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

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  Chapter three, The Days of imprisonment. The arrival of a second fighting machine
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  drove us from our people into the scullery, for we feared that from his
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  elevation, the Martian might see down upon us behind our barrier. At a
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  later date we began to feel less in danger of their eyes, for to
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  an eye in the dazzle of the sunlight outside our refuge must have been blank
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  blackness. But at first the slightest suggestion of approach drove us into the scullery
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  in heart throbbing retreat. Yet terrible as was the danger we incurred, the
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  attraction of peeping was for both of us irresistible. And I recall now with
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  a sort of wonder that, in spite of the infinite danger in which we
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  were between starvation and a still more terrible death, we could yet struggle bitterly
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  for that horrible privilege of sight. We would race across the kitchen in a
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  grotesque way, between eagerness and the dread of making a noise, and strike
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  each other and thrust and kick within a few inches of exposure. The fact
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  is that we had absolutely incompatible dispositions and habits of thought and action, and
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  our danger and isolation only accentuated the incompatibility at Halliford. I had already come
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  to hate the curate's trick of helpless exclamation, his stupid rigidity of mind,
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  his endless muttering monologue vitiated every effort I made to think out a line of
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  action, and drove me at times. Thus pent up and intensified, almost
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  to the verge of craziness, he was as lacking in restraint as a silly
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  woman. He would weep for hours together, and I verily believe that to
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  the very end, this spoiled child of life thought his weak tears in some
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  way efficacious, and I would sit in the darkness, unable to keep my
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  mind off him. By reason of his importunities. He ate more than I
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  did, and it was in vain. I pointed out that our only chance
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  of life was to stop in the house until the Martians had done with their
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  pit, that in that long patience a time might presently come when we should
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  need food. He ate and drank impulsively in heavy meals at long intervals.
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  He slept little as the days wore on. His utter carelessness of any consideration
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  so intensified our distress and danger that I had much as I loathed doing it,
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  to retort to threats and at last to blows that brought him to reason
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  for a time. But he was one of those weak souls, void of
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  pride, timorous, anemic, hateful souls, full of shifty cunning, who
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  faced neither God nor man, who face not even themselves. It is disagreeable
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  for me to recall and write these things, but I set them down that
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  my story may lack nothing. Those who have escaped the dark and terrible aspects
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  of life will find my brutality, my flash of rage in our final tragedy,
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  easy enough to blame for they know what is wrong as well as any
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  but not what is possible to tortured men. But those who have been under
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  the shadow, who have gone down at last to elemental things, will have
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  a wider charity. And while within we fought out our dark, dim contest
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  of whispers, snatched food and drink and gripping hands and blows without in the
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  pitiless sunlight of that terrible June, was the strange wonder, the unfamiliar routine
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  of the Martians in the pit. Let me return to those first new experiences
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  of mine. After a long time, I ventured back to the people to
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  find that the newcomers had been reinforced by the occupants of no fewer than three
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  of the fighting machines. These last had brought with them certain fresh appliances that
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  stood in an orderly manner about the cylinder. The second handling machine was now
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  completed and was busied in serving one of the novel contrivances the big machine had
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  brought. This was a body resembling a milk can in its general form,
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  above which oscillated a pear shaped receptacle, and from which a stream of white
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  powder flowed into a circular basin below. The oscillatory motion was imparted to this
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  by one tentacle of the handling machine. With two spatulate hands, the handling
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  machine was digging out and flinging masses of clay into the pear shaped receptacle above,
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  while with another arm it periodically opened a door and removed rusty and blackened
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  clinkers from the middle part of the machine. Another steely tentacle directed the powder
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  from the basin along a ribbed channel towards some receiver that was hidden from me
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  by the mound of bluish dust. From this unseen receiver A little thread of
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  green smoke rose vertically into the quiet air. As I looked, the handling
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  machine with a faint and musical clicking, extended telescopic fashion, a tentacle that
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  had been a moment before a mere blunt projection until its end was hidden behind
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  the mound of clay. In another second, it had lifted a bar of
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  white aluminium into sight, untarnished as yet and shining dazzlingly, and deposited it
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  in a growing stack of bars that stood at the side of the pit between
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  sunset and starlight. This dexterous machine must have made more than a hundred such
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  bars out of the crude clay, and the mound of bluish dust rose steadily
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  until it topped the side of the pit. The contrast between the swift and
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  complex movements of these contrivances and the inert, panting clumsiness of their masters was
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  acute, and for days I had to tell myself repeatedly that these latter were
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  indeed the living of the two things. The curate had possession of the slit
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  when the first men were brought to the pit, I was sitting below,
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  huddled up, listening with all my ears. He made a sudden movement backward,
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  and I fearful that we were observed, crouched in a spasm of terror.
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  He came sliding down the rubbish and crept beside me in the darkness,
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  inarticulate, gesticulating, and for a moment I shared his panic. His gesture
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  suggested a resignation of the slit, and after a little while my curiosity gave
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  me courage, and I rose up, stepped across him, and clambered up
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  to it. At first I could see no reason for his frantic behavior.
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  The twilight had now come. The stars were little and faint, but the
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  pit was illuminated by the flickering green fire that came from the aluminium making The
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  whole picture was a flickering scheme of green gleams and shifting, rusty black shadows,
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  strangely trying to the eyes. Over and through it all went the bats,
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  heeding it not at all. The sprawling martians were no longer to be
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  seen. The mound of blue green powder had risen to cover them from sight,
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  and a fighting machine with its legs contracted, crumpled and abbreviated, stood
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  across the corner of the pit, and then amid the clangor of the machinery
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  came a drifting suspicion of human voices that I entertained at first only to dismiss.
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  I crouched watching this fighting machine closely, satisfying myself now for the first
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  time that the hood did indeed contain a martian. As the green flames lifted,
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  I could see the oily gleam of his integument and the brightness of his
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  eyes. And suddenly I heard a yell and saw a long tentacle reaching over
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  the shoulder of the machine to the little cage that hunched upon its back.
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  Then something, something struggling violently, was lifted high against the sky, a
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  black, vague enigma against the starlight. And as this black object came down
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  again, I saw by the green brightness that it was a man. For
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  an instant he was clearly visible. He was a stout, ruddy, middle
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  aged man, well dressed three days before he must have been walking the world,
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  a man of considerable consequence. I could see his staring eyes and gleams
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  of light on his stud and watch chain. He vanished behind the mound,
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  and for a moment there was silence, and then began a shrieking and a
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  sustained and cheerful hooting from the martians, I slid down the rubbish, struggled
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  to my feet, clapped my hands over my ears, and bolted into the
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  scullery. The Curate, who had been crouching silently with his arms over his
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  head, looked up as I passed, cried out quite loudly at my desertion
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  of him, and came running after me. That night, as we lurked
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  in the scullery, balanced between our horror and the terrible fascination this peeping had,
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  although I felt an urgent need of action, I tried in vain to
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  conceive some plan of escape. But afterwards, during the second day, I
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  was able to consider our position with great clearness. The Curate, I found,
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  was quite incapable of discussion. This new and culminating atrocity had robbed him
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  of all vestiges of reason or forethought. Practically he had already sunk to the
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  level of an animal. But as the saying goes, I gripped myself with
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  both hands. It grew upon my mind once I could face the facts that
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  terrible as our position was, there was as yet no justification for absolute despair.
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  Our chief chance lay in the possibility of the Martians making the pit nothing
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  more than a temporary encampment, or even if they kept it permanently, they
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  might not consider it necessary to guard it, and a chance of escape might
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  be afforded us. I also weighed very carefully the possibility of our digging away
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  out in a direction away from the pit. But the chances of our emerging
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  within sight of some sentinel fighting machine seemed at first too great, and I
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  should have had to do all the digging myself. The curate would certainly have
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  failed me. It was on the third day, if my memory serves me
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  right, that I saw the lad killed. It was the only occasion on
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  which I actually saw the Martians feed. After that experience, I avoided the
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  hole in the wall for the better part of a day. I went into
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  the scullery, removed the door, and spent some hours digging with my hatchet
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  as silently as possible. But when I had made a hole about a couple
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  of feet deep, the loose earth collapsed noisily, and I did not dare
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  continue. I lost heart and lay down on the scullery floor for a long
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  time, having no spirit even to move. And after that I abandoned altogether
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  the idea of escaping by excavation. It says much for the impression the Martians
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  had made upon me that at first I entertained little or no hope of our
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  escape being brought about by their overthree row through any human effort. But on
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  the fourth or fifth night I heard a sound like heavy guns. It was
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  very late in the night, and the moon was shining brightly. The Martians
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  had taken away the excavating machine, and save for a fighting machine that stood
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  in the remoter bank of the pit, and a handling machine that was buried
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  out of my sight in a corner of the pit, immediately beneath my peep
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  hole, the place was deserted by them. Except for the pale glow from
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  the handling machine and the bars and patches of white moonlight, the pit was
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  in darkness, and except for the clinking of the handling machine, quite still
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  that night was a beautiful serenity save for one planet. The moon seemed to
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  have the sky to herself. I heard a dog howling, and that familiar
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  sound it was that made me listen. Then I heard quite distinctive a booming,
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  exactly like the sound of great guns. Six distinct reports I counted,
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  and after a long interval, six again, and that was all. End
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  of Section twenty