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| The War of the Worlds: The falling star: chapter two |
Many people in Berkshire, Surrey, and
Middlesex must have seen the fall of it, and, at most, have thought that
another meteorite had descended. No one seems to have troubled to look for the
fallen mass that night. But very early in the morning poor Ogilvy, who had seen
the shooting star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere on the
common between Horsell, Ottershaw, and Woking, rose early with the idea of
finding it. Find it he did, soon after dawn, and not far from the sand pits. An
enormous hole had been made by the impact of the projectile, and the sand and
gravel had been flung violently in every direction over the heath, forming
heaps visible a mile and a half away. The heather was on fire eastward, and a
thin blue smoke rose against the dawn. The Thing itself lay almost entirely
buried in sand, amidst the scattered splinters of a fir tree it had shivered to
fragments in its descent. The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge
cylinder, caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-colored
incrustation. It had a diameter of about thirty yards. He approached the mass,
surprised at the size and more so at the shape since most meteorites are
rounded more or less completely
It was, however, still so hot from its flight through
the air as to forbid his near approach. A stirring noise within its cylinder he
ascribed to the unequal cooling of its surface; for at that time it had not
occurred to him that it might be hollow. He remained standing at the edge of
the pit that the Thing had made for itself, staring at its strange appearance,
astonished chiefly at its unusual shape and color, and dimly perceiving even
then some evidence of design in its arrival. The early morning was wonderfully still,
and the sun, just clearing the pine trees towards Weybridge, was already warm.
He did not remember hearing any birds that morning, there was certainly no
breeze stirring, and the only sounds were the faint movements from within the
cindery cylinder. He was all alone on the common. Then suddenly he noticed with
a start that some of the grey clinker, the ashy incrustation that covered the
meteorite, was falling off the circular edge of the end. It was dropping off in
flakes and raining down upon the sand. A large piece suddenly came off and fell
with a sharp noise that brought his heart into his mouth. For a minute he
scarcely realized what this meant, and, although the heat was excessive, he
clambered down into the pit close to the bulk to see the Thing more clearly.
He fancied even then that the cooling of
the body might account for this, but what disturbed that idea was the fact that
the ash was falling only from the end of the cylinder. And then he perceived
that, very slowly, the circular top of the cylinder was rotating on its body.
It was such a gradual movement that he discovered it only by noticing that a
black mark that had been near him five minutes ago was now at the other side of
the circumference. Even then he scarcely understood what this indicated, until
he heard a muffled grating sound and saw the black mark jerk forward an inch or
so. Then the thing came upon him in a flash. The cylinder was
artificial—hollow—with an end that screwed out! Something within the cylinder
was unscrewing the top! ‘Good heavens!’ said Ogilvy. ‘There’s a man in it— men
in it! Half roasted to death! Trying to escape!’ At once, with a quick mental
leap, he linked the Thing with the flash upon Mars. The thought of the confined
creature was so dreadful to him that he forgot the heat and went forward to the
cylinder to help turn. But luckily the dull radiation arrested him before he
could burn his hands on the still glowing metal.
At that, he
stood irresolute for a moment, then turned, scrambled out of the pit, and set
off running wildly into Woking. The time then must have been somewhere about
six o’clock. He met a waggoner and tried to make him understand, but the tale
he told and his appearance were so wild—his hat had fallen off in the pit—that
the man simply drove on. He was equally unsuccessful with the potman who was
just unlocking the doors of the public house by Horsell Bridge. The fellow
thought he was a lunatic at large and made an unsuccessful attempt to shut him
into the taproom. That sobered him a little; and when he saw Henderson, the
London journalist, in his garden, he called over the palings and made himself
understood. ‘Henderson,’ he called, ‘you saw that shooting star last night?’
‘Well?’ said Henderson. ‘It’s out on Horsell Common now.’ ‘Good Lord!’ said
Henderson. ‘Fallen meteorite! That’s good.’ ‘But it’s something more than a
meteorite. It’s a cylinder —an artificial cylinder, man! And there’s something
inside.’ Henderson stood up with his spade in his hand. ‘What’s that?’ he said.
He was deaf in one ear.
Ogilvy told him all that he had seen.
Henderson was a minute or so taking it in. Then he dropped his spade, snatched
up his jacket, and came out into the road. The two men hurried back at once to
the common and found the cylinder still lying in the same position. But now the
sounds inside had ceased, and a thin circle of bright metal showed between the
top and the body of the cylinder. Air was either entering or escaping at the
rim with a thin, sizzling sound. They listened, rapped on the scaly burnt metal
with a stick, and, meeting with no response, they both concluded the man or men
inside must be insensible or dead. Of course, the two were quite unable to do
anything. They shouted consolation and promises and went off back to the town
again to get help. One can imagine them, covered with sand, excited and
disordered, running up the little street in the bright sunlight just as the
shop folks were taking down their shutters and people were opening their
bedroom windows. Henderson went into the railway station at once, to telegraph
the news to London. The newspaper articles had prepared men’s minds for the
reception of the idea.
By eight
o’clock several boys and unemployed men had already started for the common to
see the ‘dead men from Mars.’ That was
the form the story took. I heard of it first from my newspaper boy about a
quarter to nine when I went out to get my DAILY CHRONICLE. I was naturally
startled and lost no time in going out and across the Ottershaw bridge to the
sand pits.
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