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06 - The Heat-ray in the Chobham Road - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells · Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter six, The heat ray in the Chobham Road. It
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  Speaker 1: is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are
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  Speaker 1: able to slay men so swiftly and so silently. Many
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  Speaker 1: think that in some way they are able to generate
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  Speaker 1: an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute non conductivity.
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  Speaker 1: This intense heat they project in a parallel beam against
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  Speaker 1: any object they choose, by means of a polished parabolic
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  Speaker 1: mirror of unknown composition, much as the parabolic mirror of
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  Speaker 1: a lighthouse projects a beam of light. But no one
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  Speaker 1: has absolutely proved these details. However it is done. It
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  Speaker 1: is certain that a beam of heat is the essence
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  Speaker 1: of the matter heat, and invisible instead of visible light.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever is combustible flashes into flame at its touch. Lead
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  Speaker 1: runs like water, It softens iron, cracks and melts glass,
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  Speaker 1: and when it falls upon water, incontinently, that explodes into steam.
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  Speaker 1: That night, nearly forty people lay under the starlight about
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  Speaker 1: the pit, charred and distorted beyond recognition, And all night
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  Speaker 1: long the common from Horsell to Maybury was deserted and
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  Speaker 1: brightly ablaze. The news of the massacre probably reached Chobham,
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  Speaker 1: Woking and Ottershore about the same time. In Woking, the
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  Speaker 1: shops had closed when the tragedy happened, and a number
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  Speaker 1: of people shop people and so forth, attracted by the
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  Speaker 1: stories they had heard, were walking over the Horsell Bridge
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  Speaker 1: and along the road between the hedges that runs out
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  Speaker 1: at last upon the common. You may imagine the young
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  Speaker 1: people brushed up after the labors of the day, and
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  Speaker 1: making this novelty, as they would make any novelty. The
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  Speaker 1: excuse for walking together and enjoying a trivial flare. You
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  Speaker 1: may figure to yourself the hum of voices along the
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  Speaker 1: road in the gloaming. As yet, of course, few people
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  Speaker 1: in Woking even knew that the cylinder had opened, though
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  Speaker 1: poor Henderson had sent a messenger on a bicycle to
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  Speaker 1: the post office with a special wire to an evening paper.
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  Speaker 1: As these folks came out by twos and threes upon
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  Speaker 1: the open they found little knots of people talking excitedly
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  Speaker 1: and peering at the spinning mirror over the sand pits,
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  Speaker 1: and the newcomers were no doubt soon infected by the
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  Speaker 1: excitement of the occasion. By half past eight, when the
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  Speaker 1: deputation was destroyed, there may have been a crowd of
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  Speaker 1: three hundred people or more at this place. Besides those
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  Speaker 1: who had left the road to approach the martians nearer,
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  Speaker 1: there were three policemen too, one of whom was mounted,
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  Speaker 1: doing their best under instructions from Stent, to keep the
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  Speaker 1: people back and deter them from approaching the cylinder. There
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  Speaker 1: was some booing from those more thoughtless and excitable souls,
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  Speaker 1: to whom a crowd is always an occasion for noise
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  Speaker 1: and horse play. Stent and Ogilvie, anticipating some possibilities of
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  Speaker 1: a collision, had telegraphed from Horsell to the barracks as
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  Speaker 1: soon as the martians emerged for the help of a
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  Speaker 1: company of soldiers to protect these strange creatures from violence.
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  Speaker 1: After that they returned to lead that ill fated advance.
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  Speaker 1: The description of their death as it was seen by
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  Speaker 1: the crowd tallies very closely with my own impressions, the
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  Speaker 1: three puffs of green smoke, the deep humming note, and
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  Speaker 1: the flashes of flame. But that crowd of people had
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  Speaker 1: a far narrower escape than mine. Only the fact that
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  Speaker 1: a hummock of heathery sand intercepted the lower part of
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  Speaker 1: the heat ray saved them. Had the elevation of the
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  Speaker 1: parabolic mirror been a few yards higher. None could have
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  Speaker 1: lived to tell the tale. They saw the flashes and
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  Speaker 1: the men falling, and an invisible hand as it were,
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  Speaker 1: lit the bushes as it hurried towards them through the twilight. Then,
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  Speaker 1: with a whistling note that rose above the droning of
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  Speaker 1: the pit, the beams swung close over their heads, lighting
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  Speaker 1: the tops of the beech trees that lined the road
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  Speaker 1: and splitting the brakes, smashing the windows, firing the window frames,
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  Speaker 1: and bringing down, in crumbling ruin a portion of the
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  Speaker 1: gable of the house nearest the corner. In the sudden thud,
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  Speaker 1: hiss and glare of the igniting trees, the panic stricken
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  Speaker 1: crowd seems to have swayed hesitatingly. For some moments. Sparks
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  Speaker 1: and burning twigs began to fall into the road, and
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  Speaker 1: single leaves like puffs of flame. Hats and dresses caught fire.
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  Speaker 1: Then came a crying from the common. There were shrieks
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  Speaker 1: and shouts, and suddenly a mounted policeman came galloping through
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  Speaker 1: the confusion with his hands clasped over his head, screaming,
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  Speaker 1: they're coming. A woman shrieked, and incontinently every one was
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  Speaker 1: turning and pushing at those behind. In order to clear
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  Speaker 1: their way to Woking again, they must have bolted as
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  Speaker 1: blindly as a flock of sheep. Where the road grows
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  Speaker 1: narrow and black between the high banks, the crowd jammed,
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  Speaker 1: and a desperate struggle occurred. All that crowd did not escape.
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  Speaker 1: Three persons, at least two women and a little boy
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  Speaker 1: were crushed and trampled there and left to die amid
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  Speaker 1: the terror and the darkness. End of Section six.