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The War of the Worlds
Chapter 13. HOW I FELL IN WITH THE CURATE
After learning this sudden lesson about the power of earthly weapons, the Martians went back to their original position on Horsell Common.
In their hurry, and carrying the broken pieces of their destroyed companion, they probably missed many lost and unimportant victims like me.
If they had left their comrade and moved on immediately, there was nothing between them and London at that time except batteries of twelve-pounder guns.
They'd certainly have reached the capital before news of their approach arrived.
Their coming would have been as sudden, terrible, and destructive as the earthquake that destroyed Lisbon a hundred years ago.
But they were in no hurry, Cylinder followed cylinder on its journey through space.
Every twenty-four hours brought them more support.
Meanwhile, the military and naval leaders, now fully aware of their enemies' great power, worked with furious energy.
Every minute a new gun was put into position.
Before evening, every small forest and every row of suburban houses on the hills around Kingston and Richmond hid an expectant black gun barrel.
The brave scouts crawled with their heliographs.
They moved through the burned and destroyed area around the Martian camp on Horsell Common.
This area was about twenty square miles in total.
They passed burned villages among green trees and blackened paths that were pine forests just a day before.
These would soon warn the gunners of the Martians' approach.
But the Martians now understood our control of artillery and the danger of humans being near.
Not a man dared to go within a mile of either cylinder, except at the cost of his life.
It seemed that these giants spent the early part of the afternoon moving back and forth.
They moved all from the second and third cylinders, second at Addlestone Golf Links, third at Pyrford, back to their pit on Horsell Common.
Above that pit, over the blackened heather and ruined buildings that stretched far and wide, one Martian stood as a guard.
The rest left their huge fighting machines and went down into the pit.
They worked hard there far into the night.
The tall pillar of green smoke rising from it could be seen from the hills around Merrow and, reportedly, Banstead and Epsom Downs.
The Martians behind me were preparing for their next attack.
In front of me, humanity gathered for the battle.
I made my way with great difficulty from the fire and smoke of burning Weybridge toward London.
I saw an abandoned boat, very small and far away, drifting downstream.
I took off most of my wet clothes, went after it, got into it, and so escaped from that destruction.
There were no oars in the boat.
But I managed to paddle, as well as my burned hands would allow, down the river toward Halliford and Walton.
I moved very slowly and kept looking behind me, as you can well understand.
I followed the river because I thought the water gave me my best chance of escape if these giants returned.
The hot water from the Martian's defeat drifted downstream with me.
For the best part of a mile, I could see little of either bank.
Once, though, I made out a line of black figures hurrying across the fields from the direction of Weybridge.
Halliford, it seemed, was deserted, Several of the houses facing the river were on fire.
It was strange to see the place so quiet and so empty under the hot blue sky.
Smoke and thin threads of flame rose straight up into the afternoon heat.
Never before had I seen houses burning without a crowd of people watching.
A little farther on, the dry reeds up the bank were smoking and glowing.
A line of fire inland was moving steadily across a late field of hay.
For a long time I drifted slowly down the river, exhausted and nearly unconscious.
I was so painful and tired after the violence I had been through, and the heat on the water was so intense.
Then my fears got the better of me again, and I started paddling again, the sun burned my bare back.
At last, as the bridge at Walton came into sight around the bend, my fever and weakness overcame my fears.
I landed on the Middlesex bank and lay down, terribly sick, in the long grass.
I suppose the time was then about four or five o'clock.
I got up soon after, walked maybe half a mile without meeting anyone, and then lay down again in the shadow of a hedge.
I seem to remember talking to myself, without focus, during that last effort.
I was also very thirsty, and I bitterly regretted that I hadn't drunk more water.
It's a strange thing that I felt angry with my wife.
I can't explain it, but my useless desire to reach Leatherhead worried me greatly.
I don't clearly remember the curate's arrival, so I probably dozed.
I became aware of him as a seated figure in soot-covered shirt sleeves.
His clean-shaven face was turned up, staring at a faint flickering that danced across the sky.
The sky was what's called a mackerel sky, rows and rows of faint feathery clouds, just colored by the midsummer sunset.
I sat up, and at the sound of my movement, he looked at me quickly.
"Do you have any water?" I asked suddenly.
He shook his head slowly, eyes still fixed on the distant smoke.
"You have been asking for water for the last hour," he said.
For a moment we were silent, studying each other.
I dare say he found me a strange enough figure.
I was naked except for my water-soaked trousers and socks, burned, and my face and shoulders were blackened by the smoke.
His face was pale and weak, his chin was small, and his hair lay in crisp, almost yellow curls on his low forehead.
His eyes were rather large, pale blue, and staring blankly.
He spoke suddenly, looking away from me without focus.
"What does it mean?" he said.
"What do these things mean?"
I stared at him and didn't answer.
He held out a thin white hand and spoke in almost a complaining tone.
"Why are these things allowed?"
"What sins have we committed?"
"The morning service was over."
"I was walking through the roads to clear my mind for the afternoon, and then, fire, earthquake, death!"
"As if it were Sodom and Gomorrah!"
"All our work is undone, all the work."
"What are these Martians?"
"What are we?" I answered, clearing my throat.
He held his knees and turned to look at me again.
For maybe half a minute, he stared silently.
"I was walking through the roads to clear my mind," he said.
"And suddenly, fire, earthquake, death!"
He fell silent again, with his chin now almost to his knees.
Soon he began waving his thin, weary hand in anxious, restless gestures.
"All the work, all the Sunday schools are gone."
"The church we rebuilt only three years ago is gone and wiped out of existence, why?"
Another pause, and he started again like someone insane.
"The smoke of her burning goes up forever and ever!" he shouted.
His eyes flamed, and he pointed a thin finger in the direction of Weybridge.
By this time, I was beginning to understand him.
The terrible tragedy he had been through, it was clear he was a refugee from Weybridge, had driven him to the very edge of his reason.
"Are we far from Sunbury?" I said, in a matter-of-fact tone.
"What are we to do?" he asked.
"Are these creatures everywhere? Has the earth been given to them?"
"Are we far from Sunbury?"
"Only this morning I led the early service."
"Things have changed," I said quietly.
"You must keep your head. There's still hope."
"Hope!"
"Yes. Plenty of hope, for all this destruction."
I began to explain my view of our situation.
He listened at first, but as I continued, the interest that appeared in his eyes gave way to their earlier stare.
His vacant gaze slowly wandered away from me, drifting toward the smoke.
"This must be the beginning of the end," he said, interrupting me.
"The end! The great and terrible day of the Lord!"
"When men call on the mountains and the rocks to fall on them and hide them from the face of Him who sits on the throne"!
I began to understand the situation more clearly, and the danger it involved.
I stopped my difficult reasoning, struggled to my feet, and standing over him, put my hand on his shoulder.
"Be a man!" I said.
"You're scared out of your mind!"
"What good is religion if it falls apart under disaster?"
"Think of what earthquakes and floods, wars and volcanoes, have done to men before!"
"Did you think God had spared Weybridge?"
"He isn't an insurance agent."
For a time he sat in blank silence.
"But how can we escape?" he asked suddenly.
"They can't be hurt. They have no pity."
"Neither one, nor maybe the other," I answered.
"And the mightier they're, the more sensible and careful we should be. One of them was killed over there not three hours ago."
"Killed!" he said, staring around him.
"How can God's ministers be killed?"
"I saw it happen." I went on to tell him.
"We have happened to be in the middle of it," I said, "and that's all."
"What's that flicker in the sky?" he asked suddenly.
I told him it was the heliograph signaling, that it was the sign of human help and effort in the sky.
"We're in the middle of it,"
"I said, "Quiet as it is, that flicker in the sky tells of the coming storm.
"Over there, I think, are the Martians."
"Toward London, where hills rise around Richmond and Kingston and trees give cover, earthworks are being built and guns are placed."
And even as I spoke, he jumped to his feet and stopped me with a gesture.
"Listen!" he said.
From beyond the low hills across the water came the dull sound of distant guns and a strange, far-off crying.
Then everything was still, a cockchafer came buzzing over the hedge and past us.
High in the west, the crescent moon hung faint and pale above the smoke of Weybridge and Shepperton and the hot, still beauty of the sunset.
"We had better follow this path," I said, "northward."