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19 - The War of The Worlds - H G Wells · Adventure Books Collection

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Chapter two, what we saw from the ruined house. After eating, we
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crept back to the scullery, and there I must have dozed again, for
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when presently I looked round, I was alone. The thudding vibration continued with
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wearisome persistence. I whispered for the Curate several times, and at last felt
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my way to the door of the kitchen. It was still daylight, and
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I perceived him across the room, lying against the triangular hole that looked out
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upon the Martians. His shoulders were hunched so that his head was hidden from
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me. I could hear a number of noises, almost like those in an
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engine shed, and the place rocked with that beating thud. Through the aperture
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in the wall, I could see the top of a tree touched with gold,
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and the warm blue of a tranquil evening sky. For a minute or
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so I remained watching the Curate. And then, when I advanced, crouching
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and stepping with extreme care amid the broken crockery that littered the floor, I
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touched the Curate's leg, and he started so violently that a mass of plaster
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went sliding down outside and fell with a loud impact. I gripped his arm,
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fearing he might cry out, And for a long time we crouched motionless.
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Then I turned to see how much of our rampart remained. The detachment
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of the plaster had left a vertical slit open in the debris, and by
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raising myself cautiously across a beam, I was able to see out of this
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gap into what had been overnight a quiet suburban roadway. Vast, indeed,
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was the change that we beheld. The fifth cylinder must have fallen right into
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the midst of the house we had first visited. The building had vanished completely,
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smashed, pulverized, and dispersed by the blow. The cylinder now lay
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far beneath the original foundations, deep in a hole already vastly larger than the
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pit I had looked into at woking the earth all round. It had splashed
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under that tremendous impact, splashed is the only word, and lay in heaped
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piles that hid the masses of the adjacent houses. It had behaved exactly like
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mud under the violent blow of a hammer. Our house had collapsed backward.
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The front portion, even on the ground floor, had been destroyed completely by
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a chance. The kitchen and scullery had escaped and stood buried now under soil
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and ruins, closed in by tons of earth on every side save towards the
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cylinder. Over that aspect we hung now on the very edge of the great
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circular pit. The Martians were engaged in making. The heavy beating sound was
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evidently just behind us, and ever and again a bright green vapor drove up
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like a veil across our peep hole. The cylinder was already opened in the
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center of the pit, and on the farther edge of the pit, amid
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the smashed and gravel heaped shrubbery, one of the great fighting machines, deserted
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by its occupant, stood stiff and tall against the evening sky. At first
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I scarcely noticed the pit and the cylinder, although it has been convenient to
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describe them. First on account of the extraordinary glittering mechanism I saw busy in
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the excavation, and on account of the strange creatures that were crawling slowly and
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painfully across the heaped mold near it. The mechanism, it certainly was,
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that held my attention first. It was one of those complicated fabrics that have
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since been called handling machines. And the study of which has already given such
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an enormous impetus to terrestrial invention. As it dawned upon me first, it
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presented a sort of metallic spider, with five jointed, agile legs, and
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with an extraordinary number of jointed levers, bars, and reaching and clutching tentacles
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about its body. Most of its arms were attracted, but with three long
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tentacles it was fishing out a number of rods, plates, and bars,
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which lined the covering and apparently strengthened the walls of the cylinder. These,
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as it extracted them, were lifted out and deposited upon a level surface of
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earth behind it. Its motion was so swift, complex and perfect that at
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first I did not see it as a machine. In spite of its metallic
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glitter. The fighting machines were coordinated and animated to an extraordinary pitch. But
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nothing to compare with this. People who have never seen these structures, and
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have only the ill imagined efforts of artists, or the imperfect descriptions of such
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eyewitnesses as mine myself to go upon, scarcely realize that living quality. I
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recall, particularly the illustration of one of the first pamphlets to give a consecutive
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account of the war. The artist had evidently made a hasty study of one
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of the fighting machines, and there his knowledge ended. He presented them as
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tilted, stiff tripods, without either flexibility or subtlety, and with an altogether
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misleading monotony of effect. The pamphlet containing these renderings had a considerable vogue,
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and I mention them here simply to warn the reader against the impression they may
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have created. They were no more like the martians I saw in action than
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a Dutch doll is like a human being. To my mind, the pamphlet
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would have been much better without them. At first, I say, the
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handling machine did not impress me as a machine, but as a crablike creature
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with a glittering integument, the controlling martian, whose delicate tentacles actuated its movements,
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seeming to be simply the equivalent of the crab's cerebral portion. But then
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I perceived the resemblance of its gray, brown, shiny, leathery integument to
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that of the other sprawling bodies beyond, and the true nature of this dexterous
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workman dawned upon me. With that realization, my interest shifted to those other
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creatures, the real Martians. Already I had had a transient impression of these,
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and the first nausea no longer obscured my observation. Moreover, I was
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concealed and motionless, and under no urgency of action. They were. I
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now saw the most unearthly creatures it is possible to conceive. They were huge
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round bodies, or rather heads, about four feet in diameter, each body
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having in front of it a face. This face had no nostrils. Indeed,
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the Martians do not seem to have had any sense of smell, but
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it had a pair of very large, dark colored eyes, and just beneath
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this a kind of fleshy beak. In the back of this head or body
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I scarcely know how to speak of it was the single tight tympanic surface since
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known to be anatomically an ear, though it must have been almost useless in
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our dense air. In a group round the mouth were sixteen slender, almost
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whiplike tentacles arranged in two bunches of eight each. These bunches have since been
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named rather aptly by that distinguished anatomist professor Howes. The hands even as I
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saw these Martians for the first time. They seemed to be endeavoring to raise
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themselves on these hands, but of course, with the increased weight of terrestrial
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conditions, this was impossible. There is reason to suppose that on Mars they
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may have progressed upon them with some facility. The internal anatomy, I may
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remark here, as dissection has since shown, was almost equally simple. The
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greater part of the structure was the brain, sending enormous nerves to the eyes,
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ear, and tactile tentacles. Besides this were the bulky lungs into which
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the mouth opened, and the heart and its vessels. The pulmonary distress caused
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by the denser atmosphere and greater gravitational attraction was only too evident in the convulsive
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movements of the outer skin. And this was the sum of the Martian organs.
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Strange as it may seem to a human being, all the complex apparatus
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of digestion which makes up the bulk of our bodies did not exist in the
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Martians. They were heads merely heads. Entrails, they had none. They
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did not eat, much less digest Instead, they took the fresh, living
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blood of other creatures. And injected it into their own veins. I have
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myself seen this being done, as I shall mention in its place, but
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squeamish as I may seem, I cannot bring myself to describe what I could
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not endure even to continue watching. Let it suffice to say blood obtained from
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a still living animal, in most cases from a human being, was run
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directly by means of a little pippette into the recipient canal. The bare idea
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of this is no doubt horribly repulsive to us, But at the same time,
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I think that we should remember how repulsive our carnivorous habits would seem to
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an intelligent rabbit. The physiological advantages of the practice of injection are undeniable.
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If one thinks of the tremendous waste of human time and any energy occasioned by
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eating and the digestive process. Our bodies are half made up of glands and
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tubes and organs occupied in turning heterogeneous food into blood. The digestive processes and
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their reaction upon the nervous system sap our strength and colour our minds. Men
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go happy or miserable as they have healthy or unhealthy livers or sound gastric glands,
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but the Martians were lifted above all these organic fluctuations of mood and emotion.
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Their undeniable preference for men as their source of nourishment is partly explained by
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the nature of the remains of the victims they had brought with them as provisions
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from Mars. These creatures, the judge from the shriveled remains that have fallen
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into human hands, were bipeds, with flimsy, silicious skeletons almost like those
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of the silicious sponges, and feeble musculature, standing about six feet high and
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having round, erect heads and large eyes in flinty sockets. Two or three
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of these seemed to have been brought in each cylinder, and all were killed
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before Earth was reached. It was just as well for them, for the
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mere attempt to stand upright upon our planet would have broken every bone in their
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bodies. And while I am engaged in this description, I may add in
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this place certain further details, which, although they were not all evident to
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us at the time, would enable the reader who is unacquainted with them,
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to form a clearer picture of these offensive creatures. In three other points,
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their physiology, differed strangely from ours. Their organisms did not sleep any more
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than the heart of man sleeps. Since they had no extensive muscular mechanism to
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recuperate, that periodical extinction was unknown to them. They had little or nose
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sense of fatigue. It would seem on Earth they could never have moved without
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effort. Yet even to the last they kept in action. In twenty four
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hours, they did twenty four hours of work, as even on Earth.
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Is perhaps the case with the ants in the next place. Wonderful as it
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seems in a sexual world, the Martians were absolutely without sex, and therefore
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without any of the tumultuous emotions that arise from that difference among men. A
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young Martian, there can now be no dispute, was really born upon Earth
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during the war, and it was found attached to its parent, partially budded
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off, just as young lillibulbs bud off, or like the young animals in
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the fresh water polyp in Man. In all the higher terrestrial animals, such
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a method of increase has disappeared, but even on this Earth it was certainly
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the primitive method among the lower animals, even up to those first cousins of
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the vertebrated animals the tunicots. The two processes occur side by side, but
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finally the sexual method superseded its competitor altogether. On Mars, however, just
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the reverse has apparently been the case. It is worthy of remark that a
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certain speculative writer of quasi scientific repute, writing long before the Martian invasion,
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did forecast for Man a final structure not unlike the actual Martian condition. His
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prophecy, I remember, appeared in November or December eighteen ninety three in a
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long defunct publication the Pall Mall Budget, and I recall a caricature of it
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in a pre Martian periodical called Punch. He pointed out, writing in a
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foolish, facetious tone, that the perfection of mechanical appliances must ultimately supersede limbs,
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the profect action of chemical devices digestion, that such organs as hair,
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external nose, teeth, ears, and chin were no longer essential parts of
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the human being, and that the tendency of natural selection would lie in the
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direction of their steadied diminuition through the coming ages. The brain alone remained a
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cardinal necessity. Only one other part of the body had a strong case for
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survival, and that was the hand, teacher and agent of the brain.
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While the rest of the body dwindled, the hands would grow larger. There
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is many a true word written in jest, and here in the Martians we
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have beyond dispute the actual accomplishment of such a suppression of the animal side of
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the organism by the intelligence. To me, it is quite credible that the
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Martians may be descended from beings not unlike ourselves, by a gradual development of
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brain and hand, the latter giving rise to the two bunches of delicate tentacles
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at last, at the expense of the rest of the body. Without the
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body, the brain would of course become a mere selfish intelligence, without any
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of the emotional substratum of the human being. The last salient point in which
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the systems of these creatures differed from ours was in what one might have thought
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very trivial. Particular microorganisms which cause so much disease and pain on Earth have
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either never appeared upon Mars, or Martian sanitary science eliminated them ages ago.
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A hundred diseases, all the fevers and contagions of human life, consumption,
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cancers, tumors and such morbidities never enter the scheme of their life. And
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speaking of the differences between the life on Mars and terrestrial life, I may
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allude here to the curious suggestions of the red weed. Apparently the vegetable kingdom
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in Mars, instead of having green for a dominant color, is of a
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vivid blood red tint. At any rate, the seeds which the Martians intentionally
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or accidentally brought with them gave rise in all cases to red colored growths.
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Only that known popularly as the red weed, however, gained any footing in
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competition with terrestrial forms. The red creeper was quite a transitory growth, and
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few people have seen it growing. For a time. However, the red
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weed grew with astonishing vigor and luxuriance. It spread up the sides of the
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pit by the third or fourth day of our imprisonment, and its cactus like
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branches formed a carmine fringe to the edges of our triangular window. And afterwards
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I found it broadcast throughout the country, and especially wherever there was a stream
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of water. The marsh had what appears to have been an auditory organ,
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a single round drum at the back of the head, body, and eyes,
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with a visual range not very different from ours, except that, according
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to Phillips, blue and violet were as black to them. It is commonly
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supposed that they communicated by sounds and tentacular gesticulations. This is asserted, for
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instance, in the able but hastily compiled pamphlet written evidently by someone not an
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eye witness of Martian actions, to which I have already alluded, and which
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so far has been the chief source of information concerning them. Now, no
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surviving human being saw so much of the Martians in action as I did.
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I take no credit to myself for an accident, but the fact is so,
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and I assert that I watched them closely, time after time, and
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that I have seen four, five, and once six of them sluggishly before
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the most elaborately complicated operations, together without either sound or gesture. Their peculiar
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hooting invariably preceded feeding. It had no modulation, and was I believe,
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in no sense a signal, but merely the expiration of air preparatory to the
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suctional operation. I have a certain claim to at least an elementary knowledge of
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psychology, and in this matter I am convinced as firmly as I am convinced
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of anything, that the Martians interchanged thoughts without any physical intermediation, And I
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have been convinced of this in spite of strong preconceptions. Before the Martian invasion,
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As an occasional reader here or there may remember, I had written with
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some little vehemence against the telepathic theory. The Martians wore no clothing. Their
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conceptions of ornament and decorum were necessarily different from ours. And not only were
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they evidently much less sensible of changes of temperature than we are, but changes
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of pressure do not seem to have affected their health at all seriously. Yet,
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though they wore no clothing, it was in the other artificial additions to
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their bodily resources that their great superiority over man lay. We men, with
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our bicycles and road skates are lilienthal soaring machines, our guns and sticks and
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so forth, are just in the beginning of the evolution that the Martians have
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worked out. They have become practically mere brains, wearing different bodies according to
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their needs, just as men wear suits of clothes and take a bicycle in
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a hurry, or an umbrella in the wet and of their appliances. Perhaps
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nothing is more wonderful to a man than the curious fact that what is the
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dominant feature of almost all human devices in mechanism is absent. The wheel is
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absent. Among all the things they brought to earth, there is no trace
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or suggestion of their use of wheels. One would have at least expected it
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in locomotion. And in this connection it is curious to remark that even on
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this earth, nature has never hit upon the wheel, or has preferred other
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expedients to its development. And not only did the Martians either not know of
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which is incredible, or abstain from the wheel, but in their apparatus singularly,
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little use is made of the fixed pivot, or relatively fixed pivot with
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circular motions thereabout confined to one plane, almost all the joints of the machinery
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present a complicated system of sliding parts moving over small but beautifully curved friction bearings.
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And while upon this matter of detail, it is remarkable that the long
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leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature
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of the disks in an elastic sheath. These disks become polarized and drawn closely
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and powerfully together when traversed by a current of electricity. In this way,
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the curious parallelism to human motions, which was so striking and disturbing to the
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human beholder, was attained. Such quasi muscles abounded in the crablike handling machine,
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which, on my first peeping out of the slit I watched unpacking the
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cylinder. It seemed infinitely more alive than the actual Martians lying beyond it in
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the sunset light, panting, stirring ineffectual tentacles, and moving feebly after their
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vast journey across space. While I was still watching their sluggish motions in the
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sunlight and noting each strange detail of their form, the Curate reminded me of
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his presence by pulling violently at my arm. I turned to a scowling face
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and silent, eloquent lips. He wanted the slit, which permitted only one
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of us to peep through, and so I had to forego watching them for
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a time while he enjoyed that privilege. When I looked again, the busy
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handling machine had already put together several of the pieces of apparatus. It had
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taken out of the cylinder into a shape having an unmistakable likeness to its own.
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And down on the left a busy little digging mechanism had come into view,
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emitting jets of green vapor and working its way round the pit, excavating
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and in banking in a methodical and discriminating manner. This it was which had
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caused the regular beating noise and the rhythmic shocks that had kept our ruinous refuge
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quivering. It piped and whistled as it worked. So far as I could
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see, the thing was without a Dirac acting martian at all. End of Section nineteen