Chapter Nine
The Fighting Begins
SATURDAY lives in my memory as a day of suspense. It
was a day of lassitude too, hot and close, with, I
am told, a rapidly fluctuating barometer. I had
slept but little, though my wife had succeeded in
sleeping, and I rose early. I went into my garden
before breakfast and stood listening, but towards
the common there was nothing stirring but a lark. 1
The milkman came as usual. I heard the rattle of his
chariot and I went round to the side gate to ask the
latest news. He told me that during the night the
Martians had been surrounded by troops, and that
guns were expected. Then—a familiar, reassuring
note—I heard a train running towards Woking. 2
“They aren’t to be killed,” said the milkman, “if
that can possibly be avoided.” 3
I saw my neighbour gardening, chatted with him for a
time, and then strolled in to breakfast. It was a
most unexceptional morning. My neighbour was of
opinion that the troops would be able to capture or
to destroy the Martians during the day. 4
“It’s a pity they make themselves so
unapproachable,” he said. “It would be curious to
know how they live on another planet; we might learn
a thing or two.” 5
He came up to the fence and extended a handful of
strawberries, for his gardening was as generous as
it was enthusiastic. At the same time he told me of
the burning of the pine woods about the Byfleet Golf
Links. 6
“They say,” said he, “that there’s another of those
blessed things fallen there—number two. But one’s
enough, surely. This lot’ll cost the insurance
people a pretty penny before everything’s settled.”
He laughed with an air of the greatest good humour
as he said this. The woods, he said, were still
burning, and pointed out a haze of smoke to me.
“They will be hot under foot for days, on account of
the thick soil of pine needles and turf,” he said,
and then grew serious over “poor Ogilvy.” 7
After breakfast, instead of working, I decided to
walk down towards the common. Under the railway
bridge I found a group of soldiers—sappers, I think,
men in small round caps, dirty red jackets
unbuttoned, and showing their blue shirts, dark
trousers, and boots coming to the calf. They told me
no one was allowed over the canal, and, looking
along the road towards the bridge, I saw one of the
Cardigan men standing sentinel there. I talked with
these soldiers for a time; I told them of my sight
of the Martians on the previous evening. None of
them had seen the Martians, and they had but the
vaguest ideas of them, so that they plied me with
questions. They said that they did not know who had
authorised the movements of the troops; their idea
was that a dispute had arisen at the Horse Guards.
The ordinary sapper is a great deal better educated
than the common soldier, and they discussed the
peculiar conditions of the possible fight with some
acuteness. I described the Heat-Ray to them, and
they began to argue among themselves. 8
“Crawl up under cover and rush ‘em, say I,” said
one. 9
“Get aht!,” said another. “What’s cover against this
‘ere ‘eat? Sticks to cook yer! What we got to do is
to go as near as the ground’ll let us, and then
drive a trench.” 10
“Blow yer trenches! You always want trenches; you
ought to ha’ been born a rabbit Snippy.” 11
“Ain’t they got any necks, then?” said a third,
abruptly—a little, contemplative, dark man, smoking
a pipe. 12
I repeated my description. 13
“Octopuses,” said he, “that’s what I calls ‘em. Talk
about fishers of men—fighters of fish it is this
time!” 14
“It ain’t no murder killing beasts like that,” said
the first speaker. 15
“Why not shell the darned things strite off and
finish ‘em?” said the little dark man. “You carn
tell what they might do.” 16
“Where’s your shells?” said the first speaker.
“There ain’t no time. Do it in a rush, that’s my
tip, and do it at once.” 17
So they discussed it. After a while I left them, and
went on to the railway station to get as many
morning papers as I could. 18
But I will not weary the reader with a description
of that long morning and of the longer afternoon. I
did not succeed in getting a glimpse of the common,
for even Horsell and Chobham church towers were in
the hands of the military authorities. The soldiers
I addressed didn’t know anything; the officers were
mysterious as well as busy. I found people in the
town quite secure again in the presence of the
military, and I heard for the first time from
Marshall, the tobacconist, that his son was among
the dead on the common. The soldiers had made the
people on the outskirts of Horsell lock up and leave
their houses. 19
I got back to lunch about two, very tired for, as I
have said, the day was extremely hot and dull; and
in order to refresh myself I took a cold bath in the
afternoon. About half past four I went up to the
railway station to get an evening paper, for the
morning papers had contained only a very inaccurate
description of the killing of Stent, Henderson,
Ogilvy, and the others. But there was little I
didn’t know. The Martians did not show an inch of
themselves. They seemed busy in their pit, and there
was a sound of hammering and an almost continuous
streamer of smoke. Apparently they were busy getting
ready for a struggle. “Fresh attempts have been made
to signal, but without success,” was the stereotyped
formula of the papers. A sapper told me it was done
by a man in a ditch with a flag on a long pole. The
Martians took as much notice of such advances as we
should of the lowing of a cow. 20
I must confess the sight of all this armament, all
this preparation, greatly excited me. My imagination
became belligerent, and defeated the invaders in a
dozen striking ways; something of my schoolboy
dreams of battle and heroism came back. It hardly
seemed a fair fight to me at that time. They seemed
very helpless in that pit of theirs. 21
About three o’clock there began the thud of a gun at
measured intervals from Chertsey or Addlestone. I
learned that the smouldering pine wood into which
the second cylinder had fallen was being shelled, in
the hope of destroying that object before it opened.
It was only about five, however, that a field gun
reached Chobham for use against the first body of
Martians. 22
About six in the evening, as I sat at tea with my
wife in the summerhouse talking vigorously about the
battle that was lowering upon us, I heard a muffled
detonation from the common, and immediately after a
gust of firing. Close on the heels of that came a
violent rattling crash, quite close to us, that
shook the ground; and, starting out upon the lawn, I
saw the tops of the trees about the Oriental College
burst into smoky red flame, and the tower of the
little church beside it slide down into ruin. The
pinnacle of the mosque had vanished, and the roof
line of the college itself looked as if a
hundred-ton gun had been at work upon it. One of our
chimneys cracked as if a shot had hit it, flew, and
a piece of it came clattering down the tiles and
made a heap of broken red fragments upon the flower
bed by my study window. 23
I and my wife stood amazed. Then I realised that the
crest of Maybury Hill must be within range of the
Martians” Heat-Ray now that the college was cleared
out of the way. 24
At that I gripped my wife’s arm, and without
ceremony ran her out into the road. Then I fetched
out the servant, telling her I would go upstairs
myself for the box she was clamouring for. 25
“We can’t possibly stay here,” I said; and as I
spoke the firing reopened for a moment upon the
common. 26
“But where are we to go?” said my wife in terror. 27
I thought perplexed. Then I remembered her cousins
at Leatherhead. 28
“Leatherhead!” I shouted above the sudden noise. 29
She looked away from me downhill. The people were
coming out of their houses, astonished. 30
“How are we to get to Leatherhead?” she said. 31
Down the hill I saw a bevy of hussars ride under the
railway bridge; three galloped through the open
gates of the Oriental College; two others
dismounted, and began running from house to house.
The sun, shining through the smoke that drove up
from the tops of the trees, seemed blood red, and
threw an unfamiliar lurid light upon everything. 32
“Stop here,” said I; “you are safe here”; and I
started off at once for the Spotted Dog, for I knew
the landlord had a horse and dog cart. I ran, for I
perceived that in a moment everyone upon this side
of the hill would be moving. I found him in his bar,
quite unaware of what was going on behind his house.
A man stood with his back to me, talking to him. 33
“I must have a pound,” said the landlord, “and I’ve
no one to drive it.” 34
“I’ll give you two,” said I, over the stranger’s
shoulder. 35
“What for?” 36
“And I’ll bring it back by midnight,” I said. 37
“Lord!” said the landlord; “what’s the hurry? I’m
selling my bit of a pig. Two pounds, and you bring
it back? What’s going on now?” 38
I explained hastily that I had to leave my home, and
so secured the dog cart. At the time it did not seem
to me nearly so urgent that the landlord should
leave his. I took care to have the cart there and
then, drove it off down the road, and, leaving it in
charge of my wife and servant, rushed into my house
and packed a few valuables, such plate as we had,
and so forth. The beech trees below the house were
burning while I did this, and the palings up the
road glowed red. While I was occupied in this way,
one of the dismounted hussars came running up. He
was going from house to house, warning people to
leave. He was going on as I came out of my front
door, lugging my treasures, done up in a tablecloth.
I shouted after him: 39
“What news?” 40
He turned, stared, bawled something about “crawling
out in a thing like a dish cover,” and ran on to the
gate of the house at the crest. A sudden whirl of
black smoke driving across the road hid him for a
moment. I ran to my neighbour’s door and rapped to
satisfy myself of what I already knew, that his wife
had gone to London with him and had locked up their
house. I went in again, according to my promise, to
get my servant’s box, lugged it out, clapped it
beside her on the tail of the dog cart, and then
caught the reins and jumped up into the driver’s
seat beside my wife. In another moment we were clear
of the smoke and noise, and spanking down the
opposite slope of Maybury Hill towards Old Woking.
41
In front was a quiet sunny landscape, a wheat field
ahead on either side of the road, and the Maybury
Inn with its swinging sign. I saw the doctor’s cart
ahead of me. At the bottom of the hill I turned my
head to look at the hillside I was leaving. Thick
streamers of black smoke shot with threads of red
fire were driving up into the still air, and
throwing dark shadows upon the green treetops
eastward. The smoke already extended far away to the
east and west—to the Byfleet pine woods eastward,
and to Woking on the west. The road was dotted with
people running towards us. And very faint now, but
very distinct through the hot, quiet air, one heard
the whirr of a machine-gun that was presently
stilled, and an intermittent cracking of rifles.
Apparently the Martians were setting fire to
everything within range of their Heat-Ray. 42
I am not an expert driver, and I had immediately to
turn my attention to the horse. When I looked back
again the second hill had hidden the black smoke. I
slashed the horse with the whip, and gave him a
loose rein until Woking and Send lay between us and
that quivering tumult. I overtook and passed the
doctor between Woking and Send.
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