Saturday lives in my memory as a day of suspense. It was a day of lassitude(1) too, hot and close, with, I am told, a rapidly fluctuating barometer. I had slept but little, though my wife had succeeded in sleeping, and I rose early. I went into my garden before breakfast and stood listening, but towards the common there was nothing stirring(2) but a lark.
The milkman came as usual. I heard the rattle of his chariot and I went round to the side gate to ask the latest news. He told me that during the night the Martians had been surrounded by troops, and that guns were expected. Then—a familiar, reassuring note—I heard a train running towards Woking.
“They aren’t to be killed,” said the milkman, “if that can possibly be avoided.”
I saw my neighbour gardening, chatted with him for a time, and then strolled(3) in to breakfast. It was a most unexceptional morning. My neighbour was of opinion that the troops would be able to capture or to destroy the Martians during the day.
“It’s a pity they make themselves so unapproachable,” he said. “It would be curious to know how they live on another planet; we might learn a thing or two.”
He came up to the fence and extended a handful of strawberries, for his gardening was as generous as it was enthusiastic. At the same time he told me of the burning of the pine woods about the Byfleet Golf Links.
This story is from the H.G Wells edition of The War of the Worlds.
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This story is from the H.G Wells edition of The War of the Worlds.
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WRECKAGE
And now comes the strangest thing in my story. Yet, perhaps, it is not altogether strange. I remember, clearly and coldly and vividly1, all that I did that day until the time that I stood weeping and praising God upon the summit of Primrose Hill. And then I forget.
WHAT WE SAW FROM THE RUINED HOUSE
After eating we crept back to the scullery, and there I must have dozed again, for when presently I looked round I was alone.
WHAT I SAW OF THE DESTRUCTION OF WEYBRIDGE AND SHEPPERTON
As the dawn grew brighter we withdrew from the window from which we had watched the Martians, and went very quietly downstairs.
WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN SURREY
It was this howling and firing of the guns at Ripley and St. George’s Hill that we had heard at Upper Halliford.
UNDER FOOT
In the first book I have wandered so much from my own adventures to tell of the experiences of my brother that all through the last two chapters I and the curate have been lurking1 in the empty house at Halliford whither we fled to escape the Black Smoke.
THE “THUNDER CHILD”
Had the Martians aimed only at destruction, they might on Monday have annihilated1 the entire population of London, as it spread itself slowly through the home counties.
THE WORK OF FIFTEEN DAYS
For some time I stood tottering on the mound regardless of my safety. Within that noisome den from which I had emerged I had thought with a narrow intensity only of our immediate security.
THE STILLNESS
My first act before I went into the pantry was to fasten the door between the kitchen and the scullery. But the pantry was empty; every scrap of food had gone..
THE MAN ON PUTNEY HILL
I spent that night in the inn that stands at the top of Putney Hill, sleeping in a made bed for the first time since my flight to Leatherhead.
THE HEAT-RAY IN THE CHOBHAM ROAD
It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so swiftly and so silently. Many think that in some way they are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute nonconductivity.
