CHAPTER NINE
THE FIGHTING BEGINS
Saturday lives in my memory as a day of suspense. It was a day oflassitude too, hot and close, with, I am told, a rapidly fluctuatingbarometer. I had slept but little, though my wife had succeeded insleeping, and I rose early. I went into my garden before breakfastand stood listening, but towards the common there was nothing stirringbut a lark.
The milkman came as usual. I heard the rattle of his chariot and Iwent round to the side gate to ask the latest news. He told me thatduring the night the Martians had been surrounded by troops, and thatguns were expected. Then--a familiar, reassuring note--I heard a trainrunning towards Woking.
"They aren't to be killed," said the milkman, "if that can possiblybe avoided."
I saw my neighbour gardening, chatted with him for a time, and thenstrolled in to breakfast. It was a most unexceptional morning. Myneighbour was of opinion that the troops would be able to capture orto destroy the Martians during the day.
"It's a pity they make themselves so unapproachable," he said. "Itwould be curious to know how they live on another planet; we mightlearn a thing or two."
He came up to the fence and extended a handful of strawberries, forhis gardening was as generous as it was enthusiastic. At the sametime he told me of the burning of the pine woods about the ByfleetGolf Links.
"They say," said he, "that there's another of those blessed thingsfallen there--number two. But one's enough, surely. This lot'll costthe insurance people a pretty penny before everything's settled." Helaughed with an air of the greatest good humour as he said this. Thewoods, he said, were still burning, and pointed out a haze of smoke tome. "They will be hot under foot for days, on account of the thicksoil of pine needles and turf," he said, and then grew serious over"poor Ogilvy."
After breakfast, instead of working, I decided to walk downtowards the common. Under the railway bridge I found a group ofsoldiers--sappers, I think, men in small round caps, dirty red jacketsunbuttoned, and showing their blue shirts, dark trousers, and bootscoming 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 theCardigan men standing sentinel there. I talked with these soldiersfor a time; I told them of my sight of the Martians on the previousevening. None of them had seen the Martians, and they had but thevaguest ideas of them, so that they plied me with questions. Theysaid that they did not know who had authorised the movements of thetroops; their idea was that a dispute had arisen at the Horse Guards.The ordinary sapper is a great deal better educated than the commonsoldier, and they discussed the peculiar conditions of the possiblefight with some acuteness. I described the Heat-Ray to them, and theybegan to argue among themselves.
"Crawl up under cover and rush 'em, say I," said one.
"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 theground'll let us, and then drive a trench."
"Blow yer trenches! You always want trenches; you ought to ha'been born a rabbit Snippy."
"Ain't they got any necks, then?" said a third, abruptly--a little,contemplative, dark man, smoking a pipe.
I repeated my description.
"Octopuses," said he, "that's what I calls 'em. Talk about fishersof men--fighters of fish it is this time!"
"It ain't no murder killing beasts like that," said the firstspeaker.
"Why not shell the darned things strite off and finish 'em?" saidthe little dark man. "You carn tell what they might do."
"Where's your shells?" said the first speaker. "There ain't notime. Do it in a rush, that's my tip, and do it at once."
So they discussed it. After a while I left them, and went on tothe railway station to get as many morning papers as I could.
But I will not weary the reader with a description of that longmorning and of the longer afternoon. I did not succeed in getting aglimpse of the common, for even Horsell and Chobham church towers werein the hands of the military authorities. The soldiers I addresseddidn't know anything; the officers were mysterious as well as busy. Ifound people in the town quite secure again in the presence of themilitary, and I heard for the first time from Marshall, thetobacconist, that his son was among the dead on the common. Thesoldiers had made the people on the outskirts of Horsell lock up andleave their houses.
I got back to lunch about two, very tired for, as I have said, theday was extremely hot and dull; and in order to refresh myself I tooka cold bath in the afternoon. About half past four I went up to therailway station to get an evening paper, for the morning papers hadcontained only a very inaccurate description of the killing of Stent,Henderson, Ogilvy, and the others. But there was little I didn'tknow. The Martians did not show an inch of themselves. They seemedbusy in their pit, and there was a sound of hammering and an almostcontinuous streamer of smoke. Apparently they were busy getting readyfor a struggle. "Fresh attempts have been made to signal, but withoutsuccess," was the stereotyped formula of the papers. A sapper told meit was done by a man in a ditch with a flag on a long pole. TheMartians took as much notice of such advances as we should of thelowing of a cow.
I must confess the sight of all this armament, all thispreparation, greatly excited me. My imagination became belligerent,and defeated the invaders in a dozen striking ways; something of myschoolboy dreams of battle and heroism came back. It hardly seemed afair fight to me at that time. They seemed very helpless in that pitof theirs.
About three o'clock there began the thud of a gun at measuredintervals from Chertsey or Addlestone. I learned that the smoulderingpine wood into which the second cylinder had fallen was being shelled,in the hope of destroying that object before it opened. It was onlyabout five, however, that a field gun reached Chobham for use againstthe first body of Martians.
About six in the evening, as I sat at tea with my wife in thesummerhouse talking vigorously about the battle that was lowering uponus, I heard a muffled detonation from the common, and immediatelyafter a gust of firing. Close on the heels of that came a violentrattling crash, quite close to us, that shook the ground; and,starting out upon the lawn, I saw the tops of the trees about theOriental College burst into smoky red flame, and the tower of thelittle church beside it slide down into ruin. The pinnacle of themosque had vanished, and the roof line of the college itself looked asif a hundred-ton gun had been at work upon it. One of our chimneyscracked as if a shot had hit it, flew, and a piece of it cameclattering down the tiles and made a heap of broken red fragments uponthe flower bed by my study window.
I and my wife stood amazed. Then I realised that the crest ofMaybury Hill must be within range of the Martians' Heat-Ray now thatthe college was cleared out of the way.
At that I gripped my wife's arm, and without ceremony ran her outinto the road. Then I fetched out the servant, telling her I would goupstairs myself for the box she was clamouring for.
"We can't possibly stay here," I said; and as I spoke the firingreopened for a moment upon the common.
"But where are we to go?" said my wife in terror.
I thought perplexed. Then I remembered her cousins at Leatherhead.
"Leatherhead!" I shouted above the sudden noise.
She looked away from me downhill. The people were coming out oftheir houses, astonished.
"How are we to get to Leatherhead?" she said.
Down the hill I saw a bevy of hussars ride under the railwaybridge; three galloped through the open gates of the Oriental College;two others dismounted, and began running from house to house. Thesun, shining through the smoke that drove up from the tops of thetrees, seemed blood red, and threw an unfamiliar lurid light uponeverything.
"Stop here," said I; "you are safe here"; and I started off at oncefor 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 thehill would be moving. I found him in his bar, quite unaware of whatwas going on behind his h
ouse. A man stood with his back to me,talking to him.
"I must have a pound," said the landlord, "and I've no one to driveit."
"I'll give you two," said I, over the stranger's shoulder.
"What for?"
"And I'll bring it back by midnight," I said.
"Lord!" said the landlord; "what's the hurry? I'm selling my bitof a pig. Two pounds, and you bring it back? What's going on now?"
I explained hastily that I had to leave my home, and so secured thedog cart. At the time it did not seem to me nearly so urgent that thelandlord should leave his. I took care to have the cart there andthen, drove it off down the road, and, leaving it in charge of my wifeand servant, rushed into my house and packed a few valuables, suchplate as we had, and so forth. The beech trees below the house wereburning while I did this, and the palings up the road glowed red.While I was occupied in this way, one of the dismounted hussars camerunning up. He was going from house to house, warning people toleave. He was going on as I came out of my front door, lugging mytreasures, done up in a tablecloth. I shouted after him:
"What news?"
He turned, stared, bawled something about "crawling out in a thinglike 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 amoment. I ran to my neighbour's door and rapped to satisfy myself ofwhat I already knew, that his wife had gone to London with him and hadlocked up their house. I went in again, according to my promise, toget my servant's box, lugged it out, clapped it beside her on the tailof the dog cart, and then caught the reins and jumped up into thedriver's seat beside my wife. In another moment we were clear of thesmoke and noise, and spanking down the opposite slope of Maybury Hilltowards Old Woking.
In front was a quiet sunny landscape, a wheat field ahead on eitherside of the road, and the Maybury Inn with its swinging sign. I sawthe doctor's cart ahead of me. At the bottom of the hill I turned myhead to look at the hillside I was leaving. Thick streamers of blacksmoke shot with threads of red fire were driving up into the stillair, and throwing dark shadows upon the green treetops eastward. Thesmoke already extended far away to the east and west--to the Byfleetpine woods eastward, and to Woking on the west. The road was dottedwith people running towards us. And very faint now, but very distinctthrough the hot, quiet air, one heard the whirr of a machine-gun thatwas presently stilled, and an intermittent cracking of rifles.Apparently the Martians were setting fire to everything within rangeof their Heat-Ray.
I am not an expert driver, and I had immediately to turn myattention to the horse. When I looked back again the second hill hadhidden the black smoke. I slashed the horse with the whip, and gavehim a loose rein until Woking and Send lay between us and thatquivering tumult. I overtook and passed the doctor between Woking andSend.