H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds

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sun-scorched, the earth under the blue sky and against the prospect of the
distant hills a velvet-black expanse, with red roofs, green trees, and, later,
black-veiled shrubs and gates, barns, outhouses, and walls, rising here and
there into the sunlight.
But that was at Street Cobham, where the black vapour was allowed to remain
until it sank of its own accord into the ground As a rule the Martians, when
it had served its purpose, cleared the air of it again by wading into it and
directing a jet of steam upon it.
This they did with the vapour banks near us, as we saw in the starlight from
the window of a deserted house at Upper Halliford, whither we had returned.
From there we could see the searchlights on Richmond Hill and Kingston Hill
going to and fro, and about eleven the windows rattled, and we heard the sound
of the huge siege guns that had been put in position there. These continued
intermittently for the space of a quarter of an hour, sending chance shots at
the invisible Martians at Hampton and Ditton, and then the pale beams of the
electric light vanished, and were replaced by a bright red glow.
Then the fourth cylinder fell -- a brilliant green meteor -- as I learned
afterwards, in Bushey Park. Before the guns on the Richmond and Kingston line
of hills began, there was a fitful cannonade far away in the southwest, due, I
believe, to guns being fired haphazard before the black vapour could overwhelm
the gunners.
So, setting about it as methodically as men might smoke out a wasps' nest,
the Martians spread this strange stifling vapour over the Londonward country.
The horns of the crescent slowly moved apart, until at last they formed a line
front Hanwell to Coombe and Malden. All night through their destructive tubes
advanced. Never once, after the Martian at St. George's Hill was brought down,
did they give the artillery the ghost of a chance against them. Wherever there
was a possibility of guns being laid for them unseen, a fresh canister of the
black vapour was discharged, and where the guns were openly displayed the
Heat-Ray was brought to bear.
By midnight the blazing trees along the slopes of Richmond Park and the glare
of Kingston Hill threw their light upon a network of black smoke, blotting out
the whole valley of the Thames and extending as far as the eye could reach.
And through this two Martians slowly waded, and turned their hissing steam
jets this way and that.
They were sparing of the Heat-Ray that night, either because they had but a
limited supply of material for its production or because they did not wish to
destroy the country but only to crush and overawe the opposition they had
aroused. In the latter aim they certainly succeeded. Sunday night was the end
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of the organised opposition to their movements. After that no body of men
would stand against them, so hopeless was the enterprise. Even the crews of
the torpedo-boats and destroyers that had brought their quick-firers up the
Thames refused to stop, mutinied, and went down again. The only offensive
operation men ventured upon after that night was the preparation of mines and
pitfalls, and even in that their energies were frantic and spasmodic.
One has to imagine, as well as one may, the fate of those batteries towards
Esher, waiting so tensely in the twilight. Survivors there were none. One may
picture the orderly expectation, the officers alert and watchful, the gunners
ready, the ammunition piled to hand, the limber gunners with their horses and
waggons, the groups of civilian spectators standing as near as they were
permitted, the evening stillness, the ambulances and hospital tents with the
burned and wounded from Weybridge; then the dull resonance of the shots the
Martians fired, and the clumsy projectile whirling over the trees and houses
and smashing amid the neighbouring fields.
One may picture, too, the sudden shifting of the attention, the swiftly
spreading coils and bellyings of that blackness advancing headlong, towering
heavenward, turning the twilight to a palpable darkness, a strange and
horrible antagonist of vapour striding upon its victims, men and horses near
it seen dimly, running, shrieking, falling headlong, shouts of dismay, the
guns suddenly abandoned, men choking and writhing on the ground, and the swift
broadening-out of the opaque cone of smoke. And then night and extinction --
nothing but a silent mass of impenetrable vapour hiding its dead.
Before dawn the black vapour was pouring through the streets of Richmond, and
the disintegrating organism of government was, with a last expiring effort,
rousing the population of London to the necessity of flight.
The Exodus from London
So you understand the roaring wave of fear that swept through the greatest
city in the world just as Monday was dawning -- the stream of flight rising
swiftly to a torrent, lashing in a foaming tumult round the railway stations,
banked up into a horrible struggle about the shipping in the Thames, and
hurrying by every available channel northward and eastward. By ten o'clock the
police organisation, and by midday even the railway organisations, were losing
coherency, losing shape and efficiency, guttering, softening, running at last
in that swift liquefaction of the social body. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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