Kitabı oku: «The War of the Worlds / Война миров. Уровень 2», sayfa 4

“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.

Chapter 10
In the Storm

The heavy firing ceased as abruptly as it began. After that the evening was very peaceful. We got to Leatherhead without misadventure about nine o’clock. The horse had an hour’s rest while I took supper with my cousins andcommended my wife to their care¹⁷.

My wife was curiously silent, and seemed oppressed. I talked to her reassuringly. I told her that the Martians were tied to the pit by sheer heaviness. But she answered only in monosyllables. She wanted me to stay in Leatherhead but I made a promise to return the cart and I had to go. Her face, I remember, was very white as we parted.

As for me, I was feverishly excited to return to Maybury that night. I was even afraid that the troops had perhaps already exterminated our invaders from Mars. I wanted to see their death.

It was nearly eleven when I left my family. The night was unexpectedly dark. It was as hot as the day. Overhead the clouds were driving fast, albeit not a breath stirred the shrubs about us. Happily, I knew the road. 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.

My wife’s words and fears made me uneasy as I set off but very soon my thoughts reverted to the Martians. At that time I did not know all the circumstances. As I came through Ockham I saw along the western horizon a blood-red glow. As I drew nearer, it crept slowly up the sky. The clouds of the gathering thunderstorm mingled there with masses of black and red smoke.

Ripley Street was deserted. Few windows in the village showed signs of life. I narrowly escaped an accident at the corner of the road to Pyrford. The people said nothing to me as I passed.

As I ascended the little hill beyond Pyrford Church I saw the glare again. The trees about me shivered.

Suddenly a lurid green glare lit the road. It showed the distant woods towards Addlestone. It was the third falling star!

The thunder burst like a rocket overhead. The horse bolted.

As we went down the Maybury Hill, I saw flashes. At first I regarded little but the road before me, and then abruptly my attention was arrested by something that was moving rapidly down the opposite slope of Maybury Hill.

And this Thing I saw!¹⁸ How can I describe it? A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, was striding over the young pine-trees, and smashing them aside. It was a walking engine of glittering metal. Its horrendous clatter mingled with the sound of thunder.

Then suddenly the second huge tripod appeared out of the wood in front of me. It was rushing headlong towards me. At the sight of the second monster, I wrenched the horse’s head hard round to the right. In another moment the dog cart heeled over upon the horse. I fell heavily into a shallow pool of water.

I crawled out almost immediately, and crouched under a bush. The horse lay motionless. In another moment the colossal mechanism passed uphill towards Pyrford.

The Thing was incredibly strange. It was a machine with a ringing metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering tentacles. Behind the main body was a gigantic basket. Puffs of green smoke squirted out from the joints of the limbs.

As it passed it howled – “Aloo! Aloo!” In another minute it was with its companion, half a mile away. I have no doubt this Thing in the field is the third of the ten cylinders they fired at us from Mars.

For some minutes I lay there in the rain and darkness. These monstrous beings of metal were moving about in the distance over the hedge tops. A thin hail was now beginning. Their figures grew misty and then flashed into clearness again.

I was wet and went towards a little hut at the edge of the forest. I hammered at the door, but nobody answered. So I went to Maybury towards my own house. I walked among the trees. It was very dark indeed in the wood. The lightning was now infrequent, and the hail was pouring down in a torrent.

Why didn’t I go back to rejoin my wife at Leatherhead? I think that the strangeness of things about me, and my physical wretchedness prevented me. I was bruised, weary, wet, deafened and blinded by the storm.

I wanted to go home, and that was my only motive. I went on through the trees, fell into a ditch and bruised my knees. There in the darkness a manblundered into me¹⁹. He gave a cry of terror, sprang sideways, and ran away.

Near the top I stumbled upon something soft. By a flash of lightning, I saw between my feet a heap of black broadcloth and a pair of boots. I stood over the man. He was a sturdy man, cheaply but not shabbily dressed. He lay close to the fence.

I stooped and turned him over to feel for his heart. He was dead. The lightning flashed, and I saw his face. I sprang to my feet. It was the landlord of the Spotted Dog.

I stepped over him and went towards my own house. Nothing was burning on the hillside. By the College Arms a dark heap lay in the road.

Down the road towards Maybury Bridge there were voices and the sound of feet. I had not the courage to shout or to go to them. I went in, locked the door, and sat down. The visions of metallic monsters and the dead body haunted me.

Chapter 11
At the Window

After a time I discovered that I was cold and wet. There were little pools of water about me on the stair carpet. I got up almost mechanically, went into the dining room and drank some whisky. Then I changed my clothes.

I went upstairs to my study, but why I did so I do not know. The window of my study looks over the trees and the railway towards Horsell Common. In the hurry of our departure this window was left open. The passage was dark. The side of the room seemed impenetrably dark. I stopped in the doorway.

The thunderstorm passed. The towers of the Oriental College and the pine-trees about it disappeared. The sand-pits were visible. The huge black shapes, grotesque and strange, moved busily to and fro.

It seemed indeed as if the whole country in that direction was on fire. A haze of smoke drove across the window and hid the Martian shapes. I did not see what they were doing, nor the clear form of them, nor recognise the black objects. Neither did I see the nearer fire, though the reflections of it danced on the wall and ceiling of the study. A sharp, resinous tang of burning was in the air.

I closed the door noiselessly and crept towards the window. I saw, on the one hand, the houses about Woking station, and, on the other, the charred and blackened pine woods of Byfleet. There was a light down below the hill, on the railway, near the arch. Several of the houses along the Maybury road and the streets near the station were glowing ruins. The light upon the railway puzzled me at first. There were a black heap and a vivid glare. To the right of that a row of yellow oblongs. Then I perceived this was a wrecked train.

Between these three main centres of light – the houses, the train, and the burning county towards Chobham – irregular patches of dark country. I still did not know the relation between the mechanical colossi and the sluggish lumps. With interest I turned my desk chair to the window, sat down, and stared at the blackened country.

What are they? Were they intelligent mechanisms? This was impossible. Or did a Martian sit within each machine? I began to compare the things to human machines.

The sky was clear, A soldier came into my garden. I looked down and saw him dimly. He was clambering over the palings.

“Hist!” said I, in a whisper.

He stopped in doubt. Then he came over and across the lawn to the corner of the house. He bent down and stepped softly.

“Who’s there?” he said.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“God knows.”

“Are you trying to hide?”

“That’s it²⁰.”

“Come into the house,” I said.

I went down, unfastened the door, and let him in. Then I locked the door again. I did not see his face. He was hatless, and his coat was unbuttoned.

“My God!” he said.

“What has happened?” I asked.

“Oh!” He made a gesture of despair. “They wiped us out²¹ – simply wiped us out,” he repeated again and again.

He followed me, almost mechanically, into the dining room.

“Take some whisky,” I said.

He drank it. Then abruptly he sat down before the table, put his head on his arms, and began to sob and weep like a little boy.

Then he answered my questions, and he answered perplexingly. He was a driver in the artillery. At seven the first party of Martians were crawling slowly towards their second cylinder under cover of a metal shield.

Later this shield staggered up on tripod legs and became the fighting-machine. The soldier’s horse trod in a rabbit hole and came down. At the same moment the gun exploded behind him. There was fire all about him. He was lying under a heap of dead men and dead horses.

“I lay still,” he said, “They wiped us out. And the smell – good God! Like burnt meat! I was hurt by the fall of the horse. I was lying until I felt better.”

He was hiding under the dead horse for a long time. The monster rose to its feet and began to walk leisurely to and fro among the few fugitives.

In a few minutes there was not a living thing left there. Every bush was burning. The hussars were on the road and he could not see them. In a moment the Heat-Ray appeared, and the town became a heap of fiery ruins. Then the Thing began to waddle away towards the pine woods that sheltered the second cylinder.