CHAPTER NINE

The War Begins

Saturday morning, I got up early from what had been a sleepless night. I went into my garden and listened to the world around me. It seemed no different from any other morning. I even heard the sound of a train passing through town in the distance. Then, the milkman came by on his wagon. I met him outside my garden walls and asked him if he had heard any news about the Martians. He told me that he heard the Army had surrounded the pits and that they had sent for guns; although they hoped they would not have to use them.

As I walked back toward my kitchen door, I saw my neighbor out in his garden, pulling up strawberries. I went over to chat with him briefly.

"I think it'll all be over by the end of the day," he said, "It's really too bad that the Martians are being so difficult. We could learn so much from each other."

Handing me a batch of strawberries, he added, "They say a second Martian thing has landed over in that forest of pines." He pointed his finger to a cloud of smoke rising in the Northwest. "They've got that place surrounded too with military."

After breakfast, I could not work, so I decided to take a walk over near the fields. I came upon a team of soldiers who were blocking the road to the pits. They told me that no one was allowed to pass. I chatted with them a bit and told them about my experience the other night. None of them had seen a Martian, so they were full of questions. When I told them about the deadly heat ray, they became even more excited and started to discuss the best ways to fight the Martians.

"We should surprise them by approaching quietly!" said one of them.

"Idiot! There's nothing to hide behind out in their fields!" argued another, "We should dig holes around the pits and fight them from there!"

"What, are you some kind of rabbit or something?" said yet another soldier, "Now, you said they looked like some kind of eight-armed sea monster?"

"Yes, an Octopus," I answered.

"Well, I say we just bomb those bastards," suggested the third man.

"Nah, that'd take too long. Let's kill them quickly," countered the first.

I left them arguing in this way and went to the train station to get a morning paper. The townspeople seemed, once again, to feel safe with the military there. The houses around the field were all emptied and the people ordered to stay somewhere in the village.

I was disappointed by what I read in the newspapers. It seemed that I knew much more than they. Their description of the way Ogilvy and Stent were killed was completely wrong. I got most of my news directly from the soldiers. They said that a few attempts had been made to communicate with the Martians. One man crawled behind a hill and held up a white flag, but the Martians paid no attention to it at all. Then, at about three o'clock, I could hear the sound of heavy guns being fired from far away. I was told that the military was bombing the forest where the second Martian vehicle had landed. They hoped to destroy it before it opened. At five o'clock, the surrounding Army at Woking received a large gun, as well.

Later, while my wife and I were sitting down to tea, we heard an explosion come from the fields; it was then followed by an explosion just down the road from our home. I ran outside and found that the entire roof of the neighboring church had been blown completely off. And, looking up at the roof of my own home, it seemed that a piece of that explosion had done some damage to the brick wall outside of my study.

I looked over toward the area where the fields lay and saw that our home was within easy reach of that terrible heat ray. I ran inside and, taking hold of my wife, brought her out into the street.

"We've got to get away from here!" I shouted.

Behind me, the military had begun to fire, once again, upon the sandpits.

"Where shall we go?" my wife asked.

"We'll go to your cousins' home in Leatherhead!"

All around town, people were running out of their houses into the streets. I told my wife to stay where she was and then ran to a nearby pub where I knew the owner kept a horse and wagon.

When I got there, he did not seem to be aware of what was happening. He was in the middle of selling one of his pigs to a villager. I interrupted and asked him to loan me his horse and wagon for two pounds. He stood for a moment, surprised at my behavior, but then agreed to it. I promised him that I would return it that same day and then went around back and drove the horse and wagon quickly on to my home, not thinking about the fact that the pub owner might also need it to get away.

Once home, I set my wife up on the driver's seat, placed the servant in the wagon, and then ran inside to collect a few of our most valuable things. When I came back out, a soldier ran up to me and told me to hurry up and get out of town.

"It came out of the vehicle some kind of thing that looked like the cover of a dish!" he yelled and then ran off to the next house.

I threw our valuables into the wagon, climbed into the driver's seat, and whipped the horses into a full run. As soon as we were a safe distance from the town of Woking, I looked back. Thick smoke was rising up from the village, along with occasional bursts of red flame. I could hear the sounds of machine gun fire, but then they would quickly die away. It appeared that the Martians' heat ray was destroying everything within its range.

I then turned back around and focused on driving. People were coming toward us from the surrounding fields, running for their lives. I did my best to keep the horses under control and get as far away from danger as I possibly could.

(end of section)