War of the Worlds

by Manly Wade Wellman

  His first consideration was that, as usual, he had done well. But then it occurred to him that human affairs, even when directed by a supremely brilliant intelligence, sometimes needed luck to prosper them.

  Sixteen

  Again he looked out at the door. The thing was prowling more distantly, looming high above the housetops on streets to the north. Challenger closed the door stealthily, walked up the hall to his study, and sat down. Weariness flowed over him like dark water, and he stayed there, motionless, for long minutes before he went again to peer from a back window. His pursuer was no longer in sight. He grinned triumphantly through the forest of his beard and again sought the kitchen to explore for food.

  There was plenty on the shelves, and he ate a great deal of it. There was still a slow trickle of water in the taps here, as in the store he had visited earlier. He drank a glassful and set a small kettle to catch more, while he returned to his study. There, just where he had left it on his table, was the lead tea canister with the crystal egg.

  Quickly he draped himself with the black cloth and looked into the blue glow. A few shifts of the crystal suddenly gave him a clear view.

  He saw the interior of a great excavation, larger than that pit made by the cylinder he remembered at Woking. It was almost full of machinery, fighting-machines and handling-machines, as well as other elaborate assemblages he could not identify. And on the gravelly floor of the crater were grouped invaders, grossly swollen, with something in the midst of them that struggled and fought unavailingly.

  He slammed the lid of the canister shut and sat back from it. Not without difficulty, he put from his imagination the picture of himself in just that nightmare situation.

  He drew out his watch. It was midafternoon. He went and set another kettle to catch the dribble of water, while with the first kettleful he managed to take a sponge bath, clammy cold but refreshing. Then he dressed in clean clothes, pulled on his heavy boots, and again sat in his study. His tired body relaxed gratefully, but his mind was furiously active, and, as so often in the past, he found reason for self-congratulation.

  Not only had he escaped the merciless invaders, here and at the shore, but he had actually hoodwinked one of them into running off and leaving him alone. They were gigantically brilliant, but they were not omniscient. Their behavior in the fight with the Thunder Child had seemed to indicate confusion. He, Challenger, felt that he might well be assessing them as well as they assessed humanity.

  Their machines were bewildering, but he took refuge in the memory of Robinson Crusoe’s sober conclusion: ...as reason is the substance and original of the mathematics, so by stating and squaring everything by reason, and by making the most rational judgement of things, every man may be, in time, master of every mechanic art. That could be as true in overrun England as on that island where Robinson Crusoe had survived and prevailed. Intelligence could solve the mysteries of invader mechanisms, could even, God willing, capture them, use them. As he thought of these things, he fell asleep.

  He wakened after night had fallen and decided to venture out. No hint of the enemy could be discovered. Again he found his way through Kensington Gardens and Regent’s Park to Baker Street. His own footfalls seemed to ring in the stillness. He found Holmes’ stairs and went up to the door above, but it was locked and no sound could be detected in the dark. Again he returned, as cautiously as ever, to Enmore Park, stopping here and there to forage in stores and public houses. At home he set a light under a chafing dish and heated some canned peas and some turtle soup. It was his first satisfying hot meal since he and his wife had driven away on Monday morning. That night he slept soundly in his own room.

  Next morning he climbed to an attic window and surveyed London to the northward. In the distance, somewhat east of north, rose green fumes. That might well be the main station of the enemy, the great cavity he had seen in the crystal the day before.

  He thought of breakfast. There were eggs in the kitchen, but he sagely decided against those after they had lain in the basket a week, and opened a can of smelts. Finally he went to his study and opened the canister with the crystal. Spreading his black cloth, he concentrated upon it.

  There they were, revealed to his gaze, the invaders in their pit. He could make out more than a dozen, slumped at various tasks. Handling-machines moved here and there. A sort of furnace gave off grey-green smoke, and one machine shovelled in earth, then pulled out a shiny bar of pale metal that looked like aluminum. Thus the invaders set up industries, consolidated their gains.

  In the midst of his observations, a pair of round, brilliant eyes came close as though to stare from the crystal into his face. Then they were gone and the viewpoint of the crystal seemed to change abruptly and utterly. Now Challenger seemed to be looking down from a height. He instantly closed the lid of the canister. The invaders had taken their own crystal that which was attuned to his, into the cockpit of a machine.

  It was not many minutes before he heard the clank and whirr of a mechanism from the street in front of the house. Taking the canister, he stepped into the hall. As before, there was the smash of breaking glass, then the sound of furniture being overturned. Inquiring tentacles had come into the parlour.

  But Challenger had made up his mind what to do. He was at the kitchen door and out of it within brief seconds. Moving furtively under the garden shrubbery, he gained the alley beyond. There he moved along eastwards, keeping close to the shade and the fences lest the invader spy him from above the roofs. He did not venture out into the street, but plunged into a yard on the far side of the alley and sought cover in the midst of some prickly ornamental bushes. For many minutes he lay there, then ventured on across more yards and at last into Kensington Gardens.

  Crouching under a tree, he saw his pursuer still hulking against the sky, back at the place from which Challenger had fled. No tricking it away from Enmore Park this time, he told himself. He struck off through the trees and thickets, reached Hyde Park and then Baker Street. Again he went upstairs to Holmes’ door, and again found it locked, with silence beyond it. He frowned, asking himself if Holmes had managed to escape from London, and if he had, whether he would be back. Walking across Regent Street, he looked north and again saw the green haze that must mark the enemy headquarters.

  The afternoon he spent wandering here and there, looking for food. Many stores had been broken open and their contents plundered. In a confectionery he found a jar of smoked turkey slices and some currant buns for his supper. Then he lay back in an armchair behind a desk. It was Saturday night. The Martians had subdued London in twelve days; how far beyond had their rule been extended? He speculated on chances of heading north, of reaching some place where mankind still planned defence, giving that plan the benefit of his observations. Sleep rode down upon him.

  He wakened to hear excited voices outside, a dozen at once. Hurriedly he rose and walked out. It was dark. A knot of men jabbered and laughed there.

  “What is happening?” he thundered, so loudly that all swung around to look at him.

  “Look yonder, mate,” cried one, pointing westward. Light came from somewhere in that direction, white light and not the green radiance that hung around the devices of the invaders.

  “Somebody’s got the lights goin’ again,” said another, apparently far gone in drink. “Come on, chums, let’s have a look.”

  Regent Street was a broad blaze of light. It gave Challenger a chance to see his watch—it was just past four o’clock. Soon the midsummer sun would be rising. To the right he made out Oxford Circus, with the Langham Hotel standing tall, and in the other direction was Piccadilly. People flowed here and there across the pavement, raucously calling and laughing. Through the din came a shrill spatter of music, like the pipes at a Punch and Judy show. Some of the celebrants danced clumsily to its measure. Everywhere, men and women drank out of bottles.

  “It’s all over, it’s all over,” gulped a man in a filthy jacket and cap, weaving toward Challenger.

 
; “What are you trying to say?” Challenger growled.

  “They’re gone, nobody’s seen ‘em for hours. They came from nowhere and went back there.”

  A blowsy woman, wrapped in a scarf and wearing a wide hat with a broken feather, put out a hand to Challenger. “How do you fare ducky?” she hiccoughed. “Coo, I’ve always liked a big man with a big beard, that’s the truth.”

  “And I have always disliked a drunken women with gold teeth,” flung back Challenger, turning and walking off.

  Disdainfully he studied the crazy mob. It was a nightmare of revelry. He saw no face, near nor far, that did not disgust him. He shifted his gaze to some tall buildings opposite. The first grey of dawn was making the sky pale behind them.

  Something else rose there, taller that the buildings, a great brooding scaffold of metal.

  Challenger knew the silhouette at once, the three long, jointed legs, the globe like a body at the top. It tilted itself and down came great tentacles. They caught up struggling bodies, there of them. Others screamed, tried to run, seemed to walk upon each other in sudden unreasoning terror. Again tentacles reached, quested, snatched up others. The fighting-machine tossed its victims into the openwork cage at its back as it stepped into Regent Street among the wavering fugitives. Some of them had fallen down, helpless from drink or fear or both.

  The machine stooped. All of its tentacles were at work, picking up its prey like a man gathering wind-fallen apples. Those farther away saw it at last and started screaming in a chorus that deafened, trying to run over each other to shelter.

  Challenger went swiftly up a side street, into grateful shadows there. More screams rose in chorus behind him. He gained the door of the confectionery and turned to look toward the lights. The fighting-machine turned this way and that above the roofs, busy at what it did. Surely it was gathering an abundant harvest.

  He groped his way back to the chair and sat down. He thought of the victims of the invader on Regent Street, too drunken or too terrified to make more than an effort at flight. Who had turned on the lights there to lure it? And what wild fantasy had spread through the crowd, that they thought that the nightmare was past?

  He told himself, in cold, rational terms, that the dozens captured and carried off would be no loss to humanity and its fight for survival. But he had seen the invaders feeding, and he could not fight off a daunting sickness of heart.

  The sun rose brightly. He made a breakfast of three shriveled tarts and a bottle of soda, brushed crumbs out of his beard, and once more ventured into the open.

  No sign of a menacing machine stalking against the sky, no clanking sound of approaching peril. Why should those machines be patrolling this part of town just now, when it came to that? He reflected that the ten cylinders had brought sixty invaders at most, and that that forager at dawn must have seized provisions for several days in Regent Street. Again he sickened as he pondered this, but shrugged the feeling away-with a great heave of his thick shoulders. He returned to Regent Street. Not a single stir there — he had not expected one. The revellers who had not been carried away must have fled far.

  Finding a sunken areaway, he sat down and reviewed his adventures since he had journeyed to Woking. He had been eminently right to lose his temper at the self-important Stent and Ogilvy, to depart before the heat-ray struck. Again he had been right to take that railroad baggage cart, virtually to commandeer it, and to drive with his wife to the shore. Good fortune had attended his encounter with Captain Blake, who had carried Mrs Challenger out of immediate danger, and good fortune had been with him again when he mounted the hill to observe and so had escaped the black smoke. His had been a series of almost miraculous escapes; while thousands around him had perished.

  His mind kept going back to the people captured in Regent Street and borne away to be drained of their blood. Offscourings of London, those wretched victims. He remembered Holmes’ suggestion that the terrible invaders, against whom mankind’s most deadly weapons had availed so little, might perish of simple earthly diseases. And that made him think again of Holmes’ quiet but confident rationality, his suggestions that at times had been irritating because he Challenger, should not have needed to be reminded of them.

  Twice he had failed to find Holmes at his rooms. Why not look once more? He drew out his watch. It was noon, or nearly.

  With watchfulness that had become almost second nature in these days of furtive movement, he set out for Baker Street. At every corner he carefully surveyed the cross street beyond, lest danger be lurking. At last he came along Baker Street, opposite Dolamore’s broad frontage with its displays of wine and spirits. Up the stairs he walked and paused in front of Holmes’ door.

  Voices sounded on the other side of it; Holmes’ voice, then one he did not know. Sudden relief flowed through Challenger’s big body, like warmth, like stimulating fluid.

  “May I come in?” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

  IV

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE MARTIAN CLIENT

  BY JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.

  Seventeen

  Mr H.G. Wells’s popular book, The War of the Worlds, is a frequently inaccurate chronicle of a known radical and atheist, a boon companion of Frank Harris, George Bernard Shaw, and worse. He exaggerates needlessly and pretends to a scientific knowledge which plainly he does not possess. Yet scientists and laymen alike read and applaud him, even while they scorn the brilliant deductions of Sherlock Holmes and Professor George Edward Challenger.

  Wells refers in his book to the magnificent and almost complete specimen of an invader, preserved in spirits at the Natural History Museum, but he carelessly, or perhaps even deliberately, overlooks the history of its capture, examination, and presentation. And both scholarly journals and the popular press almost totally disregard Professor Challenger’s striking rationalisation that the invaders were not Martians at all. As for Holmes, he shows little concern over these injustices, but after consulting him, I have decided to put the true facts on record for posterity to judge.

  When the invasion began, in bright midsummer of 1902, fear seemed to overwhelm every human being except the two wisest and best men I have ever known. On that Friday morning of June 6, when the first Marsbased cylinder was beginning to open at Woking to disgorge its crew of ruthless destroyers, I was hurrying to Highgate. Poor Murray, my faithful old orderly who had saved my life during the Second Afghan War, lay critically ill in his lodgings there. Even as I came to his door, newspapers and jabbering neighbours reported something about strange beings from Mars landed among the little suburban towns in Surrey. I paid scant attention, for I found Murray very weak and helpless. Almost at once I became sadly sure that he could not be saved, only made as comfortable as possible as he settled into death. Later that night, while I sought to reduce his fever, I half heard more news to the effect that the invaders were striking down helpless crowds of the curious.

  If it seems that I was not fully aware of these stirring events that day and on Saturday and Sunday, I must again offer the reminder that all my attention was needed at Murray’s bedside. From other people in the house I heard wild stories, which seemed to me only crazy rumours, that these creatures from across space had utterly smashed Woking and Horsell, had utterly wiped out the troops hastily thrown in their way, and were advancing upon London itself. By Monday morning, Murray’s fellow lodgers and the people in houses to both sides had fled, I never learned where or to what fate. The entire street was deserted save for my poor patient and myself.

  I could have no thought of going away, too, and leaving Murray. Day after day I did what I could for him, as doctor and as friend. Meanwhile, all about us whirled terror and fire, and, in streets below us, dense, clouds of that lethal vapour that has since been called the black smoke.

  I heard the ear-shattering howls of the fighting-machines as they signalled each other above London’s roofs, and several times I peered cautiously from behind the window curtains to see them far away, scurrying along at tremendou
s speed on their jointed legs fully a hundred feet high. It was on Tuesday, I think, that their heat-rays knocked nearby houses into exploding flames, but our own shelter had the good fortune to escape.

  Through all this, Murray lay only half-conscious in bed. Once or twice he murmured something about guns, and I believe he thought himself back fighting the Afghans. I ranged all the other lodgings in the house to find food for him. It was on the morning of the eighth day, the second Friday of the invasion, that he died, and I could take time to realise that things had become strangely quiet outside our windows.

  I straightened out my poor friend’s body on his bed and crossed his hands upon his breast. Bowing my head above him, I whispered some sort of prayer. Then I went again to the window, peered out, and asked myself how I might escape.

  I could see a cross street down the slope below. It was strewn with sooty dust left when the black smoke had precipitated, and I thanked God that Highgate’s elevation spared me that deadly contact. Doing my best to see the state of affairs outside, I made out a dog trotting forlornly along a black-dusted sidewalk. He seemed to show no ill effects, from which I surmised that the vapour had become harmless when it settled. But then, just as I was on the point of going out at the front door, I saw a fighting-machine, too. It galloped along among distant houses, puffs of green steam rising from its joints. That decided me not to venture out in the daylight.

  Again I roamed through the house, poking into every larder I could find. Some dried beef and a crust of bread and a lukewarm bottle of beer made my evening meal that Friday, with the silent form of poor dead Murray for company.

  At last the late June twilight deepened into dusk. I picked up my medicine kit and emerged from the house, setting my face southward toward Baker Street.

  A fairly straight route to my lodgings there would be no more than five miles. But, as I moved through the night toward Primrose Hill, I suddenly saw great shifting sheets of green light there. I had come near the London and north-western tracks at the moment, and upon the earth of the red embankment grew great tussocks of a strange red weed. I did not recognise. At least it would give cover, and I crouched behind it to look toward that unearthly light. I could make out fully half a dozen machines, standing silently together as though in a military formation. At once I decided that there was a formidable central concentration of the enemy, close at hand. Instead of trying to continue southward, I stole away to the east, keeping close to the railroad tracks.