Reading Help War of the worlds by H. G. Wells. Book 1
lightning flashed for a third time, and his face leaped upon me. I `
` sprang to my feet. It was the landlord of the Spotted Dog, whose `
` conveyance I had taken. `
` `
` I stepped over him gingerly and pushed on up the hill. I made my `
` way by the police station and the College Arms towards my own house. `
` Nothing was burning on the hillside, though from the common there `
` still came a red glare and a rolling tumult of ruddy smoke beating up `
` against the drenching hail. So far as I could see by the flashes, the `
` houses about me were mostly uninjured. 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, but I had not the courage to shout or to go to them. I `
` let myself in with my latchkey, closed, locked and bolted the door, `
` staggered to the foot of the staircase, and sat down. My imagination `
` was full of those striding metallic monsters, and of the dead body `
` smashed against the fence. `
` `
` I crouched at the foot of the staircase with my back to the wall, `
` shivering violently. `
` `
` `
` `
` CHAPTER ELEVEN `
` `
` AT THE WINDOW `
` `
` `
` I have already said that my storms of emotion have a trick of `
` exhausting themselves. After a time I discovered that I was cold and `
` wet, and with little pools of water about me on the stair carpet. I `
` got up almost mechanically, went into the dining room and drank some `
` whiskey, and then I was moved to change my clothes. `
` `
` After I had done that 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 had been left open. The passage was dark, and, by contrast with `
` the picture the window frame enclosed, the side of the room seemed `
` impenetrably dark. I stopped short in the doorway. `
` `
` The thunderstorm had passed. The towers of the Oriental College `
` and the pine trees about it had gone, and very far away, lit by a `
` vivid red glare, the common about the sand pits was visible. Across `
` the light 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 broad hillside set with minute tongues of flame, swaying and `
` writhing with the gusts of the dying storm, and throwing a red `
` reflection upon the cloud-scud above. Every now and then a haze of `
` smoke from some nearer conflagration drove across the window and hid `
` the Martian shapes. I could not see what they were doing, nor the `
` clear form of them, nor recognise the black objects they were busied `
` upon. Neither could 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. As I `
` did so, the view opened out until, on the one hand, it reached to the `
` houses about Woking station, and on the other to the charred and `
` blackened pine woods of Byfleet. There was a light down below the `
` hill, on the railway, near the arch, and 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, and to the right of that a row of yellow `
` oblongs. Then I perceived this was a wrecked train, the fore part `
` smashed and on fire, the hinder carriages still upon the rails. `
` `
` Between these three main centres of light--the houses, the train, `
` and the burning county towards Chobham--stretched irregular patches of `
` dark country, broken here and there by intervals of dimly glowing and `
` smoking ground. It was the strangest spectacle, that black expanse set `
` with fire. It reminded me, more than anything else, of the Potteries `
` at night. At first I could distinguish no people at all, though I `
` peered intently for them. Later I saw against the light of Woking `
` station a number of black figures hurrying one after the other across `
` the line. `
` `
` And this was the little world in which I had been living securely `
` for years, this fiery chaos! What had happened in the last seven `
` hours I still did not know; nor did I know, though I was beginning to `
` guess, the relation between these mechanical colossi and the sluggish `
` lumps I had seen disgorged from the cylinder. With a queer feeling of `
` impersonal interest I turned my desk chair to the window, sat down, `
` and stared at the blackened country, and particularly at the three `
` gigantic black things that were going to and fro in the glare about `
` the sand pits. `
` `
` They seemed amazingly busy. I began to ask myself what they could `
` be. Were they intelligent mechanisms? Such a thing I felt was `
` impossible. Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, `
` using, much as a man's brain sits and rules in his body? I began to `
` compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time `
` in my life how an ironclad or a steam engine would seem to an `
` intelligent lower animal. `
` `
` The storm had left the sky clear, and over the smoke of the burning `
` land the little fading pinpoint of Mars was dropping into the west, `
` when a soldier came into my garden. I heard a slight scraping at the `
` fence, and rousing myself from the lethargy that had fallen upon me, I `
` looked down and saw him dimly, clambering over the palings. At the `
` sight of another human being my torpor passed, and I leaned out of the `
` window eagerly. `
` `
` "Hist!" said I, in a whisper. `
` `
` He stopped astride of the fence 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, also whispering, standing under the window `
` and peering up. `
` `
` "Where are you going?" I asked. `
` `
` "God knows." `
` `
` "Are you trying to hide?" `
` `
` "That's it." `
` `
` "Come into the house," I said. `
` `
` I went down, unfastened the door, and let him in, and locked the `
` door again. I could not see his face. He was hatless, and his coat `
` was unbuttoned. `
` `
` "My God!" he said, as I drew him in. `
` `
` "What has happened?" I asked. `
` `
` "What hasn't?" In the obscurity I could see he made a gesture of `
` despair. "They wiped us out--simply wiped us out," he repeated again `
` and again. `
` `
` He followed me, almost mechanically, into the dining room. `
` `
` "Take some whiskey," I said, pouring out a stiff dose. `
` `
` 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, in a `
` perfect passion of emotion, while I, with a curious forgetfulness of `
` my own recent despair, stood beside him, wondering. `
` `
` It was a long time before he could steady his nerves to answer my `
` questions, and then he answered perplexingly and brokenly. He was a `
` driver in the artillery, and had only come into action about seven. At `
` that time firing was going on across the common, and it was said 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 first `
` of the fighting-machines I had seen. The gun he drove had been `
` unlimbered near Horsell, in order to command the sand pits, and its `
` arrival it was that had precipitated the action. As the limber `
` gunners went to the rear, his horse trod in a rabbit hole and came `
` down, throwing him into a depression of the ground. At the same `
` moment the gun exploded behind him, the ammunition blew up, there was `
` fire all about him, and he found himself lying under a heap of charred `
` dead men and dead horses. `
` `
` "I lay still," he said, "scared out of my wits, with the fore quarter `
` of a horse atop of me. We'd been wiped out. And the smell--good `
` God! Like burnt meat! I was hurt across the back by the fall of `
` the horse, and there I had to lie until I felt better. Just like `
` parade it had been a minute before--then stumble, bang, swish!" `
` `
` "Wiped out!" he said. `
` `
` He had hid under the dead horse for a long time, peeping out `
` furtively across the common. The Cardigan men had tried a rush, in `
` skirmishing order, at the pit, simply to be swept out of existence. `
` Then the monster had risen to its feet and had begun to walk leisurely `
` to and fro across the common among the few fugitives, with its `
` headlike hood turning about exactly like the head of a cowled human `
` being. A kind of arm carried a complicated metallic case, about which `
` green flashes scintillated, and out of the funnel of this there smoked `
` the Heat-Ray. `
` `
` In a few minutes there was, so far as the soldier could see, not a `
` living thing left upon the common, and every bush and tree upon it `
` that was not already a blackened skeleton was burning. The hussars `
` had been on the road beyond the curvature of the ground, and he saw `
` nothing of them. He heard the Martians rattle for a time and then `
` become still. The giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses `
` until the last; then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear, and `
` the town became a heap of fiery ruins. Then the Thing shut off the `
` Heat-Ray, and turning its back upon the artilleryman, began to waddle `
` away towards the smouldering pine woods that sheltered the second `
` cylinder. As it did so a second glittering Titan built itself up out `
` of the pit. `
` `
` The second monster followed the first, and at that the artilleryman `
` began to crawl very cautiously across the hot heather ash towards `
` Horsell. He managed to get alive into the ditch by the side of the `
` road, and so escaped to Woking. There his story became ejaculatory. `
` The place was impassable. It seems there were a few people alive `
` there, frantic for the most part and many burned and scalded. He was `
` turned aside by the fire, and hid among some almost scorching heaps of `
`
` sprang to my feet. It was the landlord of the Spotted Dog, whose `
` conveyance I had taken. `
` `
` I stepped over him gingerly and pushed on up the hill. I made my `
` way by the police station and the College Arms towards my own house. `
` Nothing was burning on the hillside, though from the common there `
` still came a red glare and a rolling tumult of ruddy smoke beating up `
` against the drenching hail. So far as I could see by the flashes, the `
` houses about me were mostly uninjured. 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, but I had not the courage to shout or to go to them. I `
` let myself in with my latchkey, closed, locked and bolted the door, `
` staggered to the foot of the staircase, and sat down. My imagination `
` was full of those striding metallic monsters, and of the dead body `
` smashed against the fence. `
` `
` I crouched at the foot of the staircase with my back to the wall, `
` shivering violently. `
` `
` `
` `
` CHAPTER ELEVEN `
` `
` AT THE WINDOW `
` `
` `
` I have already said that my storms of emotion have a trick of `
` exhausting themselves. After a time I discovered that I was cold and `
` wet, and with little pools of water about me on the stair carpet. I `
` got up almost mechanically, went into the dining room and drank some `
` whiskey, and then I was moved to change my clothes. `
` `
` After I had done that 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 had been left open. The passage was dark, and, by contrast with `
` the picture the window frame enclosed, the side of the room seemed `
` impenetrably dark. I stopped short in the doorway. `
` `
` The thunderstorm had passed. The towers of the Oriental College `
` and the pine trees about it had gone, and very far away, lit by a `
` vivid red glare, the common about the sand pits was visible. Across `
` the light 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 broad hillside set with minute tongues of flame, swaying and `
` writhing with the gusts of the dying storm, and throwing a red `
` reflection upon the cloud-scud above. Every now and then a haze of `
` smoke from some nearer conflagration drove across the window and hid `
` the Martian shapes. I could not see what they were doing, nor the `
` clear form of them, nor recognise the black objects they were busied `
` upon. Neither could 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. As I `
` did so, the view opened out until, on the one hand, it reached to the `
` houses about Woking station, and on the other to the charred and `
` blackened pine woods of Byfleet. There was a light down below the `
` hill, on the railway, near the arch, and 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, and to the right of that a row of yellow `
` oblongs. Then I perceived this was a wrecked train, the fore part `
` smashed and on fire, the hinder carriages still upon the rails. `
` `
` Between these three main centres of light--the houses, the train, `
` and the burning county towards Chobham--stretched irregular patches of `
` dark country, broken here and there by intervals of dimly glowing and `
` smoking ground. It was the strangest spectacle, that black expanse set `
` with fire. It reminded me, more than anything else, of the Potteries `
` at night. At first I could distinguish no people at all, though I `
` peered intently for them. Later I saw against the light of Woking `
` station a number of black figures hurrying one after the other across `
` the line. `
` `
` And this was the little world in which I had been living securely `
` for years, this fiery chaos! What had happened in the last seven `
` hours I still did not know; nor did I know, though I was beginning to `
` guess, the relation between these mechanical colossi and the sluggish `
` lumps I had seen disgorged from the cylinder. With a queer feeling of `
` impersonal interest I turned my desk chair to the window, sat down, `
` and stared at the blackened country, and particularly at the three `
` gigantic black things that were going to and fro in the glare about `
` the sand pits. `
` `
` They seemed amazingly busy. I began to ask myself what they could `
` be. Were they intelligent mechanisms? Such a thing I felt was `
` impossible. Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, `
` using, much as a man's brain sits and rules in his body? I began to `
` compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time `
` in my life how an ironclad or a steam engine would seem to an `
` intelligent lower animal. `
` `
` The storm had left the sky clear, and over the smoke of the burning `
` land the little fading pinpoint of Mars was dropping into the west, `
` when a soldier came into my garden. I heard a slight scraping at the `
` fence, and rousing myself from the lethargy that had fallen upon me, I `
` looked down and saw him dimly, clambering over the palings. At the `
` sight of another human being my torpor passed, and I leaned out of the `
` window eagerly. `
` `
` "Hist!" said I, in a whisper. `
` `
` He stopped astride of the fence 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, also whispering, standing under the window `
` and peering up. `
` `
` "Where are you going?" I asked. `
` `
` "God knows." `
` `
` "Are you trying to hide?" `
` `
` "That's it." `
` `
` "Come into the house," I said. `
` `
` I went down, unfastened the door, and let him in, and locked the `
` door again. I could not see his face. He was hatless, and his coat `
` was unbuttoned. `
` `
` "My God!" he said, as I drew him in. `
` `
` "What has happened?" I asked. `
` `
` "What hasn't?" In the obscurity I could see he made a gesture of `
` despair. "They wiped us out--simply wiped us out," he repeated again `
` and again. `
` `
` He followed me, almost mechanically, into the dining room. `
` `
` "Take some whiskey," I said, pouring out a stiff dose. `
` `
` 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, in a `
` perfect passion of emotion, while I, with a curious forgetfulness of `
` my own recent despair, stood beside him, wondering. `
` `
` It was a long time before he could steady his nerves to answer my `
` questions, and then he answered perplexingly and brokenly. He was a `
` driver in the artillery, and had only come into action about seven. At `
` that time firing was going on across the common, and it was said 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 first `
` of the fighting-machines I had seen. The gun he drove had been `
` unlimbered near Horsell, in order to command the sand pits, and its `
` arrival it was that had precipitated the action. As the limber `
` gunners went to the rear, his horse trod in a rabbit hole and came `
` down, throwing him into a depression of the ground. At the same `
` moment the gun exploded behind him, the ammunition blew up, there was `
` fire all about him, and he found himself lying under a heap of charred `
` dead men and dead horses. `
` `
` "I lay still," he said, "scared out of my wits, with the fore quarter `
` of a horse atop of me. We'd been wiped out. And the smell--good `
` God! Like burnt meat! I was hurt across the back by the fall of `
` the horse, and there I had to lie until I felt better. Just like `
` parade it had been a minute before--then stumble, bang, swish!" `
` `
` "Wiped out!" he said. `
` `
` He had hid under the dead horse for a long time, peeping out `
` furtively across the common. The Cardigan men had tried a rush, in `
` skirmishing order, at the pit, simply to be swept out of existence. `
` Then the monster had risen to its feet and had begun to walk leisurely `
` to and fro across the common among the few fugitives, with its `
` headlike hood turning about exactly like the head of a cowled human `
` being. A kind of arm carried a complicated metallic case, about which `
` green flashes scintillated, and out of the funnel of this there smoked `
` the Heat-Ray. `
` `
` In a few minutes there was, so far as the soldier could see, not a `
` living thing left upon the common, and every bush and tree upon it `
` that was not already a blackened skeleton was burning. The hussars `
` had been on the road beyond the curvature of the ground, and he saw `
` nothing of them. He heard the Martians rattle for a time and then `
` become still. The giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses `
` until the last; then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear, and `
` the town became a heap of fiery ruins. Then the Thing shut off the `
` Heat-Ray, and turning its back upon the artilleryman, began to waddle `
` away towards the smouldering pine woods that sheltered the second `
` cylinder. As it did so a second glittering Titan built itself up out `
` of the pit. `
` `
` The second monster followed the first, and at that the artilleryman `
` began to crawl very cautiously across the hot heather ash towards `
` Horsell. He managed to get alive into the ditch by the side of the `
` road, and so escaped to Woking. There his story became ejaculatory. `
` The place was impassable. It seems there were a few people alive `
` there, frantic for the most part and many burned and scalded. He was `
` turned aside by the fire, and hid among some almost scorching heaps of `
`