The War of the Worlds / Война миров. Уровень 2

Chapter 5
The Heat-Ray

The Martians were emerging from the cylinder, and a kind of fascination paralysed my actions. I was staring at the edge of the pit.

I did not dare to go back, but I wanted to peer into it. I began to look at the sand-heaps. Once a leash of thin black whips, like the arms of an octopus, flashed across. Afterwards a thin rod rose up. It was bearing at its apex a circular disk.

Most of the spectators gathered in one or two groups – one little crowd in direction of Woking, the other in the direction of Chobham. There were few people near me. One man was a neighbour of mine, though I did not know his name.

The sunset faded to twilight before anything further happened. It gave people courage. I suppose the new arrivals from Woking also helped to restore confidence. As the dusk came on, a slow movement upon the sand-pits began. I, too, on my side began to move towards the pit.

Suddenly there was a flash of light. Some luminous greenish smoke came out of the pit in three distinct puffs. They drove up, one after the other, straight into the air. This smoke (or flame, perhaps) was very bright. At the same time a faint hissing sound became audible.

Beyond the pit stood the little group of people with a white flag. As the green smoke arose, their faces flashed out pallid green, and faded again as it vanished. Then slowly the hissing passed into a long, loud noise. Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light flickered out from it. A bright glare sprang from the scattered group of men. Each of them was suddenly and momentarily turned to fire.

The people were staggering and falling down. The death was leaping from man to man in that little crowd. An almost noiseless flash of light – and a man fell headlong and lay still.

This flaming death, this invisible, inevitable sword of heat was coming towards me. But I was too astounded and stupefied to move. The dark ground smoked and crackled. Then the hissing and humming ceased, and the black, dome-like object sank slowly out of sight into the pit.

All this happened with such swiftness that I stood motionless, dumbfounded and dazzled by the flashes of light. I was helpless, unprotected, and alone. With an effort I turned and began to run through the heather.

Chapter 6
The Heat-Ray in the Chobham Road

How can the Martians slay men so swiftly and so silently? It is a mystery. Many people think that the Martians are able to generate an intense heat. They project this intense heat in a parallel beam against any object they choose. Heat, and invisible, instead of visible, light. That night nearly forty people lay under the starlight about the pit. They were charred and distorted.

The news of the massacre reached Chobham, Woking, and Ottershaw. In Woking the shops closed. Many people were walking over the Horsell Bridge and along the road between the hedges.

Few people in Woking knew that the cylinder opened. People were talking excitedly and peering at the spinning mirror over the sand-pits.

By half past eight, there was a crowd of three hundred people or more at this place. There were three policemen too, they were trying, under instructions from Stent, to keep the people back and deter them from the cylinder.

As soon as the Martians emerged, Stent and Ogilvy telegraphed from Horsell to the barracks for help to protect these strange creatures from violence. After that they returned to the pit. Then we saw their death: three puffs of green smoke, the humming note, and the flashes of flame.

Only the heap of sand saved the other crowd of people. They saw the flashes and the invisible hand that lit the bushes. Then, with a whistling note, the beam swung over their heads. Sparks and burning twigs began to fall into the road. Then came a crying. There were shrieks and shouts.

Everyone was trying to clear the way to Woking again. Where the road is narrow, the crowd jammed. Three persons at least, two women and a little boy, were crushed and trampled there. The crowd left them to die amid the terror and the darkness.

Chapter 7
How I Reached Home

I came into the road between the crossroads and Horsell, and ran along this to the crossroads. There I fell and remained still for some time.

Then I sat up, strangely perplexed. I did not clearly understand how I came there. A few minutes before, there were only three real things before me – the immensity of the night and space and nature, my own feebleness and anguish, and the near approach of death. Now something altered abruptly. The cylinder and the flames became a dream. Did these things indeed happen?

I rose and walked unsteadily up the bridge. My muscles and nerves lost their strength.

I startled my wife at the doorway. I went into the dining room. I sat down and told her everything.

“There is one thing,” I said; “they are very sluggish creatures. They may kill people who come near them!”

My wife put her hand on mine.

“Poor Ogilvy!” I said. “He is dead there!”

“They may come for us,” my wife said.

I tried to reassure her.

“They can scarcely move,” I said.

The Martians can’t establish themselves on the earth. I talked about the gravitational difficulty. On the surface of the earth the force of gravity is three times more what it is on the surface of Mars. A Martian, therefore, will weigh three times more than on Mars, albeit his muscular strength will be the same. The atmosphere of the earth contains far more oxygen or far less argon than does Mars’. I was reassuring my wife, and I was courageous.

“They have done a foolish thing,” said I. “They are dangerous because, no doubt, they are mad with terror. A shell in the pit^[12] will kill them all.”

Chapter 8
Friday Night

In London, poor Henderson’s telegram that was describing the gradual unscrewing of the shot was judged to be a canard^[13]. The newspaper wired for authentication from him and received no reply – the man was killed – so they decided not to print a special edition.

Even within the five-mile circle the people were inert. All over the district people were dining and supping. Working men were gardening after the labours of the day. Children were going to bed. Young people were wandering through the lanes. Students sat over their books.

Maybe there was a murmur in the village streets, and somebody caused a whirl of excitement; but for the most part the daily routine of working, eating, drinking, sleeping, went on – as though no planet Mars existed in the sky. Even at Woking station and Horsell and Chobham nothing changed.

In Woking junction, trains were stopping and going on. Passengers were waiting, and everything was proceeding in the most ordinary way. A boy from the town was selling papers with the afternoon’s news, “Men from Mars!” Excited men came into the station about nine o’clock with incredible tidings. But they caused no more disturbance than drunkards.

A curious crowd lingered restlessly. The crowd remained on the Chobham and Horsell bridges. One or two adventurous souls went into the darkness and crawled quite near the Martians. But they never returned. That big area was silent and desolate. The charred bodies lay threr all night under the stars, and all the next day. Many people heard some noise from the pit.

It was Friday night. Here and there was a burning bush or a tree. Beyond was a fringe of excitement. In the rest of the world, life was going on.

All night long the Martians were hammering and stirring at work upon the machines. Sometimes a puff of greenish-white smoke whirled up to the sky.

About eleven some soldiers came through Horsell, and formed a cordon. Later the soldiers marched through Chobham to cover the north side of the pit. Several officers from the Inkerman barracks arrived. Major Eden was missing.

The colonel of the regiment came to the Chobham bridge. He questioned the crowd at midnight. The military authorities understood the seriousness of the business. About eleven, a squadron of hussars and about four hundred men of the Cardigan regiment started from Aldershot.

A few seconds after midnight the crowd near Woking saw a star. That star fell from heaven into the pine woods to the northwest. It had a greenish colour, and caused a silent brightness like summer lightning. This was the second cylinder.

Chapter 9
The Fighting Begins

Saturday was a day of suspense. It was a day of lassitude too, hot and close^[14]. I slept little, and I rose early. I went into my garden before breakfast and stood there.

The milkman came as usual. I heard the rattle of his chariot and I went to him to ask the latest news. He told me that during the night the Martians were surrounded by troops. Then I heard a train.

“They won’t kill the Martians,” said the milkman, “they want to avoid it.”

I saw my neighbour, chatted with him, and then went to breakfast. My neighbour is sure that the troops will be able to capture or to destroy the Martians during the day.

“It’s a pity they are unapproachable,” he said. “It is curious to know how they live on another planet.”

He came up to the fence and extended a handful of strawberries. At the same time he told me of the fire near the Byfleet Golf Links^[15].

“They say,” said he, “that there’s another thing – number two. But one’s enough, surely.”

He laughed as he said this. The woods, he said, were still burning.

“They will be hot for days, because of the thick soil of pine needles and turf.”

After breakfast, I decided to walk down towards the pit. Under the railway bridge I found a group of soldiers – sappers, I think. These men wore small round caps, dirty red jackets, blue shirts, dark trousers, and boots. They told me no one was allowed over the canal.

I talked with these soldiers for a time. I told them of my sight of the Martians on the previous evening. None of them saw the Martians. They had vague ideas of them, so they plied me with questions. They said that they did not know who authorised the movements of the troops. I described the Heat-Ray to them. They began to argue among themselves.

“We must crawl up under cover and attack,” said one.

“Yes!” said another. “We must go as near as the ground lets us.”

“Don’t they have any necks, then?” said a little man who was smoking a pipe.

I repeated my description.

“Octopuses,” said he, “that’s what I call them. Fish, just fish, that’s all!”

“It is no murder to kill beasts,” said the first speaker.

So they discussed it. After a while I left them, and went on to the railway station to get some morning papers.

The soldiers 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. Marshall, the tobacconist, said that his son was among the dead. The soldiers told the people of Horsell to lock up and leave their houses.

I got back to lunch about two, very tired. The day was extremely hot and dull. 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. The morning papers contained only a very inaccurate description of the death of Stent, Henderson, Ogilvy, and the others.

The Martians did not show themselves. They were busy in their pit, There was a sound of hammering and an almost continuous streamer of smoke. A sapper told me a man in a ditch had a flag on a long pole. The Martians did not take much notice.

The sight of all this armament, all this preparation, greatly excited me. My imagination became vivid. My schoolboy dreams of battle and heroism came back. The Martians seemed very helpless in their pit.

About three o’clock there began the thud of a gun from Chertsey or Addlestone. The soldiers wanted to destroy the second cylinder. It was only about five, however, that a field gun reached Chobham.

About six in the evening, as I sat at tea with my wife in the summerhouse, I heard a detonation, and immediately after a gust of firing. Then a violent crash came, quite close to us, and it shook the ground. I saw the tops of the trees about the Oriental College. I saw smoky red flame. The tower of the little church beside it got down into ruin. One of our chimneys cracked.

I and my wife stood amazed. Then I gripped my wife’s arm, and without ceremony pulled her out into the road.

“We can’t possibly stay here,” I said

“But where will we go?” said my wife in terror.

I remembered her cousins at Leatherhead.

“Leatherhead!” I shouted above the sudden noise.

She looked downhill. The people were coming out of their houses, astonished.

“How will we get to Leatherhead?” she said.

Down the hill I saw some hussars under the railway bridge. Three hussars galloped through the open gates of the Oriental College. Two others dismounted. The sun seemed blood red, and threw an unfamiliar lurid light upon everything.

“Stay here,” said I; “you are safe here”.

Then I started off at once for the Spotted Dog^[16]. I knew the landlord had a horse and a dog cart. I found him in his bar, quite unaware of what was going on behind his house. A man stood with his back to me. He was talking to the landlord.

“I can give you a ,” said the landlord, “and I have no one to drive it.”

“I’ll give you two,” said I, over the stranger’s shoulder.

“What for?”

“And I’ll bring it back by midnight,” I said.

“Oh God!” said the landlord; “what’s the hurry? Two pounds, and you bring it back? What’s going on now?”

I explained hastily that I had to leave my home. I took the cart and drove it off down the road. Then I rushed into my house and packed a few valuables. The trees below the house were burning while I did this. The palings up the road glowed red. While I was doing this, one of the hussars came up. He was going from house to house. He was warning people to leave. I shouted after him:

“What news?”

He turned and said:

“They are crawling out in a thing like a dish cover.”

Then he ran to the gate of the house at the crest. A sudden whirl of black smoke hid him for a moment. In another moment we were driving down the opposite slope of Maybury Hill towards Old Woking.

In front was a quiet sunny landscape, a wheat field ahead on either side of the road, and the Maybury Inn with its 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. Thick streamers of black smoke were throwing dark shadows upon the green treetops eastward. The smoke already extended far away to the east and west. The road was dotted with people. They were running towards us. And very distinct through the hot, quiet air, one heard the whirr of a machine-gun. Apparently the Martians were setting fire to everything within range of their Heat-Ray.