The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (best large ereader TXT) 📖

figure it out. It isn’t quite according to what a man

wants for his species, but it’s about what the facts point to. And

that’s the principle I acted upon. Cities, nations, civilisation,

progress—it’s all over. That game’s up. We’re beat.”

 

“But if that is so, what is there to live for?”

 

The artilleryman looked at me for a moment.

 

“There won’t be any more blessed concerts for a million years or

so; there won’t be any Royal Academy of Arts, and no nice little feeds

at restaurants. If it’s amusement you’re after, I reckon the game is

up. If you’ve got any drawing-room manners or a dislike to eating

peas with a knife or dropping aitches, you’d better chuck ‘em away.

They ain’t no further use.”

 

“You mean–-”

 

“I mean that men like me are going on living—for the sake of the

breed. I tell you, I’m grim set on living. And if I’m not mistaken,

you’ll show what insides YOU’VE got, too, before long. We aren’t

going to be exterminated. And I don’t mean to be caught either, and

tamed and fattened and bred like a thundering ox. Ugh! Fancy those

brown creepers!”

 

“You don’t mean to say–-”

 

“I do. I’m going on, under their feet. I’ve got it planned; I’ve

thought it out. We men are beat. We don’t know enough. We’ve got to

learn before we’ve got a chance. And we’ve got to live and keep

independent while we learn. See! That’s what has to be done.”

 

I stared, astonished, and stirred profoundly by the man’s

resolution.

 

“Great God!,” cried I. “But you are a man indeed!” And suddenly I

gripped his hand.

 

“Eh!” he said, with his eyes shining. “I’ve thought it out, eh?”

 

“Go on,” I said.

 

“Well, those who mean to escape their catching must get ready. I’m

getting ready. Mind you, it isn’t all of us that are made for wild

beasts; and that’s what it’s got to be. That’s why I watched you. I

had my doubts. You’re slender. I didn’t know that it was you, you

see, or just how you’d been buried. All these—the sort of people

that lived in these houses, and all those damn little clerks that used

to live down that way—they’d be no good. They haven’t any spirit in

them—no proud dreams and no proud lusts; and a man who hasn’t one or

the other—Lord! What is he but funk and precautions? They just used

to skedaddle off to work—I’ve seen hundreds of ‘em, bit of breakfast

in hand, running wild and shining to catch their little season-ticket

train, for fear they’d get dismissed if they didn’t; working at

businesses they were afraid to take the trouble to understand;

skedaddling back for fear they wouldn’t be in time for dinner; keeping

indoors after dinner for fear of the back streets, and sleeping with

the wives they married, not because they wanted them, but because they

had a bit of money that would make for safety in their one little

miserable skedaddle through the world. Lives insured and a bit

invested for fear of accidents. And on Sundays—fear of the

hereafter. As if hell was built for rabbits! Well, the Martians will

just be a godsend to these. Nice roomy cages, fattening food, careful

breeding, no worry. After a week or so chasing about the fields and

lands on empty stomachs, they’ll come and be caught cheerful. They’ll

be quite glad after a bit. They’ll wonder what people did before

there were Martians to take care of them. And the bar loafers, and

mashers, and singers—I can imagine them. I can imagine them,” he

said, with a sort of sombre gratification. “There’ll be any amount of

sentiment and religion loose among them. There’s hundreds of things I

saw with my eyes that I’ve only begun to see clearly these last few

days. There’s lots will take things as they are—fat and stupid; and

lots will be worried by a sort of feeling that it’s all wrong, and

that they ought to be doing something. Now whenever things are so

that a lot of people feel they ought to be doing something, the weak,

and those who go weak with a lot of complicated thinking, always make

for a sort of do-nothing religion, very pious and superior, and submit

to persecution and the will of the Lord. Very likely you’ve seen the

same thing. It’s energy in a gale of funk, and turned clean inside

out. These cages will be full of psalms and hymns and piety. And

those of a less simple sort will work in a bit of—what is it?—

eroticism.”

 

He paused.

 

“Very likely these Martians will make pets of some of them; train

them to do tricks—who knows?—get sentimental over the pet boy who

grew up and had to be killed. And some, maybe, they will train to

hunt us.”

 

“No,” I cried, “that’s impossible! No human being–-”

 

“What’s the good of going on with such lies?” said the

artilleryman. “There’s men who’d do it cheerful. What nonsense to

pretend there isn’t!”

 

And I succumbed to his conviction.

 

“If they come after me,” he said; “Lord, if they come after me!”

and subsided into a grim meditation.

 

I sat contemplating these things. I could find nothing to bring

against this man’s reasoning. In the days before the invasion no one

would have questioned my intellectual superiority to his—I, a

professed and recognised writer on philosophical themes, and he, a

common soldier; and yet he had already formulated a situation that I

had scarcely realised.

 

“What are you doing?” I said presently. “What plans have you

made?”

 

He hesitated.

 

“Well, it’s like this,” he said. “What have we to do? We have to

invent a sort of life where men can live and breed, and be

sufficiently secure to bring the children up. Yes—wait a bit, and

I’ll make it clearer what I think ought to be done. The tame ones will

go like all tame beasts; in a few generations they’ll be big,

beautiful, rich-blooded, stupid—rubbish! The risk is that we who keep

wild will go savage—degenerate into a sort of big, savage rat… .

You see, how I mean to live is underground. I’ve been thinking about

the drains. Of course those who don’t know drains think horrible

things; but under this London are miles and miles—hundreds of miles—

and a few days rain and London empty will leave them sweet and clean.

The main drains are big enough and airy enough for anyone. Then

there’s cellars, vaults, stores, from which bolting passages may be

made to the drains. And the railway tunnels and subways. Eh? You

begin to see? And we form a band—able-bodied, clean-minded men. We’re

not going to pick up any rubbish that drifts in. Weaklings go out

again.”

 

“As you meant me to go?”

 

“Well—l parleyed, didn’t I?”

 

“We won’t quarrel about that. Go on.”

 

“Those who stop obey orders. Able-bodied, clean-minded women we

want also—mothers and teachers. No lackadaisical ladies—no blasted

rolling eyes. We can’t have any weak or silly. Life is real again,

and the useless and cumbersome and mischievous have to die. They

ought to die. They ought to be willing to die. It’s a sort of

disloyalty, after all, to live and taint the race. And they can’t be

happy. Moreover, dying’s none so dreadful; it’s the funking makes it

bad. And in all those places we shall gather. Our district will be

London. And we may even be able to keep a watch, and run about in the

open when the Martians keep away. Play cricket, perhaps. That’s how

we shall save the race. Eh? It’s a possible thing? But saving the

race is nothing in itself. As I say, that’s only being rats. It’s

saving our knowledge and adding to it is the thing. There men like

you come in. There’s books, there’s models. We must make great safe

places down deep, and get all the books we can; not novels and poetry

swipes, but ideas, science books. That’s where men like you come in.

We must go to the British Museum and pick all those books through.

Especially we must keep up our science—learn more. We must watch

these Martians. Some of us must go as spies. When it’s all working,

perhaps I will. Get caught, I mean. And the great thing is, we must

leave the Martians alone. We mustn’t even steal. If we get in their

way, we clear out. We must show them we mean no harm. Yes, I know.

But they’re intelligent things, and they won’t hunt us down if they

have all they want, and think we’re just harmless vermin.”

 

The artilleryman paused and laid a brown hand upon my arm.

 

“After all, it may not be so much we may have to learn before—Just

imagine this: four or five of their fighting machines suddenly

starting off—Heat-Rays right and left, and not a Martian in ‘em. Not

a Martian in ‘em, but men—men who have learned the way how. It may

be in my time, even—those men. Fancy having one of them lovely

things, with its Heat-Ray wide and free! Fancy having it in control!

What would it matter if you smashed to smithereens at the end of the

run, after a bust like that? I reckon the Martians’ll open their

beautiful eyes! Can’t you see them, man? Can’t you see them

hurrying, hurrying—puffing and blowing and hooting to their other

mechanical affairs? Something out of gear in every case. And swish,

bang, rattle, swish! Just as they are fumbling over it, SWISH comes

the Heat-Ray, and, behold! man has come back to his own.”

 

For a while the imaginative daring of the artilleryman, and the

tone of assurance and courage he assumed, completely dominated my

mind. I believed unhesitatingly both in his forecast of human destiny

and in the practicability of his astonishing scheme, and the reader

who thinks me susceptible and foolish must contrast his position,

reading steadily with all his thoughts about his subject, and mine,

crouching fearfully in the bushes and listening, distracted by

apprehension. We talked in this manner through the early morning

time, and later crept out of the bushes, and, after scanning the sky

for Martians, hurried precipitately to the house on Putney Hill where

he had made his lair. It was the coal cellar of the place, and when I

saw the work he had spent a week upon—it was a burrow scarcely ten

yards long, which he designed to reach to the main drain on Putney

Hill—I had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his

powers. Such a hole I could have dug in a day. But I believed in him

sufficiently to work with him all that morning until past midday at

his digging. We had a garden barrow and shot the earth we removed

against the kitchen range. We refreshed ourselves with a tin of mock-turtle soup and wine from the neighbouring pantry. I found a curious

relief from the aching strangeness of the world in this steady labour.

As we worked, I turned his project over in my mind, and presently

objections and doubts began to arise; but I worked there all the

morning, so glad was I to find myself with a purpose again. After

working an hour I began to speculate on the distance one had to go

before the cloaca was reached, the chances we had of missing it

altogether. My immediate trouble was why we should dig this long

tunnel, when it was possible to get into the drain at once down one of

the manholes, and work back to the house. It seemed to me, too, that

the house was inconveniently chosen, and required a needless