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1But three certainly came out about eight o'clock and, advancing slowly and cautiously, made their way through Byfleet
2and Pyrford towards Ripley and Weybridge, and so came in sight of the expectant batteries against the setting sun. These
3Martians did not advance in a body, but in a line, each perhaps a mile and a half from his nearest fellow. They
4communicated with one another by means of sirenlike howls, running up and down the scale from one note to another. It
5was this howling and firing of the guns at Ripley and St. George's Hill that we had heard at Upper Halliford. The Ripley
6gunners, unseasoned artillery volunteers who ought never to have been placed in such a position, fired one wild,
7premature, ineffectual volley, and bolted on horse and foot through the deserted village, while the Martian, without
8using his Heat-Ray, walked serenely over their guns, stepped gingerly among them, passed in front of them, and so came
9unexpectedly upon the guns in Painshill Park, which he destroyed. The St. George's Hill men, however, were better led or
10of a better mettle. Hidden by a pine wood as they were, they seem to have been quite unsuspected by the Martian nearest
11to them. They laid their guns as deliberately as if they had been on parade, and fired at about a thousand yards' range.
12The shells flashed all round him, and he was seen to advance a few paces, stagger, and go down. Everybody yelled
13together, and the guns were reloaded in frantic haste. The overthrown Martian set up a prolonged ululation, and
14immediately a second glittering giant, answering him, appeared over the trees to the south. It would seem that a leg of
15the tripod had been smashed by one of the shells. The whole of the second volley flew wide of the Martian on the ground,
16and, simultaneously, both his companions brought their Heat-Rays to bear on the battery. The ammunition blew up, the
17pine trees all about the guns flashed into fire, and only one or two of the men who were already running over the crest
18of the hill escaped. After this it would seem that the three took counsel together and halted, and the scouts who were
19watching them report that they remained absolutely stationary for the next half hour. The Martian who had been
20overthrown crawled tediously out of his hood, a small brown figure, oddly suggestive from that distance of a speck of
21blight, and apparently engaged in the repair of his support. About nine he had finished, for his cowl was then seen
22above the trees again. It was a few minutes past nine that night when these three sentinels were joined by four other
23Martians, each carrying a thick black tube. A similar tube was handed to each of the three, and the seven proceeded to
24distribute themselves at equal distances along a curved line between St. George's Hill, Weybridge, and the village of
25Send, southwest of Ripley. A dozen rockets sprang out of the hills before them so soon as they began to move, and warned
26the waiting batteries about Ditton and Esher. At the same time four of their fighting machines, similarly armed with
27tubes, crossed the river, and two of them, black against the western sky, came into sight of myself and the curate as we
28hurried wearily and painfully along the road that runs northward out of Halliford. They moved, as it seemed to us, upon
29a cloud, for a milky mist covered the fields and rose to a third of their height. At this sight the curate cried faintly
30in his throat, and began running; but I knew it was no good running from a Martian, and I turned aside and crawled
31through dewy nettles and brambles into the broad ditch by the side of the road. He looked back, saw what I was doing,
32and turned to join me. The two halted, the nearer to us standing and facing Sunbury, the remoter being a grey
33indistinctness towards the evening star, away towards Staines. The occasional howling of the Martians had ceased; they
34took up their positions in the huge crescent about their cylinders in absolute silence. It was a crescent with twelve
35miles between its horns. Never since the devising of gunpowder was the beginning of a battle so still. To us and to an
36observer about Ripley it would have had precisely the same effect--the Martians seemed in solitary possession of the
37darkling night, lit only as it was by the slender moon, the stars, the afterglow of the daylight, and the ruddy glare
38from St. George's Hill and the woods of Painshill. But facing that crescent everywhere--at Staines, Hounslow, Ditton,
39Esher, Ockham, behind hills and woods south of the river, and across the flat grass meadows to the north of it, wherever
40a cluster of trees or village houses gave sufficient cover--the guns were waiting. The signal rockets burst and rained
41their sparks through the night and vanished, and the spirit of all those watching batteries rose to a tense expectation.
42The Martians had but to advance into the line of fire, and instantly those motionless black forms of men, those guns
43glittering so darkly in the early night, would explode into a thunderous fury of battle. No doubt the thought that was
44uppermost in a thousand of those vigilant minds, even as it was uppermost in mine, was the riddle--how much they
45understood of us. Did they grasp that we in our millions were organized, disciplined, working together? Or did they
46interpret our spurts of fire, the sudden stinging of our shells, our steady investment of their encampment, as we should
47the furious unanimity of onslaught in a disturbed hive of bees? Did they dream they might exterminate us? (At that time
48no one knew what food they needed.) A hundred such questions struggled together in my mind as I watched that vast
49sentinel shape. And in the back of my mind was the sense of all the huge unknown and hidden forces Londonward. Had they
50prepared pitfalls? Were the powder mills at Hounslow ready as a snare? Would the Londoners have the heart and courage to
51make a greater Moscow of their mighty province of houses? Then, after an interminable time, as it seemed to us,
52crouching and peering through the hedge, came a sound like the distant concussion of a gun. Another nearer, and then
53another. And then the Martian beside us raised his tube on high and discharged it, gunwise, with a heavy report that
54made the ground heave. The one towards Staines answered him. There was no flash, no smoke, simply that loaded
55detonation. I was so excited by these heavy minute-guns following one another that I so far forgot my personal safety
56and my scalded hands as to clamber up into the hedge and stare towards Sunbury. As I did so a second report followed,
57and a big projectile hurtled overhead towards Hounslow. I expected at least to see smoke or fire, or some such evidence
58of its work. But all I saw was the deep blue sky above, with one solitary star, and the white mist spreading wide and
59low beneath. And there had been no crash, no answering explosion. The silence was restored; the minute lengthened to
60three. "What has happened?" said the curate, standing up beside me. "Heaven knows!" said I. A bat flickered by and
61vanished. A distant tumult of shouting began and ceased. I looked again at the Martian, and saw he was now moving
62eastward along the riverbank, with a swift, rolling motion. Every moment I expected the fire of some hidden battery to
63spring upon him; but the evening calm was unbroken. The figure of the Martian grew smaller as he receded, and presently
64the mist and the gathering night had swallowed him up. By a common impulse we clambered higher. Towards Sunbury was a
65dark appearance, as though a conical hill had suddenly come into being there, hiding our view of the farther country;
66and then, remoter across the river, over Walton, we saw another such summit. These hill-like forms grew lower and
67broader even as we stared. Moved by a sudden thought, I looked northward, and there I perceived a third of these cloudy
68black kopjes had risen. Everything had suddenly become very still. Far away to the southeast, marking the quiet, we
69heard the Martians hooting to one another, and then the air quivered again with the distant thud of their guns. But the
70earthly artillery made no reply.
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