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12 - What I Saw of the Destruction of Weybridge and Shepperton - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells · Classic Science Fiction Books

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Speaker 1: Chapter twelve, what I saw of the destruction of Weybridge
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Speaker 1: and Shepperton. As the dawn grew brighter, we withdrew from
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Speaker 1: the window from which we had watched the Martians, and
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Speaker 1: went very quietly downstairs. The artilleryman agreed with me that
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Speaker 1: the house was no place to stay in. He proposed,
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Speaker 1: he said, to make his way London would and thence
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Speaker 1: rejoin his battery No. Twelve of the Horse Artillery. My
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Speaker 1: plan was to return at once to Leatherhead, And so
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Speaker 1: greatly had the strength of the Martians impressed me that
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Speaker 1: I had determined to take my wife to Newhaven and
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Speaker 1: go with her out of the country forthwith, For I
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Speaker 1: already perceived clearly that the country about London must inevitably
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Speaker 1: be the scene of a disastrous struggle before such creatures
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Speaker 1: as these could be destroyed. Between us and Leatherhead, however,
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Speaker 1: lay the third cylinder with its guarding giants. Had I
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Speaker 1: been alone, I think I should have taken my chance
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Speaker 1: and struck a cross country. But the artilleryman dissuaded me.
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Speaker 1: It's no kindness to the right sort of wife, he said,
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Speaker 1: to make her a widow. And in the end I
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Speaker 1: agreed to go with him under cover of the woods
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Speaker 1: northward as VARA's Street, Cobham. Before I parted with him,
1:22
Speaker 1: thence I would make a big detour by Epsom to
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Speaker 1: reach Leatherhead. I should have started at once, but my
1:29
Speaker 1: companion had been in active service, and he knew better
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Speaker 1: than that. He made me ransack the house for a flask,
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Speaker 1: which he filled with whiskey, and we lined every available
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Speaker 1: pocket with packets of biscuits and slices of meat. Then
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Speaker 1: we crept out of the house and ran as quickly
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Speaker 1: as we could down the ill made road by which
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Speaker 1: I had come over night, the houses seemed deserted. In
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Speaker 1: the road lay a group of three charred bodies close together,
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Speaker 1: struck dead by the heat ray. And here and there
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Speaker 1: were things that people had dropped, a clock, a slipper,
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Speaker 1: a silver spoon, and the like poor valuables. At the
2:10
Speaker 1: corner turning up towards the post office, a little cart
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Speaker 1: filled with boxes and furniture and horseless, heeled over on
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Speaker 1: a broken wheel. A cash box had been hastily smashed
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Speaker 1: open and thrown under the debris. Except the lodge at
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Speaker 1: the orphanage, which was still on fire, none of the
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Speaker 1: houses had suffered very greatly. Here the heat ray had
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Speaker 1: shaved the chimney tops and passed. Yet save ourselves, there
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Speaker 1: did not seem to be a living soul on Maybury Hill.
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Speaker 1: The majority of the inhabitants had escaped. I suppose by
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Speaker 1: way of the old Woking road, the road I had
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Speaker 1: taken when I drove to Leatherhead, or they had hidden.
2:53
Speaker 1: We went down the lane by the body of the
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Speaker 1: man in black, sodden now from the overnight hail, and
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Speaker 1: broke into the woods at the foot of the hill.
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Speaker 1: We pushed through these towards the railway without meeting a soul.
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Speaker 1: The woods across the line were but the scarred and
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Speaker 1: blackened ruins of woods. For the most part the trees
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Speaker 1: had fallen, but a certain proportion still stood, dismal gray
3:17
Speaker 1: stems with dark brown foliage instead of green. On our side,
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Speaker 1: the fire had done no more than scorch the nearer trees.
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Speaker 1: It had failed to secure its footing. In one place,
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Speaker 1: the woodmen had been at work on Saturday. Trees felled
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Speaker 1: and freshly trimmed lay in a clearing with heaps of
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Speaker 1: sawdust by the soaring machine and its engine. Hard By
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Speaker 1: was a temporary hut deserted. There was not a breath
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Speaker 1: of wind this morning, and everything was strangely still. Even
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Speaker 1: the birds were hushed. And as we hurried along, I
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Speaker 1: and the artillerymen talked in whispers and looked now and
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Speaker 1: again over our shoulders. Twice we stopped to listen. After
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Speaker 1: a time we drew near the road, and as we
4:06
Speaker 1: did so we heard the clatter of hoofs and saw
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Speaker 1: through the tree stems three cavalry soldiers riding slowly towards Woking.
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Speaker 1: We hailed them, and they halted while we hurried towards them.
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Speaker 1: It was a lieutenant and a couple of privates of
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Speaker 1: the Eighthissars, with a stand like a theodolite, which the
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Speaker 1: artilleryman told me was a heliograph. You are the first
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Speaker 1: men I've seen coming this way this morning, said the lieutenant.
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Speaker 1: What's brewing? His voice and face were eager. The men
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Speaker 1: behind him stared curiously. The artilleryman jumped down the bank
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Speaker 1: into the road and saluted gun destroyed last night, Sir,
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Speaker 1: have been hiding trying to rejoin battery. Sir, you'll come
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Speaker 1: in sight of the martians. I expect about half a
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Speaker 1: mile along this road. What the dickens. Are they like,
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Speaker 1: asked the lieutenant. Giants in armor, sir, hundred feet h
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Speaker 1: three legs and a body light luminium, with a great
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Speaker 1: mighty head in a hood. Sir, get out, said the lieutenant.
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Speaker 1: What confounded nonsense. You'll see, sir. They carry a kind
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Speaker 1: of box, sir, that shoots fire and strikes you dead.
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Speaker 1: What do you mean a gun? No, sir, And the
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Speaker 1: artilleryman began a vivid account of the heat ray. Half
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Speaker 1: way through, the lieutenant interrupted him and looked up at me.
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Speaker 1: I was still standing on the bank by the side
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Speaker 1: of the road. It's perfectly true, I said, well, said
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Speaker 1: the lieutenant. I suppose it's my business to see it too.
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Speaker 1: Look here, to the artilleryman, we're detailed here clearing people
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Speaker 1: out of their houses. You'd better go along and report
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Speaker 1: yourself to Brigadier General Marvin and tell him all you know.
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Speaker 1: He's at Weybridge. Know the way I do, I said.
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Speaker 1: And he turned his horse southward again. Half a mile,
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Speaker 1: you say, said he at most, I answered, and pointed
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Speaker 1: over the tree tops southward. He thanked me and rode on,
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Speaker 1: and we saw them no more. Farther along we came
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Speaker 1: upon a group of three women and two children in
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Speaker 1: the road, busy clearing out a laborer's cottage. They had
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Speaker 1: got hold of a little hand truck and were piling
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Speaker 1: it up with unclean looking bundles and shabby furniture. They
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Speaker 1: were all too assiduously engaged to talk to us. As
6:28
Speaker 1: we passed by by Fleet station. We emerged from the
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Speaker 1: pine trees and found the country calm and peaceful under
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Speaker 1: the morning sunlight. We were far beyond the range of
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Speaker 1: the heat ray there, and had it not been for
6:41
Speaker 1: the silent desertion of some of the houses, the stirring
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Speaker 1: movement of packing in others, and the knot of soldiers
6:48
Speaker 1: standing on the bridge over the railway and staring down
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Speaker 1: the line towards Woking, the day would have seemed very
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Speaker 1: like any other sunday. Several farm wagons and carts were
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Speaker 1: moving creakily along the road to Waddleston, and suddenly, through
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Speaker 1: the gate of a field we saw across a stretch
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Speaker 1: of flat meadow six twelve pounders standing neatly at equal distances,
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Speaker 1: pointing towards Woking. The gunners stood by the guns waiting,
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Speaker 1: and the ammunition wagons were at a business like distance
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Speaker 1: The men stood almost as if under inspection. That's good,
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Speaker 1: said I. They will get one fair shot at any rate.
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Speaker 1: The artilleryman hesitated at the gate. I shall go on,
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Speaker 1: he said, farther on towards Weybridge. Just over the bridge
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Speaker 1: there were a number of men in white fatigue jackets
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Speaker 1: throwing up a long rampart and more guns behind its,
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Speaker 1: bows and arrows against the lightning. Anyhow, said the artilleryman.
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Speaker 1: They haven't seen that fire beam yet. The officers who
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Speaker 1: were not actively engaged stood and stared over the tree
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Speaker 1: tops southwestward, and the men digging would stop every now
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Speaker 1: and again to stare in the same direction. Byfleet was
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Speaker 1: in a tumult, people packing, and a score of hsars,
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Speaker 1: some of them dismounted, some on horseback were hunting them.
8:13
Speaker 1: About three or four black government wagons with crosses in
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Speaker 1: white circles, and an old omnibus, among other vehicles, were
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Speaker 1: being loaded. In the village street. There were scores of people,
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Speaker 1: most of them sufficiently sabbatical to have assumed their best clothes.
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Speaker 1: The soldiers were having the greatest difficulty in making them
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Speaker 1: realize the gravity of their position. We saw one shriveled
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Speaker 1: old fellow with a huge box and a score or
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Speaker 1: more of flower pots containing orchids, angrily epostulating with the
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Speaker 1: corporal who would leave them behind. I stopped and gripped
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Speaker 1: his arm. Do you know what's over there, I said,
8:54
Speaker 1: pointing at the pine tops that hid the martians. Eh,
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Speaker 1: said he turning. I was explaining these is valuable. Death.
9:04
Speaker 1: I shouted, death, is coming death, Death, and leaving him
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Speaker 1: to digest that if he could. I hurried on after
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Speaker 1: the artillerymen at the corner. I looked back. The soldier
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Speaker 1: had left him, and he was still standing by his box,
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Speaker 1: with the pots of orchids on the lid of it,
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Speaker 1: and staring vaguely over the trees. No one in Weybridge
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Speaker 1: could tell us where the headquarters were established. The whole
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Speaker 1: place was in such confusion as I had never seen
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Speaker 1: in any town before. Carts, carriages everywhere, the most astonishing
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Speaker 1: miscellany of conveyances and horse flesh. The respectable inhabitants of
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Speaker 1: the place, men in golf and boating costumes, wives prettily dressed,
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Speaker 1: were packing riverside loafers, energetically helping children. Excited and for
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Speaker 1: the most part, highly delighted. This astonishing variation of their
10:01
Speaker 1: Sunday experiences. In the midst of it all, the worthy
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Speaker 1: vicar was very pluckily holding an early celebration, and his
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Speaker 1: bell was jangling out above the excitement. I and the artilleryman,
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Speaker 1: seated on the step of the drinking fountain, made a
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Speaker 1: very passable meal upon what we had brought with us.
10:22
Speaker 1: Patrols of soldiers here no longer his ars, but grenadiers
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Speaker 1: in white were warning people to move now or to
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Speaker 1: take refuge in their cellars. As soon as the firing began,
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Speaker 1: we saw as we crossed the railway bridge that a
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Speaker 1: growing crowd of people had assembled in and about the
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Speaker 1: railway station, and the swarming platform was piled with boxes
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Speaker 1: and packages. The ordinary traffic had been stopped, I believe,
10:49
Speaker 1: in order to allow of the passage of troops and
10:51
Speaker 1: guns to Chertsey, and I have heard since that a
10:54
Speaker 1: savage struggle occurred for places in the special trains that
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Speaker 1: were put on at a later hour. We remained at
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Speaker 1: Weybridge until midday, and at that hour we found ourselves
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Speaker 1: at the place near Shepperton Lock where the Way and
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Speaker 1: Thames join. Part of the time we spent helping two
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Speaker 1: old women to pack a little cart. The way has
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Speaker 1: a treble mouth, and at this point boats had to
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Speaker 1: be hired, and there was a ferry across the river.
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Speaker 1: On the Shepherdon side was an inn with a lawn,
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Speaker 1: and beyond that the tower of Shepperton Church. It has
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Speaker 1: been replaced by a spire rows above the trees. Here
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Speaker 1: we found an excited and noisy group of fugitives. As
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Speaker 1: yet the flight had not grown to a panic, but
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Speaker 1: there were already far more people than all the boats
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Speaker 1: going to and fro could enable to cross. People came
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Speaker 1: panting along under heavy burdens. One husband and wife were
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Speaker 1: even carrying a small outhouse door between them, with some
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Speaker 1: of their household goods piled thereon. One man told us
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Speaker 1: he meant to get away from Shepherdon's. There was a
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Speaker 1: lot of shouting, and one man was even jesting. The
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Speaker 1: idea people seemed to have here was that the Martians
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Speaker 1: were simply formidable human beings who might attack and sack
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Speaker 1: the town, to be certainly destroyed in the end. Every
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Speaker 1: now and then people would glance nervously across the way
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Speaker 1: at the meadows towards Chertsey, but everything over there was
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Speaker 1: still across the Thames, except just where the boats landed.
12:30
Speaker 1: Everything was quiet, in vivid contrast with the Surrey side.
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Speaker 1: The people who landed there from the boats went tramping
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Speaker 1: off down the lane. The big ferry boat had just
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Speaker 1: made a journey. Three or four soldiers stood on the
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Speaker 1: lawn of the inn, staring and jesting at the fugitives,
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Speaker 1: without offering to help. The inn was closed, as it
12:52
Speaker 1: was now within prohibited hours. What's that, cried a boatman.
12:57
Speaker 1: And shut up, you fool, said a man near me
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Speaker 1: to a yelping dog. Then the sound came again, this
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Speaker 1: time from the direction of Chertsey, a muffled thud, the
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Speaker 1: sound of a gun. The fighting was beginning, almost immediately.
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Speaker 1: Unseen batteries across the river to our right, unseen because
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Speaker 1: of the trees, took up the chorus, firing heavily, one
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Speaker 1: after the other. A woman screamed. Everyone stood arrested by
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Speaker 1: the sudden stir of battle near us, and yet invisible
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Speaker 1: to us. Nothing was to be seen save flat meadows,
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Speaker 1: cows feeding unconcernedly for the most part, and silvery pollard
13:39
Speaker 1: willows motionless in the warm sunlight. The soldiers will stop them,
13:44
Speaker 1: said a woman beside me, doubtfully, a haziness rose over
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Speaker 1: the tree tops. Then suddenly we saw a rush of
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Speaker 1: smoke far away up the river, a puff of smoke
13:57
Speaker 1: that jerked up into the air and hung and forthwith
14:00
Speaker 1: the ground heaved underfoot, and a heavy explosion shook the air,
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Speaker 1: smashing two or three windows in the houses near, and
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Speaker 1: leaving us astonished. Here they are, shouted a man in
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Speaker 1: a blue jersey. Yonder, do you see them? Yonder? Quickly,
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Speaker 1: one after the other, one, two, three, four of the
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Speaker 1: armored martians appeared far away over the little trees, across
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Speaker 1: the flat meadows that stretched towards Chertsey, and striding hurriedly
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Speaker 1: towards the river, little cowled figures they seemed, at first
14:36
Speaker 1: going with a rolling motion and as fast as flying birds.
14:41
Speaker 1: Then advancing obliquely towards us, came a fifth. Their armored
14:46
Speaker 1: bodies glittered in the sun as they swept swiftly forward,
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Speaker 1: upon the guns, growing rapidly larger as they drew nearer.
14:54
Speaker 1: One on the extreme left, the remotest, that is, flourished
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Speaker 1: a huge case high in the air, and the ghostly,
15:02
Speaker 1: terrible heat ray I had already seen on Friday night
15:05
Speaker 1: smote towards Chertsey and struck the town. At sight of
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Speaker 1: these strange, swift and terrible creatures. The crowd near the
15:15
Speaker 1: water's edge seemed to me to be for a moment
15:18
Speaker 1: horror struck. There was no screaming or shouting, but a silence,
15:25
Speaker 1: then a hoarse murmur, and a movement of feet, a
15:28
Speaker 1: splashing from the water. A man, too frightened to drop
15:32
Speaker 1: the portmanteau he carried on his shoulder, swung round and
15:36
Speaker 1: sent me staggering with a blow from the corner of
15:38
Speaker 1: his burden. A woman thrust at me with her hand
15:41
Speaker 1: and rushed past me. I turned with the rush of
15:45
Speaker 1: the people, but I was not too terrified for thought.
15:49
Speaker 1: The terrible heat ray was in my mind to get underwater.
15:54
Speaker 1: That was it. Get underwater, I shouted, unheeded. I faced
16:01
Speaker 1: about again and rushed towards the approaching Martian rushed right
16:05
Speaker 1: down the gravelly beach and headlong into the water. Others
16:09
Speaker 1: did the same. A boat load of people putting back
16:13
Speaker 1: came leaping out as I rushed past. The stones under
16:17
Speaker 1: my feet were muddy and slippery, and the river was
16:20
Speaker 1: so low that I ran perhaps twenty feet scarcely wasted deep. Then,
16:26
Speaker 1: as the Martian towered overhead, scarcely a couple of hundred
16:29
Speaker 1: yards away, I flung myself forward under the surface. The
16:34
Speaker 1: splashes of the people in the boats leaping into the
16:37
Speaker 1: river sounded like thunderclaps in my ears. People were landing
16:41
Speaker 1: hastily on both sides of the river, But the Martian
16:45
Speaker 1: machine took no more notice for the moment of the
16:47
Speaker 1: people running this way and that than a man would
16:50
Speaker 1: of the confusion of ants in a nest against which
16:53
Speaker 1: his foot has kicked. When half suffocated, I raised my
16:58
Speaker 1: head above water. The marsh Sian's hood pointed at the
17:01
Speaker 1: batteries that were still firing across the river, and as
17:04
Speaker 1: it advanced it swung loose what must have been the
17:07
Speaker 1: generator of the heat ray. In another moment it was
17:11
Speaker 1: on the bank and in a stride, wading half way across,
17:15
Speaker 1: the knees of its foremost legs bent at the farther bank.
17:19
Speaker 1: And in another moment it had raised itself to its
17:22
Speaker 1: full height, again close to the village of Shepperton, forthwith
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Speaker 1: the six guns, which, unknown to anyone on the right bank,
17:31
Speaker 1: had been hidden behind the outskirts of that village fired simultaneously.
17:37
Speaker 1: The sudden near concussion the last close upon the first,
17:41
Speaker 1: made my heart jump. The monster was already raising the
17:45
Speaker 1: case generating the heat ray. As the first shell burst
17:48
Speaker 1: six yards above the hood, I gave a cry of astonishment.
17:54
Speaker 1: I saw and thought nothing of the other four martian monsters.
17:58
Speaker 1: My attention was riveted upon the nearer incident. Simultaneously, two
18:04
Speaker 1: other shells burst in the air near the body. As
18:06
Speaker 1: the hood twisted round in time to receive, but not
18:09
Speaker 1: in time to dodge the fourth shell. The shell burst
18:14
Speaker 1: clean in the face of the thing. The hood bulged, flashed,
18:19
Speaker 1: was whirled off in a dozen tattered fragments of red
18:22
Speaker 1: flesh and glittering metal. Hit shouted I with something between
18:28
Speaker 1: a scream and a cheer. I heard answering shouts from
18:32
Speaker 1: the people in the water about me. I could have
18:35
Speaker 1: leaped out of the water with that momentary exultation. The
18:39
Speaker 1: decapitated colossus reeled like a drunken giant, but it did
18:43
Speaker 1: not fall over. It recovered its balance by a miracle
18:48
Speaker 1: and no longer heeding its steps, and with the camera
18:52
Speaker 1: that fired the heat ray now rigidly upheld, it reeled
18:55
Speaker 1: swiftly upon Shepherton. The living intelligence, the Martian within the
19:00
Speaker 1: hood was slain and splashed to the four winds of heaven,
19:04
Speaker 1: and the thing was now a mere intricate device of metal,
19:08
Speaker 1: whirling to destruction. It drove along in a straight line,
19:13
Speaker 1: incapable of guidance. It struck the tower of Shepherdon Church,
19:18
Speaker 1: smashing it down as the impact of a battering ram
19:21
Speaker 1: might have done, swerved aside, blundered on and collapsed with
19:26
Speaker 1: tremendous force into the river. Out of my sight. A
19:30
Speaker 1: violent explosion shook the air, and a spout of water, steam, mud,
19:36
Speaker 1: and shattered metal shot far up into the sky. As
19:40
Speaker 1: the camera of the heat ray hit the water, the
19:43
Speaker 1: latter had immediately flashed into steam. In another moment, a
19:48
Speaker 1: huge wave, like a muddy tidal bore, but almost scaldingly hot,
19:53
Speaker 1: came sweeping round the bend up stream. I saw people
19:57
Speaker 1: struggling shorewards, and heard their screen and shouting faintly above
20:02
Speaker 1: the seething and roar of the martians collapse. For a
20:06
Speaker 1: moment I heeded nothing of the heat, forgot the patent
20:10
Speaker 1: need of self preservation. I splashed through the tumultuous water,
20:14
Speaker 1: pushing aside a man in black to do so, until
20:17
Speaker 1: I could see round the bend half a dozen deserted
20:21
Speaker 1: boats pitched aimlessly upon the confusion of the waves. The
20:26
Speaker 1: fallen Martian came into sight downstream, lying across the river
20:30
Speaker 1: and for the most part submerged. Thick clouds of steam
20:35
Speaker 1: were pouring off the wreckage and through the tumultuously whirling wisps.
20:39
Speaker 1: I could see intermittently and vaguely the gigantic limbs churning
20:44
Speaker 1: the water and flinging a splash and spray of mud
20:47
Speaker 1: and froth into the air. The tentacles swayed and struck
20:52
Speaker 1: like living arms, and save for the helpless purposelessness of
20:57
Speaker 1: these movements, it was as if some wounded thing were
21:00
Speaker 1: struggling for its life. Amid the waves, Enormous quantities of
21:05
Speaker 1: a ruddy brown fluid were spurting up in noisy jets
21:08
Speaker 1: out of the machine. My attention was diverted from this
21:12
Speaker 1: death flurry by a furious yelling, like that of the
21:15
Speaker 1: thing called a siren in our manufacturing towns. A man
21:20
Speaker 1: knee deep near the towing path shouted inaudibly to me
21:23
Speaker 1: and pointed. Looking back, I saw the other Martians advancing
21:28
Speaker 1: with gigantic strides down the river bank from the direction
21:31
Speaker 1: of Chertsey. The Shepherton guns spoke, this time unavailingly. At
21:37
Speaker 1: that I ducked at once, under water, and holding my
21:41
Speaker 1: breath until movement was an agony, blundered painfully ahead under
21:45
Speaker 1: the surface as long as I could. The water was
21:49
Speaker 1: in a tumult about me, and rapidly growing hotter. When
21:53
Speaker 1: for a moment I raised my head to take breath
21:56
Speaker 1: and throw the hair and water from my eyes. The
21:59
Speaker 1: steam was rising in a whirling white fog that at
22:02
Speaker 1: first hid the martians altogether. The noise was deafening. Then
22:08
Speaker 1: I saw them, dimly colossal figures of gray, magnified by
22:13
Speaker 1: the mist. They had passed by me, and two were
22:17
Speaker 1: stooping over the frothing, tumultuous ruins of their comrade. The
22:22
Speaker 1: third and fourth stood beside him in the water, one
22:25
Speaker 1: perhaps two hundred yards from me, the other towards Lalen.
22:30
Speaker 1: The generators of the heat rays waved high, and the
22:33
Speaker 1: hissing beams smote down this way, and that the air
22:37
Speaker 1: was full of sound, a deafening and confusing conflict of noises.
22:42
Speaker 1: The clangorous din of the Martians, the crash of falling houses,
22:47
Speaker 1: the thud of trees, fences, sheds flashing into flame, and
22:51
Speaker 1: the crackling and roaring of fire. Dense black smoke was
22:56
Speaker 1: leaping up to mingle with the steam from the river,
22:59
Speaker 1: and as the heat ray went to and fro over Weybridge,
23:03
Speaker 1: its impact was marked by flashes of incandescent white that
23:07
Speaker 1: gave place at once to a smoky dance of lurid flames.
23:11
Speaker 1: The nearer houses still stood intact, awaiting their fate, shadowy,
23:16
Speaker 1: faint and pallid in the steam, with the fire behind
23:20
Speaker 1: them going to and fro. For a moment, perhaps I
23:24
Speaker 1: stood there, breast high in the almost boiling water, dumbfoundered
23:28
Speaker 1: at my position, hopeless of escape through the reek. I
23:33
Speaker 1: could see the people who had been with me in
23:35
Speaker 1: the river scrambling out of the water through the reeds,
23:38
Speaker 1: like little frogs hurrying through grass from the advance of
23:40
Speaker 1: a man, or running to and fro in utter dismay
23:44
Speaker 1: on the towing path. Then suddenly the white flashes of
23:48
Speaker 1: the heat ray came leaping towards me. The houses caved
23:52
Speaker 1: in as they dissolved at its touch and darted out
23:54
Speaker 1: flames the trees changed to fire with a roar. The
23:59
Speaker 1: ray fled up and down the towing path, licking off
24:02
Speaker 1: the people who ran this way and that, and came
24:05
Speaker 1: down to the water's edge, not fifty yards from where
24:08
Speaker 1: I stood. It swept across the river to Shepperton, and
24:12
Speaker 1: the water in its track rose in a boiling wheel,
24:14
Speaker 1: crested with steam. I turned shoreward. In another moment, the
24:20
Speaker 1: huge wave, well nigh at the boiling point, had rushed
24:23
Speaker 1: upon me. I screamed aloud and scalded, half blinded, agonized,
24:30
Speaker 1: I staggered through the leaping, hissing water towards the shore.
24:35
Speaker 1: Had my foot stumbled, it would have been the end.
24:39
Speaker 1: I fell, helplessly, in full sight of the Martians, upon
24:43
Speaker 1: the broad, bare gravelly spit that runs down to mark
24:47
Speaker 1: the angle of the Way and Thames. I expected nothing
24:51
Speaker 1: but death. I have a dim memory of the foot
24:55
Speaker 1: of a Martian coming down within a score of yards,
24:57
Speaker 1: of my head driving straight in into the loose gravel,
25:01
Speaker 1: whirling it this way and that, and lifting again of
25:06
Speaker 1: a long suspense, and then of the four carrying the
25:10
Speaker 1: debris of their comrade between them, now clear and then
25:13
Speaker 1: presently faint through a veil of smoke, receding interminably as
25:18
Speaker 1: it seemed to me across a vast space of river
25:22
Speaker 1: and meadow. And then very slowly I realized that, by
25:29
Speaker 1: a miracle, I had escaped. End of Section twelve,