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1So you have the state of things on Friday night. In the centre, sticking into the skin of our old planet Earth like a
2poisoned dart, was this cylinder. But the poison was scarcely working yet. Around it was a patch of silent common,
3smouldering in places, and with a few dark, dimly seen objects lying in contorted attitudes here and there. Here and
4there was a burning bush or tree. Beyond was a fringe of excitement, and farther than that fringe the inflammation had
5not crept as yet. In the rest of the world the stream of life still flowed as it had flowed for immemorial years. The
6fever of war that would presently clog vein and artery, deaden nerve and destroy brain, had still to develop. All night
7long the Martians were hammering and stirring, sleepless, indefatigable, at work upon the machines they were making
8ready, and ever and again a puff of greenish-white smoke whirled up to the starlit sky. About eleven a company of
9soldiers came through Horsell, and deployed along the edge of the common to form a cordon. Later a second company
10marched through Chobham to deploy on the north side of the common. Several officers from the Inkerman barracks had been
11on the common earlier in the day, and one, Major Eden, was reported to be missing. The colonel of the regiment came to
12the Chobham bridge and was busy questioning the crowd at midnight. The military authorities were certainly alive to the
13seriousness of the business. About eleven, the next morning's papers were able to say, a squadron of hussars, two
14Maxims, and about four hundred men of the Cardigan regiment started from Aldershot. A few seconds after midnight the
15crowd in the Chertsey road, Woking, saw a star fall from heaven into the pine woods to the northwest. It had a greenish
16colour, and caused a silent brightness like summer lightning. This was the second cylinder. IX. THE FIGHTING BEGINS.
17Saturday lives in my memory as a day of suspense. It was a day of lassitude too, hot and close, with, I am told, a
18rapidly fluctuating barometer. I had slept but little, though my wife had succeeded in sleeping, and I rose early. I
19went into my garden before breakfast and stood listening, but towards the common there was nothing stirring but a lark.
20The milkman came as usual. I heard the rattle of his chariot and I went round to the side gate to ask the latest news.
21He told me that during the night the Martians had been surrounded by troops, and that guns were expected. Then--a
22familiar, reassuring note--I heard a train running towards Woking. "They aren't to be killed," said the milkman, "if
23that can possibly be avoided." I saw my neighbour gardening, chatted with him for a time, and then strolled in to
24breakfast. It was a most unexceptional morning. My neighbour was of opinion that the troops would be able to capture or
25to destroy the Martians during the day. "It's a pity they make themselves so unapproachable," he said. "It would be
26curious to know how they live on another planet; we might learn a thing or two." He came up to the fence and extended a
27handful of strawberries, for his gardening was as generous as it was enthusiastic. At the same time he told me of the
28burning of the pine woods about the Byfleet Golf Links. "They say," said he, "that there's another of those blessed
29things fallen there--number two. But one's enough, surely. This lot'll cost the insurance people a pretty penny before
30everything's settled." He laughed with an air of the greatest good humour as he said this. The woods, he said, were
31still burning, and pointed out a haze of smoke to me. "They will be hot under foot for days, on account of the thick
32soil of pine needles and turf," he said, and then grew serious over "poor Ogilvy." After breakfast, instead of working,
33I decided to walk down towards the common. Under the railway bridge I found a group of soldiers--sappers, I think, men
34in small round caps, dirty red jackets unbuttoned, and showing their blue shirts, dark trousers, and boots coming to the
35calf. They told me no one was allowed over the canal, and, looking along the road towards the bridge, I saw one of the
36Cardigan men standing sentinel there. I talked with these soldiers for a time; I told them of my sight of the Martians
37on the previous evening. None of them had seen the Martians, and they had but the vaguest ideas of them, so that they
38plied me with questions. They said that they did not know who had authorised the movements of the troops; their idea was
39that a dispute had arisen at the Horse Guards. The ordinary sapper is a great deal better educated than the common
40soldier, and they discussed the peculiar conditions of the possible fight with some acuteness. I described the Heat-Ray
41to them, and they began to argue among themselves. "Crawl up under cover and rush 'em, say I," said one. "Get aht!" said
42another. "What's cover against this 'ere 'eat? Sticks to cook yer! What we got to do is to go as near as the ground'll
43let us, and then drive a trench." "Blow yer trenches! You always want trenches; you ought to ha' been born a rabbit,
44Snippy." "Ain't they got any necks, then?" said a third, abruptly--a little, contemplative, dark man, smoking a pipe. I
45repeated my description. "Octopuses," said he, "that's what I calls 'em. Talk about fishers of men--fighters of fish it
46is this time!" "It ain't no murder killing beasts like that," said the first speaker. "Why not shell the darned things
47strite off and finish 'em?" said the little dark man. "You carn tell what they might do." "Where's your shells?" said
48the first speaker. "There ain't no time. Do it in a rush, that's my tip, and do it at once." So they discussed it. After
49a while I left them, and went on to the railway station to get as many morning papers as I could. But I will not weary
50the reader with a description of that long morning and of the longer afternoon. I did not succeed in getting a glimpse
51of the common, for even Horsell and Chobham church towers were in the hands of the military authorities. The soldiers I
52addressed didn't know anything; the officers were mysterious as well as busy. I found people in the town quite secure
53again in the presence of the military, and I heard for the first time from Marshall, the tobacconist, that his son was
54among the dead on the common. The soldiers had made the people on the outskirts of Horsell lock up and leave their
55houses. I got back to lunch about two, very tired for, as I have said, the day was extremely hot and dull; and in order
56to refresh myself I took a cold bath in the afternoon. About half past four I went up to the railway station to get an
57evening paper, for the morning papers had contained only a very inaccurate description of the killing of Stent,
58Henderson, Ogilvy, and the others. But there was little I didn't know. The Martians did not show an inch of themselves.
59They seemed busy in their pit, and there was a sound of hammering and an almost continuous streamer of smoke. Apparently
60they were busy getting ready for a struggle. "Fresh attempts have been made to signal, but without success," was the
61stereotyped formula of the papers. A sapper told me it was done by a man in a ditch with a flag on a long pole. The
62Martians took as much notice of such advances as we should of the lowing of a cow. I must confess the sight of all this
63armament, all this preparation, greatly excited me. My imagination became belligerent, and defeated the invaders in a
64dozen striking ways; something of my schoolboy dreams of battle and heroism came back. It hardly seemed a fair fight to
65me at that time. They seemed very helpless in that pit of theirs. About three o'clock there began the thud of a gun at
66measured intervals from Chertsey or Addlestone. I learned that the smouldering pine wood into which the second cylinder
67had fallen was being shelled, in the hope of destroying that object before it opened. It was only about five, however,
68that a field gun reached Chobham for use against the first body of Martians.
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