chapter-2

Chapter 2

Leatherhead is about twenty kilometres from Mayberry Hill. We got there without any problems

at about nine o 'clock. The horse had an hour's rest while I had supper with my cousins, and

left my wife with them. My wife was silent during the drive to Leatherhead, and seemed

extremely worried. I tried to comfort her, but she gave short answers. If I had not promised

the innkeeper to bring back his cart, she would have made me stay in Leatherhead that night.

I wish I had. Her face, I remember, was very white as I left her. But I had been very excited

all day, and I was not very sorry that I had to return to Mayberry that night. I was even

afraid that those last shots I had heard had killed the Martians. I wanted to be there

when it happened.

The night was unexpectedly dark. It was as hot as the day. Overhead the clouds were moving

fast, mixed with black and red smoke. Ripley Street was deserted, and the village showed

no sign of life. As I climbed the little hill beyond the church, I saw the trees shaking with

the wind, a sign that a storm was coming. Then I heard the church bells strike midnight

and saw Mayberry Hill, with its treetops and roofs black and sharp against the red sky.

As I looked, a bright green light lit the road around me and showed the distant woods

to the north. I saw a line of green fire pass through the clouds and fall into the field

to my left. It was the third cylinder. Suddenly the first lightning of the storm came, and

as we went galloping towards Mayberry Hill there came flashes of lightning followed by

thunder crashes one after the other, sounding like an enormous electric machine. The flashing

light was blinding and confusing, and a thin rain started as I drove towards the hill.

At first I did not pay attention to the road. Then I noticed something on the opposite side

of Mayberry Hill. I thought it was the wet roof of a house, but the lightning flashes showed

that it was something moving rapidly. And then in a flash -like daylight I was able to

see this strange object clear and bright. This thing I saw, how can I describe it? A monstrous

tripod, higher than many houses stepping over the young trees. It was a walking engine of

shining metal. Then suddenly the trees in the wood ahead of me were parted, and a second

fast to meet it. I panicked and pulled the horse's head hard round to the right. The

cart turned over on the horse and smashed noisily. I was thrown sideways and fell into a shallow

pool of water. I crawled out almost immediately and hid under a bush. The horse did not move.

His neck was broken, poor thing. By the lightning flashes I saw the enormous machine walk past

me and go uphill. As it passed it made a deafening noise that was even louder than the thunder.

Aloo, aloo! In a minute it was with another one, a kilometer away, bending over something

in the field. I have no doubt this thing in the field was the third of the cylinders they

had fired at us from Mars. I was wet with rain above and puddle water below. It took

some time for me to get over my shock and struggle up into a drier position and think

of the danger I was in. I got up at last and managed to crawl towards the woods towards

Mayberry. I went on, wet and shaking towards my own house. If I had fully understood the

meaning of the things I had seen, I would have immediately gone back to my wife in Leatherhead.

But what had happened was all very strange, and I was too exhausted, hurt, wet and deafened

and blinded by the storm. All I could think of was to go to my own house. I walked through

the trees and got to the path that led up to my house. Near the top I came upon something

soft and by a flash of lightning saw a body. I had never touched a dead body before. With

the difficulty I turned him over to feel for his heart. He was indeed dead. When the lightning

flashed again, I saw his face. It was the landlord of the inn. I left him and moved on

up the hill. Towards Mayberry Bridge there were voices and the sound of feet, but I did not

have the courage to shout or go to them. I reached my house, went in and locked the

door. I sat down at the bottom of the stairs, shaking violently. After a time, I realized

that I was cold and wet. I got up almost mechanically and changed my clothes. I went

upstairs to my study. The window looks over the trees and the railway towards Horssell

Common. In the hurry of leaving, this window had been left open. I stopped in the doorway

and looked. The thunderstorm had passed, the towers of the Oriental College and the trees

around it had gone. Very far away, lit by a red flame, the common was visible. I could

see huge black shapes, ugly and strange, moving busily. I closed the door and approached the

window. Now I could see the houses around Woking Station on one side and the burnt woods of

biflete on the other. There was a light down below the hill, on the railway, and several

houses were burning. Between them there were areas of burning and smoking ground. It was

a very strange view. This was the little world in which I had been living safely for years.

This fiery chaos. I turned my desk chair to the window, sat down and stared at the country,

and at the three enormous black things that were moving around the common. They seemed

very busy. I began to ask myself what they could be. Were they intelligent machines? I

felt that was impossible. Did a Martian sit inside each machine, controlling it, just

like a man's brain controls his body? The storm had left the sky clear, and over the

smoke of the burning land the little bright light of Mars was dropping into the west.

That was when a soldier came into my garden. I heard footsteps and looked down and saw

him climbing over the fence. I leaned out of the window. Pssst, I said, in a whisper.

He stopped. Then he walked across the lawn to the house.

"'Who's there?' he said also whispering, standing under the window and looking up.

"'Are you trying to hide?'

"'Yes. Come into the house,' I said. I went down, unlocked the door and let him in.

I could not see his face. He had no hat, and his coat was unbuttoned.

"'What has happened?' I asked.

"'What hasn't?' he replied.

"'They destroyed us. Simply destroyed us,' he repeated again and again. He followed me

into the dining room. I made some tea and poured him a cup. He sat down and drank it.

Then suddenly he put his head on his arms and began to cry like a little boy. It was

a long time before he was able to answer my questions, and then he gave confusing answers.

He was a driver in the artillery and had come into action about seven when shooting was going

on across the common. There was an explosion, and he was thrown into a hole in the ground

and found himself lying under dead men and horses. He hid there for a long time. He watched

as the soldiers rushed towards the tripod and were killed. Then the monster began to walk

across the common. A kind of arm carried a metallic case, out of which the heat ray flashed.

In a few minutes there was not a living thing left on the common, and every bush and tree

was burning. The giant then turned to Woking Station and the houses around it, and in a

moment the town was completely destroyed. The artilleryman was able to crawl towards Horsale

and escape to Woking. There were a few people alive there. Many were burnt. He hid behind

a broken wall as one of the Martian tripods returned. He saw the giant catch a man in one

of its steel tentacles and knock his head against a tree. After nightfall the artilleryman ran

away and went across the railway. That was the story I got from him, bit by bit. He grew

calmer telling me. He had not eaten since midday, so I found some meat and bread and brought

it into the room. As he talked morning came and I could now see his face, blackened and

exhausted as no doubt mine was too. When we finished eating we went upstairs to my study,

and I looked out of the open window. In one night the valley had become a valley of death.

The fires had died down. There was smoke where there were flames before. The ruins of

the broken houses and the blackened trees looked terrible in the light of dawn. This was pure

and total destruction, never before seen in the history of war. And shining with the growing

light of the east, three of the tripods stood around the pit.

As the dawn grew brighter, we went very quietly downstairs. The soldier agreed with me that

the house was no place to stay. He wanted to go to London and rejoin his company. My plan

was to return at once to Leatherhead. I would take my wife to Newhaven and leave the country

as soon as possible. I thought that the area around London would inevitably be the scene

of a battle. However, between us and Leatherhead was the third cylinder. If I had been alone,

I would have tried to go across country. But the soldier stopped me. It's no kindness

to your wife to get killed, he said. In the end I agreed to go with him northward under

cover of the woods. I would leave him on the way and get to Leatherhead. I wanted to set

off at once, but the artilleryman knew better than that. He made me look through the house

and find food and drink. We filled our pockets and left the house. We ran as quickly as we

could down the road. The houses seemed deserted, except for us. There did not seem to be a

living thing on Mayberry Hill. Most of the inhabitants had escaped, or they had hidden.

We went down the lane and into the woods at the foot of the hill. The woods on the railway

line were burnt and blackened. There was not a breath of wind this morning, and everything

was strangely still. Even the birds were quiet.

After a time, we came to the road and saw three soldiers on horseback riding slowly

towards Woking. We shouted and hurried towards them. One of them was an officer. You are

the first men I've seen coming this way this morning, he said. What's happening? The artillery

man stepped up and saluted. Gun destroyed last night, sir. Have been hiding, trying to rejoin

my company, sir. You'll come in sight of the Martians about a kilometer along this road.

What do they like? asked the officer. Metallic giant, sir. Thirty meters high, three legs and

an enormous head, sir. What nonsense, said the officer. You'll see, sir. They carry a kind

of box, sir, that shoots fire and strikes you dead. What do you mean? A gun. No, sir, said

the soldier, and he described the heat ray. Halfway through, the officer interrupted him

and looked at me. He could not believe what he was hearing.

It's perfectly true, I said. Well, I suppose it's my business to see it, too, said the officer.

Look here, he said to the soldier. You'd better go and report yourself to Brigadier General Marvin

and tell him all you know. He's at Waybridge. Do you know the way? I do, I said, and he turned

his horse southward again. He thanked me, and the three men rode away.

By Biflete Station we came out from the trees and found the country calm and peaceful. We

were far away from the heat ray, and it almost seemed like any other Sunday, except for the

empty houses, the people packing and the groups of soldiers standing on the bridge. However,

Biflete was chaotic. People were preparing to leave and soldiers, some on horseback, were

giving instructions and helping them load the vehicles. There were lots of people and

most of them were wearing their best clothes. The soldiers were having the greatest difficulty

in making them realize the seriousness of the situation. An old man with a huge box and

several flower pots of orchids was arguing with a soldier.

Do you know what's over there? I asked him, pointing at the trees that hid the Martians.

Eh? He said. I was explaining that these are valuable. Death, I shouted. Death is coming.

Death. The soldier and I arrived at Waybridge. The whole place was in such confusion as I had

never seen. Carts and carriages everywhere, people packing, children excited. We sat on

the step of the drinking fountain and ate some of the food we had brought with us. Soldiers

were telling people to move now or to hide in their cellars as soon as the firing began.

We saw a crowd of people in and around the railway station. We remained at Waybridge until

midday and we found ourselves at the place where the riverway joins the river Thames. Here we

found an excited and noisy crowd of people. People were hiring boats to cross the river.

There was no panic yet, but there were already far more people than all the boats could carry.

There was a lot of shouting. Every now and then people would look nervously across the

way towards Chirtsy, but everything over there was still. Across the Thames everything

was quiet. The people who landed there from the boats were walking away. The big ferryboat

had just made a journey. Three or four soldiers stood staring. Suddenly there was a sound.

What's that? cried a boatman. Then the sound came again from the direction of Chirtsy,

the sound of a gun. Almost immediately heavy gunfire followed. The guns were unseen because

of the trees. Everyone stood still trying to hear the sound of battle near us, but invisible

to us. Then suddenly we saw a cloud of smoke far away up the river. The ground moved and

a heavy explosion shook the air, smashing two or three windows in the houses. Here they

are! shouted a man. There! Do you see them? One after the other. One, two, three, four of

the Martian machines appeared, far away over the trees towards Chirtsy. Then a fifth one

appeared, coming rapidly towards us. Their metal bodies shone in the sun as they moved

towards the guns, growing larger and larger as they came nearer. One on the left held

a huge case high in the air, and the terrible heat ray I had seen on Friday night, flashed

towards Chirtsy and struck the town. The crowd near the water's edge seemed to be completely

shocked for a moment. There was no screaming or shouting but a silence. Then came the sound

of people talking and the movement of feet. A man carrying a large bag turned around and

hit me with it. A woman pushed me and ran. I had one thing on my mind to get underwater.

Get under water, I shouted, but no one listened to me. I turned around and rushed towards

the approaching Martian, ran right down the stony beach and jumped into the water. Others

did the same. The stones under my feet were muddy and slippery, and the river was so low

that I ran perhaps five metres to get under the surface. I heard people jumping into the

river from the boats. But the Martian machine took no notice of the people running around.

When I raised my head above water, the Martian's head was turned towards the guns that were

still firing across the river. It was raising the case which generated the heat ray. Suddenly

the six guns which had been hidden behind the village fired simultaneously. The first shell

exploded six metres above its head. I gave a cry of astonishment. Then two other shells

exploded in the air near its body. The fourth shell exploded on its face. The head flashed

and burst into a dozen pieces of red flesh and metal.

Hit, I shouted. I heard answering shouts from the people in the water around me. The headless

giant regained its balance and moved slowly towards Shepperton. The living intelligence,

the Martian inside the head, was dead. And the thing was now simply a metal machine. It hit

the church tower and knocked it down. Then it turned and collapsed with great force into

the river. A violent explosion shook the air, and water, steam, mud and pieces of metal flew

up into the sky. A huge wave of very hot water came sweeping from the river. I saw people

struggling to get out of the water and heard their screaming and shouting. I swam through

the water. The fallen Martian came into sight downstream, most of it under the water. Thick

enormous legs and tentacles moving in the water. It looked like some wounded thing struggling

for its life in the water. Suddenly I heard a desperate scream and turned. A man, knee

deep in the water, shouted to me and pointed. I did not hear what he said. I looked back

and saw the other Martians approaching down the riverbank from the direction of Chirzi.

The guns had no effect this time. I went under water and, holding my breath, swam painfully

under the surface as long as I could. The water was rough and was growing hotter and hotter.

For a moment I raised my head to take a breath. I saw the steam rising in a white fog that

hid the Martians. The noise was deafening. Then I saw them, enormous gray figures. They

had passed by me, and two were bending over the dead one. The third and fourth Martians

stood beside him in the water. The heat ray generators were waved high, and the beams

flashed this way and that. The air was full of deafening and confusing noises. The metallic

sounds of the Martians, the crash of falling houses, the trees and fences catching fire.

Thick black smoke mixed with the steam from the river. For a moment I stood there in the

almost boiling water, shocked and hopeless of escape. I could see the people who had

been with me in the river struggling to get out of the water, like little frogs. Then suddenly

the white flashes of the heat ray came towards me. The houses were destroyed at its touch.

The trees caught fire with a loud noise. The heat ray went up and down and came down to

the water's edge fifty metres from where I stood. It swept across the river, and the

water behind it boiled. I turned towards the shore. In another moment the huge wave rushed

towards me. I screamed and ran through towards the shore, burnt and in pain. I fell helplessly

on the stony beach. I was now completely visible to the Martians. I expected nothing but death.

I vaguely remember the foot of a Martian coming down within twenty metres of my head, moving

straight into the stones, and then the four Martians carrying the remains of the dead one,

moving further and further away from me across the river and fields. And then very slowly I

realised that by a miracle I had escaped. The Martians went back to their original position

on Horsell Common. If they had left the dead giant in the river and pushed on, they would

certainly have reached London before anyone heard about them coming, and they would have

caused complete destruction. But they were not in a hurry. Every twenty -four hours a new

cylinder arrived from Mars. Meanwhile, the military authorities worked desperately. Every

minute another gun was placed into position, and before sunset there was a gun in every

wooded area, behind every house and on every hill. But the Martians now understood our

weapons, and no one attempted to get within a kilometre of the cylinders. The giant spent

the earlier part of the afternoon in transferring everything from the second and third cylinders

to the pit on Horsell Common. Later they all went into the pit and were hard at work there

far into the night. The thick green smoke could be seen from far away. And while the Martians

were preparing for their next attack and humanity was preparing for the battle, I painfully made

my way towards London. I saw an empty boat moving downstream, and taking off my wet clothes,

I went after it. I climbed on it and, using my hands, I moved down the river towards Walton,

going very slowly and frequently looking behind me. I went on like this for a long time, exhausted

and in pain. The sun burnt my back. At last the Bridget Walton came into sight, and I landed

on the Middlesex bank and lay down, deadly sick, in the long grass. I suppose it was about four

or five o 'clock. After a short time I got up, walked perhaps a kilometre without meeting

anyone and then lay down again in the shadow of the bushes. I seemed to remember talking

to myself. I was also very thirsty. I felt angry with my wife. I cannot explain it, but

my wish to reach Leatherhead worried me very much. I do not remember the arrival of the

curates. I noticed a sitting figure with his face staring at the sky. The sun was setting

behind rows of puffy clouds. I sat up, and hearing me move, he looked at me.

Do you have any water? I asked. He shook his head. You have been asking for water for

the last hour, he said. For a moment we were silent, looking at each other. I am sure that

I looked very strange, burnt and blackened by the smoke and wearing only trousers and

socks. He had large blue eyes, blankly staring. He spoke suddenly, looking away from me.

What does it mean? He said. What do these things mean? I stared at him and gave no answer.

Why are these things allowed? What have we done? The morning service was over. I was walking

through the roads to clear my brain and then fire, earthquake, death, all our work destroyed,

all the work. What are these Martians? What are we? I answered, clearing my throat.

He held his knees and turned to look at me again. For half a minute he stared silently.

I was walking through the roads to clear my brain. He said, and suddenly, fire, earthquake,

death. He fell silent. Then he began waving his hand. What have we done? What has waybridge

done? Everything gone. Everything destroyed. The church. We rebuilt it only three years

ago. Gone. Why? Another pause. And he shouted again like a madman. The smoke of her burning

goes up forever and ever. He pointed in the direction of Wabbridge. It was clear that he

had escaped Wabbridge. The great tragedy he went through had driven him to the edge of madness.

Are we far from Sunbury? I asked. What are we going to do? He asked. Are these creatures

everywhere? Has the earth been given to them? Things have changed, I said quietly. You must

stay calm. There is still hope. Hope? Yes. A lot of hope. But how can we escape? He asked.

They are unbeatable and unforgiving. The stronger they are, the more careful and sensible

we should be, I answered. One of them was killed three hours ago. Killed, he said. I saw

it happen. And I told him what I had seen. As I spoke, he jumped to his feet and stopped

me. Listen, he said. From beyond the low hills across the water came the dull sound

of guns and a strange crying. Then everything was still high in the west, the moon hung pale

above the smoke and the hot still sunset. We had better follow this path, I said. Northward.