute, was really born upon earth during +the war, and it was found attached to its parent, partially _budded_ +off, just as young lilybulbs bud off, or like the young animals in the +fresh-water polyp. + +In man, in all the higher terrestrial animals, such a method of +increase has disappeared; but even on this earth it was certainly the +primitive method. Among the lower animals, up even to those first +cousins of the vertebrated animals, the Tunicates, the two processes +occur side by side, but finally the sexual method superseded its +competitor altogether. On Mars, however, just the reverse has +apparently been the case. + +It is worthy of remark that a certain speculative writer of +quasi-scientific repute, writing long before the Martian invasion, did +forecast for man a final structure not unlike the actual Martian +condition. His prophecy, I remember, appeared in November or December, +1893, in a long-defunct publication, the _Pall Mall Budget_, and I +recall a caricature of it in a pre-Martian periodical called _Punch_. +He pointed out—writing in a foolish, facetious tone—that the perfection +of mechanical appliances must ultimately supersede limbs; the +perfection of chemical devices, digestion; that such organs as hair, +external nose, teeth, ears, and chin were no longer essential parts of +the human being, and that the tendency of natural selection would lie +in the direction of their steady diminution through the coming ages. +The brain alone remained a cardinal necessity. Only one other part of +the body had a strong case for survival, and that was the hand, +“teacher and agent of the brain.” While the rest of the body dwindled, +the hands would grow larger. + +There is many a true word written in jest, and here in the Martians we +have beyond dispute the actual accomplishment of such a suppression of +the animal side of the organism by the intelligence. To me it is quite +credible that the Martians may be descended from beings not unlike +ourselves, by a gradual development of brain and hands (the latter +giving rise to the two bunches of delicate tentacles at last) at the +expense of the rest of the body. Without the body the brain would, of +course, become a mere selfish intelligence, without any of the +emotional substratum of the human being. + +The last salient point in which the systems of these creatures differed +from ours was in what one might have thought a very trivial particular. +Micro-organisms, which cause so much disease and pain on earth, have +either never appeared upon Mars or Martian sanitary science eliminated +them ages ago. A hundred diseases, all the fevers and contagions of +human life, consumption, cancers, tumours and such morbidities, never +enter the scheme of their life. And speaking of the differences between +the life on Mars and terrestrial life, I may allude here to the curious +suggestions of the red weed. + +Apparently the vegetable kingdom in Mars, instead of having green for a +dominant colour, is of a vivid blood-red tint. At any rate, the seeds +which the Martians (intentionally or accidentally) brought with them +gave rise in all cases to red-coloured growths. Only that known +popularly as the red weed, however, gained any footing in competition +with terrestrial forms. The red creeper was quite a transitory growth, +and few people have seen it growing. For a time, however, the red weed +grew with astonishing vigour and luxuriance. It spread up the sides of +the pit by the third or fourth day of our imprisonment, and its +cactus-like branches formed a carmine fringe to the edges of our +triangular window. And afterwards I found it broadcast throughout the +country, and especially wherever there was a stream of water. + +The Martians had what appears to have been an auditory organ, a single +round drum at the back of the head-body, and eyes with a visual range +not very different from ours except that, according to Philips, blue +and violet were as black to them. It is commonly supposed that they +communicated by sounds and tentacular gesticulations; this is asserted, +for instance, in the able but hastily compiled pamphlet (written +evidently by someone not an eye-witness of Martian actions) to which I +have already alluded, and which, so far, has been the chief source of +information concerning them. Now no surviving human being saw so much +of the Martians in action as I did. I take no credit to myself for an +accident, but the fact is so. And I assert that I watched them closely +time after time, and that I have seen four, five, and (once) six of +them sluggishly performing the most elaborately complicated operations +together without either sound or gesture. Their peculiar hooting +invariably preceded feeding; it had no modulation, and was, I believe, +in no sense a signal, but merely the expiration of air preparatory to +the suctional operation. I have a certain claim to at least an +elementary knowledge of psychology, and in this matter I am +convinced—as firmly as I am convinced of anything—that the Martians +interchanged thoughts without any physical intermediation. And I have +been convinced of this in spite of strong preconceptions. Before the +Martian invasion, as an occasional reader here or there may remember, I +had written with some little vehemence against the telepathic theory. + +The Martians wore no clothing. Their conceptions of ornament and +decorum were necessarily different from ours; and not only were they +evidently much less sensible of changes of temperature than we are, but +changes of pressure do not seem to have affected their health at all +seriously. Yet though they wore no clothing, it was in the other +artificial additions to their bodily resources that their great +superiority over man lay. We men, with our bicycles and road-skates, +our Lilienthal soaring-machines, our guns and sticks and so forth, are +just in the beginning of the evolution that the Martians have worked +out. They have become practically mere brains, wearing different bodies +according to their needs just as men wear suits of clothes and take a +bicycle in a hurry or an umbrella in the wet. And of their appliances, +perhaps nothing is more wonderful to a man than the curious fact that +what is the dominant feature of almost all human devices in mechanism +is absent—the _wheel_ is absent; among all the things they brought to +earth there is no trace or suggestion of their use of wheels. One would +have at least expected it in locomotion. And in this connection it is +curious to remark that even on this earth Nature has never hit upon the +wheel, or has preferred other expedients to its development. And not +only did the Martians either not know of (which is incredible), or +abstain from, the wheel, but in their apparatus singularly little use +is made of the fixed pivot or relatively fixed pivot, with circular +motions thereabout confined to one plane. Almost all the joints of the +machinery present a complicated system of sliding parts moving over +small but beautifully curved friction bearings. And while upon this +matter of detail, it is remarkable that the long leverages of their +machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature of +the disks in an elastic sheath; these disks become polarised and drawn +closely and powerfully together when traversed by a current of +electricity. In this way the curious parallelism to animal motions, +which was so striking and disturbing to the human beholder, was +attained. Such quasi-muscles abounded in the crablike handling-machine +which, on my first peeping out of the slit, I watched unpacking the +cylinder. It seemed infinitely more alive than the actual Martians +lying beyond it in the sunset light, panting, stirring ineffectual +tentacles, and moving feebly after their vast journey across space. + +While I was still watching their sluggish motions in the sunlight, and +noting each strange detail of their form, the curate reminded me of his +presence by pulling violently at my arm. I turned to a scowling face, +and silent, eloquent lips. He wanted the slit, which permitted only one +of us to peep through; and so I had to forego watching them for a time +while he enjoyed that privilege. + +When I looked again, the busy handling-machine had already put together +several of the pieces of apparatus it had taken out of the cylinder +into a shape having an unmistakable likeness to its own; and down on +the left a busy little digging mechanism had come into view, emitting +jets of green vapour and working its way round the pit, excavating and +embanking in a methodical and discriminating manner. This it was which +had caused the regular beating noise, and the rhythmic shocks that had +kept our ruinous refuge quivering. It piped and whistled as it worked. +So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at +all. + + + + +III. +THE DAYS OF IMPRISONMENT. + + +The arrival of a second fighting-machine drove us from our peephole +into the scullery, for we feared that from his elevation the Martian +might see down upon us behind our barrier. At a later date we began to +feel less in danger of their eyes, for to an eye in the dazzle of the +sunlight outside our refuge must have been blank blackness, but at +first the slightest suggestion of approach drove us into the scullery +in heart-throbbing retreat. Yet terrible as was the danger we incurred, +the attraction of peeping was for both of us irresistible. And I recall +now with a sort of wonder that, in spite of the infinite danger in +which we were between starvation and a still more terrible death, we +could yet struggle bitterly for that horrible privilege of sight. We +would race across the kitchen in a grotesque way between eagerness and +the dread of making a noise, and strike each other, and thrust and +kick, within a few inches of exposure. + +The fact is that we had absolutely incompatible dispositions and habits +of thought and action, and our danger and isolation only accentuated +the incompatibility. At Halliford I had already come to hate the +curate’s trick of helpless exclamation, his stupid rigidity of mind. +His endless muttering monologue vitiated every effort I made to think +out a line of action, and drove me at times, thus pent up and +intensified, almost to the verge of craziness. He was as lacking in +restraint as a silly woman. He would weep for hours together, and I +verily believe that to the very end this spoiled child of life thought +his weak tears in some way efficacious. And I would sit in the darkness +unable to keep my mind off him by reason of his importunities. He ate +more than I did, and it was in vain I pointed out that our only chance +of life was to stop in the house until the Martians had done with their +pit, that in that long patience a time might presently come when we +should need food. He ate and drank impulsively in heavy meals at long +intervals. He slept little. + +As the days wore on, his utter carelessness of any consideration so +intensified our distress and danger that I had, much as I loathed doing +it, to resort to threats, and at last to blows. That brought him to +reason for a time. But he was one of those weak creatures, void of +pride, timorous, anæmic, hateful souls, full of shifty cunning, who +face neither God nor man, who face not even themselves. + +It is disagreeable for me to recall and write these things, but I set +them down that my story may lack nothing. Those who have escaped the +dark and terrible aspects of life will find my brutality, my flash of +rage in our final tragedy, easy enough to blame; for they know what is +wrong as well as any, but not what is possible to tortured men. But +those who have been under the shadow, who have gone down at last to +elemental things, will have a wider charity. + +And while within we fought out our dark, dim contest of whispers, +snatched food and drink, and gripping hands and blows, without, in the +pitiless sunlight of that terrible June, was the strange wonder, the +unfamiliar routine of the Martians in the pit. Let me return to those +first new experiences of mine. After a long time I ventured back to the +peephole, to find that the new-comers had been reinforced by the +occupants of no fewer than three of the fighting-machines. These last +had brought with them certain fresh appliances that stood in an orderly +manner about the cylinder. The second handling-machine was now +completed, and was busied in serving one of the novel contrivances the +big machine had brought. This was a body resembling a milk can in its +general form, above which oscillated a pear-shaped receptacle, and from +which a stream of white powder flowed into a circular basin below. + +The oscillatory motion was imparted to this by one tentacle of the +handling-machine. With two spatulate hands the handling-machine was +digging out and flinging masses of clay into the pear-shaped receptacle +above, while with another arm it periodically opened a door and removed +rusty and blackened clinkers from the middle part of the machine. +Another steely tentacle directed the powder from the basin along a +ribbed channel towards some receiver that was hidden from me by the +mound of bluish dust. From this unseen receiver a little thread of +green smoke rose vertically into the quiet air. As I looked, the +handling-machine, with a faint and musical clinking, extended, +telescopic fashion, a tentacle that had been a moment before a mere +blunt projection, until its end was hidden behind the mound of clay. In +another second it had lifted a bar of white aluminium into sight, +untarnished as yet, and shining dazzlingly, and deposited it in a +growing stack of bars that stood at the side of the pit. Between sunset +and starlight this dexterous machine must have made more than a hundred +such bars out of the crude clay, and the mound of bluish dust rose +steadily until it topped the side of the pit. + +The contrast between the swift and complex movements of these +contrivances and the inert panting clumsiness of their masters was +acute, and for days I had to tell myself repeatedly that these latter +were indeed the living of the two things. + +The curate had possession of the slit when the first men were brought +to the pit. I was sitting below, huddled up, listening with all my +ears. He made a sudden movement backward, and I, fearful that we were +observed, crouched in a spasm of terror. He came sliding down the +rubbish and crept beside me in the darkness, inarticulate, +gesticulating, and for a moment I shared his panic. His gesture +suggested a resignation of the slit, and after a little while my +curiosity gave me courage, and I rose up, stepped across him, and +clambered up to it. At first I could see no reason for his frantic +behaviour. The twilight had now come, the stars were little and faint, +but the pit was illuminated by the flickering green fire that came from +the aluminium-making. The whole picture was a flickering scheme of +green gleams and shifting rusty black shadows, strangely trying to the +eyes. Over and through it all went the bats, heeding it not at all. The +sprawling Martians were no longer to be seen, the mound of blue-green +powder had risen to cover them from sight, and a fighting-machine, with +its legs contracted, crumpled, and abbreviated, stood across the corner +of the pit. And then, amid the clangour of the machinery, came a +drifting suspicion of human voices, that I entertained at first only to +dismiss. + +I crouched, watching this fighting-machine closely, satisfying myself +now for the first time that the hood did indeed contain a Martian. As +the green flames lifted I could see the oily gleam of his integument +and the brightness of his eyes. And suddenly I heard a yell, and saw a +long tentacle reaching over the shoulder of the machine to the little +cage that hunched upon its back. Then something—something struggling +violently—was lifted high against the sky, a black, vague enigma +against the starlight; and as this black object came down again, I saw +by the green brightness that it was a man. For an instant he was +clearly visible. He was a stout, ruddy, middle-aged man, well dressed; +three days before, he must have been walking the world, a man of +considerable consequence. I could see his staring eyes and gleams of +light on his studs and watch chain. He vanished behind the mound, and +for a moment there was silence. And then began a shrieking and a +sustained and cheerful hooting from the Martians. + +I slid down the rubbish, struggled to my feet, clapped my hands over my +ears, and bolted into the scullery. The curate, who had been crouching +silently with his arms over his head, looked up as I passed, cried out +quite loudly at my desertion of him, and came running after me. + +That night, as we lurked in the scullery, balanced between our horror +and the terrible fascination this peeping had, although I felt an +urgent need of action I tried in vain to conceive some plan of escape; +but afterwards, during the second day, I was able to consider our +position with great clearness. The curate, I found, was quite incapable +of discussion; this new and culminating atrocity had robbed him of all +vestiges of reason or forethought. Practically he had already sunk to +the level of an animal. But as the saying goes, I gripped myself with +both hands. It grew upon my mind, once I could face the facts, that +terrible as our position was, there was as yet no justification for +absolute despair. Our chief chance lay in the possibility of the +Martians making the pit nothing more than a temporary encampment. Or +even if they kept it permanently, they might not consider it necessary +to guard it, and a chance of escape might be afforded us. I also +weighed very carefully the possibility of our digging a way out in a +direction away from the pit, but the chances of our emerging within +sight of some sentinel fighting-machine seemed at first too great. And +I should have had to do all the digging myself. The curate would +certainly have failed me. + +It was on the third day, if my memory serves me right, that I saw the +lad killed. It was the only occasion on which I actually saw the +Martians feed. After that experience I avoided the hole in the wall for +the better part of a day. I went into the scullery, removed the door, +and spent some hours digging with my hatchet as silently as possible; +but when I had made a hole about a couple of feet deep the loose earth +collapsed noisily, and I did not dare continue. I lost heart, and lay +down on the scullery floor for a long time, having no spirit even to +move. And after that I abandoned altogether the idea of escaping by +excavation. + +It says much for the impression the Martians had made upon me that at +first I entertained little or no hope of our escape being brought about +by their overthrow through any human effort. But on the fourth or fifth +night I heard a sound like heavy guns. + +It was very late in the night, and the moon was shining brightly. The +Martians had taken away the excavating-machine, and, save for a +fighting-machine that stood in the remoter bank of the pit and a +handling-machine that was buried out of my sight in a corner of the pit +immediately beneath my peephole, the place was deserted by them. Except +for the pale glow from the handling-machine and the bars and patches of +white moonlight the pit was in darkness, and, except for the clinking +of the handling-machine, quite still. That night was a beautiful +serenity; save for one planet, the moon seemed to have the sky to +herself. I heard a dog howling, and that familiar sound it was that +made me listen. Then I heard quite distinctly a booming exactly like +the sound of great guns. Six distinct reports I counted, and after a +long interval six again. And that was all. + + + + +IV. +THE DEATH OF THE CURATE. + + +It was on the sixth day of our imprisonment that I peeped for the last +time, and presently found myself alone. Instead of keeping close to me +and trying to oust me from the slit, the curate had gone back into the +scullery. I was struck by a sudden thought. I went back quickly and +quietly into the scullery. In the darkness I heard the curate drinking. +I snatched in the darkness, and my fingers caught a bottle of burgundy. + +For a few minutes there was a tussle. The bottle struck the floor and +broke, and I desisted and rose. We stood panting and threatening each +other. In the end I planted myself between him and the food, and told +him of my determination to begin a discipline. I divided the food in +the pantry, into rations to last us ten days. I would not let him eat +any more that day. In the afternoon he made a feeble effort to get at +the food. I had been dozing, but in an instant I was awake. All day and +all night we sat face to face, I weary but resolute, and he weeping and +complaining of his immediate hunger. It was, I know, a night and a day, +but to me it seemed—it seems now—an interminable length of time. + +And so our widened incompatibility ended at last in open conflict. For +two vast days we struggled in undertones and wrestling contests. There +were times when I beat and kicked him madly, times when I cajoled and +persuaded him, and once I tried to bribe him with the last bottle of +burgundy, for there was a rain-water pump from which I could get water. +But neither force nor kindness availed; he was indeed beyond reason. He +would neither desist from his attacks on the food nor from his noisy +babbling to himself. The rudimentary precautions to keep our +imprisonment endurable he would not observe. Slowly I began to realise +the complete overthrow of his intelligence, to perceive that my sole +companion in this close and sickly darkness was a man insane. + +From certain vague memories I am inclined to think my own mind wandered +at times. I had strange and hideous dreams whenever I slept. It sounds +paradoxical, but I am inclined to think that the weakness and insanity +of the curate warned me, braced me, and kept me a sane man. + +On the eighth day he began to talk aloud instead of whispering, and +nothing I could do would moderate his speech. + +“It is just, O God!” he would say, over and over again. “It is just. On +me and mine be the punishment laid. We have sinned, we have fallen +short. There was poverty, sorrow; the poor were trodden in the dust, +and I held my peace. I preached acceptable folly—my God, what +folly!—when I should have stood up, though I died for it, and called +upon them to repent—repent! . . . Oppressors of the poor and needy . . +. ! The wine press of God!” + +Then he would suddenly revert to the matter of the food I withheld from +him, praying, begging, weeping, at last threatening. He began to raise +his voice—I prayed him not to. He perceived a hold on me—he threatened +he would shout and bring the Martians upon us. For a time that scared +me; but any concession would have shortened our chance of escape beyond +estimating. I defied him, although I felt no assurance that he might +not do this thing. But that day, at any rate, he did not. He talked +with his voice rising slowly, through the greater part of the eighth +and ninth days—threats, entreaties, mingled with a torrent of half-sane +and always frothy repentance for his vacant sham of God’s service, such +as made me pity him. Then he slept awhile, and began again with renewed +strength, so loudly that I must needs make him desist. + +“Be still!” I implored. + +He rose to his knees, for he had been sitting in the darkness near the +copper. + +“I have been still too long,” he said, in a tone that must have reached +the pit, “and now I must bear my witness. Woe unto this unfaithful +city! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! To the inhabitants of the earth by +reason of the other voices of the trumpet——” + +“Shut up!” I said, rising to my feet, and in a terror lest the Martians +should hear us. “For God’s sake——” + +“Nay,” shouted the curate, at the top of his voice, standing likewise +and extending his arms. “Speak! The word of the Lord is upon me!” + +In three strides he was at the door leading into the kitchen. + +“I must bear my witness! I go! It has already been too long delayed.” + +I put out my hand and felt the meat chopper hanging to the wall. In a +flash I was after him. I was fierce with fear. Before he was halfway +across the kitchen I had overtaken him. With one last touch of humanity +I turned the blade back and struck him with the butt. He went headlong +forward and lay stretched on the ground. I stumbled over him and stood +panting. He lay still. + +Suddenly I heard a noise without, the run and smash of slipping +plaster, and the triangular aperture in the wall was darkened. I looked +up and saw the lower surface of a handling-machine coming slowly across +the hole. One of its gripping limbs curled amid the debris; another +limb appeared, feeling its way over the fallen beams. I stood +petrified, staring. Then I saw through a sort of glass plate near the +edge of the body the face, as we may call it, and the large dark eyes +of a Martian, peering, and then a long metallic snake of tentacle came +feeling slowly through the hole. + +I turned by an effort, stumbled over the curate, and stopped at the +scullery door. The tentacle was now some way, two yards or more, in the +room, and twisting and turning, with queer sudden movements, this way +and that. For a while I stood fascinated by that slow, fitful advance. +Then, with a faint, hoarse cry, I forced myself across the scullery. I +trembled violently; I could scarcely stand upright. I opened the door +of the coal cellar, and stood there in the darkness staring at the +faintly lit doorway into the kitchen, and listening. Had the Martian +seen me? What was it doing now? + +Something was moving to and fro there, very quietly; every now and then +it tapped against the wall, or started on its movements with a faint +metallic ringing, like the movements of keys on a split-ring. Then a +heavy body—I knew too well what—was dragged across the floor of the +kitchen towards the opening. Irresistibly attracted, I crept to the +door and peeped into the kitchen. In the triangle of bright outer +sunlight I saw the Martian, in its Briareus of a handling-machine, +scrutinizing the curate’s head. I thought at once that it would infer +my presence from the mark of the blow I had given him. + +I crept back to the coal cellar, shut the door, and began to cover +myself up as much as I could, and as noiselessly as possible in the +darkness, among the firewood and coal therein. Every now and then I +paused, rigid, to hear if the Martian had thrust its tentacles through +the opening again. + +Then the faint metallic jingle returned. I traced it slowly feeling +over the kitchen. Presently I heard it nearer—in the scullery, as I +judged. I thought that its length might be insufficient to reach me. I +prayed copiously. It passed, scraping faintly across the cellar door. +An age of almost intolerable suspense intervened; then I heard it +fumbling at the latch! It had found the door! The Martians understood +doors! + +It worried at the catch for a minute, perhaps, and then the door +opened. + +In the darkness I could just see the thing—like an elephant’s trunk +more than anything else—waving towards me and touching and examining +the wall, coals, wood and ceiling. It was like a black worm swaying its +blind head to and fro. + +Once, even, it touched the heel of my boot. I was on the verge of +screaming; I bit my hand. For a time the tentacle was silent. I could +have fancied it had been withdrawn. Presently, with an abrupt click, it +gripped something—I thought it had me!—and seemed to go out of the +cellar again. For a minute I was not sure. Apparently it had taken a +lump of coal to examine. + +I seized the opportunity of slightly shifting my position, which had +become cramped, and then listened. I whispered passionate prayers for +safety. + +Then I heard the slow, deliberate sound creeping towards me again. +Slowly, slowly it drew near, scratching against the walls and tapping +the furniture. + +While I was still doubtful, it rapped smartly against the cellar door +and closed it. I heard it go into the pantry, and the biscuit-tins +rattled and a bottle smashed, and then came a heavy bump against the +cellar door. Then silence that passed into an infinity of suspense. + +Had it gone? + +At last I decided that it had. + +It came into the scullery no more; but I lay all the tenth day in the +close darkness, buried among coals and firewood, not daring even to +crawl out for the drink for which I craved. It was the eleventh day +before I ventured so far from my security. + + + + +V. +THE STILLNESS. + + +My first act before I went into the pantry was to fasten the door +between the kitchen and the scullery. But the pantry was empty; every +scrap of food had gone. Apparently, the Martian had taken it all on the +previous day. At that discovery I despaired for the first time. I took +no food, or no drink either, on the eleventh or the twelfth day. + +At first my mouth and throat were parched, and my strength ebbed +sensibly. I sat about in the darkness of the scullery, in a state of +despondent wretchedness. My mind ran on eating. I thought I had become +deaf, for the noises of movement I had been accustomed to hear from the +pit had ceased absolutely. I did not feel strong enough to crawl +noiselessly to the peephole, or I would have gone there. + +On the twelfth day my throat was so painful that, taking the chance of +alarming the Martians, I attacked the creaking rain-water pump that +stood by the sink, and got a couple of glassfuls of blackened and +tainted rain water. I was greatly refreshed by this, and emboldened by +the fact that no enquiring tentacle followed the noise of my pumping. + +During these days, in a rambling, inconclusive way, I thought much of +the curate and of the manner of his death. + +On the thirteenth day I drank some more water, and dozed and thought +disjointedly of eating and of vague impossible plans of escape. +Whenever I dozed I dreamt of horrible phantasms, of the death of the +curate, or of sumptuous dinners; but, asleep or awake, I felt a keen +pain that urged me to drink again and again. The light that came into +the scullery was no longer grey, but red. To my disordered imagination +it seemed the colour of blood. + +On the fourteenth day I went into the kitchen, and I was surprised to +find that the fronds of the red weed had grown right across the hole in +the wall, turning the half-light of the place into a crimson-coloured +obscurity. + +It was early on the fifteenth day that I heard a curious, familiar +sequence of sounds in the kitchen, and, listening, identified it as the +snuffing and scratching of a dog. Going into the kitchen, I saw a dog’s +nose peering in through a break among the ruddy fronds. This greatly +surprised me. At the scent of me he barked shortly. + +I thought if I could induce him to come into the place quietly I should +be able, perhaps, to kill and eat him; and in any case, it would be +advisable to kill him, lest his actions attracted the attention of the +Martians. + +I crept forward, saying “Good dog!” very softly; but he suddenly +withdrew his head and disappeared. + +I listened—I was not deaf—but certainly the pit was still. I heard a +sound like the flutter of a bird’s wings, and a hoarse croaking, but +that was all. + +For a long while I lay close to the peephole, but not daring to move +aside the red plants that obscured it. Once or twice I heard a faint +pitter-patter like the feet of the dog going hither and thither on the +sand far below me, and there were more birdlike sounds, but that was +all. At length, encouraged by the silence, I looked out. + +Except in the corner, where a multitude of crows hopped and fought over +the skeletons of the dead the Martians had consumed, there was not a +living thing in the pit. + +I stared about me, scarcely believing my eyes. All the machinery had +gone. Save for the big mound of greyish-blue powder in one corner, +certain bars of aluminium in another, the black birds, and the +skeletons of the killed, the place was merely an empty circular pit in +the sand. + +Slowly I thrust myself out through the red weed, and stood upon the +mound of rubble. I could see in any direction save behind me, to the +north, and neither Martians nor sign of Martians were to be seen. The +pit dropped sheerly from my feet, but a little way along the rubbish +afforded a practicable slope to the summit of the ruins. My chance of +escape had come. I began to tremble. + +I hesitated for some time, and then, in a gust of desperate resolution, +and with a heart that throbbed violently, I scrambled to the top of the +mound in which I had been buried so long. + +I looked about again. To the northward, too, no Martian was visible. + +When I had last seen this part of Sheen in the daylight it had been a +straggling street of comfortable white and red houses, interspersed +with abundant shady trees. Now I stood on a mound of smashed brickwork, +clay, and gravel, over which spread a multitude of red cactus-shaped +plants, knee-high, without a solitary terrestrial growth to dispute +their footing. The trees near me were dead and brown, but further a +network of red thread scaled the still living stems. + +The neighbouring houses had all been wrecked, but none had been burned; +their walls stood, sometimes to the second story, with smashed windows +and shattered doors. The red weed grew tumultuously in their roofless +rooms. Below me was the great pit, with the crows struggling for its +refuse. A number of other birds hopped about among the ruins. Far away +I saw a gaunt cat slink crouchingly along a wall, but traces of men +there were none. + +The day seemed, by contrast with my recent confinement, dazzlingly +bright, the sky a glowing blue. A gentle breeze kept the red weed that +covered every scrap of unoccupied ground gently swaying. And oh! the +sweetness of the air! + + + + +VI. +THE WORK OF FIFTEEN DAYS. + + +For some time I stood tottering on the mound regardless of my safety. +Within that noisome den from which I had emerged I had thought with a +narrow intensity only of our immediate security. I had not realised +what had been happening to the world, had not anticipated this +startling vision of unfamiliar things. I had expected to see Sheen in +ruins—I found about me the landscape, weird and lurid, of another +planet. + +For that moment I touched an emotion beyond the common range of men, +yet one that the poor brutes we dominate know only too well. I felt as +a rabbit might feel returning to his burrow and suddenly confronted by +the work of a dozen busy navvies digging the foundations of a house. I +felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my +mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a +persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the +animals, under the Martian heel. With us it would be as with them, to +lurk and watch, to run and hide; the fear and empire of man had passed +away. + +But so soon as this strangeness had been realised it passed, and my +dominant motive became the hunger of my long and dismal fast. In the +direction away from the pit I saw, beyond a red-covered wall, a patch +of garden ground unburied. This gave me a hint, and I went knee-deep, +and sometimes neck-deep, in the red weed. The density of the weed gave +me a reassuring sense of hiding. The wall was some six feet high, and +when I attempted to clamber it I found I could not lift my feet to the +crest. So I went along by the side of it, and came to a corner and a +rockwork that enabled me to get to the top, and tumble into the garden +I coveted. Here I found some young onions, a couple of gladiolus bulbs, +and a quantity of immature carrots, all of which I secured, and, +scrambling over a ruined wall, went on my way through scarlet and +crimson trees towards Kew—it was like walking through an avenue of +gigantic blood drops—possessed with two ideas: to get more food, and to +limp, as soon and as far as my strength permitted, out of this accursed +unearthly region of the pit. + +Some way farther, in a grassy place, was a group of mushrooms which +also I devoured, and then I came upon a brown sheet of flowing shallow +water, where meadows used to be. These fragments of nourishment served +only to whet my hunger. At first I was surprised at this flood in a +hot, dry summer, but afterwards I discovered that it was caused by the +tropical exuberance of the red weed. Directly this extraordinary growth +encountered water it straightway became gigantic and of unparalleled +fecundity. Its seeds were simply poured down into the water of the Wey +and Thames, and its swiftly growing and Titanic water fronds speedily +choked both those rivers. + +At Putney, as I afterwards saw, the bridge was almost lost in a tangle +of this weed, and at Richmond, too, the Thames water poured in a broad +and shallow stream across the meadows of Hampton and Twickenham. As the +water spread the weed followed them, until the ruined villas of the +Thames valley were for a time lost in this red swamp, whose margin I +explored, and much of the desolation the Martians had caused was +concealed. + +In the end the red weed succumbed almost as quickly as it had spread. A +cankering disease, due, it is believed, to the action of certain +bacteria, presently seized upon it. Now by the action of natural +selection, all terrestrial plants have acquired a resisting power +against bacterial diseases—they never succumb without a severe +struggle, but the red weed rotted like a thing already dead. The fronds +became bleached, and then shrivelled and brittle. They broke off at the +least touch, and the waters that had stimulated their early growth +carried their last vestiges out to sea. + +My first act on coming to this water was, of course, to slake my +thirst. I drank a great deal of it and, moved by an impulse, gnawed +some fronds of red weed; but they were watery, and had a sickly, +metallic taste. I found the water was sufficiently shallow for me to +wade securely, although the red weed impeded my feet a little; but the +flood evidently got deeper towards the river, and I turned back to +Mortlake. I managed to make out the road by means of occasional ruins +of its villas and fences and lamps, and so presently I got out of this +spate and made my way to the hill going up towards Roehampton and came +out on Putney Common. + +Here the scenery changed from the strange and unfamiliar to the +wreckage of the familiar: patches of ground exhibited the devastation +of a cyclone, and in a few score yards I would come upon perfectly +undisturbed spaces, houses with their blinds trimly drawn and doors +closed, as if they had been left for a day by the owners, or as if +their inhabitants slept within. The red weed was less abundant; the +tall trees along the lane were free from the red creeper. I hunted for +food among the trees, finding nothing, and I also raided a couple of +silent houses, but they had already been broken into and ransacked. I +rested for the remainder of the daylight in a shrubbery, being, in my +enfeebled condition, too fatigued to push on. + +All this time I saw no human beings, and no signs of the Martians. I +encountered a couple of hungry-looking dogs, but both hurried +circuitously away from the advances I made them. Near Roehampton I had +seen two human skeletons—not bodies, but skeletons, picked clean—and in +the wood by me I found the crushed and scattered bones of several cats +and rabbits and the skull of a sheep. But though I gnawed parts of +these in my mouth, there was nothing to be got from them. + +After sunset I struggled on along the road towards Putney, where I +think the Heat-Ray must have been used for some reason. And in the +garden beyond Roehampton I got a quantity of immature potatoes, +sufficient to stay my hunger. From this garden one looked down upon +Putney and the river. The aspect of the place in the dusk was +singularly desolate: blackened trees, blackened, desolate ruins, and +down the hill the sheets of the flooded river, red-tinged with the +weed. And over all—silence. It filled me with indescribable terror to +think how swiftly that desolating change had come. + +For a time I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence, and +that I stood there alone, the last man left alive. Hard by the top of +Putney Hill I came upon another skeleton, with the arms dislocated and +removed several yards from the rest of the body. As I proceeded I +became more and more convinced that the extermination of mankind was, +save for such stragglers as myself, already accomplished in this part +of the world. The Martians, I thought, had gone on and left the country +desolated, seeking food elsewhere. Perhaps even now they were +destroying Berlin or Paris, or it might be they had gone northward. + + + + +VII. +THE MAN ON PUTNEY HILL. + + +I spent that night in the inn that stands at the top of Putney Hill, +sleeping in a made bed for the first time since my flight to +Leatherhead. I will not tell the needless trouble I had breaking into +that house—afterwards I found the front door was on the latch—nor how I +ransacked every room for food, until just on the verge of despair, in +what seemed to me to be a servant’s bedroom, I found a rat-gnawed crust +and two tins of pineapple. The place had been already searched and +emptied. In the bar I afterwards found some biscuits and sandwiches +that had been overlooked. The latter I could not eat, they were too +rotten, but the former not only stayed my hunger, but filled my +pockets. I lit no lamps, fearing some Martian might come beating that +part of London for food in the night. Before I went to bed I had an +interval of restlessness, and prowled from window to window, peering +out for some sign of these monsters. I slept little. As I lay in bed I +found myself thinking consecutively—a thing I do not remember to have +done since my last argument with the curate. During all the intervening +time my mental condition had been a hurrying succession of vague +emotional states or a sort of stupid receptivity. But in the night my +brain, reinforced, I suppose, by the food I had eaten, grew clear +again, and I thought. + +Three things struggled for possession of my mind: the killing of the +curate, the whereabouts of the Martians, and the possible fate of my +wife. The former gave me no sensation of horror or remorse to recall; I +saw it simply as a thing done, a memory infinitely disagreeable but +quite without the quality of remorse. I saw myself then as I see myself +now, driven step by step towards that hasty blow, the creature of a +sequence of accidents leading inevitably to that. I felt no +condemnation; yet the memory, static, unprogressive, haunted me. In the +silence of the night, with that sense of the nearness of God that +sometimes comes into the stillness and the darkness, I stood my trial, +my only trial, for that moment of wrath and fear. I retraced every step +of our conversation from the moment when I had found him crouching +beside me, heedless of my thirst, and pointing to the fire and smoke +that streamed up from the ruins of Weybridge. We had been incapable of +co-operation—grim chance had taken no heed of that. Had I foreseen, I +should have left him at Halliford. But I did not foresee; and crime is +to foresee and do. And I set this down as I have set all this story +down, as it was. There were no witnesses—all these things I might have +concealed. But I set it down, and the reader must form his judgment as +he will. + +And when, by an effort, I had set aside that picture of a prostrate +body, I faced the problem of the Martians and the fate of my wife. For +the former I had no data; I could imagine a hundred things, and so, +unhappily, I could for the latter. And suddenly that night became +terrible. I found myself sitting up in bed, staring at the dark. I +found myself praying that the Heat-Ray might have suddenly and +painlessly struck her out of being. Since the night of my return from +Leatherhead I had not prayed. I had uttered prayers, fetish prayers, +had prayed as heathens mutter charms when I was in extremity; but now I +prayed indeed, pleading steadfastly and sanely, face to face with the +darkness of God. Strange night! Strangest in this, that so soon as dawn +had come, I, who had talked with God, crept out of the house like a rat +leaving its hiding place—a creature scarcely larger, an inferior +animal, a thing that for any passing whim of our masters might be +hunted and killed. Perhaps they also prayed confidently to God. Surely, +if we have learned nothing else, this war has taught us pity—pity for +those witless souls that suffer our dominion. + +The morning was bright and fine, and the eastern sky glowed pink, and +was fretted with little golden clouds. In the road that runs from the +top of Putney Hill to Wimbledon was a number of poor vestiges of the +panic torrent that must have poured Londonward on the Sunday night +after the fighting began. There was a little two-wheeled cart inscribed +with the name of Thomas Lobb, Greengrocer, New Malden, with a smashed +wheel and an abandoned tin trunk; there was a straw hat trampled into +the now hardened mud, and at the top of West Hill a lot of +blood-stained glass about the overturned water trough. My movements +were languid, my plans of the vaguest. I had an idea of going to +Leatherhead, though I knew that there I had the poorest chance of +finding my wife. Certainly, unless death had overtaken them suddenly, +my cousins and she would have fled thence; but it seemed to me I might +find or learn there whither the Surrey people had fled. I knew I wanted +to find my wife, that my heart ached for her and the world of men, but +I had no clear idea how the finding might be done. I was also sharply +aware now of my intense loneliness. From the corner I went, under cover +of a thicket of trees and bushes, to the edge of Wimbledon Common, +stretching wide and far. + +That dark expanse was lit in patches by yellow gorse and broom; there +was no red weed to be seen, and as I prowled, hesitating, on the verge +of the open, the sun rose, flooding it all with light and vitality. I +came upon a busy swarm of little frogs in a swampy place among the +trees. I stopped to look at them, drawing a lesson from their stout +resolve to live. And presently, turning suddenly, with an odd feeling +of being watched, I beheld something crouching amid a clump of bushes. +I stood regarding this. I made a step towards it, and it rose up and +became a man armed with a cutlass. I approached him slowly. He stood +silent and motionless, regarding me. + +As I drew nearer I perceived he was dressed in clothes as dusty and +filthy as my own; he looked, indeed, as though he had been dragged +through a culvert. Nearer, I distinguished the green slime of ditches +mixing with the pale drab of dried clay and shiny, coaly patches. His +black hair fell over his eyes, and his face was dark and dirty and +sunken, so that at first I did not recognise him. There was a red cut +across the lower part of his face. + +“Stop!” he cried, when I was within ten yards of him, and I stopped. +His voice was hoarse. “Where do you come from?” he said. + +I thought, surveying him. + +“I come from Mortlake,” I said. “I was buried near the pit the Martians +made about their cylinder. I have worked my way out and escaped.” + +“There is no food about here,” he said. “This is my country. All this +hill down to the river, and back to Clapham, and up to the edge of the +common. There is only food for one. Which way are you going?” + +I answered slowly. + +“I don’t know,” I said. “I have been buried in the ruins of a house +thirteen or fourteen days. I don’t know what has happened.” + +He looked at me doubtfully, then started, and looked with a changed +expression. + +“I’ve no wish to stop about here,” said I. “I think I shall go to +Leatherhead, for my wife was there.” + +He shot out a pointing finger. + +“It is you,” said he; “the man from Woking. And you weren’t killed at +Weybridge?” + +I recognised him at the same moment. + +“You are the artilleryman who came into my garden.” + +“Good luck!” he said. “We are lucky ones! Fancy _you_!” He put out a +hand, and I took it. “I crawled up a drain,” he said. “But they didn’t +kill everyone. And after they went away I got off towards Walton across +the fields. But—— It’s not sixteen days altogether—and your hair is +grey.” He looked over his shoulder suddenly. “Only a rook,” he said. +“One gets to know that birds have shadows these days. This is a bit +open. Let us crawl under those bushes and talk.” + +“Have you seen any Martians?” I said. “Since I crawled out——” + +“They’ve gone away across London,” he said. “I guess they’ve got a +bigger camp there. Of a night, all over there, Hampstead way, the sky +is alive with their lights. It’s like a great city, and in the glare +you can just see them moving. By daylight you can’t. But nearer—I +haven’t seen them—” (he counted on his fingers) “five days. Then I saw +a couple across Hammersmith way carrying something big. And the night +before last”—he stopped and spoke impressively—“it was just a matter of +lights, but it was something up in the air. I believe they’ve built a +flying-machine, and are learning to fly.” + +I stopped, on hands and knees, for we had come to the bushes. + +“Fly!” + +“Yes,” he said, “fly.” + +I went on into a little bower, and sat down. + +“It is all over with humanity,” I said. “If they can do that they will +simply go round the world.” + +He nodded. + +“They will. But—— It will relieve things over here a bit. And +besides——” He looked at me. “Aren’t you satisfied it _is_ up with +humanity? I am. We’re down; we’re beat.” + +I stared. Strange as it may seem, I had not arrived at this fact—a fact +perfectly obvious so soon as he spoke. I had still held a vague hope; +rather, I had kept a lifelong habit of mind. He repeated his words, +“We’re beat.” They carried absolute conviction. + +“It’s all over,” he said. “They’ve lost _one_—just _one_. And they’ve +made their footing good and crippled the greatest power in the world. +They’ve walked over us. The death of that one at Weybridge was an +accident. And these are only pioneers. They kept on coming. These green +stars—I’ve seen none these five or six days, but I’ve no doubt they’re +falling somewhere every night. Nothing’s to be done. We’re under! We’re +beat!” + +I made him no answer. I sat staring before me, trying in vain to devise +some countervailing thought. + +“This isn’t a war,” said the artilleryman. “It never was a war, any +more than there’s war between man and ants.” + +Suddenly I recalled the night in the observatory. + +“After the tenth shot they fired no more—at least, until the first +cylinder came.” + +“How do you know?” said the artilleryman. I explained. He thought. +“Something wrong with the gun,” he said. “But what if there is? They’ll +get it right again. And even if there’s a delay, how can it alter the +end? It’s just men and ants. There’s the ants builds their cities, live +their lives, have wars, revolutions, until the men want them out of the +way, and then they go out of the way. That’s what we are now—just ants. +Only——” + +“Yes,” I said. + +“We’re eatable ants.” + +We sat looking at each other. + +“And what will they do with us?” I said. + +“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” he said; “that’s what I’ve been +thinking. After Weybridge I went south—thinking. I saw what was up. +Most of the people were hard at it squealing and exciting themselves. +But I’m not so fond of squealing. I’ve been in sight of death once or +twice; I’m not an ornamental soldier, and at the best and worst, +death—it’s just death. And it’s the man that keeps on thinking comes +through. I saw everyone tracking away south. Says I, ‘Food won’t last +this way,’ and I turned right back. I went for the Martians like a +sparrow goes for man. All round”—he waved a hand to the +horizon—“they’re starving in heaps, bolting, treading on each other. . +. .” + +He saw my face, and halted awkwardly. + +“No doubt lots who had money have gone away to France,” he said. He +seemed to hesitate whether to apologise, met my eyes, and went on: +“There’s food all about here. Canned things in shops; wines, spirits, +mineral waters; and the water mains and drains are empty. Well, I was +telling you what I was thinking. ‘Here’s intelligent things,’ I said, +‘and it seems they want us for food. First, they’ll smash us up—ships, +machines, guns, cities, all the order and organisation. All that will +go. If we were the size of ants we might pull through. But we’re not. +It’s all too bulky to stop. That’s the first certainty.’ Eh?” + +I assented. + +“It is; I’ve thought it out. Very well, then—next; at present we’re +caught as we’re wanted. A Martian has only to go a few miles to get a +crowd on the run. And I saw one, one day, out by Wandsworth, picking +houses to pieces and routing among the wreckage. But they won’t keep on +doing that. So soon as they’ve settled all our guns and ships, and +smashed our railways, and done all the things they are doing over +there, they will begin catching us systematic, picking the best and +storing us in cages and things. That’s what they will start doing in a +bit. Lord! They haven’t begun on us yet. Don’t you see that?” + +“Not begun!” I exclaimed. + +“Not begun. All that’s happened so far is through our not having the +sense to keep quiet—worrying them with guns and such foolery. And +losing our heads, and rushing off in crowds to where there wasn’t any +more safety than where we were. They don’t want to bother us yet. +They’re making their things—making all the things they couldn’t bring +with them, getting things ready for the rest of their people. Very +likely that’s why the cylinders have stopped for a bit, for fear of +hitting those who are here. And instead of our rushing about blind, on +the howl, or getting dynamite on the chance of busting them up, we’ve +got to fix ourselves up according to the new state of affairs. That’s +how I figure it out. It isn’t quite according to what a man wants for +his species, but it’s about what the facts point to. And that’s the +principle I acted upon. Cities, nations, civilisation, progress—it’s +all over. That game’s up. We’re beat.” + +“But if that is so, what is there to live for?” + +The artilleryman looked at me for a moment. + +“There won’t be any more blessed concerts for a million years or so; +there won’t be any Royal Academy of Arts, and no nice little feeds at +restaurants. If it’s amusement you’re after, I reckon the game is up. +If you’ve got any drawing-room manners or a dislike to eating peas with +a knife or dropping aitches, you’d better chuck ’em away. They ain’t no +further use.” + +“You mean——” + +“I mean that men like me are going on living—for the sake of the breed. +I tell you, I’m grim set on living. And if I’m not mistaken, you’ll +show what insides _you’ve_ got, too, before long. We aren’t going to be +exterminated. And I don’t mean to be caught either, and tamed and +fattened and bred like a thundering ox. Ugh! Fancy those brown +creepers!” + +“You don’t mean to say——” + +“I do. I’m going on, under their feet. I’ve got it planned; I’ve +thought it out. We men are beat. We don’t know enough. We’ve got to +learn before we’ve got a chance. And we’ve got to live and keep +independent while we learn. See! That’s what has to be done.” + +I stared, astonished, and stirred profoundly by the man’s resolution. + +“Great God!” cried I. “But you are a man indeed!” And suddenly I +gripped his hand. + +“Eh!” he said, with his eyes shining. “I’ve thought it out, eh?” + +“Go on,” I said. + +“Well, those who mean to escape their catching must get ready. I’m +getting ready. Mind you, it isn’t all of us that are made for wild +beasts; and that’s what it’s got to be. That’s why I watched you. I had +my doubts. You’re slender. I didn’t know that it was you, you see, or +just how you’d been buried. All these—the sort of people that lived in +these houses, and all those damn little clerks that used to live down +_that_ way—they’d be no good. They haven’t any spirit in them—no proud +dreams and no proud lusts; and a man who hasn’t one or the other—Lord! +What is he but funk and precautions? They just used to skedaddle off to +work—I’ve seen hundreds of ’em, bit of breakfast in hand, running wild +and shining to catch their little season-ticket train, for fear they’d +get dismissed if they didn’t; working at businesses they were afraid to +take the trouble to understand; skedaddling back for fear they wouldn’t +be in time for dinner; keeping indoors after dinner for fear of the +back streets, and sleeping with the wives they married, not because +they wanted them, but because they had a bit of money that would make +for safety in their one little miserable skedaddle through the world. +Lives insured and a bit invested for fear of accidents. And on +Sundays—fear of the hereafter. As if hell was built for rabbits! Well, +the Martians will just be a godsend to these. Nice roomy cages, +fattening food, careful breeding, no worry. After a week or so chasing +about the fields and lands on empty stomachs, they’ll come and be +caught cheerful. They’ll be quite glad after a bit. They’ll wonder what +people did before there were Martians to take care of them. And the bar +loafers, and mashers, and singers—I can imagine them. I can imagine +them,” he said, with a sort of sombre gratification. “There’ll be any +amount of sentiment and religion loose among them. There’s hundreds of +things I saw with my eyes that I’ve only begun to see clearly these +last few days. There’s lots will take things as they are—fat and +stupid; and lots will be worried by a sort of feeling that it’s all +wrong, and that they ought to be doing something. Now whenever things +are so that a lot of people feel they ought to be doing something, the +weak, and those who go weak with a lot of complicated thinking, always +make for a sort of do-nothing religion, very pious and superior, and +submit to persecution and the will of the Lord. Very likely you’ve seen +the same thing. It’s energy in a gale of funk, and turned clean inside +out. These cages will be full of psalms and hymns and piety. And those +of a less simple sort will work in a bit of—what is it?—eroticism.” + +He paused. + +“Very likely these Martians will make pets of some of them; train them +to do tricks—who knows?—get sentimental over the pet boy who grew up +and had to be killed. And some, maybe, they will train to hunt us.” + +“No,” I cried, “that’s impossible! No human being——” + +“What’s the good of going on with such lies?” said the artilleryman. +“There’s men who’d do it cheerful. What nonsense to pretend there +isn’t!” + +And I succumbed to his conviction. + +“If they come after me,” he said; “Lord, if they come after me!” and +subsided into a grim meditation. + +I sat contemplating these things. I could find nothing to bring against +this man’s reasoning. In the days before the invasion no one would have +questioned my intellectual superiority to his—I, a professed and +recognised writer on philosophical themes, and he, a common soldier; +and yet he had already formulated a situation that I had scarcely +realised. + +“What are you doing?” I said presently. “What plans have you made?” + +He hesitated. + +“Well, it’s like this,” he said. “What have we to do? We have to invent +a sort of life where men can live and breed, and be sufficiently secure +to bring the children up. Yes—wait a bit, and I’ll make it clearer what +I think ought to be done. The tame ones will go like all tame beasts; +in a few generations they’ll be big, beautiful, rich-blooded, +stupid—rubbish! The risk is that we who keep wild will go +savage—degenerate into a sort of big, savage rat. . . . You see, how I +mean to live is underground. I’ve been thinking about the drains. Of +course those who don’t know drains think horrible things; but under +this London are miles and miles—hundreds of miles—and a few days rain +and London empty will leave them sweet and clean. The main drains are +big enough and airy enough for anyone. Then there’s cellars, vaults, +stores, from which bolting passages may be made to the drains. And the +railway tunnels and subways. Eh? You begin to see? And we form a +band—able-bodied, clean-minded men. We’re not going to pick up any +rubbish that drifts in. Weaklings go out again.” + +“As you meant me to go?” + +“Well—I parleyed, didn’t I?” + +“We won’t quarrel about that. Go on.” + +“Those who stop obey orders. Able-bodied, clean-minded women we want +also—mothers and teachers. No lackadaisical ladies—no blasted rolling +eyes. We can’t have any weak or silly. Life is real again, and the +useless and cumbersome and mischievous have to die. They ought to die. +They ought to be willing to die. It’s a sort of disloyalty, after all, +to live and taint the race. And they can’t be happy. Moreover, dying’s +none so dreadful; it’s the funking makes it bad. And in all those +places we shall gather. Our district will be London. And we may even be +able to keep a watch, and run about in the open when the Martians keep +away. Play cricket, perhaps. That’s how we shall save the race. Eh? +It’s a possible thing? But saving the race is nothing in itself. As I +say, that’s only being rats. It’s saving our knowledge and adding to it +is the thing. There men like you come in. There’s books, there’s +models. We must make great safe places down deep, and get all the books +we can; not novels and poetry swipes, but ideas, science books. That’s +where men like you come in. We must go to the British Museum and pick +all those books through. Especially we must keep up our science—learn +more. We must watch these Martians. Some of us must go as spies. When +it’s all working, perhaps I will. Get caught, I mean. And the great +thing is, we must leave the Martians alone. We mustn’t even steal. If +we get in their way, we clear out. We must show them we mean no harm. +Yes, I know. But they’re intelligent things, and they won’t hunt us +down if they have all they want, and think we’re just harmless vermin.” + +The artilleryman paused and laid a brown hand upon my arm. + +“After all, it may not be so much we may have to learn before—Just +imagine this: four or five of their fighting machines suddenly starting +off—Heat-Rays right and left, and not a Martian in ’em. Not a Martian +in ’em, but men—men who have learned the way how. It may be in my time, +even—those men. Fancy having one of them lovely things, with its +Heat-Ray wide and free! Fancy having it in control! What would it +matter if you smashed to smithereens at the end of the run, after a +bust like that? I reckon the Martians’ll open their beautiful eyes! +Can’t you see them, man? Can’t you see them hurrying, hurrying—puffing +and blowing and hooting to their other mechanical affairs? Something +out of gear in every case. And swish, bang, rattle, swish! Just as they +are fumbling over it, _swish_ comes the Heat-Ray, and, behold! man has +come back to his own.” + +For a while the imaginative daring of the artilleryman, and the tone of +assurance and courage he assumed, completely dominated my mind. I +believed unhesitatingly both in his forecast of human destiny and in +the practicability of his astonishing scheme, and the reader who thinks +me susceptible and foolish must contrast his position, reading steadily +with all his thoughts about his subject, and mine, crouching fearfully +in the bushes and listening, distracted by apprehension. We talked in +this manner through the early morning time, and later crept out of the +bushes, and, after scanning the sky for Martians, hurried precipitately +to the house on Putney Hill where he had made his lair. It was the coal +cellar of the place, and when I saw the work he had spent a week +upon—it was a burrow scarcely ten yards long, which he designed to +reach to the main drain on Putney Hill—I had my first inkling of the +gulf between his dreams and his powers. Such a hole I could have dug in +a day. But I believed in him sufficiently to work with him all that +morning until past midday at his digging. We had a garden barrow and +shot the earth we removed against the kitchen range. We refreshed +ourselves with a tin of mock-turtle soup and wine from the neighbouring +pantry. I found a curious relief from the aching strangeness of the +world in this steady labour. As we worked, I turned his project over in +my mind, and presently objections and doubts began to arise; but I +worked there all the morning, so glad was I to find myself with a +purpose again. After working an hour I began to speculate on the +distance one had to go before the cloaca was reached, the chances we +had of missing it altogether. My immediate trouble was why we should +dig this long tunnel, when it was possible to get into the drain at +once down one of the manholes, and work back to the house. It seemed to +me, too, that the house was inconveniently chosen, and required a +needless length of tunnel. And just as I was beginning to face these +things, the artilleryman stopped digging, and looked at me. + +“We’re working well,” he said. He put down his spade. “Let us knock off +a bit” he said. “I think it’s time we reconnoitred from the roof of the +house.” + +I was for going on, and after a little hesitation he resumed his spade; +and then suddenly I was struck by a thought. I stopped, and so did he +at once. + +“Why were you walking about the common,” I said, “instead of being +here?” + +“Taking the air,” he said. “I was coming back. It’s safer by night.” + +“But the work?” + +“Oh, one can’t always work,” he said, and in a flash I saw the man +plain. He hesitated, holding his spade. “We ought to reconnoitre now,” +he said, “because if any come near they may hear the spades and drop +upon us unawares.” + +I was no longer disposed to object. We went together to the roof and +stood on a ladder peeping out of the roof door. No Martians were to be +seen, and we ventured out on the tiles, and slipped down under shelter +of the parapet. + +From this position a shrubbery hid the greater portion of Putney, but +we could see the river below, a bubbly mass of red weed, and the low +parts of Lambeth flooded and red. The red creeper swarmed up the trees +about the old palace, and their branches stretched gaunt and dead, and +set with shrivelled leaves, from amid its clusters. It was strange how +entirely dependent both these things were upon flowing water for their +propagation. About us neither had gained a footing; laburnums, pink +mays, snowballs, and trees of arbor-vitae, rose out of laurels and +hydrangeas, green and brilliant into the sunlight. Beyond Kensington +dense smoke was rising, and that and a blue haze hid the northward +hills. + +The artilleryman began to tell me of the sort of people who still +remained in London. + +“One night last week,” he said, “some fools got the electric light in +order, and there was all Regent Street and the Circus ablaze, crowded +with painted and ragged drunkards, men and women, dancing and shouting +till dawn. A man who was there told me. And as the day came they became +aware of a fighting-machine standing near by the Langham and looking +down at them. Heaven knows how long he had been there. It must have +given some of them a nasty turn. He came down the road towards them, +and picked up nearly a hundred too drunk or frightened to run away.” + +Grotesque gleam of a time no history will ever fully describe! + +From that, in answer to my questions, he came round to his grandiose +plans again. He grew enthusiastic. He talked so eloquently of the +possibility of capturing a fighting-machine that I more than half +believed in him again. But now that I was beginning to understand +something of his quality, I could divine the stress he laid on doing +nothing precipitately. And I noted that now there was no question that +he personally was to capture and fight the great machine. + +After a time we went down to the cellar. Neither of us seemed disposed +to resume digging, and when he suggested a meal, I was nothing loath. +He became suddenly very generous, and when we had eaten he went away +and returned with some excellent cigars. We lit these, and his optimism +glowed. He was inclined to regard my coming as a great occasion. + +“There’s some champagne in the cellar,” he said. + +“We can dig better on this Thames-side burgundy,” said I. + +“No,” said he; “I am host today. Champagne! Great God! We’ve a heavy +enough task before us! Let us take a rest and gather strength while we +may. Look at these blistered hands!” + +And pursuant to this idea of a holiday, he insisted upon playing cards +after we had eaten. He taught me euchre, and after dividing London +between us, I taking the northern side and he the southern, we played +for parish points. Grotesque and foolish as this will seem to the sober +reader, it is absolutely true, and what is more remarkable, I found the +card game and several others we played extremely interesting. + +Strange mind of man! that, with our species upon the edge of +extermination or appalling degradation, with no clear prospect before +us but the chance of a horrible death, we could sit following the +chance of this painted pasteboard, and playing the “joker” with vivid +delight. Afterwards he taught me poker, and I beat him at three tough +chess games. When dark came we decided to take the risk, and lit a +lamp. + +After an interminable string of games, we supped, and the artilleryman +finished the champagne. We went on smoking the cigars. He was no longer +the energetic regenerator of his species I had encountered in the +morning. He was still optimistic, but it was a less kinetic, a more +thoughtful optimism. I remember he wound up with my health, proposed in +a speech of small variety and considerable intermittence. I took a +cigar, and went upstairs to look at the lights of which he had spoken +that blazed so greenly along the Highgate hills. + +At first I stared unintelligently across the London valley. The +northern hills were shrouded in darkness; the fires near Kensington +glowed redly, and now and then an orange-red tongue of flame flashed up +and vanished in the deep blue night. All the rest of London was black. +Then, nearer, I perceived a strange light, a pale, violet-purple +fluorescent glow, quivering under the night breeze. For a space I could +not understand it, and then I knew that it must be the red weed from +which this faint irradiation proceeded. With that realisation my +dormant sense of wonder, my sense of the proportion of things, awoke +again. I glanced from that to Mars, red and clear, glowing high in the +west, and then gazed long and earnestly at the darkness of Hampstead +and Highgate. + +I remained a very long time upon the roof, wondering at the grotesque +changes of the day. I recalled my mental states from the midnight +prayer to the foolish card-playing. I had a violent revulsion of +feeling. I remember I flung away the cigar with a certain wasteful +symbolism. My folly came to me with glaring exaggeration. I seemed a +traitor to my wife and to my kind; I was filled with remorse. I +resolved to leave this strange undisciplined dreamer of great things to +his drink and gluttony, and to go on into London. There, it seemed to +me, I had the best chance of learning what the Martians and my +fellowmen were doing. I was still upon the roof when the late moon +rose. + + + + +VIII. +DEAD LONDON. + + +After I had parted from the artilleryman, I went down the hill, and by +the High Street across the bridge to Fulham. The red weed was +tumultuous at that time, and nearly choked the bridge roadway; but its +fronds were already whitened in patches by the spreading disease that +presently removed it so swiftly. + +At the corner of the lane that runs to Putney Bridge station I found a +man lying. He was as black as a sweep with the black dust, alive, but +helplessly and speechlessly drunk. I could get nothing from him but +curses and furious lunges at my head. I think I should have stayed by +him but for the brutal expression of his face. + +There was black dust along the roadway from the bridge onwards, and it +grew thicker in Fulham. The streets were horribly quiet. I got +food—sour, hard, and mouldy, but quite eatable—in a baker’s shop here. +Some way towards Walham Green the streets became clear of powder, and I +passed a white terrace of houses on fire; the noise of the burning was +an absolute relief. Going on towards Brompton, the streets were quiet +again. + +Here I came once more upon the black powder in the streets and upon +dead bodies. I saw altogether about a dozen in the length of the Fulham +Road. They had been dead many days, so that I hurried quickly past +them. The black powder covered them over, and softened their outlines. +One or two had been disturbed by dogs. + +Where there was no black powder, it was curiously like a Sunday in the +City, with the closed shops, the houses locked up and the blinds drawn, +the desertion, and the stillness. In some places plunderers had been at +work, but rarely at other than the provision and wine shops. A +jeweller’s window had been broken open in one place, but apparently the +thief had been disturbed, and a number of gold chains and a watch lay +scattered on the pavement. I did not trouble to touch them. Farther on +was a tattered woman in a heap on a doorstep; the hand that hung over +her knee was gashed and bled down her rusty brown dress, and a smashed +magnum of champagne formed a pool across the pavement. She seemed +asleep, but she was dead. + +The farther I penetrated into London, the profounder grew the +stillness. But it was not so much the stillness of death—it was the +stillness of suspense, of expectation. At any time the destruction that +had already singed the northwestern borders of the metropolis, and had +annihilated Ealing and Kilburn, might strike among these houses and +leave them smoking ruins. It was a city condemned and derelict. . . . + +In South Kensington the streets were clear of dead and of black powder. +It was near South Kensington that I first heard the howling. It crept +almost imperceptibly upon my senses. It was a sobbing alternation of +two notes, “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” keeping on perpetually. When I +passed streets that ran northward it grew in volume, and houses and +buildings seemed to deaden and cut it off again. It came in a full tide +down Exhibition Road. I stopped, staring towards Kensington Gardens, +wondering at this strange, remote wailing. It was as if that mighty +desert of houses had found a voice for its fear and solitude. + +“Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” wailed that superhuman note—great waves of +sound sweeping down the broad, sunlit roadway, between the tall +buildings on each side. I turned northwards, marvelling, towards the +iron gates of Hyde Park. I had half a mind to break into the Natural +History Museum and find my way up to the summits of the towers, in +order to see across the park. But I decided to keep to the ground, +where quick hiding was possible, and so went on up the Exhibition Road. +All the large mansions on each side of the road were empty and still, +and my footsteps echoed against the sides of the houses. At the top, +near the park gate, I came upon a strange sight—a bus overturned, and +the skeleton of a horse picked clean. I puzzled over this for a time, +and then went on to the bridge over the Serpentine. The voice grew +stronger and stronger, though I could see nothing above the housetops +on the north side of the park, save a haze of smoke to the northwest. + +“Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” cried the voice, coming, as it seemed to me, +from the district about Regent’s Park. The desolating cry worked upon +my mind. The mood that had sustained me passed. The wailing took +possession of me. I found I was intensely weary, footsore, and now +again hungry and thirsty. + +It was already past noon. Why was I wandering alone in this city of the +dead? Why was I alone when all London was lying in state, and in its +black shroud? I felt intolerably lonely. My mind ran on old friends +that I had forgotten for years. I thought of the poisons in the +chemists’ shops, of the liquors the wine merchants stored; I recalled +the two sodden creatures of despair, who so far as I knew, shared the +city with myself. . . . + +I came into Oxford Street by the Marble Arch, and here again were black +powder and several bodies, and an evil, ominous smell from the gratings +of the cellars of some of the houses. I grew very thirsty after the +heat of my long walk. With infinite trouble I managed to break into a +public-house and get food and drink. I was weary after eating, and went +into the parlour behind the bar, and slept on a black horsehair sofa I +found there. + +I awoke to find that dismal howling still in my ears, “Ulla, ulla, +ulla, ulla.” It was now dusk, and after I had routed out some biscuits +and a cheese in the bar—there was a meat safe, but it contained nothing +but maggots—I wandered on through the silent residential squares to +Baker Street—Portman Square is the only one I can name—and so came out +at last upon Regent’s Park. And as I emerged from the top of Baker +Street, I saw far away over the trees in the clearness of the sunset +the hood of the Martian giant from which this howling proceeded. I was +not terrified. I came upon him as if it were a matter of course. I +watched him for some time, but he did not move. He appeared to be +standing and yelling, for no reason that I could discover. + +I tried to formulate a plan of action. That perpetual sound of “Ulla, +ulla, ulla, ulla,” confused my mind. Perhaps I was too tired to be very +fearful. Certainly I was more curious to know the reason of this +monotonous crying than afraid. I turned back away from the park and +struck into Park Road, intending to skirt the park, went along under +the shelter of the terraces, and got a view of this stationary, howling +Martian from the direction of St. John’s Wood. A couple of hundred +yards out of Baker Street I heard a yelping chorus, and saw, first a +dog with a piece of putrescent red meat in his jaws coming headlong +towards me, and then a pack of starving mongrels in pursuit of him. He +made a wide curve to avoid me, as though he feared I might prove a +fresh competitor. As the yelping died away down the silent road, the +wailing sound of “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” reasserted itself. + +I came upon the wrecked handling-machine halfway to St. John’s Wood +station. At first I thought a house had fallen across the road. It was +only as I clambered among the ruins that I saw, with a start, this +mechanical Samson lying, with its tentacles bent and smashed and +twisted, among the ruins it had made. The forepart was shattered. It +seemed as if it had driven blindly straight at the house, and had been +overwhelmed in its overthrow. It seemed to me then that this might have +happened by a handling-machine escaping from the guidance of its +Martian. I could not clamber among the ruins to see it, and the +twilight was now so far advanced that the blood with which its seat was +smeared, and the gnawed gristle of the Martian that the dogs had left, +were invisible to me. + +Wondering still more at all that I had seen, I pushed on towards +Primrose Hill. Far away, through a gap in the trees, I saw a second +Martian, as motionless as the first, standing in the park towards the +Zoological Gardens, and silent. A little beyond the ruins about the +smashed handling-machine I came upon the red weed again, and found the +Regent’s Canal, a spongy mass of dark-red vegetation. + +As I crossed the bridge, the sound of “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” ceased. +It was, as it were, cut off. The silence came like a thunderclap. + +The dusky houses about me stood faint and tall and dim; the trees +towards the park were growing black. All about me the red weed +clambered among the ruins, writhing to get above me in the dimness. +Night, the mother of fear and mystery, was coming upon me. But while +that voice sounded the solitude, the desolation, had been endurable; by +virtue of it London had still seemed alive, and the sense of life about +me had upheld me. Then suddenly a change, the passing of something—I +knew not what—and then a stillness that could be felt. Nothing but this +gaunt quiet. + +London about me gazed at me spectrally. The windows in the white houses +were like the eye sockets of skulls. About me my imagination found a +thousand noiseless enemies moving. Terror seized me, a horror of my +temerity. In front of me the road became pitchy black as though it was +tarred, and I saw a contorted shape lying across the pathway. I could +not bring myself to go on. I turned down St. John’s Wood Road, and ran +headlong from this unendurable stillness towards Kilburn. I hid from +the night and the silence, until long after midnight, in a cabmen’s +shelter in Harrow Road. But before the dawn my courage returned, and +while the stars were still in the sky I turned once more towards +Regent’s Park. I missed my way among the streets, and presently saw +down a long avenue, in the half-light of the early dawn, the curve of +Primrose Hill. On the summit, towering up to the fading stars, was a +third Martian, erect and motionless like the others. + +An insane resolve possessed me. I would die and end it. And I would +save myself even the trouble of killing myself. I marched on recklessly +towards this Titan, and then, as I drew nearer and the light grew, I +saw that a multitude of black birds was circling and clustering about +the hood. At that my heart gave a bound, and I began running along the +road. + +I hurried through the red weed that choked St. Edmund’s Terrace (I +waded breast-high across a torrent of water that was rushing down from +the waterworks towards the Albert Road), and emerged upon the grass +before the rising of the sun. Great mounds had been heaped about the +crest of the hill, making a huge redoubt of it—it was the final and +largest place the Martians had made—and from behind these heaps there +rose a thin smoke against the sky. Against the sky line an eager dog +ran and disappeared. The thought that had flashed into my mind grew +real, grew credible. I felt no fear, only a wild, trembling exultation, +as I ran up the hill towards the motionless monster. Out of the hood +hung lank shreds of brown, at which the hungry birds pecked and tore. + +In another moment I had scrambled up the earthen rampart and stood upon +its crest, and the interior of the redoubt was below me. A mighty space +it was, with gigantic machines here and there within it, huge mounds of +material and strange shelter places. And scattered about it, some in +their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, +and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the +Martians—_dead_!—slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against +which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being +slain; slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest +things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth. + +For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen +had not terror and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease +have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things—taken toll of +our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this +natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no +germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many—those that cause +putrefaction in dead matter, for instance—our living frames are +altogether immune. But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly +these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic +allies began to work their overthrow. Already when I watched them they +were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and +fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought +his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would +still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For +neither do men live nor die in vain. + +Here and there they were scattered, nearly fifty altogether, in that +great gulf they had made, overtaken by a death that must have seemed to +them as incomprehensible as any death could be. To me also at that time +this death was incomprehensible. All I knew was that these things that +had been alive and so terrible to men were dead. For a moment I +believed that the destruction of Sennacherib had been repeated, that +God had repented, that the Angel of Death had slain them in the night. + +I stood staring into the pit, and my heart lightened gloriously, even +as the rising sun struck the world to fire about me with his rays. The +pit was still in darkness; the mighty engines, so great and wonderful +in their power and complexity, so unearthly in their tortuous forms, +rose weird and vague and strange out of the shadows towards the light. +A multitude of dogs, I could hear, fought over the bodies that lay +darkly in the depth of the pit, far below me. Across the pit on its +farther lip, flat and vast and strange, lay the great flying-machine +with which they had been experimenting upon our denser atmosphere when +decay and death arrested them. Death had come not a day too soon. At +the sound of a cawing overhead I looked up at the huge fighting-machine +that would fight no more for ever, at the tattered red shreds of flesh +that dripped down upon the overturned seats on the summit of Primrose +Hill. + +I turned and looked down the slope of the hill to where, enhaloed now +in birds, stood those other two Martians that I had seen overnight, +just as death had overtaken them. The one had died, even as it had been +crying to its companions; perhaps it was the last to die, and its voice +had gone on perpetually until the force of its machinery was exhausted. +They glittered now, harmless tripod towers of shining metal, in the +brightness of the rising sun. + +All about the pit, and saved as by a miracle from everlasting +destruction, stretched the great Mother of Cities. Those who have only +seen London veiled in her sombre robes of smoke can scarcely imagine +the naked clearness and beauty of the silent wilderness of houses. + +Eastward, over the blackened ruins of the Albert Terrace and the +splintered spire of the church, the sun blazed dazzling in a clear sky, +and here and there some facet in the great wilderness of roofs caught +the light and glared with a white intensity. + +Northward were Kilburn and Hampsted, blue and crowded with houses; +westward the great city was dimmed; and southward, beyond the Martians, +the green waves of Regent’s Park, the Langham Hotel, the dome of the +Albert Hall, the Imperial Institute, and the giant mansions of the +Brompton Road came out clear and little in the sunrise, the jagged +ruins of Westminster rising hazily beyond. Far away and blue were the +Surrey hills, and the towers of the Crystal Palace glittered like two +silver rods. The dome of St. Paul’s was dark against the sunrise, and +injured, I saw for the first time, by a huge gaping cavity on its +western side. + +And as I looked at this wide expanse of houses and factories and +churches, silent and abandoned; as I thought of the multitudinous hopes +and efforts, the innumerable hosts of lives that had gone to build this +human reef, and of the swift and ruthless destruction that had hung +over it all; when I realised that the shadow had been rolled back, and +that men might still live in the streets, and this dear vast dead city +of mine be once more alive and powerful, I felt a wave of emotion that +was near akin to tears. + +The torment was over. Even that day the healing would begin. The +survivors of the people scattered over the country—leaderless, lawless, +foodless, like sheep without a shepherd—the thousands who had fled by +sea, would begin to return; the pulse of life, growing stronger and +stronger, would beat again in the empty streets and pour across the +vacant squares. Whatever destruction was done, the hand of the +destroyer was stayed. All the gaunt wrecks, the blackened skeletons of +houses that stared so dismally at the sunlit grass of the hill, would +presently be echoing with the hammers of the restorers and ringing with +the tapping of their trowels. At the thought I extended my hands +towards the sky and began thanking God. In a year, thought I—in a year. +. . . + +With overwhelming force came the thought of myself, of my wife, and the +old life of hope and tender helpfulness that had ceased for ever. + + + + +IX. +WRECKAGE. + + +And now comes the strangest thing in my story. Yet, perhaps, it is not +altogether strange. I remember, clearly and coldly and vividly, all +that I did that day until the time that I stood weeping and praising +God upon the summit of Primrose Hill. And then I forget. + +Of the next three days I know nothing. I have learned since that, so +far from my being the first discoverer of the Martian overthrow, +several such wanderers as myself had already discovered this on the +previous night. One man—the first—had gone to St. Martin’s-le-Grand, +and, while I sheltered in the cabmen’s hut, had contrived to telegraph +to Paris. Thence the joyful news had flashed all over the world; a +thousand cities, chilled by ghastly apprehensions, suddenly flashed +into frantic illuminations; they knew of it in Dublin, Edinburgh, +Manchester, Birmingham, at the time when I stood upon the verge of the +pit. Already men, weeping with joy, as I have heard, shouting and +staying their work to shake hands and shout, were making up trains, +even as near as Crewe, to descend upon London. The church bells that +had ceased a fortnight since suddenly caught the news, until all +England was bell-ringing. Men on cycles, lean-faced, unkempt, scorched +along every country lane shouting of unhoped deliverance, shouting to +gaunt, staring figures of despair. And for the food! Across the +Channel, across the Irish Sea, across the Atlantic, corn, bread, and +meat were tearing to our relief. All the shipping in the world seemed +going Londonward in those days. But of all this I have no memory. I +drifted—a demented man. I found myself in a house of kindly people, who +had found me on the third day wandering, weeping, and raving through +the streets of St. John’s Wood. They have told me since that I was +singing some insane doggerel about “The Last Man Left Alive! Hurrah! +The Last Man Left Alive!” Troubled as they were with their own affairs, +these people, whose name, much as I would like to express my gratitude +to them, I may not even give here, nevertheless cumbered themselves +with me, sheltered me, and protected me from myself. Apparently they +had learned something of my story from me during the days of my lapse. + +Very gently, when my mind was assured again, did they break to me what +they had learned of the fate of Leatherhead. Two days after I was +imprisoned it had been destroyed, with every soul in it, by a Martian. +He had swept it out of existence, as it seemed, without any +provocation, as a boy might crush an ant hill, in the mere wantonness +of power. + +I was a lonely man, and they were very kind to me. I was a lonely man +and a sad one, and they bore with me. I remained with them four days +after my recovery. All that time I felt a vague, a growing craving to +look once more on whatever remained of the little life that seemed so +happy and bright in my past. It was a mere hopeless desire to feast +upon my misery. They dissuaded me. They did all they could to divert me +from this morbidity. But at last I could resist the impulse no longer, +and, promising faithfully to return to them, and parting, as I will +confess, from these four-day friends with tears, I went out again into +the streets that had lately been so dark and strange and empty. + +Already they were busy with returning people; in places even there were +shops open, and I saw a drinking fountain running water. + +I remember how mockingly bright the day seemed as I went back on my +melancholy pilgrimage to the little house at Woking, how busy the +streets and vivid the moving life about me. So many people were abroad +everywhere, busied in a thousand activities, that it seemed incredible +that any great proportion of the population could have been slain. But +then I noticed how yellow were the skins of the people I met, how +shaggy the hair of the men, how large and bright their eyes, and that +every other man still wore his dirty rags. Their faces seemed all with +one of two expressions—a leaping exultation and energy or a grim +resolution. Save for the expression of the faces, London seemed a city +of tramps. The vestries were indiscriminately distributing bread sent +us by the French government. The ribs of the few horses showed +dismally. Haggard special constables with white badges stood at the +corners of every street. I saw little of the mischief wrought by the +Martians until I reached Wellington Street, and there I saw the red +weed clambering over the buttresses of Waterloo Bridge. + +At the corner of the bridge, too, I saw one of the common contrasts of +that grotesque time—a sheet of paper flaunting against a thicket of the +red weed, transfixed by a stick that kept it in place. It was the +placard of the first newspaper to resume publication—the _Daily Mail_. +I bought a copy for a blackened shilling I found in my pocket. Most of +it was in blank, but the solitary compositor who did the thing had +amused himself by making a grotesque scheme of advertisement stereo on +the back page. The matter he printed was emotional; the news +organisation had not as yet found its way back. I learned nothing fresh +except that already in one week the examination of the Martian +mechanisms had yielded astonishing results. Among other things, the +article assured me what I did not believe at the time, that the “Secret +of Flying,” was discovered. At Waterloo I found the free trains that +were taking people to their homes. The first rush was already over. +There were few people in the train, and I was in no mood for casual +conversation. I got a compartment to myself, and sat with folded arms, +looking greyly at the sunlit devastation that flowed past the windows. +And just outside the terminus the train jolted over temporary rails, +and on either side of the railway the houses were blackened ruins. To +Clapham Junction the face of London was grimy with powder of the Black +Smoke, in spite of two days of thunderstorms and rain, and at Clapham +Junction the line had been wrecked again; there were hundreds of +out-of-work clerks and shopmen working side by side with the customary +navvies, and we were jolted over a hasty relaying. + +All down the line from there the aspect of the country was gaunt and +unfamiliar; Wimbledon particularly had suffered. Walton, by virtue of +its unburned pine woods, seemed the least hurt of any place along the +line. The Wandle, the Mole, every little stream, was a heaped mass of +red weed, in appearance between butcher’s meat and pickled cabbage. The +Surrey pine woods were too dry, however, for the festoons of the red +climber. Beyond Wimbledon, within sight of the line, in certain nursery +grounds, were the heaped masses of earth about the sixth cylinder. A +number of people were standing about it, and some sappers were busy in +the midst of it. Over it flaunted a Union Jack, flapping cheerfully in +the morning breeze. The nursery grounds were everywhere crimson with +the weed, a wide expanse of livid colour cut with purple shadows, and +very painful to the eye. One’s gaze went with infinite relief from the +scorched greys and sullen reds of the foreground to the blue-green +softness of the eastward hills. + +The line on the London side of Woking station was still undergoing +repair, so I descended at Byfleet station and took the road to Maybury, +past the place where I and the artilleryman had talked to the hussars, +and on by the spot where the Martian had appeared to me in the +thunderstorm. Here, moved by curiosity, I turned aside to find, among a +tangle of red fronds, the warped and broken dog cart with the whitened +bones of the horse scattered and gnawed. For a time I stood regarding +these vestiges. . . . + +Then I returned through the pine wood, neck-high with red weed here and +there, to find the landlord of the Spotted Dog had already found +burial, and so came home past the College Arms. A man standing at an +open cottage door greeted me by name as I passed. + +I looked at my house with a quick flash of hope that faded immediately. +The door had been forced; it was unfast and was opening slowly as I +approached. + +It slammed again. The curtains of my study fluttered out of the open +window from which I and the artilleryman had watched the dawn. No one +had closed it since. The smashed bushes were just as I had left them +nearly four weeks ago. I stumbled into the hall, and the house felt +empty. The stair carpet was ruffled and discoloured where I had +crouched, soaked to the skin from the thunderstorm the night of the +catastrophe. Our muddy footsteps I saw still went up the stairs. + +I followed them to my study, and found lying on my writing-table still, +with the selenite paper weight upon it, the sheet of work I had left on +the afternoon of the opening of the cylinder. For a space I stood +reading over my abandoned arguments. It was a paper on the probable +development of Moral Ideas with the development of the civilising +process; and the last sentence was the opening of a prophecy: “In about +two hundred years,” I had written, “we may expect——” The sentence ended +abruptly. I remembered my inability to fix my mind that morning, +scarcely a month gone by, and how I had broken off to get my _Daily +Chronicle_ from the newsboy. I remembered how I went down to the garden +gate as he came along, and how I had listened to his odd story of “Men +from Mars.” + +I came down and went into the dining room. There were the mutton and +the bread, both far gone now in decay, and a beer bottle overturned, +just as I and the artilleryman had left them. My home was desolate. I +perceived the folly of the faint hope I had cherished so long. And then +a strange thing occurred. “It is no use,” said a voice. “The house is +deserted. No one has been here these ten days. Do not stay here to +torment yourself. No one escaped but you.” + +I was startled. Had I spoken my thought aloud? I turned, and the French +window was open behind me. I made a step to it, and stood looking out. + +And there, amazed and afraid, even as I stood amazed and afraid, were +my cousin and my wife—my wife white and tearless. She gave a faint cry. + +“I came,” she said. “I knew—knew——” + +She put her hand to her throat—swayed. I made a step forward, and +caught her in my arms. + + + + +X. +THE EPILOGUE. + + +I cannot but regret, now that I am concluding my story, how little I am +able to contribute to the discussion of the many debatable questions +which are still unsettled. In one respect I shall certainly provoke +criticism. My particular province is speculative philosophy. My +knowledge of comparative physiology is confined to a book or two, but +it seems to me that Carver’s suggestions as to the reason of the rapid +death of the Martians is so probable as to be regarded almost as a +proven conclusion. I have assumed that in the body of my narrative. + +At any rate, in all the bodies of the Martians that were examined after +the war, no bacteria except those already known as terrestrial species +were found. That they did not bury any of their dead, and the reckless +slaughter they perpetrated, point also to an entire ignorance of the +putrefactive process. But probable as this seems, it is by no means a +proven conclusion. + +Neither is the composition of the Black Smoke known, which the Martians +used with such deadly effect, and the generator of the Heat-Rays +remains a puzzle. The terrible disasters at the Ealing and South +Kensington laboratories have disinclined analysts for further +investigations upon the latter. Spectrum analysis of the black powder +points unmistakably to the presence of an unknown element with a +brilliant group of three lines in the green, and it is possible that it +combines with argon to form a compound which acts at once with deadly +effect upon some constituent in the blood. But such unproven +speculations will scarcely be of interest to the general reader, to +whom this story is addressed. None of the brown scum that drifted down +the Thames after the destruction of Shepperton was examined at the +time, and now none is forthcoming. + +The results of an anatomical examination of the Martians, so far as the +prowling dogs had left such an examination possible, I have already +given. But everyone is familiar with the magnificent and almost +complete specimen in spirits at the Natural History Museum, and the +countless drawings that have been made from it; and beyond that the +interest of their physiology and structure is purely scientific. + +A question of graver and universal interest is the possibility of +another attack from the Martians. I do not think that nearly enough +attention is being given to this aspect of the matter. At present the +planet Mars is in conjunction, but with every return to opposition I, +for one, anticipate a renewal of their adventure. In any case, we +should be prepared. It seems to me that it should be possible to define +the position of the gun from which the shots are discharged, to keep a +sustained watch upon this part of the planet, and to anticipate the +arrival of the next attack. + +In that case the cylinder might be destroyed with dynamite or artillery +before it was sufficiently cool for the Martians to emerge, or they +might be butchered by means of guns so soon as the screw opened. It +seems to me that they have lost a vast advantage in the failure of +their first surprise. Possibly they see it in the same light. + +Lessing has advanced excellent reasons for supposing that the Martians +have actually succeeded in effecting a landing on the planet Venus. +Seven months ago now, Venus and Mars were in alignment with the sun; +that is to say, Mars was in opposition from the point of view of an +observer on Venus. Subsequently a peculiar luminous and sinuous marking +appeared on the unillumined half of the inner planet, and almost +simultaneously a faint dark mark of a similar sinuous character was +detected upon a photograph of the Martian disk. One needs to see the +drawings of these appearances in order to appreciate fully their +remarkable resemblance in character. + +At any rate, whether we expect another invasion or not, our views of +the human future must be greatly modified by these events. We have +learned now that we cannot regard this planet as being fenced in and a +secure abiding place for Man; we can never anticipate the unseen good +or evil that may come upon us suddenly out of space. It may be that in +the larger design of the universe this invasion from Mars is not +without its ultimate benefit for men; it has robbed us of that serene +confidence in the future which is the most fruitful source of +decadence, the gifts to human science it has brought are enormous, and +it has done much to promote the conception of the commonweal of +mankind. It may be that across the immensity of space the Martians have +watched the fate of these pioneers of theirs and learned their lesson, +and that on the planet Venus they have found a securer settlement. Be +that as it may, for many years yet there will certainly be no +relaxation of the eager scrutiny of the Martian disk, and those fiery +darts of the sky, the shooting stars, will bring with them as they fall +an unavoidable apprehension to all the sons of men. + +The broadening of men’s views that has resulted can scarcely be +exaggerated. Before the cylinder fell there was a general persuasion +that through all the deep of space no life existed beyond the petty +surface of our minute sphere. Now we see further. If the Martians can +reach Venus, there is no reason to suppose that the thing is impossible +for men, and when the slow cooling of the sun makes this earth +uninhabitable, as at last it must do, it may be that the thread of life +that has begun here will have streamed out and caught our sister planet +within its toils. + +Dim and wonderful is the vision I have conjured up in my mind of life +spreading slowly from this little seed bed of the solar system +throughout the inanimate vastness of sidereal space. But that is a +remote dream. It may be, on the other hand, that the destruction of the +Martians is only a reprieve. To them, and not to us, perhaps, is the +future ordained. + +I must confess the stress and danger of the time have left an abiding +sense of doubt and insecurity in my mind. I sit in my study writing by +lamplight, and suddenly I see again the healing valley below set with +writhing flames, and feel the house behind and about me empty and +desolate. I go out into the Byfleet Road, and vehicles pass me, a +butcher boy in a cart, a cabful of visitors, a workman on a bicycle, +children going to school, and suddenly they become vague and unreal, +and I hurry again with the artilleryman through the hot, brooding +silence. Of a night I see the black powder darkening the silent +streets, and the contorted bodies shrouded in that layer; they rise +upon me tattered and dog-bitten. They gibber and grow fiercer, paler, +uglier, mad distortions of humanity at last, and I wake, cold and +wretched, in the darkness of the night. + +I go to London and see the busy multitudes in Fleet Street and the +Strand, and it comes across my mind that they are but the ghosts of the +past, haunting the streets that I have seen silent and wretched, going +to and fro, phantasms in a dead city, the mockery of life in a +galvanised body. And strange, too, it is to stand on Primrose Hill, as +I did but a day before writing this last chapter, to see the great +province of houses, dim and blue through the haze of the smoke and +mist, vanishing at last into the vague lower sky, to see the people +walking to and fro among the flower beds on the hill, to see the +sight-seers about the Martian machine that stands there still, to hear +the tumult of playing children, and to recall the time when I saw it +all bright and clear-cut, hard and silent, under the dawn of that last +great day. . . . + +And strangest of all is it to hold my wife’s hand again, and to think +that I have counted her, and that she has counted me, among the dead. |