CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Fifth Cylinder

If you will remember, the curate and I were in an empty house in Halliford, hiding from the Martians who had just begun to fire their black containers of gas upon the military. There we stayed for two whole days, Sunday and Monday, unable to leave due to the black gas that surrounded us.

With nothing to do and nowhere to go, I began to worry about my wife in Leatherhead. I imagined her terribly frightened and sad. She must have assumed that I was long dead. This made me even more upset. I did my best to calm myself, thinking that the Martians probably left Leatherhead untouched due to their concentration on Central London. I hoped that this was true.

The curate, meanwhile, was making me crazy with all of his useless talk about God's punishment and how hopeless things were. I tried staying away from him in order to get some peace and quiet, but he would soon follow me into whatever room I went to. Finally, I locked myself inside the attic.

Outside, the black gas gradually came closer and closer to our house, where we remained as high up as possible. Then, one of the Martians came and cleaned up the gas with his steam gun, which, when sprayed about, did damage of its own by breaking windows and burning the hands of the curate, who had been stupidly standing about in the front room, instead of hiding. When the Martian had finished, I woke up from my sadness, realizing that it was now possible to get away. The curate did not want to leave. He felt safe in the house. I, however, was determined to go and I set about gathering as much food as I could.

When I was ready to go, the curate suddenly realized that I meant to leave him alone. He quickly changed his mind about staying and followed me out the door and down the road toward Sunbury. Along the road lay hundreds of bodies burnt beyond recognition. Everything was covered in heavy black dust. It reminded me of what I had read about the famous city of Pompeii when it was destroyed by a volcano. However, the further we got from Halliford, the more grass and trees we began to see. By the time we arrived in Twickenham, there was no black dust to be seen anywhere, nor any bodies or destruction. However, the area was empty of people.

As we pushed on, eventually crossing the Richmond Bridge around eight o'clock that evening, we found ourselves, once again, following the path of the Martians; buildings were burning all about us and bodies were lying randomly about the streets.

Nearing Kew, we caught sight of some people running down a narrow road. Then, suddenly, behind them, appeared the large, round head of a Martian fighting machine. The curate and I immediately ran into a wooden hut, nearby. As soon as the danger passed, I carefully walked back out into the street and continued on toward Kew. The curate, who had been crying in a corner of the hut, came running after me.

Within a few minutes, we saw another Martian in a field off to our right. At its feet were about five or six people running about, trying to get away from it. The Martian grabbed all of them with its snake-like arms and placed them in a metal basket that hung on its backside. This was the first time I had seen this happen, and it made me think that the Martians might have something else in mind other than the total destruction of the human race. The curate and I ran away as quickly as we could until we both blindly fell into a deep ditch, where we stayed until the darkness of night fell.

Martians seemed to be everywhere around us, although none of them knew of our presence in the ditch. At around eleven that night, we finally decided to leave the hole in the ground and get back on the road. We stayed in the shadows and stuck to the sides of the streets in order not to be seen. When we arrived in Sheen, the curate was almost ready to fall from hunger. We decided to try one of the houses.

We were unlucky in our first attempt at finding food. The house we tried had nothing but a little water for us to drink. The second house, however, was perfect. It had a large kitchen with a storage room attached. We broke the lock on the storage room door and entered. Inside, we found a large amount of canned food as well as bottles of beer and wine. We could not believe our luck! Immediately, we brought out some of the beer and bread and sat down in the kitchen for a good meal.

As we sat chatting away and eating, a green light came suddenly shining through the windows and brightened the whole kitchen. The light then quickly disappeared and was followed by the sound of an explosion, and the house windows all exploded and everything seemed to come falling down around us.

I do not know for how long I was unconscious, but I woke up to the curate standing over me, wiping my head with a wet towel. There was a large, fresh cut above his eyes. I tried to sit up, but the curate took hold of me with both of his hands.

"There's too much broken glass around us," he whispered. "If you move, the Martians will surely hear!"

We both sat silently listening. Somewhere, beyond the fallen house in which we were trapped, came the sound of moving metal. It was a Martian. At first, I thought that one of them had been injured and fell onto the house. Then the sun began to rise and its light slowly came in through the boards that had fallen all around us. We could now see where we lay. The entire kitchen was in ruins. All around us lay broken plates and cups. Then, as I looked to my left, I saw that just outside of the kitchen, there stood a Martian, quivering in his strange brown skin; it was just like I had seen that first day when the Martians first came out of their ship!

It had not yet seen us, apparently. The curate and I carefully crawled into the shadows of the kitchen in order to hide. As we moved, it became clear in my mind what had happened last night. The fifth Martian cylinder had landed here, right upon the house in which we had been dining!

We sat there in the shadows for a whole day, frightened out of our minds. Above us could be heard the sound of hammering as the Martians made their preparations to join the battle. The curate and I sat without moving, hour after hour. Finally, I could force my eyes open no more, and I fell into a deep sleep.

(end of section)