The world of the war

It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so swiftly

and so silently. Many think that in some way they are able to generate an intense

heat in a chamber of practically absolute non-conductivity. This intense heat they

project in a parallel beam against any object they choose, by means of a polished

parabolic mirror of unknown composition, much as the parabolic mirror of a

lighthouse projects a beam of light. But no one has absolutely proved these

details. However it is done, it is certain that a beam of heat is the essence of the

matter. Heat, and invisible, instead of visible, light. Whatever is combustible

flashes into flame at its touch, lead runs like water, it softens iron, cracks and

melts glass, and when it falls upon water, incontinently that explodes into steam.

That night nearly forty people lay under the starlight about the pit, charred and

distorted beyond recognition, and all night long the common from Horsell to

Maybury was deserted and brightly ablaze.

The news of the massacre probably reached Chobham, Woking, and

Ottershaw about the same time. In Woking the shops had closed when the

tragedy happened, and a number of people, shop people and so forth, attracted

by the stories they had heard, were walking over the Horsell Bridge and along

the road between the hedges that runs out at last upon the common. You may

imagine the young people brushed up after the labours of the day, and making

this novelty, as they would make any novelty, the excuse for walking together

and enjoying a trivial flirtation. You may figure to yourself the hum of voices

along the road in the gloaming. . . .

As yet, of course, few people in Woking even knew that the cylinder had

opened, though poor Henderson had sent a messenger on a bicycle to the post

office with a special wire to an evening paper.

As these folks came out by twos and threes upon the open, they found little

knots of people talking excitedly and peering at the spinning mirror over the

sand-pits, and the newcomers were, no doubt, soon infected by the excitement of

the occasion.

By half past eight, when the Deputation was destroyed, there may have been a crowd of three hundred people or more at this place, besides those who had left

the road to approach the Martians nearer. There were three policemen too, one of

whom was mounted, doing their best, under instructions from Stent, to keep the

people back and deter them from approaching the cylinder. There was some

booing from those more thoughtless and excitable souls to whom a crowd is

always an occasion for noise and horse-play.

Stent and Ogilvy, anticipating some possibilities of a collision, had

telegraphed from Horsell to the barracks as soon as the Martians emerged, for

the help of a company of soldiers to protect these strange creatures from

violence. After that they returned to lead that ill-fated advance. The description

of their death, as it was seen by the crowd, tallies very closely with my own

impressions: the three puffs of green smoke, the deep humming note, and the

flashes of flame.

But that crowd of people had a far narrower escape than mine. Only the fact

that a hummock of heathery sand intercepted the lower part of the Heat-Ray

saved them. Had the elevation of the parabolic mirror been a few yards higher,

none could have lived to tell the tale. They saw the flashes and the men falling

and an invisible hand, as it were, lit the bushes as it hurried towards them

through the twilight. Then, with a whistling note that rose above the droning of

the pit, the beam swung close over their heads, lighting the tops of the beech

trees that line the road, and splitting the bricks, smashing the windows, firing the

window frames, and bringing down in crumbling ruin a portion of the gable of

the house nearest the corner.

In the sudden thud, hiss, and glare of the igniting trees, the panic-stricken

crowd seems to have swayed hesitatingly for some moments. Sparks and burning

twigs began to fall into the road, and single leaves like puffs of flame. Hats and

dresses caught fire. Then came a crying from the common. There were shrieks

and shouts, and suddenly a mounted policeman came galloping through the

confusion with his hands clasped over his head, screaming.

“They’re coming!” a woman shrieked, and incontinently everyone was turning

and pushing at those behind, in order to clear their way to Woking again. They

must have bolted as blindly as a flock of sheep. Where the road grows narrow

and black between the high banks the crowd jammed, and a desperate struggle

occurred. All that crowd did not escape; three persons at least, two women and a

little boy, were crushed and trampled there, and left to die amid the terror and the

darkness.