Latest / Science Fiction Books / 14 - In London - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells

Transcript

14 - In London - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells · Science Fiction Books

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen in London. My younger brother was in London
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: when the Martians fell at Woking. He was a medical
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: student working for an imminent examination, and he heard nothing
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: of the arrival until Saturday morning. The morning papers on
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Saturday contained, in addition to length these special articles on
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: the planet Mars, on life in the planets, and so forth,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: a brief and vaguely worded telegram, all the more striking
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: for its brevity. The Martians, alarmed by the approach of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: a crowd, had killed a number of people with a
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: quick firing gun, so the story ran. The telegram concluded
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: with the words formidable as they seemed to be, the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Martians have not moved from the pit into which they
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: have fallen, and indeed seem incapable of doing so. Probably
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: this is due to the relative strength of the Earth's
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: gravitational energy. On that last text, their leader writer expanded
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: very comfortingly. Of course, all the students in the Krammer's
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: biology class to which my brother went that day were
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: intensely interested, but there were no signs of any unusual
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: excitement in the streets. The afternoon papers puffed scraps of
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: news under big headlines. They had nothing to tell beyond
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the movements of troops about the common and the burning
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: of the pine woods between Woking and Weybridge until eight
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Then the Saint James Gazette, in an extra special edition
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: announced the bare fact of the interruption of telegraphic communication.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: This was thought to be due to the falling of
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: burning pine trees across the line. No more of the
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: fighting was known that night. The night of my drive
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: to Leatherhead and back, my brother felt no anxiety about us,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: as he knew from the description in the papers that
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the cylinder was a good two miles from my house.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: He made up his mind to run down that night
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: to me, in order, as he says, to see the
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: things before they were killed. He despatched a telegram which
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: never reached me about four o'clock, and spent the evening
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: at a music hall in London. Also on Saturday night,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: there was a thunder storm and my brother reached Waterloo
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: in a cab on the platform from which the midnight
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: train usually starts. He learned after some waiting that an
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: accident prevented trains from reaching Woking that night. The nature
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of the accident he could not ascertain. Indeed, the railway
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: authorities did not clearly know at that time. There was
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: very little excitement in the station, as the officials, failing
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: to realize that anything further than a break down between
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: by Fleet and Woking junction had occurred, were running the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: theater trains which usually passed through Woking round by Virginia,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Wato or Guilford. They were busy making the nests and
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: arrangements to alter the route of the Southampton and Portsmouth
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Sunday League excursions. An nocturnal newspaper reporter, mistaking my brother
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: for the traffic manager to whom he bears a slight
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: resemblance waylaid and tried to interview him. Few people, excepting
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: the railway officials, connected the breakdown with the Martians. I
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: have read in another account of these events that on
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Sunday morning all London was electrified by the news from Woking.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, there was nothing to justify
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: that very extravagant phrase. Plenty of Londoners did not hear
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: of the Martians until the panic of Monday morning. Those
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: who did took some time to realize all that the
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: hastily worded telegrams in the Sunday papers conveyed The majority
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: of people in London do not read Sunday papers. The
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: habit of personal security, moreover is so deeply fixed in them,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: in the londoner's mind, and startling intelligence so much a
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: matter of course, in the papers that they could read
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: about it without any personal tremors. About seven o'clock last night,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: the Martians came out of the cylinder and, moving about
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: under an armour of metallic shields, have completely wrecked Woking
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Station with the adjacent houses, and massacred an entire battalion
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: of the Cardigan Regiment. No details are known. Maxims have
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: been absolutely useless against their armour. The field guns have
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: been disabled by them. Flying his ars have been galloping
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: into Chertsey. The Martians appear to be moving slowly towards Chertsey,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: or Windsor. Great anxiety prevails in West Surrey and earthworks
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: are being thrown up to check the advanced London wood.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: That was how the Sunday Sun put it, and a
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: clever and remarkably prompt handbook article in the Referee compared
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the affair to a menagerie suddenly let looseenn Village. No
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: one in London knew positively of the nature of the
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: armored Martians, and there was still a fixed idea that
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: these monsters must be sluggish, crawling, creeping painfully. Such expressions
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: occurred in almost all the earlier reports. None of the
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: telegrams could have been written by an eye witness of
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: their advance. The Sunday papers printed separate editions as further
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: news came to hand, some even in default of it,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: But there was practically nothing more to tell people until
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: late in the afternoon, when the authorities gave the press
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: agencies the news in their possession. It was stated that
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the people of Walton and Weybridge and all the district
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: were pouring along the roads London Wood, and that was all.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: My brother went to church at the Foundling Hospital in
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the morning, still in ignorance of what had happened on
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the previous night. There he heard allusions made to the
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: invasion and a special prayer for peace coming out. He
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: bought a referee. He became alarmed at the news in
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: this and went again to Waterloo Station to find out
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: if communication were restored. The omnibuses, carriages, cyclists, and innumerable
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: people walking in their best clothes seemed scarcely affected by
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: the strange intelligence that the news vendors were disseminating people
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: were interested or if alarmed, alarmed only on account of
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the local residents. At the station, he heard for the
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: first time that the Windsor and Chertsey lines were now interrupted.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: The porters told him that several remarkable telegrams had been
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: received in the morning from Byfleet and Chertsey stations, but
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: that these had abruptly ceased. My brother could get very
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: little precise detail out of them, as fighting going on
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: about Weybridge was the extent of their information. The train
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: service was now very much disorganized. Quite a number of
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: people who had been expecting friends from places on the
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Southwestern network were standing about the station. One gray headed
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: old gentleman came and abused the Southwestern company bitterly to
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: my brother, it wants showing up, he said. One or
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: two trains came in from Richmond, Putney and Kingston, containing
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: people who had gone out for a day's boating and
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: found the locks closed and a feeling of panic in
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: the air. A man in a blue and white blazer
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: addressed my brother, full of strange tidings. There's hosts of
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: people driving into Kingston in traps and carts and things
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: with boxes of valuables and all that. He said, they
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: come from Molesey and Weybridge and Walton, and they say
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: there's been guns heard at Chertsey, heavy firing, and that
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: mounted soldiers have told them to get off at once
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: because the Martians are coming. We heard guns firing at
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Hampton Court station, but we thought it was thunder. What
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: the dickens does it all mean? The Martians can't get
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: out of their pit, can they? My brother could not
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: tell him. Afterwards, he found that the vague feeling of
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: alarm had spread to the clients of the underground railway,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: and that the Sunday excursionists began to return from all
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: over the Southwestern Lung Barnes, Wimbledon, Richmond Park, Kew and
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: so forth at unnaturally early hours. But not a soul
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: had anything more than vague hearsay to tell of. Everyone
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: connected with the terminus seemed ill tempered. About five o'clock,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: the gathering crowd in the station was immensely excited by
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the opening of the line of communication, which is almost
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: invariably closed between the southeastern and the southwestern stations, and
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the passage of carriage trucks bearing huge guns and carriages
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: crammed with soldiers. These were the guns that were brought
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: up from Woolidge and Chatham to cover Kingston. There was
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: an exchange of pleasantries, you'll get eaten with the beast
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: tamers and so forth. A little while after that, a
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: squad of police came into the station and began to
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: clear the public off the platforms, and my brother went
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: out into the street again. The church bells were ringing
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: for evensong, and a squad of Salvation armulasses came singing
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: down Waterloo Road. On the bridge, a number of loafers
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: were watching a curious brown scum that came drifting down
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: the stream in patches. The sun was just setting, and
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: the clock tower and the Houses of Parliament rose against
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: one of the most peaceful skies. It is possible to
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: imagine a sky of gold barred with long transverse stripes
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: of reddish purple cloud. There was talk of a floating body.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: One of the men there a reservist. He said he
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: was told my brother he had seen the heliograph flickering
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: in the west. In Wellington Street, my brother met a
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: couple of sturdy roughs who had just been rushed out
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: of Fleet Street, with still wet newspapers and staring placards
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: dreadful catastrophe. They bawled one to the other down Wellington Street,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: fighting at Weybridge full description repulse of the Martians, London
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: in danger. He had to give threatens for a copy
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: of that paper. Then it was, and then only that
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: he realized something of the full power and terror of
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: these monsters. He learned that they were not merely a
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: handful of small, sluggish creatures, but that they were minds
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: swaying vast mechanical bodies, and that they could move swiftly
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: and smite with such power that even the mightiest guns
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: could not stand against them. They were described as vast,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: spider like machines, nearly one hundred feet high, capable of
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: the speed of an express train, and was able to
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: shoot out a beam of intense heat. Masked batteries, chiefly
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: of field guns, had been planted in the country about
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Horsell Common, and especially between the Woking district and London.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Five of the machines had been seen moving towards the Thames,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and one, by a happy chance, had been destroyed. In
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: the other cases, the shells had missed and the batteries
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: had been at once annihilated by the heat rays. Heavy
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: losses of soldiers were mentioned, but the tone of the
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: despatch was optimistic. The Martians had been repulsed, they were
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: not invulnerable. They had retreated to their triangle of cylinders.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Again in the circle about Woking, signalers with heliographs were
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: pushing forward upon them from all sides. Guns were in
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: rapid transit from Windsor, Portsmouth, Aldershot, Wooldge, even from the North,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: among others. Long wire guns of ninety five tons from Woolige,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: altogether one hundred and sixteen were in position or being
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: hastily placed, chiefly covering London. Never before in England had
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: there been such a vast or rapid concentration of military material.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Any further cylinders that fell, it was hoped, could be
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: destroyed at once by high explosives which were being rapidly
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: manufactured and distributed. No doubt ran the report. The situation
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: was of the strangest and gravest description, but the public
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: was exhorted to avoid and discourage panic. No doubt the
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Martians were strange and terrible in the extreme, but at
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: the outside there could not be more than twenty of
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: them against Armilians. The authorities had reason to suppose from
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: the size of the cylinders that at the outside there
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: could not be more than five in each cylinder, fifteen altogether,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: and one at least was disposed of, perhaps more. The
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: public would be fairly warned of the approach of danger,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: and elaborate measures were being taken for the protection of
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the people in the threatened southwestern suburbs. And so, with
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: reiterated assurances of the safety of London and the ability
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: of the authorities to cope with the difficulty, this quasi
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: proclamation closed. This was printed in enormous type on paper
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: so fresh that it was still wet, and there had
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: been no time to add a word of comment. It
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: was curious, my brother said, to see how ruthlessly the
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: usual contents of the paper had been hacked and taken
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: out to give this place. All down Wellington Street, people
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: could be seen fluttering out the pink sheets and reading,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: and the strand was suddenly noisy with the voices of
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: an army of hawkers. Following these pioneers, men came scrambling
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: off buses to secure copies. Certainly, this news excited people
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: intensely whatever their previous apathy. The shutters of a map
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: shop in the strand were being taken down, my brother said,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and a man in his Sunday raiment lemon yellow gloves
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: even was visible inside the window, hastily fastening maps of
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Surrey to the glass. Going along the strand to Trafalgar
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Square the paper in his hand, my brother saw some
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: of the fugitives from West Surrey. There was a man
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: with his wife and two boys, and some articles of
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: furniture in a cart such as greengroses use. He was
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: driving from the direction of Westminster Bridge, and close behind
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: him came a hay wagon with five or six respectable
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: looking people in it, and some boxes and bundles. The
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: faces of these people were haggard, and their entire appearance
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: contrasted conspicuously with the sabbath best appearance of the people
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: on the omnibuses. People in fashionable clothing peeped at them
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: out of cabs. They stopped at the square as if
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: undecided which way to take, and finally turned ea eastward
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: along the strand. Some way behind these came a man
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: in workday clothes riding one of those old fashioned tricycles
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: with a small front wheel. He was dirty and white
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: in the face. My brother turned down towards Victoria and
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: met a number of such people. He had a vague
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: idea that he might see something of me. He noticed
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: an unusual number of police regulating the traffic. Some of
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: the refugees were exchanging news with the people on the omnibuses.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: One was professing to have seen the Martians boilers on stilts,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: I tell you, striding along like men. Most of them
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: were excited and animated by their strange experience. Beyond Victoria,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: the public houses were doing a lively trade with these arrivals.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: At all the street corners, groups of people were reading papers,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: talking excitedly, or staring at these unusual Sunday vs. Visitors.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: They seemed to increase as night drew on, until at
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: last the roads, my brother said, were like epsom High
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Street on a derby day. My brother addressed several of
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: these fugitives and got unsatisfactory answers from most. None of
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: them could tell him any news of Woking, except one man,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: who assured him that Woking had been entirely destroyed on
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the previous night. I'll come from Byfleet, he said. Man
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: on a bicycle came through the place in the early
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: morning and ran from door to door warning us to
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: come away. Then came soldiers. We went out to look
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: and there were clouds of smoke to the south, nothing
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: but smoke and not a soul coming that way. Then
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: we heard the guns at Chertsey and folks coming from Weybridge.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: So I've locked up my house and come on. At
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the time there was a strong feeling in the streets
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that the authorities were to blame for their incapacity to
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: dispose of the invaders. Without all this Inconvenieans. About eight
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: o'clock a noise of heavy firing was distinctly audible all
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: over the south of London. My brother could not hear
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: it for the traffic in the main thoroughfares, but by
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: striking through the quiet back streets to the river, he
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: was able to distinguish it quite plainly. He walked from
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Westminster to his apartments near Regent's Park about two. He
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: was now very anxious on my account, and disturbed at
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: the evident magnitude of the trouble. His mind was inclined
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: to run, even as mine had run on Saturday. On
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: military details. He thought of all those silent, expectant guns
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: of the suddenly nomadic countryside. He tried to imagine boilers
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: on stilts one hundred feet high. There were one or
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: two cart loads of refugees passing along Oxford Street, and
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: several in the Marlburne Road, but so slowly was the
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: news spreading that Regent Street and Portland Play were full
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: of their usual Sunday night promenaders, albeit they talked in groups,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: and along the edge of Regent's Park there were as
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: many silent couples walking out together under the scattered gas
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: lamps as ever there had been. The night was warm
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: and still and a little oppressive. The sound of guns
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: continued intermittently, and after midnight there seemed to be sheet
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: lightning in the south. He read and re read the paper,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: fearing the worst had happened to me. He was restless,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: and after supper, prowled out again aimlessly. He returned and
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: tried in vain to divert his attention to his examination notes.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: He went to bed a little after midnight, and was
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: awakened from lurid dreams in the small hours of Monday
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: by the sound of door knockers, feet running in the
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: street distant drumming and a clamor of bells. Red reflections
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: danced on the sea. For a moment, he lay astonished,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: wondering whether day had come or the world gone mad.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Then he jumped out of bed and ran to the window.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: His room was an attic, and as he thrust his
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: head out, up and down the street there were a
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: dozen echoes to the noise of his window, sash and
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: heads in every kind of night disarray appeared. Inquiries were
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: being shouted. They are coming, bawled a policeman hammering at
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the door. The martians are coming, and hurried to the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: next door. The sound of drumming and trumpeting came from
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: the Albany Street barracks, and every church with an ear
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: shot was hard at work, killing sleep with a vehement,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: disorderly toxsin. There was a noise of doors opening, and
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: window after window in the houses opposite flashed from darkness
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: into yellow illumination. Up the street came galloping a closed carriage,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: bursting abruptly into noises the corner, rising to a clattering
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: climax under the window, and dying away slowly in the distance.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Close on the rear of this came a couple of cabs,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the forerunners of a long procession of flying vehicles, going
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: for the most parts to Chalk Farm Station, where the
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Northwestern Special trains were loading up, instead of coming down
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the gradient into Euston. For a long time, my brother
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: stared out of the window in blank astonishment, watching the
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: policemen hammering at door after door and delivering their incomprehensible message.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Then the door behind him opened and the man who
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: lodged across the landing came in, dressed only in shirt,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: trousers and slippers, his braces loose about his waist, his
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: hair disordered from his pillow. What the devil is it?
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: He asked? A fire What a devil of a row?
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: They both craned their heads out of the window, straining
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: to hear what the policemen were shouting. People were coming
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: out of the side streets and standing in groups at
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: the corners talking. What the devil is it all about?
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Said my brother's fellow lodger. My brother answered him vaguely,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: and began to dress, running with each garment to the
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: window in order to miss nothing of the growing excitement,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: And presently, men selling unnaturally early newspapers came bawling into
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: the street. London in danger of suffocation. The Kingston and
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Richmond defenses forced fearful massacres in the Thames Valley, and
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: all about him in the rooms below, in the houses
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: on each side, and across the road and behind, in
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the park terraces, and in the hundred other streets of
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: that part of Marylebone and the Westbourne Park District, and
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Saint Pancras and Westwood, and northward in Kilburn and Saint
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: John's Wood and Hampstead, and eastward in Shoreditch and Highbury
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: and Haggerston and Hoxton, and indeed throughout all the vastness
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: of London, from Ealing to east Ham. People were rubbing
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: their eyes and opening windows to stare out and ask
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: aimless questions, dressing hastily as the first breath of the
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: coming storm of fear blew through the streets. It was
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the dawn of the great panic. London, which had gone
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: to bed on Sunday night oblivious and inert, was awakened
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: in the small hours of Monday morning to a vivid
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: sense of danger. Unable from his window to learn what
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: was happening, my brother went down and out into the street,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: just as the sky between the parapets of the houses
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: grew pink with the early dawn. The flying people on
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: foot and in vehicles grew more numerous. Every moment black smoke.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: He heard people crying, and again, black smoke. The contagion
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: of such a unanimous fear was inevitable. As my brother
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: hesitated on the doorstep, he saw another news vendor approaching
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: and got a paper forthwith. The man was running away
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: with the rest and selling his papers for a shilling
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: each as he ran a grotesque mingling of prophet and panic.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: And from this paper my brother read that catastrophic dispatch
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: of the Commander in chief. The Martians are able to
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: discharge enormous clouds of a black and poisonous vapor by
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: means of rockets. They have smothered our batteries, destroyed Richmond,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Kingston and Wimbledon, and are advancing slowly towards London, destroying
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: everything on the way. It is impossible to stop them.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: There is no safety from the black smoke. But in
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: instant flight that was all. But it was enough. The
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: whole population of the great six million city was stirring, slipping, running.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Presently it would be pouring en masse northward black smoke,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: The voices cried fire, The bells of the neighboring church
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: made a jangling tumult. A cart carelessly driven smashed amid
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: shrieks and curses against the water trough up the street.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Sickly yellow lights went to and fro in the houses,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and some of the passing cabs flaunted unextinguished lamps. And
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: overhead the dawn was growing brighter, clear and steady and calm.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: He heard footsteps running to and fro in the rooms,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: and up and down stairs. Behind him, his landlady came
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: to the door, loosely wrapped in dressing gown and shawl.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Her husband followed, ejaculating. As my brother began to realize
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: the import of all these things, he turned hastily to
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: his own room, put all his available money, some ten
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: pounds altogether, into his pockets, and went out again into
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: the streets. End of Section fourteen.