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The War of the Worlds
Chapter 20. THE DAYS OF IMPRISONMENT
The arrival of a second fighting-machine drove us from our peephole into the scullery.
We feared that from his height the Martian might see down on us behind our barrier.
Later, we began to feel less in danger of their eyes.
To an eye in the bright sunlight outside, our refuge must have been blank blackness.
But at first, the slightest suggestion of approach sent us running into the scullery with our hearts pounding.
Yet as terrible as the danger was, the attraction of peeping was irresistible for both of us.
I recall now with a sort of wonder.
In spite of the endless danger between starvation and an even more terrible death, we still struggled bitterly for that horrible privilege of sight.
We'd race across the kitchen in a strange way between eagerness and the fear of making a noise.
We'd strike each other, and push and kick, within a few inches of being seen.
The fact is that we had completely incompatible personalities and habits of thought and action.
Our danger and isolation only made the incompatibility worse.
At Halliford I had already come to hate the curate's habit of helpless exclamation, his stupid, rigid mind.
His endless muttering monologue ruined every effort I made to think out a plan of action.
It drove me at times, trapped and stressed, almost to the edge of madness.
He was as lacking in self-control as a silly woman, he'd weep for hours together.
And I truly believe that to the very end this spoiled child of life thought his weak tears were somehow effective.
And I'd sit in the darkness, unable to keep my mind off him because of his constant demands.
He ate far more food than I did, taking large, greedy mouthfuls often.
It was useless to point out that our only chance was to stay in the house until the Martians finished with their pit.
In that long patience, a time might come when we'd need food.
He ate and drank impulsively in heavy meals at long intervals, he slept little.
As days passed, his careless disregard worsened our danger so much that I had to threaten him, though I hated doing it.
And at last I had to use blows.
That brought him to reason for a time.
But he was one of those weak creatures, without pride, fearful, weak, hateful souls, full of tricky cunning.
They face neither God nor man, they don't even face themselves.
It's unpleasant for me to recall and write these things, but I set them down so that my story may lack nothing.
Those who escaped life's dark aspects will blame my brutality and my flash of rage in our final tragedy.
They know what's wrong as well as anyone, but not what's possible for tortured men.
But those who have been under the shadow, who have gone down at last to basic things, will have a wider understanding.
Inside we fought our dark, dim contest of whispers, snatching food and drink, and exchanging gripping hands and blows.
Outside, in the pitiless sunlight of that terrible June, was the strange wonder.
It was the unfamiliar routine of the Martians in the pit.
Let me return to those first new experiences of mine.
After a long time I dared to go back to the peephole.
I found that the newcomers had been joined by the occupants of no fewer than three of the fighting-machines.
These last had brought with them some new tools that stood in an orderly way around the cylinder.
The second handling-machine was now finished, and it was busy serving one of the new devices the big machine had brought.
This was a body that looked like a milk can in its general shape.
Above it, a pear-shaped container moved back and forth, and from it a stream of white powder flowed into a round basin below.
The back-and-forth motion was given to it by one tentacle of the handling-machine.
With two flat hands, the handling-machine was digging out and throwing masses of clay into the pear-shaped container above.
With another arm it regularly opened a door and removed rusty and blackened waste from the middle part of the machine.
Another steely tentacle directed the powder from the basin along a grooved channel toward a receiver hidden by the mound of bluish dust.
From this unseen receiver, a little thread of green smoke rose straight up into the quiet air.
As I looked, the handling-machine, with a faint and musical clinking, extended a tentacle like a telescope.
A moment before it had been just a blunt projection.
Now its end was hidden behind the mound of clay.
In another second it had lifted a bar of white aluminum into sight, still untarnished and shining brightly.
It placed it in a growing stack of bars that stood at the side of the pit.
Between sunset and starlight, this skillful machine must have made more than a hundred such bars out of the raw clay.
The mound of bluish dust rose steadily until it reached the top of the pit.
The contrast between the quick and complex movements of these machines and the slow, panting clumsiness of their masters was sharp.
For days I had to tell myself again and again that these masters were indeed the living ones of the two things.
The curate was at the slit when the first men were brought to the pit.
I was sitting below, curled up, listening with all my ears.
He made a sudden movement backward, I, afraid that we were seen, crouched in a spasm of terror.
He came sliding down the rubbish and crept beside me in the darkness.
He couldn't speak and was making gestures.
For a moment I shared his panic.
His gesture suggested that I should take the slit.
After a little while, my curiosity gave me courage.
I rose up, stepped across him, and climbed up to it.
At first I could see no reason for his wild behavior, the twilight had now come.
The stars were small and faint, but the pit was lit by the flickering green fire that came from the aluminum-making.
The whole picture was a flickering scene of green gleams and shifting rusty black shadows.
It was strangely hard on the eyes.
Bats flew over and through it all, not paying any attention.
The sprawling Martians were no longer to be seen.
The mound of blue-green powder had risen to cover them from sight.
A fighting-machine, with its legs pulled in, crumpled, and shortened, stood across the corner of the pit.
And then, amid the noise of the machinery, came a faint suspicion of human voices.
I thought about it at first only to dismiss it.
I crouched, watching this fighting-machine closely, For the first time I satisfied myself that the hood did indeed contain a Martian.
As the green flames rose, I could see the oily gleam of his skin and the brightness of his eyes.
And suddenly I heard a sharp, terror-filled yell from the pit.
I saw a long tentacle reaching over the shoulder of the machine to the little cage that sat on its back.
Then something, something struggling violently, was lifted high against the sky.
It was a black, unclear shape against the starlight.
As this black object came down again, I saw by the green brightness that it was a man.
For an instant he was clearly visible.
He was a heavy, red-faced, middle-aged man, well dressed.
Three days before, he must have been walking the world, a man of some importance.
I could see his staring eyes and gleams of light on his buttons and watch chain.
He disappeared behind the mound, and for a moment there was silence.
And then began a shrieking and a steady, cheerful hooting from the Martians.
I slid down the rubbish, struggled to my feet, put my hands over my ears, and ran into the scullery.
The curate, who had been crouching silently with his arms over his head, looked up as I passed.
He shouted quite loudly at my leaving him, and came running after me.
That night, as we hid in the scullery, balanced between our horror and the terrible fascination of this peeping, I felt an urgent need for action.
But I tried in vain to think of some plan of escape.
Later, during the second day, I was able to consider our position with great clarity.
I found that the curate was completely unable to discuss anything.
This new and worst horror had taken away all his reason or thought.
He had already sunk to the level of an animal.
But as the saying goes, I held myself together with both hands.
It became clear to me, once I could face the facts, that as terrible as our position was, there was still no reason for complete despair.
Our main chance lay in the possibility that the Martians would make the pit only a temporary camp.
Or even if they kept it permanently, they might not think it necessary to guard it.
Then a chance of escape might come to us.
I also thought very carefully about the possibility of our digging a way out in a direction away from the pit.
But the chances of our coming up within sight of some guard fighting-machine seemed at first too great.
And I'd have had to do all the digging myself.
The curate would certainly have failed me.
It was on the third day, if my memory serves me right, that I saw the young man killed.
It was the only time I actually saw the Martians feed.
After that experience, I avoided the hole in the wall for most of a day.
I went into the scullery, removed the door, and spent some hours digging with my hatchet as silently as possible.
But when I had made a hole about two feet deep, the loose earth fell in noisily.
I didn't dare continue, I lost heart and lay down on the scullery floor for a long time.
I had no spirit even to move.
And after that I gave up completely the idea of escaping by digging.
The Martians had made a strong impression on me.
At first I had little or no hope that our escape would come from their defeat by any human effort.
But on the fourth or fifth night, I heard a sound like heavy guns.
It was very late in the night, and the moon was shining brightly.
The Martians had taken away the digging machine.
The farther bank of the pit had a fighting-machine.
A handling-machine was hidden in a corner below my peephole, Otherwise, the place was empty.
Except for the pale glow from the handling-machine and the bars and patches of white moonlight, the pit was in darkness.
Except for the clinking of the handling-machine, it was quite still.
That night was a beautiful calm, Except for one planet, the moon seemed to have the sky to herself.
I heard a dog howling, and that familiar sound made me listen.
Then I heard quite clearly a booming exactly like the sound of great guns.
I counted six distinct reports, After a long pause, six again, and that was all.