# Well's war of the worlds, first ~10000 words
# Last edited on 1999-07-26 22:14:13 by stolfi

but who shall dwell in these worlds if they be
inhabited are we or they lords of the
world and how are all things made for man

no one would have believed in the last years of the
nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly
and closely by intelligences greater than man s and yet as
mortal as his own that as men busied themselves about their
various concerns they were scrutinised and studied perhaps
almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might
scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply
in a drop of water with infinite complacency men went to
and fro over this globe about their little affairs serene
in their assurance of their empire over matter it is
possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the
same no one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as
sources of human danger or thought of them only to dismiss
the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable it
is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those
departed days at most terrestrial men fancied there might
be other men upon mars perhaps inferior to themselves and
ready to welcome a missionary enterprise yet across the
gulf of space minds that are to our minds as ours are to
those of the beasts that perish intellects vast and cool
and unsympathetic regarded this earth with envious eyes
and slowly and surely drew their plans against us and early
in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment

the planet mars i scarcely need remind the reader revolves
about the sun at a mean distance of miles and
the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half
of that received by this world it must be if the nebular
hypothesis has any truth older than our world and long
before this earth ceased to be molten life upon its surface
must have begun its course the fact that it is scarcely one
seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its
cooling to the temperature at which life could begin it has
air and water and all that is necessary for the support of
animated existence

yet so vain is man and so blinded by his vanity that no
writer up to the very end of the nineteenth century
expressed any idea that intelligent life might have
developed there far or indeed at all beyond its earthly
level nor was it generally understood that since mars is
older than our earth with scarcely a quarter of the
superficial area and remoter from the sun it necessarily
follows that it is not only more distant from time s
beginning but nearer its end

the secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet
has already gone far indeed with our neighbour its physical
condition is still largely a mystery but we know now that
even in its equatorial region the midday temperature barely
approaches that of our coldest winter its air is much more
attenuated than ours its oceans have shrunk until they
cover but a third of its surface and as its slow seasons
change huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and
periodically inundate its temperate zones that last stage
of exhaustion which to us is still incredibly remote has
become a present day problem for the inhabitants of mars
the immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their
intellects enlarged their powers and hardened their
hearts and looking across space with instruments and
intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of they see
at its nearest distance only of miles sunward of
them a morning star of hope our own warmer planet green
with vegetation and grey with water with a cloudy
atmosphere eloquent of fertility with glimpses through its
drifting cloud wisps of broad stretches of populous country
and narrow navy crowded seas

and we men the creatures who inhabit this earth must be to
them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and
lemurs to us the intellectual side of man already admits
that life is an incessant struggle for existence and it
would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon
mars their world is far gone in its cooling and this world
is still crowded with life but crowded only with what they
regard as inferior animals to carry warfare sunward is
indeed their only escape from the destruction that
generation after generation creeps upon them

and before we judge of them too harshly we must remember
what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has
wrought not only upon animals such as the vanished bison
and the dodo but upon its inferior races the tasmanians
in spite of their human likeness were entirely swept out of
existence in a war of extermination waged by european
immigrants in the space of fifty years are we such
apostles of mercy as to complain if the martians warred in
the same spirit

the martians seem to have calculated their descent with
amazing subtlety their mathematical learning is evidently
far in excess of ours and to have carried out their
preparations with a well nigh perfect unanimity had our
instruments permitted it we might have seen the gathering
trouble far back in the nineteenth century men like
schiaparelli watched the red planet it is odd by the bye
that for countless centuries mars has been the star of
war but failed to interpret the fluctuating appearances of
the markings they mapped so well all that time the martians
must have been getting ready

during the opposition of a great light was seen on the
illuminated part of the disk first at the lick observatory
then by perrotin of nice and then by other observers
english readers heard of it first in the issue of nature
dated august i am inclined to think that this blaze may
have been the casting of the huge gun in the vast pit sunk
into their planet from which their shots were fired at us
peculiar markings as yet unexplained were seen near the
site of that outbreak during the next two oppositions

the storm burst upon us six years ago now as mars
approached opposition lavelle of java set the wires of the
astronomical exchange palpitating with the amazing
intelligence of a huge outbreak of incandescent gas upon the
planet it had occurred towards midnight of the twelfth and
the spectroscope to which he had at once resorted
indicated a mass of flaming gas chiefly hydrogen moving
with an enormous velocity towards this earth this jet of
fire had become invisible about a quarter past twelve he
compared it to a colossal puff of flame suddenly and
violently squirted out of the planet as flaming gases
rushed out of a gun

a singularly appropriate phrase it proved yet the next day
there was nothing of this in the papers except a little note
in the daily telegraph and the world went in ignorance of
one of the gravest dangers that ever threatened the human
race i might not have heard of the eruption at all had i
not met ogilvy the well known astronomer at ottershaw he
was immensely excited at the news and in the excess of his
feelings invited me up to take a turn with him that night in
a scrutiny of the red planet

in spite of all that has happened since i still remember
that vigil very distinctly the black and silent
observatory the shadowed lantern throwing a feeble glow
upon the floor in the corner the steady ticking of the
clockwork of the telescope the little slit in the roof an
oblong profundity with the stardust streaked across it
ogilvy moved about invisible but audible looking through
the telescope one saw a circle of deep blue and the little
round planet swimming in the field it seemed such a little
thing so bright and small and still faintly marked with
transverse stripes and slightly flattened from the perfect
round but so little it was so silvery warm a pin s head
of light it was as if it quivered but really this was the
telescope vibrating with the activity of the clockwork that
kept the planet in view

as i watched the planet seemed to grow larger and smaller
and to advance and recede but that was simply that my eye
was tired forty millions of miles it was from us more than
forty millions of miles of void few people realise the
immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material
universe swims

near it in the field i remember were three faint points of
light three telescopic stars infinitely remote and all
around it was the unfathomable darkness of empty space you
know how that blackness looks on a frosty starlight night
in a telescope it seems far profounder and invisible to me
because it was so remote and small flying swiftly and
steadily towards me across that incredible distance drawing
nearer every minute by so many thousands of miles came the
thing they were sending us the thing that was to bring so
much struggle and calamity and death to the earth i never
dreamed of it then as i watched no one on earth dreamed of
that unerring missile

that night too there was another jetting out of gas from
the distant planet i saw it a reddish flash at the edge
the slightest projection of the outline just as the
chronometer struck midnight and at that i told ogilvy and
he took my place the night was warm and i was thirsty and
i went stretching my legs clumsily and feeling my way in the
darkness to the little table where the siphon stood while
ogilvy exclaimed at the streamer of gas that came out
towards us

that night another invisible missile started on its way to
the earth from mars just a second or so under twenty four
hours after the first one i remember how i sat on the table
there in the blackness with patches of green and crimson
swimming before my eyes i wished i had a light to smoke by
little suspecting the meaning of the minute gleam i had seen
and all that it would presently bring me ogilvy watched
till one and then gave it up and we lit the lantern and
walked over to his house down below in the darkness were
ottershaw and chertsey and all their hundreds of people
sleeping in peace

he was full of speculation that night about the condition of
mars and scoffed at the vulgar idea of its having
inhabitants who were signalling us his idea was that
meteorites might be falling in a heavy shower upon the
planet or that a huge volcanic explosion was in progress
he pointed out to me how unlikely it was that organic
evolution had taken the same direction in the two adjacent
planets

the chances against anything manlike on mars are a million
to one he said

hundreds of observers saw the flame that night and the night
after about midnight and again the night after and so for
ten nights a flame each night why the shots ceased after
the tenth no one on earth has attempted to explain it may
be the gases of the firing caused the martians
inconvenience dense clouds of smoke or dust visible
through a powerful telescope on earth as little grey
fluctuating patches spread through the clearness of the
planet s atmosphere and obscured its more familiar features

even the daily papers woke up to the disturbances at last
and popular notes appeared here there and everywhere
concerning the volcanoes upon mars the seriocomic
periodical punch i remember made a happy use of it in the
political cartoon and all unsuspected those missiles the
martians had fired at us drew earthward rushing now at a
pace of many miles a second through the empty gulf of space
hour by hour and day by day nearer and nearer it seems to
me now almost incredibly wonderful that with that swift
fate hanging over us men could go about their petty
concerns as they did i remember how jubilant markham was at
securing a new photograph of the planet for the illustrated
paper he edited in those days people in these latter times
scarcely realise the abundance and enterprise of our
nineteenth century papers for my own part i was much
occupied in learning to ride the bicycle and busy upon a
series of papers discussing the probable developments of
moral ideas as civilisation progressed

one night the first missile then could scarcely have been
miles away i went for a walk with my wife it
was starlight and i explained the signs of the zodiac to
her and pointed out mars a bright dot of light creeping
zenithward towards which so many telescopes were pointed
it was a warm night coming home a party of excursionists
from chertsey or isleworth passed us singing and playing
music there were lights in the upper windows of the houses
as the people went to bed from the railway station in the
distance came the sound of shunting trains ringing and
rumbling softened almost into melody by the distance my
wife pointed out to me the brightness of the red green and
yellow signal lights hanging in a framework against the sky
it seemed so safe and tranquil

then came the night of the first falling star it was seen
early in the morning rushing over winchester eastward a
line of flame high in the atmosphere hundreds must have
seen it and taken it for an ordinary falling star albin
described it as leaving a greenish streak behind it that
glowed for some seconds denning our greatest authority on
meteorites stated that the height of its first appearance
was about ninety or one hundred miles it seemed to him that
it fell to earth about one hundred miles east of him

i was at home at that hour and writing in my study and
although my french windows face towards ottershaw and the
blind was up for i loved in those days to look up at the
night sky i saw nothing of it yet this strangest of all
things that ever came to earth from outer space must have
fallen while i was sitting there visible to me had i only
looked up as it passed some of those who saw its flight say
it travelled with a hissing sound i myself heard nothing of
that many people in berkshire surrey and middlesex must
have seen the fall of it and at most have thought that
another meteorite had descended no one seems to have
troubled to look for the fallen mass that night

but very early in the morning poor ogilvy who had seen the
shooting star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay
somewhere on the common between horsell ottershaw and
woking rose early with the idea of finding it find it he
did soon after dawn and not far from the sand pits an
enormous hole had been made by the impact of the projectile
and the sand and gravel had been flung violently in every
direction over the heath forming heaps visible a mile and a
half away the heather was on fire eastward and a thin blue
smoke rose against the dawn

the thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand amidst
the scattered splinters of a fir tree it had shivered to
fragments in its descent the uncovered part had the
appearance of a huge cylinder caked over and its outline
softened by a thick scaly dun coloured incrustation it had
a diameter of about thirty yards he approached the mass
surprised at the size and more so at the shape since most
meteorites are rounded more or less completely it was
however still so hot from its flight through the air as to
forbid his near approach a stirring noise within its
cylinder he ascribed to the unequal cooling of its surface
for at that time it had not occurred to him that it might be
hollow

he remained standing at the edge of the pit that the thing
had made for itself staring at its strange appearance
astonished chiefly at its unusual shape and colour and
dimly perceiving even then some evidence of design in its
arrival the early morning was wonderfully still and the
sun just clearing the pine trees towards weybridge was
already warm he did not remember hearing any birds that
morning there was certainly no breeze stirring and the
only sounds were the faint movements from within the cindery
cylinder he was all alone on the common

then suddenly he noticed with a start that some of the grey
clinker the ashy incrustation that covered the meteorite
was falling off the circular edge of the end it was
dropping off in flakes and raining down upon the sand a
large piece suddenly came off and fell with a sharp noise
that brought his heart into his mouth

for a minute he scarcely realised what this meant and
although the heat was excessive he clambered down into the
pit close to the bulk to see the thing more clearly he
fancied even then that the cooling of the body might account
for this but what disturbed that idea was the fact that the
ash was falling only from the end of the cylinder

and then he perceived that very slowly the circular top of
the cylinder was rotating on its body it was such a gradual
movement that he discovered it only through noticing that a
black mark that had been near him five minutes ago was now
at the other side of the circumference even then he
scarcely understood what this indicated until he heard a
muffled grating sound and saw the black mark jerk forward an
inch or so then the thing came upon him in a flash the
cylinder was artificial hollow with an end that screwed
out something within the cylinder was unscrewing the top

good heavens said ogilvy there s a man in it men in
it half roasted to death trying to escape

at once with a quick mental leap he linked the thing with
the flash upon mars

the thought of the confined creature was so dreadful to him
that he forgot the heat and went forward to the cylinder to
help turn but luckily the dull radiation arrested him
before he could burn his hands on the still glowing metal
at that he stood irresolute for a moment then turned
scrambled out of the pit and set off running wildly into
woking the time then must have been somewhere about six
o clock he met a waggoner and tried to make him understand
but the tale he told and his appearance were so wild his
hat had fallen off in the pit that the man simply drove on
he was equally unsuccessful with the potman who was just
unlocking the doors of the public house by horsell bridge
the fellow thought he was a lunatic at large and made an
unsuccessful attempt to shut him into the taproom that
sobered him a little and when he saw henderson the london
journalist in his garden he called over the palings and
made himself understood

henderson he called you saw that shooting star last
night

well said henderson

it s out on horsell common now

good lord said henderson fallen meteorite that s
good

but it s something more than a meteorite it s a cylinder
an artificial cylinder man and there s something
inside

henderson stood up with his spade in his hand

what s that he said he was deaf in one ear

ogilvy told him all that he had seen henderson was a minute
or so taking it in then he dropped his spade snatched up
his jacket and came out into the road the two men hurried
back at once to the common and found the cylinder still
lying in the same position but now the sounds inside had
ceased and a thin circle of bright metal showed between the
top and the body of the cylinder air was either entering or
escaping at the rim with a thin sizzling sound

they listened rapped on the scaly burnt metal with a stick
and meeting with no response they both concluded the man
or men inside must be insensible or dead

of course the two were quite unable to do anything they
shouted consolation and promises and went off back to the
town again to get help one can imagine them covered with
sand excited and disordered running up the little street
in the bright sunlight just as the shop folks were taking
down their shutters and people were opening their bedroom
windows henderson went into the railway station at once in
order to telegraph the news to london the newspaper
articles had prepared men s minds for the reception of the
idea

by eight o clock a number of boys and unemployed men had
already started for the common to see the dead men from
mars that was the form the story took i heard of it first
from my newspaper boy about a quarter to nine when i went
out to get my daily chronicle i was naturally startled and
lost no time in going out and across the ottershaw bridge to
the sand pits


i found a little crowd of perhaps twenty people surrounding
the huge hole in which the cylinder lay i have already
described the appearance of that colossal bulk embedded in
the ground the turf and gravel about it seemed charred as
if by a sudden explosion no doubt its impact had caused a
flash of fire henderson and ogilvy were not there i think
they perceived that nothing was to be done for the present
and had gone away to breakfast at henderson s house

there were four or five boys sitting on the edge of the pit
with their feet dangling and amusing themselves until i
stopped them by throwing stones at the giant mass after i
had spoken to them about it they began playing at touch
in and out of the group of bystanders

among these were a couple of cyclists a jobbing gardener i
employed sometimes a girl carrying a baby gregg the
butcher and his little boy and two or three loafers and
golf caddies who were accustomed to hang about the railway
station there was very little talking few of the common
people in england had anything but the vaguest astronomical
ideas in those days most of them were staring quietly at
the big tablelike end of the cylinder which was still as
ogilvy and henderson had left it i fancy the popular
expectation of a heap of charred corpses was disappointed at
this inanimate bulk some went away while i was there and
other people came i clambered into the pit and fancied i
heard a faint movement under my feet the top had certainly
ceased to rotate

it was only when i got thus close to it that the strangeness
of this object was at all evident to me at the first glance
it was really no more exciting than an overturned carriage
or a tree blown across the road not so much so indeed it
looked like a rusty gas float it required a certain amount
of scientific education to perceive that the grey scale of
the thing was no common oxide that the yellowish white
metal that gleamed in the crack between the lid and the
cylinder had an unfamiliar hue extra terrestrial had no
meaning for most of the onlookers

at that time it was quite clear in my own mind that the
thing had come from the planet mars but i judged it
improbable that it contained any living creature i thought
the unscrewing might be automatic in spite of ogilvy i
still believed that there were men in mars my mind ran
fancifully on the possibilities of its containing
manuscript on the difficulties in translation that might
arise whether we should find coins and models in it and so
forth yet it was a little too large for assurance on this
idea i felt an impatience to see it opened about eleven
as nothing seemed happening i walked back full of such
thought to my home in maybury but i found it difficult to
get to work upon my abstract investigations

in the afternoon the appearance of the common had altered
very much the early editions of the evening papers had
startled london with enormous headlines


a message received from mars

remarkable story from woking

and so forth in addition ogilvy s wire to the astronomical
exchange had roused every observatory in the three kingdoms

there were half a dozen flies or more from the woking
station standing in the road by the sand pits a
basket chaise from chobham and a rather lordly carriage
besides that there was quite a heap of bicycles in
addition a large number of people must have walked in
spite of the heat of the day from woking and chertsey so
that there was altogether quite a considerable crowd one or
two gaily dressed ladies among the others it was glaringly
hot not a cloud in the sky nor a breath of wind and the
only shadow was that of the few scattered pine trees the
burning heather had been extinguished but the level ground
towards ottershaw was blackened as far as one could see and
still giving off vertical streamers of smoke an
enterprising sweet stuff dealer in the chobham road had sent
up his son with a barrow load of green apples and ginger
beer

going to the edge of the pit i found it occupied by a group
of about half a dozen men henderson ogilvy and a tall
fair haired man that i afterwards learned was stent the
astronomer royal with several workmen wielding spades and
pickaxes stent was giving directions in a clear
high pitched voice he was standing on the cylinder which
was now evidently much cooler his face was crimson and
streaming with perspiration and something seemed to have
irritated him

a large portion of the cylinder had been uncovered though
its lower end was still embedded as soon as ogilvy saw me
among the staring crowd on the edge of the pit he called to
me to come down and asked me if i would mind going over to
see lord hilton the lord of the manor

the growing crowd he said was becoming a serious
impediment to their excavations especially the boys they
wanted a light railing put up and help to keep the people
back he told me that a faint stirring was occasionally
still audible within the case but that the workmen had
failed to unscrew the top as it afforded no grip to them
the case appeared to be enormously thick and it was
possible that the faint sounds we heard represented a noisy
tumult in the interior

i was very glad to do as he asked and so become one of the
privileged spectators within the contemplated enclosure i
failed to find lord hilton at his house but i was told he
was expected from london by the six o clock train from
waterloo and as it was then about a quarter past five i
went home had some tea and walked up to the station to
waylay him

when i returned to the common the sun was setting scattered
groups were hurrying from the direction of woking and one
or two persons were returning the crowd about the pit had
increased and stood out black against the lemon yellow of
the sky a couple of hundred people perhaps there were
raised voices and some sort of struggle appeared to be
going on about the pit strange imaginings passed through my
mind as i drew nearer i heard stent s voice

keep back keep back

a boy came running towards me

it s a movin he said to me as he passed a screwin and
a screwin out i don t like it i m a goin ome i am

i went on to the crowd there were really i should think
two or three hundred people elbowing and jostling one
another the one or two ladies there being by no means the
least active

he s fallen in the pit cried some one

keep back said several

the crowd swayed a little and i elbowed my way through
every one seemed greatly excited i heard a peculiar humming
sound from the pit

i say said ogilvy help keep these idiots back we don t
know what s in the confounded thing you know

i saw a young man a shop assistant in woking i believe he
was standing on the cylinder and trying to scramble out of
the hole again the crowd had pushed him in

the end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within
nearly two feet of shining screw projected somebody
blundered against me and i narrowly missed being pitched
onto the top of the screw i turned and as i did so the
screw must have come out for the lid of the cylinder fell
upon the gravel with a ringing concussion i stuck my elbow
into the person behind me and turned my head towards the
thing again for a moment that circular cavity seemed
perfectly black i had the sunset in my eyes

i think everyone expected to see a man emerge possibly
something a little unlike us terrestrial men but in all
essentials a man i know i did but looking i presently
saw something stirring within the shadow greyish billowy
movements one above another and then two luminous
disks like eyes then something resembling a little grey
snake about the thickness of a walking stick coiled up out
of the writhing middle and wriggled in the air towards
me and then another

a sudden chill came over me there was a loud shriek from a
woman behind i half turned keeping my eyes fixed upon the
cylinder still from which other tentacles were now
projecting and began pushing my way back from the edge of
the pit i saw astonishment giving place to horror on the
faces of the people about me i heard inarticulate
exclamations on all sides there was a general movement
backwards i saw the shopman struggling still on the edge of
the pit i found myself alone and saw the people on the
other side of the pit running off stent among them i
looked again at the cylinder and ungovernable terror
gripped me i stood petrified and staring

a big greyish rounded bulk the size perhaps of a bear
was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder as it
bulged up and caught the light it glistened like wet
leather

two large dark coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly
the mass that framed them the head of the thing was
rounded and had one might say a face there was a mouth
under the eyes the lipless brim of which quivered and
panted and dropped saliva the whole creature heaved and
pulsated convulsively a lank tentacular appendage gripped
the edge of the cylinder another swayed in the air

those who have never seen a living martian can scarcely
imagine the strange horror of its appearance the peculiar
v shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip the absence of
brow ridges the absence of a chin beneath the wedgelike
lower lip the incessant quivering of this mouth the gorgon
groups of tentacles the tumultuous breathing of the lungs
in a strange atmosphere the evident heaviness and
painfulness of movement due to the greater gravitational
energy of the earth above all the extraordinary intensity
of the immense eyes were at once vital intense inhuman
crippled and monstrous there was something fungoid in the
oily brown skin something in the clumsy deliberation of the
tedious movements unspeakably nasty even at this first
encounter this first glimpse i was overcome with disgust
and dread

suddenly the monster vanished it had toppled over the brim
of the cylinder and fallen into the pit with a thud like
the fall of a great mass of leather i heard it give a
peculiar thick cry and forthwith another of these creatures
appeared darkly in the deep shadow of the aperture

i turned and running madly made for the first group of
trees perhaps a hundred yards away but i ran slantingly
and stumbling for i could not avert my face from these
things

there among some young pine trees and furze bushes i
stopped panting and waited further developments the
common round the sand pits was dotted with people standing
like myself in a half fascinated terror staring at these
creatures or rather at the heaped gravel at the edge of the
pit in which they lay and then with a renewed horror i
saw a round black object bobbing up and down on the edge of
the pit it was the head of the shopman who had fallen in
but showing as a little black object against the hot western
sun now he got his shoulder and knee up and again he
seemed to slip back until only his head was visible
suddenly he vanished and i could have fancied a faint
shriek had reached me i had a momentary impulse to go back
and help him that my fears overruled

everything was then quite invisible hidden by the deep pit
and the heap of sand that the fall of the cylinder had made
anyone coming along the road from chobham or woking would
have been amazed at the sight a dwindling multitude of
perhaps a hundred people or more standing in a great
irregular circle in ditches behind bushes behind gates
and hedges saying little to one another and that in short
excited shouts and staring staring hard at a few heaps of
sand the barrow of ginger beer stood a queer derelict
black against the burning sky and in the sand pits was a
row of deserted vehicles with their horses feeding out of
nosebags or pawing the ground


after the glimpse i had had of the martians emerging from
the cylinder in which they had come to the earth from their
planet a kind of fascination paralysed my actions i
remained standing knee deep in the heather staring at the
mound that hid them i was a battleground of fear and
curiosity

i did not dare to go back towards the pit but i felt a
passionate longing to peer into it i began walking
therefore in a big curve seeking some point of vantage and
continually looking at the sand heaps that hid these
new comers to our earth once a leash of thin black whips
like the arms of an octopus flashed across the sunset and
was immediately withdrawn and afterwards a thin rod rose
up joint by joint bearing at its apex a circular disk that
spun with a wobbling motion what could be going on there

most of the spectators had gathered in one or two groups
one a little crowd towards woking the other a knot of
people in the direction of chobham evidently they shared my
mental conflict there were few near me one man i
approached he was i perceived a neighbour of mine though
i did not know his name and accosted but it was scarcely a
time for articulate conversation

what ugly brutes he said good god what ugly brutes
he repeated this over and over again

did you see a man in the pit i said but he made no
answer to that we became silent and stood watching for a
time side by side deriving i fancy a certain comfort in
one another s company then i shifted my position to a
little knoll that gave me the advantage of a yard or more of
elevation and when i looked for him presently he was walking
towards woking

the sunset faded to twilight before anything further
happened the crowd far away on the left towards woking
seemed to grow and i heard now a faint murmur from it the
little knot of people towards chobham dispersed there was
scarcely an intimation of movement from the pit

it was this as much as anything that gave people courage
and i suppose the new arrivals from woking also helped to
restore confidence at any rate as the dusk came on a slow
intermittent movement upon the sand pits began a movement
that seemed to gather force as the stillness of the evening
about the cylinder remained unbroken vertical black figures
in twos and threes would advance stop watch and advance
again spreading out as they did so in a thin irregular
crescent that promised to enclose the pit in its attenuated
horns i too on my side began to move towards the pit

then i saw some cabmen and others had walked boldly into the
sand pits and heard the clatter of hoofs and the gride of
wheels i saw a lad trundling off the barrow of apples and
then within thirty yards of the pit advancing from the
direction of horsell i noted a little black knot of men
the foremost of whom was waving a white flag

this was the deputation there had been a hasty
consultation and since the martians were evidently in
spite of their repulsive forms intelligent creatures it
had been resolved to show them by approaching them with
signals that we too were intelligent

flutter flutter went the flag first to the right then to
the left it was too far for me to recognise anyone there
but afterwards i learned that ogilvy stent and henderson
were with others in this attempt at communication this
little group had in its advance dragged inward so to speak
the circumference of the now almost complete circle of
people and a number of dim black figures followed it at
discreet distances

suddenly there was a flash of light and a quantity of
luminous greenish smoke came out of the pit in three
distinct puffs which drove up one after the other
straight into the still air

this smoke or flame perhaps would be the better word for
it was so bright that the deep blue sky overhead and the
hazy stretches of brown common towards chertsey set with
black pine trees seemed to darken abruptly as these puffs
arose and to remain the darker after their dispersal at
the same time a faint hissing sound became audible

beyond the pit stood the little wedge of people with the
white flag at its apex arrested by these phenomena a
little knot of small vertical black shapes upon the black
ground as the green smoke arose their faces flashed out
pallid green and faded again as it vanished then slowly
the hissing passed into a humming into a long loud
droning noise slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit
and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker out from
it

forthwith flashes of actual flame a bright glare leaping
from one to another sprang from the scattered group of men
it was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and
flashed into white flame it was as if each man were
suddenly and momentarily turned to fire

then by the light of their own destruction i saw them
staggering and falling and their supporters turning to run

i stood staring not as yet realising that this was death
leaping from man to man in that little distant crowd all i
felt was that it was something very strange an almost
noiseless and blinding flash of light and a man fell
headlong and lay still and as the unseen shaft of heat
passed over them pine trees burst into fire and every dry
furze bush became with one dull thud a mass of flames and
far away towards knaphill i saw the flashes of trees and
hedges and wooden buildings suddenly set alight

it was sweeping round swiftly and steadily this flaming
death this invisible inevitable sword of heat i perceived
it coming towards me by the flashing bushes it touched and
was too astounded and stupefied to stir i heard the crackle
of fire in the sand pits and the sudden squeal of a horse
that was as suddenly stilled then it was as if an invisible
yet intensely heated finger were drawn through the heather
between me and the martians and all along a curving line
beyond the sand pits the dark ground smoked and crackled
something fell with a crash far away to the left where the
road from woking station opens out on the common forthwith
the hissing and humming ceased and the black dome like
object sank slowly out of sight into the pit

all this had happened with such swiftness that i had stood
motionless dumbfounded and dazzled by the flashes of light
had that death swept through a full circle it must
inevitably have slain me in my surprise but it passed and
spared me and left the night about me suddenly dark and
unfamiliar

the undulating common seemed now dark almost to blackness
except where its roadways lay grey and pale under the deep
blue sky of the early night it was dark and suddenly void
of men overhead the stars were mustering and in the west
the sky was still a pale bright almost greenish blue the
tops of the pine trees and the roofs of horsell came out
sharp and black against the western afterglow the martians
and their appliances were altogether invisible save for
that thin mast upon which their restless mirror wobbled
patches of bush and isolated trees here and there smoked and
glowed still and the houses towards woking station were
sending up spires of flame into the stillness of the evening
air

nothing was changed save for that and a terrible
astonishment the little group of black specks with the flag
of white had been swept out of existence and the stillness
of the evening so it seemed to me had scarcely been
broken

it came to me that i was upon this dark common helpless
unprotected and alone suddenly like a thing falling upon
me from without came fear

with an effort i turned and began a stumbling run through
the heather

the fear i felt was no rational fear but a panic terror not
only of the martians but of the dusk and stillness all
about me such an extraordinary effect in unmanning me it
had that i ran weeping silently as a child might do once i
had turned i did not dare to look back

i remember i felt an extraordinary persuasion that i was
being played with that presently when i was upon the very
verge of safety this mysterious death as swift as the
passage of light would leap after me from the pit about the
cylinder and strike me down


it is still a matter of wonder how the martians are able to
slay men so swiftly and so silently many think that in some
way they are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber
of practically absolute non conductivity this intense heat
they project in a parallel beam against any object they
choose by means of a polished parabolic mirror of unknown
composition much as the parabolic mirror of a lighthouse
projects a beam of light but no one has absolutely proved
these details however it is done it is certain that a beam
of heat is the essence of the matter heat and invisible
instead of visible light whatever is combustible flashes
into flame at its touch lead runs like water it softens
iron cracks and melts glass and when it falls upon water
incontinently that explodes into steam

that night nearly forty people lay under the starlight about
the pit charred and distorted beyond recognition and all
night long the common from horsell to maybury was deserted
and brightly ablaze

the news of the massacre probably reached chobham woking
and ottershaw about the same time in woking the shops had
closed when the tragedy happened and a number of people
shop people and so forth attracted by the stories they had
heard were walking over the horsell bridge and along the
road between the hedges that runs out at last upon the
common you may imagine the young people brushed up after
the labours of the day and making this novelty as they
would make any novelty the excuse for walking together and
enjoying a trivial flirtation you may figure to yourself
the hum of voices along the road in the gloaming

as yet of course few people in woking even knew that the
cylinder had opened though poor henderson had sent a
messenger on a bicycle to the post office with a special
wire to an evening paper

as these folks came out by twos and threes upon the open
they found little knots of people talking excitedly and
peering at the spinning mirror over the sand pits and the
new comers were no doubt soon infected by the excitement
of the occasion

by half past eight when the deputation was destroyed there
may have been a crowd of three hundred people or more at
this place besides those who had left the road to approach
the martians nearer there were three policemen too one of
whom was mounted doing their best under instructions from
stent to keep the people back and deter them from
approaching the cylinder there was some booing from those
more thoughtless and excitable souls to whom a crowd is
always an occasion for noise and horse play

stent and ogilvy anticipating some possibilities of a
collision had telegraphed from horsell to the barracks as
soon as the martians emerged for the help of a company of
soldiers to protect these strange creatures from violence
after that they returned to lead that ill fated advance the
description of their death as it was seen by the crowd
tallies very closely with my own impressions the three
puffs of green smoke the deep humming note and the flashes
of flame

but that crowd of people had a far narrower escape than
mine only the fact that a hummock of heathery sand
intercepted the lower part of the heat ray saved them had
the elevation of the parabolic mirror been a few yards
higher none could have lived to tell the tale they saw the
flashes and the men falling and an invisible hand as it
were lit the bushes as it hurried towards them through the
twilight then with a whistling note that rose above the
droning of the pit the beam swung close over their heads
lighting the tops of the beech trees that line the road and
splitting the bricks smashing the windows firing the
window frames and bringing down in crumbling ruin a portion
of the gable of the house nearest the corner

in the sudden thud hiss and glare of the igniting trees
the panic stricken crowd seems to have swayed hesitatingly
for some moments sparks and burning twigs began to fall
into the road and single leaves like puffs of flame hats
and dresses caught fire then came a crying from the common
there were shrieks and shouts and suddenly a mounted
policeman came galloping through the confusion with his
hands clasped over his head screaming

they re coming a woman shrieked and incontinently
everyone was turning and pushing at those behind in order
to clear their way to woking again they must have bolted as
blindly as a flock of sheep where the road grows narrow and
black between the high banks the crowd jammed and a
desperate struggle occurred all that crowd did not escape
three persons at least two women and a little boy were
crushed and trampled there and left to die amid the terror
and the darkness

for my own part i remember nothing of my flight except the
stress of blundering against trees and stumbling through the
heather all about me gathered the invisible terrors of the
martians that pitiless sword of heat seemed whirling to and
fro flourishing overhead before it descended and smote me
out of life i came into the road between the crossroads and
horsell and ran along this to the crossroads

at last i could go no further i was exhausted with the
violence of my emotion and of my flight and i staggered and
fell by the wayside that was near the bridge that crosses
the canal by the gasworks i fell and lay still

i must have remained there some time

i sat up strangely perplexed for a moment perhaps i
could not clearly understand how i came there my terror had
fallen from me like a garment my hat had gone and my
collar had burst away from its fastener a few minutes
before there had only been three real things before me the
immensity of the night and space and nature my own
feebleness and anguish and the near approach of death now
it was as if something turned over and the point of view
altered abruptly there was no sensible transition from one
state of mind to the other i was immediately the self of
every day again a decent ordinary citizen the silent
common the impulse of my flight the starting flames were
as if they had been in a dream i asked myself had these
latter things indeed happened i could not credit it

i rose and walked unsteadily up the steep incline of the
bridge my mind was blank wonder my muscles and nerves
seemed drained of their strength i dare say i staggered
drunkenly a head rose over the arch and the figure of a
workman carrying a basket appeared beside him ran a little
boy he passed me wishing me good night i was minded to
speak to him but did not i answered his greeting with a
meaningless mumble and went on over the bridge

over the maybury arch a train a billowing tumult of white
firelit smoke and a long caterpillar of lighted windows
went flying south clatter clatter clap rap and it had
gone a dim group of people talked in the gate of one of the
houses in the pretty little row of gables that was called
oriental terrace it was all so real and so familiar and
that behind me it was frantic fantastic such things i
told myself could not be

perhaps i am a man of exceptional moods i do not know how
far my experience is common at times i suffer from the
strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world
about me i seem to watch it all from the outside from
somewhere inconceivably remote out of time out of space
out of the stress and tragedy of it all this feeling was
very strong upon me that night here was another side to my
dream

but the trouble was the blank incongruity of this serenity
and the swift death flying yonder not two miles away there
was a noise of business from the gasworks and the electric
lamps were all alight i stopped at the group of people

what news from the common said i

there were two men and a woman at the gate

eh said one of the men turning

what news from the common i said

ain t yer just been there asked the men

people seem fair silly about the common said the woman
over the gate what s it all abart

haven t you heard of the men from mars said i the
creatures from mars

quite enough said the woman over the gate thenks and
all three of them laughed

i felt foolish and angry i tried and found i could not tell
them what i had seen they laughed again at my broken
sentences

you ll hear more yet i said and went on to my home

i startled my wife at the doorway so haggard was i i went
into the dining room sat down drank some wine and so soon
as i could collect myself sufficiently i told her the things
i had seen the dinner which was a cold one had already
been served and remained neglected on the table while i
told my story

there is one thing i said to allay the fears i had
aroused they are the most sluggish things i ever saw
crawl they may keep the pit and kill people who come near
them but they cannot get out of it but the horror of
them

don t dear said my wife knitting her brows and putting
her hand on mine

poor ogilvy i said to think he may be lying dead
there

my wife at least did not find my experience incredible when
i saw how deadly white her face was i ceased abruptly

they may come here she said again and again

i pressed her to take wine and tried to reassure her

they can scarcely move i said

i began to comfort her and myself by repeating all that
ogilvy had told me of the impossibility of the martians
establishing themselves on the earth in particular i laid
stress on the gravitational difficulty on the surface of
the earth the force of gravity is three times what it is on
the surface of mars a martian therefore would weigh three
times more than on mars albeit his muscular strength would
be the same his own body would be a cope of lead to him
that indeed was the general opinion both the times and
the daily telegraph for instance insisted on it the next
morning and both overlooked just as i did two obvious
modifying influences

the atmosphere of the earth we now know contains far more
oxygen or far less argon whichever way one likes to put it
than does mars the invigorating influences of this excess
of oxygen upon the martians indisputably did much to
counterbalance the increased weight of their bodies and in
the second place we all overlooked the fact that such
mechanical intelligence as the martian possessed was quite
able to dispense with muscular exertion at a pinch

but i did not consider these points at the time and so my
reasoning was dead against the chances of the invaders with
wine and food the confidence of my own table and the
necessity of reassuring my wife i grew by insensible
degrees courageous and secure

they have done a foolish thing said i fingering my
wineglass they are dangerous because no doubt they are
mad with terror perhaps they expected to find no living
things certainly no intelligent living things

a shell in the pit said i if the worst comes to the
worst will kill them all

the intense excitement of the events had no doubt left my
perceptive powers in a state of erethism i remember that
dinner table with extraordinary vividness even now my dear
wife s sweet anxious face peering at me from under the pink
lamp shade the white cloth with its silver and glass table
furniture for in those days even philosophical writers had
many little luxuries the crimson purple wine in my glass
are photographically distinct at the end of it i sat
tempering nuts with a cigarette regretting ogilvy s
rashness and denouncing the shortsighted timidity of the
martians

so some respectable dodo in the mauritius might have lorded
it in his nest and discussed the arrival of that shipful of
pitiless sailors in want of animal food we will peck them
to death tomorrow my dear

i did not know it but that was the last civilised dinner i
was to eat for very many strange and terrible days

the most extraordinary thing to my mind of all the strange
and wonderful things that happened upon that friday was the
dovetailing of the commonplace habits of our social order
with the first beginnings of the series of events that was
to topple that social order headlong if on friday night you
had taken a pair of compasses and drawn a circle with a
radius of five miles round the woking sand pits i doubt if
you would have had one human being outside it unless it
were some relation of stent or of the three or four cyclists
or london people lying dead on the common whose emotions or
habits were at all affected by the new comers many people
had heard of the cylinder of course and talked about it in
their leisure but it certainly did not make the sensation
that an ultimatum to germany would have done

in london that night poor henderson s telegram describing
the gradual unscrewing of the shot was judged to be a
canard and his evening paper after wiring for
authentication from him and receiving no reply the man was
killed decided not to print a special edition

even within the five mile circle the great majority of
people were inert i have already described the behaviour of
the men and women to whom i spoke all over the district
people were dining and supping working men were gardening
after the labours of the day children were being put to
bed young people were wandering through the lanes
love making students sat over their books

maybe there was a murmur in the village streets a novel and
dominant topic in the public houses and here and there a
messenger or even an eye witness of the later occurrences
caused a whirl of excitement a shouting and a running to
and fro but for the most part the daily routine of working
eating drinking sleeping went on as it had done for
countless years as though no planet mars existed in the
sky even at woking station and horsell and chobham that was
the case

in woking junction until a late hour trains were stopping
and going on others were shunting on the sidings
passengers were alighting and waiting and everything was
proceeding in the most ordinary way a boy from the town
trenching on smith s monopoly was selling papers with the
afternoon s news the ringing impact of trucks the sharp
whistle of the engines from the junction mingled with their
shouts of men from mars excited men came into the station
about nine o clock with incredible tidings and caused no
more disturbance than drunkards might have done people
rattling londonwards peered into the darkness outside the
carriage windows and saw only a rare flickering vanishing
spark dance up from the direction of horsell a red glow and
a thin veil of smoke driving across the stars and thought
that nothing more serious than a heath fire was happening
it was only round the edge of the common that any
disturbance was perceptible there were half a dozen villas
burning on the woking border there were lights in all the
houses on the common side of the three villages and the
people there kept awake till dawn

a curious crowd lingered restlessly people coming and going
but the crowd remaining both on the chobham and horsell
bridges one or two adventurous souls it was afterwards
found went into the darkness and crawled quite near the
martians but they never returned for now and again a
light ray like the beam of a warship s searchlight swept
the common and the heat ray was ready to follow save for
such that big area of common was silent and desolate and
the charred bodies lay about on it all night under the
stars and all the next day a noise of hammering from the
pit was heard by many people