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

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