The Space Machine

i

On Mars I had dreamed of greenery and wild flowers; here on the blighted heath we saw only charred and smouldering grasses, with blackness spreading in every direction. On Mars I had hungered for the sights and sounds of my fellow Earthmen; here there was no one, only the corpses of those unfortunates who had fallen foul of the heat-beam. On Mars I had gasped in the tenuous atmosphere, yearning for the sweet air of Earth; here the odour of fire and death dried our throats and choked our lungs.

Mars was desolation and war, and just as Amelia and I had been touched by it when there, so Earth now felt the first tendrils of the Martian canker.

ii

Behind us, to the south, there was a small town on a hill, and already the battle-machines had attacked it. A huge pall of smoke hung over the town, adding to the piling storm-clouds above, and through the still evening air we could hear the sounds of explosions and screams.

To the west we saw the brazen cowl of one of the machines, tuning from side to side as its great engine bore it striding through distant, burning trees. Thunder rumbled, and there was no sign of the Army.

We hastened away, but we were both weak from our ordeal inside the projectile, we had had nothing to eat, and had hardly slept, for two days. Consequently our progress was slow in spite of the urgency of our escape. I stumbled twice, and we were both afflicted with painful stitches in our sides.

Blindly we ran, dreading that the Martians would see us and deal to us the summary execution they had dealt to others. But it was not mere instinct for self-preservation that urged us on our way; although we did not wish to die, we both realized that only we knew the full scale of the threat that was before the world.

At last we came to the edge of the common, and the ground fell down to where a small brook ran through trees. The top branches had been blackened by the sweep of the beam, but below was moist grass and a flower or two.

Sobbing with fear and exhaustion, we fell by the water and scooped up handfuls and drank noisily and deeply. To our palates long jaded by the bitter, metallic waters of Mars, this stream was pure indeed!

While we had been running frantically across the common, the evening had turned to night, speeded by the storm-clouds that were gathering. Now the rumbles of thunder were louder and came more often, and sheet-lightning flickered. It could not be long before the storm broke about us. We should be moving on as soon as possible: our vague plan to alert the authorities was all we lived for, even though we knew that there could be few people who did not realize that some mighty destructive force had erupted on to the land.

We lay low by the stream for about ten minutes. I placed my arm around Amelia’s shoulders, and held her to me protectively, but we did not speak. I think we were both too over awed by the immensity of the damage to find words to express our feelings. This was England, the country we loved, and this was what we had brought to it!

When we stood up we saw that the fires caused by the Martians were burning still, and to the west we saw new flames. Where were the defences of our people? The first projectile had landed nearly two days ago; surely by now the whole area would be ringed by guns?

We did not have long to wait for an answer to that, and for a few hours it afforded us a certain reassurance.

iii

The storm broke a few moments after we left our temporary refuge. Quite suddenly we were deluged with rain, of an intensity that took us completely by surprise. Within seconds we were both drenched to the skin.

I was all for taking shelter until the cloudburst had passed, but Amelia let go of my hand, and danced away from me. I saw her lit by the distant flames, the glow of red touching her. The rain was plastering her long hair about her face, and the bedraggled chemise clung wetly to her skin. She held up her palms to the downpour, and swept back the hair from her face. Her mouth was open, and I heard her laughing aloud. Then she turned about, stamping and splashing in the puddles; she took my hand, and whirled me gaily. In a moment I caught the joyous, sensuous mood from her, and together in that dark countryside we sang and laughed hysterically, totally abandoning ourselves to the thrill of the rain.

The cloudburst eased, and as the thunder and lightning intensified we sobered. I kissed Amelia fondly and briefly, and we walked on with our arms about each other.

A few minutes later we crossed a road, but there was no traffic of any kind, and shortly after this we approached more woodland. Behind us, now two miles or more away, we could see the town burning on the hill, the flames not doused by the rain.

Just as we walked beneath the first of the trees, Amelia suddenly pointed to the right. There, lined up under the cover of the woodland, was a small artillery battery, the barrels of the ordnance poking out through the camouflage of bushes and shrubs.

We had been noticed by the soldiers at the same moment—for the lightning still flickered with disconcerting brilliance—and an officer dressed in a long cape, gleaming in the rain, came over to us.

I went to him immediately. I could not see his face in the darkness, for his cap was pulled well down, against the rain. Two gunners stood a short distance behind him, sparing us little attention, for they were staring back the way we had come.

“Are you in command here?” I said.

“Yes, sir. Have you come from Woking?”

“Is that the town on the hill?”

He confirmed this. “Nasty business there I believe, sir. A lot of civilian casualties.”

“Do you know what you are up against?” I said.

“I’ve heard the rumours.”

“It is no ordinary enemy,” I said, raising my voice a little. “You must destroy their pit immediately.”

“I have my orders, sir,” the officer said, and just at that moment there was a brilliant flash of lightning, repeated three times, and I saw his face for the first time. He was a man in his mid-twenties, and the clean, regular lines of his face were so unexpectedly human that for a moment I was dumbfounded. In that same illuminating flash he must have seen Amelia and me too, and noticed our untidy state. He went on: “The men have heard rumours that these are men from Mars.”

“Not men,” Amelia said, stepping forward. “Evil, destructive monsters.”

“Have you seen them, sir?” the officer said to me.

“I have more than seen them!” I cried over the rumbling of thunder. “We came with them from Mars!”

The officer turned away at once, and signed to the two gunners. They came over directly.

“These two civilians,” he said. “See them to the Chertsey Road, and report back.”

“You must listen to me!” I cried to the officer. “These monsters must be killed at the first opportunity!”

“My orders are quite explicit, sir,” the officer said, preparing to turn away. “The Cardigan is the finest regiment of horse artillery in the British Army, a fact which even you, in your present deranged state, must admit.”

I stepped forward angrily, but I was caught by one of the soldiers. I struggled, and shouted: “We are not deranged! You must shell their pit at once!”

The officer looked at me sympathetically for a moment or two—evidently assuming that I had seen my house and property destroyed, and was thus temporarily demented—then turned away and splashed across the muddy ground towards a row of tents.

The gunner holding me said: “C’mon, sir. Ain’t no place for civvies.”

I saw that the other soldier was holding Amelia by the arm, and I shouted at him to leave her go. This he did, so I took her arm myself and allowed the soldiers to lead us past the horse-lines—where the poor animals bucked and whinnied, their coats slick with rain—and into the heart of the wood. We walked for several minutes, during which we learned that the detachment had ridden down from Aldershot Barracks that afternoon, but no more information, then came to a road.

Here the soldiers pointed the way to Chertsey, then headed back to their emplacement.

I said to Amelia: “They can have no idea of what they are facing.”

She was more philosophical than I. “But they are alert to the danger, Edward. We cannot tell them what to do. The Martians will be contained on the common.”

“There are eight more projectiles to land!” I said.

“Then they will have to deal with them one by one.” She took my hand affectionately, and we started to walk up the road towards Chertsey. “I think we must be careful how we tell people of our adventures.”

I took this as a mild rebuke, so I said defensively: “The time was wrong. He thought I was mad.”

“Then we must be more calm.”

I said: “There is already word about that the projectiles are from Mars. How could they have known?”

“1 do not know. But I am sure of one thing, and it is a matter of importance to us both. We know where we are, Edward. We, have landed in Surrey.”

“I wish I had thrown us into the sea.”

“If we are going to Chertsey,” Amelia said, not at all affected by my pessimism, “then we are not a dozen miles from Sir William’s house in Richmond!”

iv

As we entered Chertsey it was clear that the town had been evacuated. The first sign we saw of this was as we passed the station, and noticed that the metal gates had been drawn across the passenger entrance. Beyond them, a chalked sign declared that the train service had been suspended until further notice.

Further on into the town, walking through unlighted roads, we saw not a single lamp in any of the houses, nor anyone about the streets. We walked as far as the River Thames, but all we could see here were several boats and dinghies bobbing at their moorings.

The thunderstorm had passed, although it, continued to rain, and we were both chilled through.

“We must find somewhere to rest,” I said. “We are both done for.”

Amelia nodded wearily, and held a little tighter to my arm. I was glad for her sake that there was no one about to see us: our abrupt return to civilization served to remind me that Amelia, in her torn and wet chemise, was as good as unclothed, and I was little better dressed.

Amelia made an instant decision. “We must break into one of the houses. We cannot sleep in the open.”

“But the Martians…”

“We can leave those to the Army. My dearest, we must rest.”

There were several houses backing on to the river, but as we moved from one to the other we realized that the evacuation must have been orderly and without panic, for each was securely shuttered and locked.

At last we came to a house, in a road only a short distance from the river, where a window came free as I pushed at it. I climbed inside at once, then went through and opened the door for Amelia. She came in, shivering, and I warmed her with my own body.

“Take off your chemise,” I said “I will find you some clothes.”

I left her sitting in the scullery, for the range had been alight during the day, and there it was still warm. I went through the rooms upstairs, but found to my dismay that all the clothes-cupboards had been emptied, even in the servants’ quarters. However, I did find several blankets and towels, and took them downstairs. Here I stripped off my combinations, and placed them with Amelia’s tattered chemise over the bar at the front of the range. While I had been upstairs I had discovered that the water in the tank was still hot, and while we huddled in our blankets beside the range I told Amelia she might have a bath.

Her response to this news was of such innocent and uninhibited delight that I did not add that there was probably only enough hot water for one.

While I had searched for clothes, Amelia had not herself been idle She had discovered some food in the pantry, and although it was all cold it tasted wonderful. I think I shall never forget that first meal we ate after our return: salted beef, cheese, tomatoes and a lettuce taken from the garden. We were even able to drink some wine with it, for the house had a modest cellar.

We dared not light any of the lamps for the houses around us were darkened, and if any of the Martians should happen. by they would immediately see us. Even so, I searched the house for some kind of newspaper or magazine, hoping to learn from it what had been known of the projectiles before the Martians broke free of the pit. However, the house had been effectively cleared of all but what we found around us, and we remained unenlightened on this score.

At last Amelia said she would take her bath, and a little later I beard the sound of the water being run. Then she returned.

She said: “We are accustomed to sharing most things, Edward, and I think you are as dirty as I.”

And so it was that while we lay together in the steaming water, genuinely relaxing for the first time since our escape, we saw the green glare of the third projectile as it fell to the ground several miles to the south.

v

So exhausted were we that in the morning we slept on far beyond any reasonable hour; it was, considering the emergency, an undesirable thing to do, but our encounter with the artillery the evening before had reassured us, and our fatigued bodies craved for rest Indeed, when I awoke my first thoughts were not at all of the Martians. I had, the evening before, set my watch by the clock in the drawing-room, and as soon as I was awake I looked at it, and discovered that it was a quarter to eleven. Amelia was still asleep beside me, and as I gently touched her to awaken her I was smitten with the first feelings of unease about the casual way we were behaving together. It had been as a natural result of our confinement together on Mars that we had started acting as man and wife, and much as it was of great pleasure to me—and, I knew, to Amelia too—the very familiarity of our surroundings, the pleasant villa in the quiet riverside town, reminded me that we were now back in our own society. Soon we would reach a place where the awful impact of the Martians was not yet felt, and then it would be incumbent upon us to observe the social customs of our country. What had passed between us before we fell asleep became improper in our present surroundings.

Beyond the house the countryside was silent. I heard birds singing, and on the river the noise of the boats knocking together at their moorings … but, there were no wheels, no footsteps, no hooves clattering on the metalled roads.

“Amelia,” I said softly. “We must be on our way if we wish to reach Richmond.”

She awoke then, and for a few seconds we embraced fondly.

She said: “Edward.; what is that noise?”

We lay still, and then I too heard what had attracted her attention. It was akin to a large weight being dragged… we heard bushes and trees rustling, gravel being ground, and above all a grating of metal upon metal.

For an instant I froze in terror, then broke free of the paralysis and bounded out of bed. I rushed across the room, and threw open the curtains incautiously. As the sunlight burst in I saw that directly outside our window was one of the jointed metal legs of a battle-machine! As I stared at it in horror, there was a gusting of green smoke at the joints, and the elevated engine propelled it on beyond the house.

Amelia had seen it too, and she sat up in the bed, clutching the sheets about her body.

I hurried back to her, appalled by the amount of time we had wasted. “We must leave at once.”

“With that outside the house?” Amelia said. “Where has it gone?”

She scrambled out of the bed, and together we went quietly across the top floor of the house to a room on the other side. This was a child’s bedroom, for the floor was littered with toys. Peering through the half-drawn curtains, we looked across in the direction of the river.

There were three battle-machines in sight. Their platforms were not raised to their full height, nor were their heat-cannons visible. Instead, what seemed to be an immense metal net had been attached to the rear of each platform, and into these nets were being placed the inert bodies of human beings who had been electrocuted by the dangling, metal tentacles. In the net of the battle-machine nearest us there were already seven or eight people, lying in a tangled heap where they had been dropped.

As we stared in dismay at the sight, we saw the metal tentacles of one of the more distant machines insinuate itself into a house … and after about thirty seconds withdrew, clutching the unconscious body of a little girl.

Amelia covered her face with her hands, and turned away.

I stayed at the window for another ten minutes, immobilized by the fear of being noticed, and by the equal horror of what I was witnessing. Soon, a fourth machine appeared, and that too bore its share of human spoils. Behind me, Amelia lay on the child’s bed, sobbing quietly.

“Where is the Army?” I said softly, repeating the words again and again. It was unthinkable that these atrocities should go unchallenged. Had the battery we had seen the night before allowed the monsters to pass undamaged? Or had a brief engagement already been fought, out of which the monsters had emerged unscathed?

Fortunately for Amelia and myself, the Martians’ foraging expedition seemed to be at its end, for the battle-machines stood about, their drivers in apparent consultation. At length, one of the legged ground vehicles appeared, and in a short space of time the unconscious bodies were transferred to this.

Sensing that there was to be a new development, I asked Amelia to go downstairs and collect our clothes. This she did, returning almost at once. As soon as I had put on mine, I left Amelia on guard at the window, then went from one room to the next, looking to see if there were any more of the battle-machines in the vicinity. There was only one other in sight, and that was about a mile away, to the south-east.

I heard Amelia calling me, and I hurried back to her. She pointed wordlessly: the four battle-machines were turning away from us, striding slowly towards the west. Their platforms were still low, their heat-cannons as yet unraised.

“This is our chance,” I said. “We can take a boat and head for Richmond.”

“But is it safe?”

“No safer than at any other time. It’s a chance we must take. We will keep a constant watch, and at the first sign of the Martians we’ll take refuge by the bank.”

Amelia looked doubtful, but put forward no other objection.

There was a trace of conformity still within us, in spite of the terrible anarchy around us, and we did not leave the house until Amelia had penned a brief note to the owner, apologizing for breaking in and promising to pay in due course for the food we had consumed.

vi

The storms of the day before had passed, and the morning was sunny, hot and still. We wasted no time in getting down to the riverside, and walked out on one of the wooden jetties to where several rowing-boats were moored. I selected what seemed to me to be a solid boat, and yet one not too heavy. I helped Amelia into it, then climbed in after her and cast off at once.

There was no sign of any of the battle-machines, but even so I rowed close to the northern bank, for here weeping willows grew beside the river and their branches overhung in many places.

We had been rowing for no more than two minutes when to our alarm there came a burst of artillery-fire from close at hand. At once I stopped rowing, and looked all about.

“Get down, Amelia!” I shouted, for I had seen over the roofs of Chertsey the four battle-machines returning. Now the glittering Titans were at their full height, and their heat-cannons were raised. The shells of the artillery exploded in the air about them, but no damage was inflicted that I could see.

Amelia had thrown herself forward across the planks at the bottom of the boat, and she crawled towards where I was Sitting. She held on to my legs, clutching me as if this alone would turn the Martians away. We watched as the battle-machines abruptly altered their course, and headed towards the artillery emplacement on the northern bank opposite Chertsey. The speed of the machines was prodigious. As they reached the river’s edge they did not hesitate, but plunged in, throwing up an immense spray. All the time their heat-beams were flashing forward, and in a moment we heard no more firing from our men.

In the same instant, Amelia pointed towards the east. Here, near where Weybridge was situated, the fifth battle-machine—the one I had seen earlier from the house—was charging at full spate towards the river. It had attracted the attentions of more artillery placed by Shepperton, and as it charged its gleaming platform was surrounded with fireballs from the exploding shells. None of these hit home, though, and we saw the Martian’s heat-cannon swinging from side to side. The beam fell across Weybridge, and instantly sections of the town burst into flame. Weybridge itself, though, was not the machine’s chosen target, for it too continued until it reached the river, and waded in at a furious speed.

Then came a moment of short-lived triumph for the Army. One of the artillery shells found its target, and with a shocking violence the platform exploded into fragments. With scarcely a pause, and as if possessed of a life of its own, the battle-machine staggered on, careening and swaying. After a few seconds it collided with the tower of a church near Shepperton, and fell back into the river. As the heat-cannon made contact with the water its furnace exploded, sending up an enormous cloud of spray and steam.

All this had taken place in less than a minute, the very speed at which the Martians were capable of making war being a decisive factor in their supremacy.

Before we had time to recover our senses, the four battle-machines which had silenced the Chertsey battery went to aid their fallen comrade. The first we knew of this was when we heard a great hissing and splashing, and glancing upstream we saw the four mighty machines racing through the water towards us. We had no time to think of hiding or escaping; indeed, so stricken with terror were we that the Martians were on us before we could react. To our own good luck, the monsters had no thought or time for us, for they were engaged in a greater war. Almost before they were beyond us, the heat-cannons were spraying their deadly beams, and once more the deep, staccato voice of the artillery by Shepperton spoke its ineffectual reply.

Then came a sight I have no wish ever to witness again. The deliberation and malice of the Martian invaders was never realized in a more conclusive fashion.

One machine went towards the artillery at Shepperton, and, ignoring the shells which burst about its head, calmly silenced the guns with a long sweep of its beam. Another, standing beside it, set about the systematic destruction of Shepperton itself. The other two battle-machines, standing in the confusion of islands where the Wey meets the Thames, dealt death upon Weybridge. Without compunction, both man and his effects were blasted and razed, and across the green Surrey meadows we heard one detonation after another, and the clamour of voices raised in the terror that precedes a violent death.

When the Martians had finished their evil work the land became silent again … but there was no stillness about. Wey bridge burned, and Shepperton burned. Steam from the river mingled with smoke from the towns, joining in a great column that poured into the cloudless sky.

The Martians, unchallenged once more, folded away their cannons, and congregated at the bend of the river where the first battle-machine had fallen. As the platforms rotated to and fro, the bright sunlight reflected from the burnished cowls.

vii

During all this Amelia and I had been so taken with the events about us that we failed to notice that our boat continued to drift with the stream. Amelia still crouched at the bottom of the boat, but I had shipped my oars and sat on the wooden seat.

I looked at Amelia, and with my voice reflecting in its hoarseness the terror I felt, I said: “If this is a measure of their power, the Martians will conquer the world!”

“We cannot sit by and allow that to happen.”

“What do you propose we do?”

“We must get to Richmond,” she said. “Sir William will be better placed to know.”

“Then we must row on,” I said.

In my terrible confusion I had overlooked the fact that four battle-machines stood between us and Richmond at that very moment, and so I took the oars and placed them in the water again. I took just one stroke, when behind me I heard a tremendous splashing of water, and Amelia screamed.

“They’re coming this way!”

I released the oars at once, and they slipped into the water.

“Lie still!” I cried to Amelia. Putting my own words into effect, I threw myself backwards, lying at an awkward and painful angle across the wooden seat. Behind me I heard the tumultuous splashing of the battle-machines as they hurtled up-river. We were now drifting almost in the centre of the stream, and so lay directly in their path!

The four were advancing abreast of one another, and lying as I was I could see them upside-down. The wreckage of the battle-machine struck by the shell had been retrieved by the others, and now, carried between them, was being taken back the way they had come. I saw for an instant the torn and blasted metal that had been the platform, and saw too that there was gore and blood about much of it. I derived no satisfaction from the death of one monster-creature, for what was this to the spiteful destruction of two towns and the murder of countless people?

If the monsters had chosen to slay us then we would have had no chance of survival, yet once again we were spared by their preoccupations. Their victory over the two hapless towns was emphatic, and such stray survivors as ourselves were of no consequence. They closed on us with breathtaking speed, almost obscured by the clouds of spray thrown up by their churning legs. One of these sliced into the water not three yards from our little boat, and we were instantly deluged. The boat rocked and yawed, taking in water in such copious quantities that I felt we must surely sink.

Then, in a few seconds, the tripods were gone, leaving us waterlogged and unsteady on the troubled river.

viii

It took us several minutes of paddling to retrieve our oars, and to bale out the water to make the boat manoeuvrable again. By then the Martian battle-machines had vanished towards the south, presumably heading for their pit on the common by Woking.

Considerably shaken by the prolonged incident I set myself to rowing, and in a few minutes we were passing the blasted remains of Weybridge.

If survivors there were, we saw none about. A ferry had been plying as the Martians struck, and we saw its upturned and blackened hull awash in the river. On the towpath lay scores, perhaps hundreds, of charred bodies of those who had suffered directly under the heat-beam. The town itself was well ablaze, with few if any buildings left untouched by the murderous attack. It was like a scene from a nightmare, for when a town burns in silence, unattended, it is no less than a funeral pyre.

There were many bodies in the water, presumably of those people who had thought that there lay refuge. Here the Martians, with their magnificent and wicked cunning, had turned their heat-beams on the river itself, so raising its temperature to that of boiling. As we rowed through, the water was still steaming and bubbling, and when Amelia tested it with her hand she snatched it away. Many of the bodies which floated here revealed by the brilliant redness of their skins that the people had been, quite literally, boiled to death. Fortunately for our sensibilities, the steam had the effect of obscuring our surroundings, and so, as we passed through the carnage, we were spared the sight of much of it.

It was with considerable relief that we turned the bend in the river, but our agonies were not at an end, for now we could see what damage had been inflicted on Shepperton. At Amelia’s urging I rowed more quickly, and in a few minutes I had. taken us beyond the worst.

Once we had turned another bend I slackened off a little, for I was rapidly tiring. We were both in a terrible state as a result of what we had seen, and so I pulled into the bank. We climbed to the shore and sat down in a heady state of shock. What passed between us then I will not relate, but our agonizing was much coloured by our acceptance of complicity in this devastation.

By the time we had recovered our wits, two hours had passed, and our resolve to play a more active rôle in fighting these monsters had hardened. So it was with renewed sense of urgency that we returned to the boat. Sir William Reynolds, if he were not already engaged in the problem, would be able to propose some more subtle solution than the Army had so far devised.

By now there was only the occasional piece of floating wreck age to remind us of what we had seen, but the memories were clear enough. From the moment of the Martians’ onslaught we had seen no one alive, and even now the only apparent movement was the smoke.

The rest had restored my strength, and I returned to the rowing with great vigour, taking long, easy strokes.

In spite of everything we had experienced, the day was all that I had hungered for while on Mars. The breeze was soft, and the sun was warm. The green trees and grasses of the banks were a joy to the eye, and we saw and heard many birds and insects. All this, and the pleasant regularity of my rowing, served to order my thoughts.

Would the Martians, now they had demonstrated their supremacy, be satisfied to consolidate their position? If so, how much time would this give our military forces to essay new tactics? Indeed, what was the strength of our forces? Apart from the three artillery batteries we had seen and heard, the Army was nowhere evident.

Beyond this, I felt that we needed to adjust to our actual circumstances. In some ways, Amelia and I had been living still to the routines we had established inside the projectile, which is to say that our lives were patterned by the dominance of the Martians. Now, though, we were in our own land, one where places had names we could recognize, and where there were days and weeks by which one ordered one’s life. We had established whereabouts in England we had landed, and we could see that England was enjoying a summer of splendid weather, even if other climates were foreboding, but we did not know which day of the week this was, nor even in which month we were.

It was on such matters, admittedly rather trivial, that I was dwelling as I brought our boat around the bend in the river that lies just above the bridge at Walton-on-Thames. Here it was that we saw the first living person that day: a young man, wearing a dark jacket. He sat in the reeds by the edge of the water, staring despondently across the river.

I pointed him out to Amelia, and at once altered course and headed towards him.

As we came closer I could see that he was a man of the cloth. He seemed very youthful, for his figure was slight and his head was topped with a mass of flaxen curls. Then we saw that lying on the ground beside him was the body of another man. He was more stoutly built, and his body—which from the waist up was naked—was covered with the filth of the river.

Still dwelling on my rather trivial thoughts of the moments before, I called out to the curate as soon as we were within hailing distance.

“Sir,” I shouted, “what day is this?”

The curate stared back at us, then stood up unsteadily. I could see he had been severely shocked by his experiences for his hands were never still, fretting with the torn front of his jacket. His gaze was vacant and uncertain as he answered me.

“It is the Day of Judgement, my children.”

Amelia had been staring at the man lying beside the curate, and she asked: “Father, is that man alive?”

No answer was forthcoming, for the curate had turned distractedly away from us. He made as if to move off, but then turned back and looked down at us.

“Do you need any help, Father?” Amelia said.

“Who can offer help when it is God’s wrath vented upon us?”

“Edward … row in to the shore.”

I said: “But what can we do to help?”

Nevertheless, I plied the oars and in a moment we had scrambled ashore. The curate watched as we knelt beside the prostrate man. We saw at once that he was not dead, nor even unconscious, but was turning restlessly as if in a delirium.

“Water… have you any water?” he said, his lips parched. I saw that his skin had a slightly reddened cast to it, as if he too had been caught when the Martians boiled the river.

“Have you not given him any water?” I said to the curate.

“He keeps asking for it, but we are beside a river of blood.”

I glanced at Amelia, and saw by her expression that my own opinion of the poor, distracted curate was confirmed.

“Amelia,” I said quietly, “see if you can find something to bring water in.”

I returned my attention to the delirious man, and in desperation I slapped him lightly about his face. This seemed to break through the delirium for he sat up at once, shaking his head.

Amelia had found a bottle by the river’s edge, and she brought this and gave it to the man. He raised it thankfully to his lips, and drank deeply. I noticed that he was now in command of his senses, and he was looking shrewdly at the young curate.

The curate saw how we were helping the man, and this seemed to disconcert him. He gazed across the meadows in the direction of the distant, shattered tower of Shepperton Church.

He said: “What does it mean? All our work is undone! It is the vengeance of God, for he hath taken away the children. The burning smoke goeth up for ever…”

With this cryptic incantation, he strode off determinedly through the long grass, and was soon out of our sight.

The man coughed a few times, and said: “I cannot thank you enough. I thought I must surely die.”

“Was the curate your companion?” I said.

He shook his head weakly. “I have never before laid eyes on him.”

“Are you well enough to move?” said Amelia.

“I believe so. I am not hurt, but I have had a narrow escape.”

“Were you in Weybridge?” I said.

“I was in the thick of it. Those Martians have no mercy, no compunction—”

“How do you know they are from Mars?” I said, greatly interested by this, as I had been at hearing of the soldiers’ rumours.

“It is well known. The firing of their projectiles was observed in many telescopes. Indeed, I was fortunate to observe one such myself, in the instrument at Ottershaw.”

“You are an astronomer?” said Amelia.

“That I am not, but I am acquainted with many scientists. My own calling is a more philosophical nature.” He paused then, and glanced down at himself, and was at once overcome with embarrassment. “My dear lady,” he said to Amelia, “I must apologize for my state of undress.”

“We are no better garbed ourselves,” she replied, with considerable accuracy.

“You too have come from the thick of the fighting?”

“In a sense,” I said. “Sir, I hope you will join us. We have a boat, and we are headed for Richmond. There I think we may find safety.”

“Thank you,” said the man. “But I must go my own way. I was trying to make for Leatherhead, for that is where I have left my wife.”

I thought quickly, trying to visualize the geography of the land. Leatherhead was many miles to the south of us.

The man went on: “You see, I am a resident of Woking, and before the Martians attacked I managed to take my wife to safety. Since then, because I was obliged to return to Woking, I have been trying to join her. But I have found, to my cost, that the land between here and Leatherhead is overrun with the brutes.”

“Then as your wife is safe,” Amelia said, “would it not be wise to fall in with us until the Army deals with this menace?”

The man was clearly tempted, for we were not many miles distant from Richmond. He hesitated for a few seconds more, then nodded.

“If you are rowing, you will need an extra pair of arms,” he said. “I shall be happy to oblige. But first, because I am in such a state of untidiness, I should like to wash myself.”

He went down to the water’s edge, and with his hands washed off much of the traces of the smoke, and grime which so disfigured him. Then, when he had swept back his hair, he held out his hand and assisted Amelia as she climbed back into the boat.