The Heat-ray In The Chobham Road

: THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS
: The War Of The Worlds

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

non-conductivity. This intense heat they project in a parallel beam

against any object they choose, by means of a polished parabolic

mirror of unknown composition, much as the parabolic mirror of a

lighthouse p
ojects a beam of light. But no one has absolutely proved

these details. However it is done, it is certain that a beam of heat

is the essence of the matter. Heat, and invisible, instead of

visible, light. Whatever is combustible flashes into flame at its

touch, lead runs like water, it softens iron, cracks and melts glass,

and when it falls upon water, incontinently that explodes into steam.



That night nearly forty people lay under the starlight about the

pit, charred and distorted beyond recognition, and all night long the

common from Horsell to Maybury was deserted and brightly ablaze.



The news of the massacre probably reached Chobham, Woking, and

Ottershaw about the same time. In Woking the shops had closed when

the tragedy happened, and a number of people, shop people and so

forth, attracted by the stories they had heard, were walking over the

Horsell Bridge and along the road between the hedges that runs out at

last upon the common. You may imagine the young people brushed up

after the labours of the day, and making this novelty, as they would

make any novelty, the excuse for walking together and enjoying a

trivial flirtation. You may figure to yourself the hum of voices

along the road in the gloaming. . . .



As yet, of course, few people in Woking even knew that the cylinder

had opened, though poor Henderson had sent a messenger on a bicycle to

the post office with a special wire to an evening paper.



As these folks came out by twos and threes upon the open, they

found little knots of people talking excitedly and peering at the

spinning mirror over the sand pits, and the newcomers were, no doubt,

soon infected by the excitement of the occasion.



By half past eight, when the Deputation was destroyed, there may

have been a crowd of three hundred people or more at this place,

besides those who had left the road to approach the Martians nearer.

There were three policemen too, one of whom was mounted, doing their

best, under instructions from Stent, to keep the people back and deter

them from approaching the cylinder. There was some booing from those

more thoughtless and excitable souls to whom a crowd is always an

occasion for noise and horse-play.



Stent and Ogilvy, anticipating some possibilities of a collision,

had telegraphed from Horsell to the barracks as soon as the Martians

emerged, for the help of a company of soldiers to protect these

strange creatures from violence. After that they returned to lead that

ill-fated advance. The description of their death, as it was seen by

the crowd, tallies very closely with my own impressions: the three

puffs of green smoke, the deep humming note, and the flashes of flame.



But that crowd of people had a far narrower escape than mine. Only

the fact that a hummock of heathery sand intercepted the lower part of

the Heat-Ray saved them. Had the elevation of the parabolic mirror

been a few yards higher, none could have lived to tell the tale. They

saw the flashes and the men falling and an invisible hand, as it were,

lit the bushes as it hurried towards them through the twilight. Then,

with a whistling note that rose above the droning of the pit, the beam

swung close over their heads, lighting the tops of the beech trees

that line the road, and splitting the bricks, smashing the windows,

firing the window frames, and bringing down in crumbling ruin a

portion of the gable of the house nearest the corner.



In the sudden thud, hiss, and glare of the igniting trees, the

panic-stricken crowd seems to have swayed hesitatingly for some

moments. Sparks and burning twigs began to fall into the road, and

single leaves like puffs of flame. Hats and dresses caught fire. Then

came a crying from the common. There were shrieks and shouts, and

suddenly a mounted policeman came galloping through the confusion with

his hands clasped over his head, screaming.



"They're coming!" a woman shrieked, and incontinently everyone was

turning and pushing at those behind, in order to clear their way to

Woking again. They must have bolted as blindly as a flock of sheep.

Where the road grows narrow and black between the high banks the crowd

jammed, and a desperate struggle occurred. All that crowd did not

escape; three persons at least, two women and a little boy, were

crushed and trampled there, and left to die amid the terror and the

darkness.



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