第 21 页

The morning was bright and fine, and the eastern sky glowed pink,

and was fretted with little golden clouds. In the road that runs from

the top of Putney Hill to Wimbledon was a number of poor vestiges of

the panic torrent that must have poured Londonward on the Sunday night

after the fighting began. There was a little two-wheeled cart

inscribed with the name of Thomas Lobb, Greengrocer, New Malden, with

a smashed wheel and an abandoned tin trunk; there was a straw hat

trampled into the now hardened mud, and at the top of West Hill a lot

of blood-stained glass about the overturned water trough. My

movements were languid, my plans of the vaguest. I had an idea of

going to Leatherhead, though I knew that there I had the poorest

chance of finding my wife. Certainly, unless death had overtaken them

suddenly, my cousins and she would have fled thence; but it seemed to

me I might find or learn there whither the Surrey people had fled. I

knew I wanted to find my wife, that my heart ached for her and the

world of men, but I had no clear idea how the finding might be done. I

was also sharply aware now of my intense loneliness. From the corner

I went, under cover of a thicket of trees and bushes, to the edge of

Wimbledon Common, stretching wide and far.

That dark expanse was lit in patches by yellow gorse and broom;

there was no red weed to be seen, and as I prowled, hesitating, on the

verge of the open, the sun rose, flooding it all with light and

vitality. I came upon a busy swarm of little frogs in a swampy place

among the trees. I stopped to look at them, drawing a lesson from

their stout resolve to live. And presently, turning suddenly, with an

odd feeling of being watched, I beheld something crouching amid a

clump of bushes. I stood regarding this. I made a step towards it,

and it rose up and became a man armed with a cutlass. I approached

him slowly. He stood silent and motionless, regarding me.

As I drew nearer I perceived he was dressed in clothes as dusty and

filthy as my own; he looked, indeed, as though he had been dragged

through a culvert. Nearer, I distinguished the green slime of ditches

mixing with the pale drab of dried clay and shiny, coaly patches. His

black hair fell over his eyes, and his face was dark and dirty and

sunken, so that at first I did not recognise him. There was a red cut

across the lower part of his face.

"Stop!" he cried, when I was within ten yards of him, and I

stopped. His voice was hoarse. "Where do you come from?" he said.

I thought, surveying him.

"I come from Mortlake," I said. "I was buried near the pit the

Martians made about their cylinder. I have worked my way out and

escaped."

"There is no food about here," he said. "This is my country. All

this hill down to the river, and back to Clapham, and up to the edge

of the common. There is only food for one. Which way are you going?"

I answered slowly.

"I don't know," I said. "I have been buried in the ruins of a

house thirteen or fourteen days. I don't know what has happened."

He looked at me doubtfully, then started, and looked with a changed

expression.

"I've no wish to stop about here," said I. "I think I shall go to

Leatherhead, for my wife was there."

He shot out a pointing finger.

"It is you," said he; "the man from Woking. And you weren't killed

at Weybridge?"

I recognised him at the same moment.

"You are the artilleryman who came into my garden."

"Good luck!" he said. "We are lucky ones! Fancy _you_!" He put out

a hand, and I took it. "I crawled up a drain," he said. "But they

didn't kill everyone. And after they went away I got off towards

Walton across the fields. But---- It's not sixteen days altogether--and

your hair is grey." He looked over his shoulder suddenly. "Only

a rook," he said. "One gets to know that birds have shadows these

days. This is a bit open. Let us crawl under those bushes and talk."

"Have you seen any Martians?" I said. "Since I crawled out----"

"They've gone away across London," he said. "I guess they've got a

bigger camp there. Of a night, all over there, Hampstead way, the sky

is alive with their lights. It's like a great city, and in the glare

you can just see them moving. By daylight you can't. But nearer--I

haven't seen them--" (he counted on his fingers) "five days. Then I

saw a couple across Hammersmith way carrying something big. And the

night before last"--he stopped and spoke impressively--"it was just a

matter of lights, but it was something up in the air. I believe

they've built a flying-machine, and are learning to fly."

I stopped, on hands and knees, for we had come to the bushes.

"Fly!"

"Yes," he said, "fly."

I went on into a little bower, and sat down.

"It is all over with humanity," I said. "If they can do that they

will simply go round the world."

He nodded.

"They will. But---- It will relieve things over here a bit. And

besides----" He looked at me. "Aren't you satisfied it _is_ up with

humanity? I am. We're down; we're beat."

I stared. Strange as it may seem, I had not arrived at this fact--a

fact perfectly obvious so soon as he spoke. I had still held a

vague hope; rather, I had kept a lifelong habit of mind. He repeated

his words, "We're beat." They carried absolute conviction.

"It's all over," he said. "They've lost _one_--just _one_. And they've

made their footing good and crippled the greatest power in the world.

They've walked over us. The death of that one at Weybridge was an

accident. And these are only pioneers. They kept on coming. These

green stars--I've seen none these five or six days, but I've no doubt

they're falling somewhere every night. Nothing's to be done. We're

under! We're beat!"

I made him no answer. I sat staring before me, trying in vain to

devise some countervailing thought.

"This isn't a war," said the artilleryman. "It never was a war,

any more than there's war between man and ants."

Suddenly I recalled the night in the observatory.

"After the tenth shot they fired no more--at least, until the first

cylinder came."

"How do you know?" said the artilleryman. I explained. He thought.

"Something wrong with the gun," he said. "But what if there is?

They'll get it right again. And even if there's a delay, how can it

alter the end? It's just men and ants. There's the ants builds their

cities, live their lives, have wars, revolutions, until the men want

them out of the way, and then they go out of the way. That's what we

are now--just ants. Only----"

"Yes," I said.

"We're eatable ants."

We sat looking at each other.

"And what will they do with us?" I said.

"That's what I've been thinking," he said; "that's what I've been

thinking. After Weybridge I went south--thinking. I saw what was up.

Most of the people were hard at it squealing and exciting themselves.

But I'm not so fond of squealing. I've been in sight of death once or

twice; I'm not an ornamental soldier, and at the best and worst,

death--it's just death. And it's the man that keeps on thinking comes

through. I saw everyone tracking away south. Says I, 'Food won't

last this way,' and I turned right back. I went for the Martians like

a sparrow goes for man. All round"--he waved a hand to the

horizon--"they're starving in heaps, bolting, treading on each other.

. . ."

He saw my face, and halted awkwardly.

"No doubt lots who had money have gone away to France," he said. He

seemed to hesitate whether to apologise, met my eyes, and went on:

"There's food all about here. Canned things in shops; wines, spirits,

mineral waters; and the water mains and drains are empty. Well, I was

telling you what I was thinking. 'Here's intelligent things,' I said,

'and it seems they want us for food. First, they'll smash us up--ships,

machines, guns, cities, all the order and organisation. All

that will go. If we were the size of ants we might pull through. But

we're not. It's all too bulky to stop. That's the first certainty.'

Eh?"

I assented.

"It is; I've thought it out. Very well, then--next; at present

we're caught as we're wanted. A Martian has only to go a few miles to

get a crowd on the run. And I saw one, one day, out by Wandsworth,

picking houses to pieces and routing among the wreckage. But they

won't keep on doing that. So soon as they've settled all our guns and

ships, and smashed our railways, and done all the things they are

doing over there, they will begin catching us systematic, picking the

best and storing us in cages and things. That's what they will start

doing in a bit. Lord! They haven't begun on us yet. Don't you see

that?"

"Not begun!" I exclaimed.

"Not begun. All that's happened so far is through our not having

the sense to keep quiet--worrying them with guns and such foolery. And

losing our heads, and rushing off in crowds to where there wasn't any

more safety than where we were. They don't want to bother us yet.

They're making their things--making all the things they couldn't bring

with them, getting things ready for the rest of their people. Very

likely that's why the cylinders have stopped for a bit, for fear of

hitting those who are here. And instead of our rushing about blind,

on the howl, or getting dynamite on the chance of busting them up,

we've got to fix ourselves up according to the new state of affairs.

That's how I figure it out. It isn't quite according to what a man

wants for his species, but it's about what the facts point to. And

that's the principle I acted upon. Cities, nations, civilisation,

progress--it's all over. That game's up. We're beat."

"But if that is so, what is there to live for?"

The artilleryman looked at me for a moment.

"There won't be any more blessed concerts for a million years or

so; there won't be any Royal Academy of Arts, and no nice little feeds

at restaurants. If it's amusement you're after, I reckon the game is

up. If you've got any drawing-room manners or a dislike to eating

peas with a knife or dropping aitches, you'd better chuck 'em away.

They ain't no further use."

"You mean----"

"I mean that men like me are going on living--for the sake of the

breed. I tell you, I'm grim set on living. And if I'm not mistaken,

you'll show what insides _you've_ got, too, before long. We aren't

going to be exterminated. And I don't mean to be caught either, and

tamed and fattened and bred like a thundering ox. Ugh! Fancy those

brown creepers!"

"You don't mean to say----"

"I do. I'm going on, under their feet. I've got it planned; I've

thought it out. We men are beat. We don't know enough. We've got to

learn before we've got a chance. And we've got to live and keep

independent while we learn. See! That's what has to be done."

I stared, astonished, and stirred profoundly by the man's

resolution.

"Great God!" cried I. "But you are a man indeed!" And suddenly I

gripped his hand.

"Eh!" he said, with his eyes shining. "I've thought it out, eh?"

"Go on," I said.

"Well, those who mean to escape their catching must get ready. I'm

getting ready. Mind you, it isn't all of us that are made for wild

beasts; and that's what it's got to be. That's why I watched you. I

had my doubts. You're slender. I didn't know that it was you, you

see, or just how you'd been buried. All these--the sort of people

that lived in these houses, and all those damn little clerks that used

to live down that way--they'd be no good. They haven't any spirit in

them--no proud dreams and no proud lusts; and a man who hasn't one or

the other--Lord! What is he but funk and precautions? They just used

to skedaddle off to work--I've seen hundreds of 'em, bit of breakfast

in hand, running wild and shining to catch their little season-ticket

train, for fear they'd get dismissed if they didn't; working at

businesses they were afraid to take the trouble to understand;

skedaddling back for fear they wouldn't be in time for dinner; keeping

indoors after dinner for fear of the back streets, and sleeping with

the wives they married, not because they wanted them, but because they

had a bit of money that would make for safety in their one little

miserable skedaddle through the world. Lives insured and a bit

invested for fear of accidents. And on Sundays--fear of the

hereafter. As if hell was built for rabbits! Well, the Martians will

just be a godsend to these. Nice roomy cages, fattening food, careful

breeding, no worry. After a week or so chasing about the fields and

lands on empty stomachs, they'll come and be caught cheerful. They'll

be quite glad after a bit. They'll wonder what people did before

there were Martians to take care of them. And the bar loafers, and

mashers, and singers--I can imagine them. I can imagine them," he

said, with a sort of sombre gratification. "There'll be any amount of

sentiment and religion loose among them. There's hundreds of things I