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The second monster followed the first. The artilleryman began to crawl very cautiously across the hot heather ash towards Horsell. He managed to get to Woking.

The place was impassable. There were a few people alive there. Many were burned and scalded. He hid among some heaps of broken wall as one of the Martian giants returned. It pursued a man, caught him up in one of its steely tentacles, and knocked his head against the trunk of a pine-tree. After nightfall, the artilleryman got over the railway embankment.

He wanted to go to London. People were hiding in trenches and cellars. Many of the survivors ran towards Woking village and Send. He was very thirsty until he found some water near the railway arch. The water was bubbling out like a spring upon the road.

That was the story I got from him. I found some mutton and bread in the pantry and brought it into the room. We lit no lamp, we did not want to attract the Martians.

We went softly upstairs to my study. I looked again out of the open window. In one night the valley became a valley of ashes. The fires dwindled. I saw streamers of smoke. The countless ruins of houses and blackened trees stood out gaunt and terrible in the pitiless light of dawn.

The destruction was indiscriminate. Three metallic giants stood about the pit. Their cowls were rotating as though they were surveying the desolation.

The pit was enlarged. Puffs of green vapour streamed up and out of it, whirled and vanished.

Beyond were the pillars of fire about Chobham. They became pillars of bloodshot smoke.

Chapter 12
The Destruction of Weybridge and Shepperton

We withdrew from the window and went very quietly downstairs. The artilleryman agreed with me that it was dangerous to stay here. He proposed to go to London, and thence rejoin his battery – No. 12, of the Horse Artillery. My plan was to return at once to Leatherhead. I determined to take my wife to Newhaven, and go with her out of the country forthwith. For I already perceived clearly that the country about London must inevitably be the scene of a disastrous struggle.

Between us and Leatherhead, however, lay the third cylinder, with its giants. I was ready to cross the country. But the artilleryman dissuaded me:

“Are you going to make your wife a widow?” he asked.

In the end I agreed to go with him, under cover of the woods, northward as far as Street Cobham before I parted with him. Thence I will make a big detour by Epsom to reach Leatherhead.

I wanted to start at once, but my companion he knew better what to do. We took a flask, which he filled with whisky. We lined every available pocket with packets of biscuits and slices of meat. Then we crept out of the house, and ran quickly down the road. The houses seemed deserted. In the road lay a group of three dead bodies. Here and there were things that people dropped – a clock, a slipper, a silver spoon, and some valuables.

The Heat-Ray shaved the chimney tops. The majority of the inhabitants escaped. We went down the lane, and entered the woods at the foot of the hill. We went towards the railway. Not a soul. The woods had dark brown foliage instead of green.

Everything was strangely still. Even the birds were hushed. As we hurried along I and the artilleryman talked in whispers and looked now and again over our shoulders. Once or twice we stopped to listen.

Near the road we heard the clatter of hoofs. We saw through the tree stems three cavalry soldiers. They were riding slowly towards Woking. We hailed them. They halted while we hurried towards them. It was a lieutenant anda couple of privates of the 8th Hussars²². They had a heliograph.

“You are the first men I’ve seen this morning,” said the lieutenant. “What’s happening?”

His voice and face were eager. The men behind him stared curiously. The artilleryman jumped down the bank into the road and saluted.

“The gun was destroyed last night, sir. I’m trying to rejoin my battery, sir. You’ll see the Martians, I expect, about half a mile along this road.”

“What are they like?²³” asked the lieutenant.

“Giants in armour, sir. Hundred feet high. Three legs and a body like aluminium, with a mighty great head in a hood, sir.”

“Really!” said the lieutenant. “What confounded nonsense!”

“You’ll see, sir. They carry a kind of box, sir, that shoots fire and strikes you dead.”

“What do you mean – a gun?”

“No, sir,” and the artilleryman told him about the Heat-Ray.

The lieutenant interrupted him and looked up at me. I was still standing on the bank by the side of the road.

“It’s true,” I said.

“Well,” said the lieutenant, “I suppose it’s my business to see it too. Look here” – to the artilleryman – “we’re here to drive people out of their houses. Go along to Brigadier-General Marvin, and tell him all you know. He’s at Weybridge. Do you know the way?”

“I do,” I said; and he turned his horse southward again.

“Half a mile, you say?” said he.

“Not more,” I answered, and pointed over the treetops southward.

He thanked me and rode on. We didn’t see them anymore.

After that we saw a group of three women and two children in the road. They did not talk to us as we passed.

By Byfleet station we emerged from the pine-trees. The country was calm and peaceful under the morning sunlight. We were far beyond the range of the Heat-Ray there.

Several farm wagons and carts were moving creakily along the road to Addlestone. Suddenly through the gate of a field we saw, across a stretch of flat meadow, sixtwelve-pounders²⁴. They were standing neatly at equal distances and pointing towards Woking. The gunners stood by the guns.

“That’s good!” said I.

The artilleryman hesitated at the gate.

“I shall go on,” he said.

Farther on towards Weybridge, just over the bridge, there were some men in white jackets, and more guns behind.

“It’s bows and arrows against the lightning, anyhow,” said the artilleryman. “They haven’t seen that fire-beam yet.”

The officers stared over the treetops southwestward. The other men stared in the same direction.

Byfleet was in a tumult. People were packing. Three or four black wagons, with crosses in white circles, and an old omnibus, among other vehicles, stood in the village street.

Most of the people wore their best clothes. The soldiers were explaining them the gravity of their position. We saw one old fellow with a huge box and some flower pots with orchids. I stopped and gripped his arm.

“Do you knowwhat’s over there²⁵?” I pointed at the pine tops that hid the Martians.

“Eh?” said he. “These orchids are valuable!”

“Death!” I shouted. “Death is coming! Death!”

I left him. I hurried on after the artilleryman. At the corner I looked back. The old man was still standing by his box, with the pots of orchids, and staring vaguely over the trees.

No one in Weybridge could tell us where the headquarters were established. The whole place was in confusion. Carts, carriages everywhere, respectable inhabitants, men in golf and boating costumes, their wives, loafers, children.

I and the artilleryman sat on the step of the fountain. The soldiers were warning people to move now or to take refuge in their cellars. We saw a crowd of people about the railway station. The platform was piled with boxes and packages. The traffic was stopped.

We remained at Weybridge until midday. We helped two old women to pack a little cart. Here we found an excited and noisy crowd of fugitives. People came along under heavy burdens. One husband and wife were even carrying a small outhouse door between them, with some of their household goods thereon. One man told us he meant to try to get away from Shepperton station.

Some people thought that the Martians were simply formidable human beings. People glanced nervously across the Wey, at the meadows towards Chertsey, but everything over there was still.

We crossed the Thames. There everything was quiet, in vivid contrast with the Surrey side. The people who landed there from the boats went tramping off down the lane.

“What’s that?” cried a boatman, and “Shut up, you fool!” said a man near me to a dog.

Then the sound came again, this time from the direction of Chertsey, a muffled thud – the sound of a gun.

The fighting was beginning. The batteries across the river were firing heavily one after the other. A woman screamed.

“The soldiers will stop them,” said a woman beside me, doubtfully.

A haziness rose over the treetops.

Then suddenly we saw a rush of smoke far away up the river. This was a puff of smoke that jerked up into the air and hung. The ground heaved under foot. A heavy explosion shook the air.

“Here they are!” shouted a man in a blue jersey. “Yonder! Do you see them? Yonder!”

Quickly, one after the other, one, two, three, four of the armoured Martians appeared, far away over the little trees, across the meadows. They were striding hurriedly towards the river. They were moving as fast as flying birds.

Then came the fifth Martian. Their armoured bodies glittered in the sun. They came nearer. The Martian took a huge case high. The terrible Heat-Ray smote towards Chertsey and struck the town.

At sight of these strange, swift, and terrible creaturesthe crowd was horror-struck²⁶. There was silence everywhere. Then a hoarse murmur and a movement of feet. A man began to run. A woman thrust at me with her hand and rushed past me. I was not too terrified for thought. The terrible Heat-Ray was in my mind. To get under water! That was it!

“Get under water!” I shouted.

I rushed towards the Martian and jumped into the water. Others did the same. The stones under my feet were muddy and slippery. The river was so low that I ran perhaps twenty feet. Then I flung myself forward under the surface. People were landing hastily on both sides of the river. But the Martian machine took no notice of the people. I raised my head above water. The Martian’s hood pointed at the batteries that were still firing across the river.

In another moment the Martian was on the bank. The knees of its foremost legs bent at the farther bank. In another moment it raised itself to its full height again, close to the village of Shepperton. Forthwith the six guns fired simultaneously. The monster was already raising the case which was generating the Heat-Ray.

Simultaneously two other shells burst in the air near the body. Then the shell burst clean in the face of the Thing. The hood bulged, flashed, andwas whirled off in a dozen fragments²⁷ of red flesh and glittering metal.

“Yes!” shouted I, with a scream and a cheer.

I heard shouts from the people in the water about me. I was ready to leap out of the water with that momentary exultation.

The decapitated colossus reeled like a drunken giant; but it did not fall over. It recovered its balance by a miracle. It reeled swiftly upon Shepperton. The living intelligence, the Martian within the hood, was slain. The Thing was a mere intricate device of metal for destruction. It struck the tower of Shepperton Church, blundered on and collapsed into the river.