“Don’t talk to him, rush him!” bawled the little man who seemed to be the leader. “He’s just one against us, for all his blathering!”
So saying, he drew a step or two apart. The other three advanced upon Challenger.
Challenger’s teeth shone like fangs through his beard. Again he made a swift, heavy movement. Slipping past the three men as they charged at him, he clamped his big hands on their leader. The little fellow bawled in sudden terror as Challenger clutched him by shoulder and belt and whirled him bodily aloft, then threw him. The struggling body fairly sang through the air, struck two of the others and mowed them down like a scythe. Challenger wheeled to face the man still on his feet.
“So that’s it,” growled the man, a broadly built tough with a stubble of roan whiskers on his jaw. Out of his pocket he dragged a huge clasp knife, which he opened with a snap.
Mrs Challenger screamed as the man rushed. Challenger caught the knife wrist in his left hand and with his broad open right palm struck the stubbled face. The blow rang like a pistol shot, and the man went floundering down on the grass at the roadside. He lay as silent as though in sudden deep sleep. Challenger stooped and caught up the knife. He held it in his hand as he turned to face the others, just then struggling to their feet again.
But they only goggled at him, with wide, frightened eyes. Challenger confronted them, a terrible figure, squat, bearded, deadly. As though by a common impulse, they whirled from him and went dashing away among the houses. Challenger watched them go, then closed the knife and put it in his trousers pocket. He picked up his straw hat, which had fallen from his head in the scuffle, and put it on again. Heavily he climbed back to the seat of the cart and took up the reins. His wife gazed at him as though thunderstruck.
“Oh, how awful,” she said under her breath.
“Awe is the precise emotion I intended to impart to them, my dear,” he wheezed happily. “Gee up, Dapple.”
As they trundled away again, he glanced back once. The man he had struck still lay motionless beside the road.
“When he revives again, perhaps he will be more circumspect, Jessie,” said Challenger. “I seldom need to appeal to that particular talent of mine for physical combat. But when I was a boy at Largs, and later when I was at the University at Edinburgh, I was more or less preeminent at wrestling. I boxed once, too.”
“Once?” she said, her voice still soft and timid.
“Yes, my dear, once. After that single bout, none of the other students were at all interested in trying me.”
But his mood of self-congratulation faded when the front wheel on his side began to wobble and creak. He checked Dapple and got down to look.
“I should have foreseen,” he said unhappily. “A person of my particularly impressive figure can put too much weight upon a light vehicle. Please change places with me, Jessie.”
The cart ran better for a while with Challenger’s bulk on the other side. But soon the damaged wheel began again to shake and scrape. Challenger drove at a walk to keep Dapple from striving too hard. By evening they drew into little Tillingham. The whole town seemed deserted, except for two or three figures that prowled at a distance, as though foraging for food in the empty houses. Challenger drove into the yard of a silent cottage.
“We shall stay here for the night,” he decreed. “I fought once today for Dapple, but he has been fighting for many hours, on our behalf and he is nearly exhausted. See, there’s a barn, and, if I mistake not, hay in the manger. He can spend the night luxuriously, under shelter.”
Mrs Challenger stared timorously over her shoulder, but he patted her and actually chuckled in an effort at reassurance.
“Jessie, if the invaders are abroad, they are not many as yet. They will concentrate their attention on the main body of refugees, to the north of here on the main roads. Suppose they should come tonight; they will pass us by unless we officiously attract their attention.”
Unhitching Dapple, Challenger led him into the stable and saw that he was provided with hay and water. Then he came and tried the front door of the cottage. It was locked, but a great heave of his shoulder broke it open. They walked into a modest, neat parlour with a leather couch and chairs. A tea service stood on a dresser. Through an inner door was a kitchen.
“Splendid, splendid,” pronounced Challenger. He poked his bearded face into a cupboard. “The householders sensibly took away all food, but we have ample provisions for supper. Here is a spirit lamp, over which we can brew our tea. You are used to better quarters than these, Jessie, but I know that you will be more comfortable inside than in the open.”
His wife busied herself in setting the kitchen table with bread, potted meat, tea, and some jam tarts, but she was still nervous. Challenger did his best to cheer her up, telling jokes and laughing loudly at them.
“I wish we could have lights tonight, but that might seem an invitation to any possible prowling invaders,” he said. “Come, I’ll help make you a bed here in this little room, it has the aspect of a boudoir. I’ll lie down on the couch on the parlour.”
But first he went out to see that no hungry lurkers were disturbing Dapple. He examined the damaged wheel of the cart as best he could in the night, and shook his great head over it. Bringing in their luggage, he thought again of the crystal and wished he had not left it behind. Finally he loosened his neckband and removed his shoes and socks and lay down on the sofa. Its springs creaked under his great weight.
He wakened in the morning. His wife was making tea in the kitchen. Challenger put on his stout alpine boots and walked out to look again at the cart. It was plainly beyond any repair he could make. But he felt better when, entering the stable, he saw a saddle on a rail and a bridle hanging on the wall. These he strapped upon Dapple, who seemed to accept them well.
“You have been ridden as well as driven, it is plain,” Challenger addressed the animal. “‘Well, now you will carry someone I value most highly. See that you are worthy of the task.”
Returning to the house, he ate breakfast with his wife. Then he gathered what food remained into a napkin. He led Mrs Challenger out, helped her into the saddle, and handed her a grip to hold across the pommel. Then he took the reins and led Dapple away through the deserted streets of Tillingham.
No more than two miles beyond, they made their way around a high hill of rock-studded sand, at the top of which showed a small stone house among trees and brush. Just beyond, they came in sight of the shore.
It curved away north and south, with the bright waves lapping a sandy beach directly in front of them and mud flats showing far southward to the right. And the shore itself was thronged with a great dark crowd of people, and the water farther out was full of shipping. Challenger saw liners and cargo vessels well away in deeper water while, closer in, lay a multitude of smaller craft, like a great flock of all manner of sea birds at rest. Among these were tenders, launches, fishing smacks with sails furled at their masts, pleasure boats. At the shore itself hung open skiffs and dories, and the people were bunched at these, trying to scramble into them.
Challenger helped his wife down and drew Dapple’s head back to westward. “Away you go now, my boy,” he said. “But I advise you to avoid Chelmsford; they evince an ungrateful attitude to horses in those parts.”
So saying, he slapped Dapple’s spotted flank smartly. Dapple went trotting away on the path around the hill. Challenger stooped to pick up the satchel and the package of food.
“A considerable embarkment is taking place here, Jessie,” he said. “We would do well to see what arrangements may be made for taking ship.”
Together they walked on down to the sandy beach. Challenger led the way toward one knot of people who seemed to be chaffering all at once with two sailors in a lifeboat, and for a moment his wife feared that he would elbow his way through and bellow for passage. But just then a voice rose from a point farther down the beach.
“Professor Challenger! Professor Challenger!”
A
sturdy, grey-whiskered little man with a peaked officer’s cap was running toward them. Challenger wheeled to meet him.
“Upon my soul,” he boomed, “it’s Mr Blake.” Out came his big hand to take the other’s. “You were mate aboard the British Museum’s Poinsettia in ‘92, when I was on the expedition to Labrador to measure cephalic indexes of the natives.”
“Yes indeed, sir,” said Blake. “And now I’ve my own boat — there she is yonder, Professor.” He gestured to where, farther offshore, rolled a big grey steam launch, a puff of smoke rising from the funnel. “These six years I’ve been master of her, making runs with passengers and goods to France. Now I’m making a run. There’s room for one more aboard her — no, for two, if this is your lady.”
“My dear, this is my friend Howard Blake, now Captain Blake,” Challenger made the introductions. “Well, suppose we come down to the shore with you. Is that your dory? Nobody seems to be going with you.”
“Because I’ve told them, no room for more than one passenger, we’re loaded heavy now,” said Blake, trotting alongside. “But you’re a different case, Professor, you’re such a cargo as a man gets very seldom in his life.”
“Where are you bound?”
“Calais,” said Captain Blake. “It’s a run we’ve often made from the London docks, and the sea, thank God, is a calm one today. You’ll have a fine voyage of it, Professor. Under other conditions, it would be even a pleasant one;”
They were at the waterside. Two sailors sat in the dory, oars poised. Challenger put a hand into his pocket.
“What is your fare?” he asked.
“We’ve been asking ten guineas — gold, just now. But in your case—”
“Here are fifteen.” Challenger counted the coins into his hand, then swung around to gaze earnestly into his wife’s dark eyes.
“Jessie,” he said commandingly, “you will go with Captain Blake to Calais. When you come into port, he will see you into the hands of Professor Anton Marigny — he and I were students together at the university and have corresponded on mutually rewarding terms. Marigny, in his turn, will get you to Paris, to Monsieur Jean de Corbier of the Zoological Institute there. You will remember when we entertained him.”
“But George,” she wailed, “you speak as though you will not be coming.”
“You will do as I say, Jessie,” he assured her masterfully. “My place is here. Among other things, I must recover a valuable scientific instrument, which, in one of the few rare moments of carelessness remarkable in my whole career, I forgot to bring along with us. I am certain of my duty, and do you be certain also. Nor must you worry above me. That duty of which I spoke is one for which I was trained, and one for which, I need not argue, I am eminently fitted.”
He handed Blake the napkinful of eatables and hugged Mrs Challenger to him. “And so, Jessie,” he said briskly, “aboard with you.”
She was shedding tears, but obediently she got into the dory. He watched in silence as they pulled out toward the launch and stood there while the sturdy craft got steam up and began to make for open sea. At last he turned and walked back across the sand to where coarse grass grew.
Fourteen
Astringily built man stood there, hands in his trousers pockets, gazing gloomily seaward.
“I saw you come back when you ‘ad a chance to leave, sir.” he said as Challenger came near. “Might I ask why?”
Challenger surveyed the speaker. He saw an active figure, clad in a smudged army shirt, breeches, and scuffed boots, with a gaunt stubbled face.
“You presume, I think,” he said in tones like the bass of an organ. “However, I shall tell you why I did not go. The war is going to be fought here, and I am going to help fight it. That’s enough for you.”
He moved past as though to go inland but stopped when the other raised a sort of protesting cry.
“War, sir? Help fight a war? We can’t fight them, we’re beat!”
Challenger turned, beard thrust out aggressively.
“I was in Surrey,” stammered the fellow. “I saw us beat!”
“You seem to have accepted the fact very decisively,” said Challenger in cold, measured tones. “I have heard how a sea captain, one John Paul Jones, said in a similar critical situation that he had just begun to fight. Your words and behavior, my good man, suggest that you do scant credit to the vestings of the uniform you wear.” He drew himself up grandly. “I take leave to inform you that I am Professor George Edward Challenger.”
But the name seemed to mean nothing whatever to the trembling soldier.
“My name’s Tovey, sir, Luke Tovey,” he said in his turn. “I am — I was — a trooper of the Eighth Hussars. I saw the fighting on Sunday. Our artillery got one of them — just one, a shell right in the ugly face of one of their machines — before their heat-ray wiped the battery out entire. I got away to London and had a ride here in a dray. But no money, not a shilling, for a ship to sail on, and I’m wonderin’ what is to happen to us all.” He flung out his hands. “The Martians are goin’ to kill us all, every mother’s son and daughter!”
“Not all, I can assure you. I have been able to learn something of their plans for humanity. And now, Tovey, I bid you a very good morning.”
Again he stalked away toward the tree-tufted hill which he and Mrs Challenger had passed on their way to the beach. Tovey came trotting after him.
“You’ve got a plan, sir — Professor, you called yourself. You’ve thought about it. Won’t you tell me what you think?”
“Thinking is a process with which a dismaying majority of the human race is utterly unfamiliar,” returned Challenger bleakly. “It demands recognition of a state of affairs, an estimate of its directions and effects, and a sane decision on how to deal with it. I am in the midst of these considerations at present, and I will be obliged if you do not interrupt my mental processes.”
On he walked, and toward the hill. A sort of lane, steep but well worked, led up its rocky side. With considerable assurance he followed it and made his way to the top. The stone house among the trees was old but excellently built. Apparently it was a seaside retreat. Challenger went to the door, tried it, and found it locked. “A window, then,” he muttered to himself, and inspected one in front. It, too, was locked. He returned to the doorstep, bent over the iron foot scraper, and wrenched it away with a single sudden exertion of his great strength. One end of this he jammed under the lower sash of the window as he heaved on the other. The clasp of the sills gave way and the window went up.
A rustle behind him, and he spun, the scraper lifted. It was Tovey, the hussar, apologetic but determined.
“I want to be with you, Professor, if you don’t mind,” he said. “Maybe if you think out some goodish plan, we’ll both come clear of this, but why are you staying here? You don’t know nothing of these Martians on the way here. They’ve got a black smoke they put down, and it kills like a plague of Egypt.”
“It so happens that I have heard something of that black smoke,” Challenger lectured him, “and I feel able to rationalise something of its action and effect. Their machines are said to be a hundred feet high.”
“Yes, sir, more or less.”
“Then the black smoke must be of strikingly heavy composition, not rising to threaten the operators at the tops of these machines. Therefore a hill as high as this one — seventy feet, as I estimate — would be a refuge of sorts. I confidently expect the invaders to come in pursuit of these crowds of refugees. It will be of the utmost value to hold an unostentatious observation point up here and study their operations at comparatively close quarters.”
Tovey grinned suddenly. “I say, Professor, that’s topping!” he cried. “You’re one of the ones, you are.”
“One of what ones?” returned Challenger austerely. “I have told you that I am George Edward Challenger. I give myself to doubt that I am to be classified carelessly in any category of informed reasoning.”
He walked majestically out through the t
rees to where he had a good view of the beach. It was as he had come to it, clustered masses of frightened people and small boats plying with passengers to the craft waiting out at sea. He fished out his watch.
“Noon, or nearly,” he said to the goggling Tovey. “I have opened a way into that stone house. Suppose we see if its occupants have left us anything from which we can make a meal.”
Entering at the window, they found the kitchen, but its shelves were almost entirely stripped. Apparently the vanished occupants had taken most of the supplies. Challenger found several eggs in a bowl, and then Tovey, exploring a cupboard, turned up half a loaf of bread. On the floor was a keg with beer in it and a sack of onions. Tovey lit an oil-burning range and broke the eggs into a frying pan with a lump of butter from somewhere. Into the omelette he sliced onions. From these things they made a luncheon and then walked out again to survey the coast. With him Challenger carried a pair of opera glasses he found on a mantelpiece.
To northward stood a jumble of cottages, and among them a white-painted church with a lofty steeple. Challenger peered, then focused his glasses. He made out a human figure in that steeple, someone else on watch.
He turned the glasses out to sea, studying a long, dark vessel lying low in the water well out beyond the various craft taking on passengers. “Here, Tovey, what would you call that?” he asked, pointing.
Tovey took the glasses and gazed intently. “Naval ship, sir,” he said after a moment. “I’ve seen the like at off-coast manoeuveres. Torpedo rams, they’re called. That one was in the Thames when I came through town, I fancy. Someone said it’s named the Thunder Child.”
“And here to help, I surmise,” Challenger walked back through the trees and beyond the house. There the high ground narrowed into a slope landward, with a driveway of sorts upon it that led to a broader road beyond. Just now more people, in vehicles or afoot, were crowding along that road as though toward the shore, but not masses as large as he had seen earlier. Back he went to the front, and again scanned the craft at sea. Captain Blake’s launch which had taken his wife was nowhere in sight. He permitted himself a sigh of relief about that.
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