Science Fiction
Read books online » Science Fiction » The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (best large ereader TXT) 📖

Book online «The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (best large ereader TXT) 📖». Author H. G. Wells



1 ... 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ... 32
Go to page:
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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

“We can’t possibly stay here,” I said; and as I spoke the firing

reopened 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 of

their houses, astonished.

 

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

 

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.

 

“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.

 

“I must have a pound,” said the landlord, “and I’ve 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.

 

“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?”

 

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:

 

“What news?”

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

CHAPTER TEN

IN THE STORM

 

Leatherhead is about twelve miles from Maybury Hill. The scent of

hay was in the air through the lush meadows beyond Pyrford, and the

hedges on either side were sweet and gay with multitudes of dog-roses.

The heavy firing that had broken out while we were driving down

Maybury Hill ceased as abruptly as it began, leaving the evening very

peaceful and still. We got to Leatherhead without misadventure about

nine o’clock, and the horse had an hour’s rest while I took supper

with my cousins and commended my wife to their care.

 

My wife was curiously silent throughout the drive, and seemed

oppressed with forebodings of evil. I talked to her reassuringly,

pointing out that the Martians were tied to the Pit by sheer

heaviness, and at the utmost could but crawl a little out of it; but

she answered only in monosyllables. Had it not been for my promise to

the innkeeper, she would, I think, have urged me to stay in

Leatherhead that night. Would that I had! Her face, I remember, was

very white as we parted.

 

For my own part, I had been feverishly excited all day. Something

very like the war fever that occasionally runs through a civilised

community had got into my blood, and in my heart I was not so very

sorry that I had to return to Maybury that night. I was even afraid

that that last fusillade I had heard might mean the extermination of

our invaders from Mars. I can best express my state of mind by saying

that I wanted to be in at the death.

 

It was nearly eleven when I started to return. The night was

unexpectedly dark; to me, walking out of the lighted passage of my

cousins’ house, it seemed indeed black, and it was as hot and close as

the day. Overhead the clouds were driving fast, albeit not a breath

stirred the shrubs about us. My cousins’ man lit both lamps. Happily,

I knew the road intimately. My wife stood in the light of the

doorway, and watched me until I jumped up into the dog cart. Then

abruptly she turned and went in, leaving my cousins side by side

wishing me good hap.

 

I was a little depressed at first with the contagion of my wife’s

fears, but very soon my thoughts reverted to the Martians. At that

time I was absolutely in the dark as to the course of the evening’s

fighting. I did not know even the circumstances that had precipitated

the conflict. As I came through Ockham (for that was the way I

returned, and not through Send and Old Woking) I saw along the western

horizon a blood-red glow, which as I drew nearer, crept slowly up the

sky. The driving clouds of the gathering thunderstorm mingled there

with masses of black and red smoke.

 

Ripley Street was deserted, and except for a lighted window or so

the village showed not a sign of life; but I narrowly escaped an

accident at the corner of the road to Pyrford, where a knot of people

stood with their backs to me. They said nothing to me as I passed. I

do not know what they knew of the things happening beyond the hill,

nor do I know if the silent houses I passed on my way were sleeping

securely, or deserted and empty, or harassed and watching against the

terror of the night.

 

From Ripley until I came through Pyrford I was in the valley of the

Wey, and the red glare was hidden from me. As I ascended the little

hill beyond Pyrford Church the glare came into view again, and the

trees about me shivered with the first intimation of the storm that

was upon me. Then I heard midnight pealing out from Pyrford Church

behind me, and then came the silhouette of Maybury Hill, with its

treetops and roofs black and sharp against the red.

 

Even as I beheld this a lurid green glare lit the road about me and

showed the distant woods towards Addlestone. I felt a tug at the

reins. I saw that the driving clouds had been pierced as it were

1 ... 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ... 32
Go to page:

Free ebook «The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (best large ereader TXT) 📖» - read online now

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment