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1"I lay still," he said, "scared out of my wits, with the fore quarter of a horse atop of me. We'd been wiped out. And
2the smell--good God! Like burnt meat! I was hurt across the back by the fall of the horse, and there I had to lie until
3I felt better. Just like parade it had been a minute before--then stumble, bang, swish! "Wiped out!" he said. He had hid
4under the dead horse for a long time, peeping out furtively across the common. The Cardigan men had tried a rush, in
5skirmishing order, at the pit, simply to be swept out of existence. Then the monster had risen to its feet and had begun
6to walk leisurely to and fro across the common among the few fugitives, with its headlike hood turning about exactly
7like the head of a cowled human being. A kind of arm carried a complicated metallic case, about which green flashes
8scintillated, and out of the funnel of this there smoked the Heat-Ray. In a few minutes there was, so far as the soldier
9could see, not a living thing left upon the common, and every bush and tree upon it that was not already a blackened
10skeleton was burning. The hussars had been on the road beyond the curvature of the ground, and he saw nothing of them.
11He heard the Maxims rattle for a time and then become still. The giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses
12until the last; then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear, and the town became a heap of fiery ruins. Then the
13Thing shut off the Heat-Ray, and turning its back upon the artilleryman, began to waddle away towards the smouldering
14pine woods that sheltered the second cylinder. As it did so a second glittering Titan built itself up out of the pit.
15The second monster followed the first, and at that the artilleryman began to crawl very cautiously across the hot
16heather ash towards Horsell. He managed to get alive into the ditch by the side of the road, and so escaped to Woking.
17There his story became ejaculatory. The place was impassable. It seems there were a few people alive there, frantic for
18the most part and many burned and scalded. He was turned aside by the fire, and hid among some almost scorching heaps of
19broken wall as one of the Martian giants returned. He saw this one pursue a man, catch him up in one of its steely
20tentacles, and knock his head against the trunk of a pine tree. At last, after nightfall, the artilleryman made a rush
21for it and got over the railway embankment. Since then he had been skulking along towards Maybury, in the hope of
22getting out of danger Londonward. People were hiding in trenches and cellars, and many of the survivors had made off
23towards Woking village and Send. He had been consumed with thirst until he found one of the water mains near the railway
24arch smashed, and the water bubbling out like a spring upon the road. That was the story I got from him, bit by bit. He
25grew calmer telling me and trying to make me see the things he had seen. He had eaten no food since midday, he told me
26early in his narrative, and I found some mutton and bread in the pantry and brought it into the room. We lit no lamp for
27fear of attracting the Martians, and ever and again our hands would touch upon bread or meat. As he talked, things about
28us came darkly out of the darkness, and the trampled bushes and broken rose trees outside the window grew distinct. It
29would seem that a number of men or animals had rushed across the lawn. I began to see his face, blackened and haggard,
30as no doubt mine was also. When we had finished eating we went softly upstairs to my study, and I looked again out of
31the open window. In one night the valley had become a valley of ashes. The fires had dwindled now. Where flames had been
32there were now streamers of smoke; but the countless ruins of shattered and gutted houses and blasted and blackened
33trees that the night had hidden stood out now gaunt and terrible in the pitiless light of dawn. Yet here and there some
34object had had the luck to escape--a white railway signal here, the end of a greenhouse there, white and fresh amid the
35wreckage. Never before in the history of warfare had destruction been so indiscriminate and so universal. And shining
36with the growing light of the east, three of the metallic giants stood about the pit, their cowls rotating as though
37they were surveying the desolation they had made. It seemed to me that the pit had been enlarged, and ever and again
38puffs of vivid green vapour streamed up and out of it towards the brightening dawn--streamed up, whirled, broke, and
39vanished. Beyond were the pillars of fire about Chobham. They became pillars of bloodshot smoke at the first touch of
40day. XII. WHAT I SAW OF THE DESTRUCTION OF WEYBRIDGE AND SHEPPERTON. As the dawn grew brighter we withdrew from the
41window from which we had watched the Martians, and went very quietly downstairs. The artilleryman agreed with me that
42the house was no place to stay in. He proposed, he said, to make his way Londonward, and thence rejoin his battery--No.
4312, of the Horse Artillery. My plan was to return at once to Leatherhead; and so greatly had the strength of the
44Martians impressed me that I had determined to take my wife to Newhaven, and go with her out of the country forthwith.
45For I already perceived clearly that the country about London must inevitably be the scene of a disastrous struggle
46before such creatures as these could be destroyed. Between us and Leatherhead, however, lay the third cylinder, with its
47guarding giants. Had I been alone, I think I should have taken my chance and struck across country. But the artilleryman
48dissuaded me: "It's no kindness to the right sort of wife," he said, "to make her a widow;" and in the end I agreed to
49go with him, under cover of the woods, northward as far as Street Cobham before I parted with him. Thence I would make a
50big detour by Epsom to reach Leatherhead. I should have started at once, but my companion had been in active service and
51he knew better than that. He made me ransack the house for a flask, which he filled with whisky; and we lined every
52available pocket with packets of biscuits and slices of meat. Then we crept out of the house, and ran as quickly as we
53could down the ill-made road by which I had come overnight. The houses seemed deserted. In the road lay a group of three
54charred bodies close together, struck dead by the Heat-Ray; and here and there were things that people had dropped--a
55clock, a slipper, a silver spoon, and the like poor valuables. At the corner turning up towards the post office a little
56cart, filled with boxes and furniture, and horseless, heeled over on a broken wheel. A cash box had been hastily smashed
57open and thrown under the debris. Except the lodge at the Orphanage, which was still on fire, none of the houses had
58suffered very greatly here. The Heat-Ray had shaved the chimney tops and passed. Yet, save ourselves, there did not seem
59to be a living soul on Maybury Hill. The majority of the inhabitants had escaped, I suppose, by way of the Old Woking
60road--the road I had taken when I drove to Leatherhead--or they had hidden. We went down the lane, by the body of the
61man in black, sodden now from the overnight hail, and broke into the woods at the foot of the hill. We pushed through
62these towards the railway without meeting a soul. The woods across the line were but the scarred and blackened ruins of
63woods; for the most part the trees had fallen, but a certain proportion still stood, dismal grey stems, with dark brown
64foliage instead of green. On our side the fire had done no more than scorch the nearer trees; it had failed to secure
65its footing. In one place the woodmen had been at work on Saturday; trees, felled and freshly trimmed, lay in a
66clearing, with heaps of sawdust by the sawing-machine and its engine. Hard by was a temporary hut, deserted. There was
67not a breath of wind this morning, and everything was strangely still. Even the birds were hushed, and as we hurried
68along I and the artilleryman talked in whispers and looked now and again over our shoulders. Once or twice we stopped to
69listen.
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