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

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