The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells Read Free Book Online

object before it opened. It was only about five, however, that a field gun reached Chobham for use against the first body of Martians.
    About six in the evening, as I sat at tea with my wife in the summerhouse talking vigorously about the battle that was lowering upon us, I heard a muffled detonation from the common, and immediately after a gust of firing. Close on the heels of that came a violent, rattling crash, quite close to us, that shook the ground; and, starting out upon the lawn, I saw the tops of the trees about the Oriental College burst into smoky red flame, and the tower of the little church beside it slide down into ruin. The pinnacle of the mosque had vanished, and the roof line of the college itself looked as if a hundred-ton gun had been at work upon it. One of our chimneys cracked as if a shot had hit it, flew, and a piece of it came clattering down the tiles and made a heap of broken red fragments upon the flower bed by my study window.
    I and my wife stood amazed. Then I realised that the crest of Maybury Hill must be within range of the Martians' Heat-Ray now that the college was cleared out of the way.
    At that I gripped my wife's arm, and without ceremony ran her out into the road. Then I fetched out the servant, telling her I would go upstairs myself for the box she was clamouring for.
    "We can't possibly stay here," I said; and as I spoke the firing reopened for a moment upon the common.
    "But where are we to go?" said my wife in terror.
    I thought, perplexed. Then I remembered her cousins at Leatherhead.
    "Leatherhead!" I shouted above the sudden noise.
    She looked away from me downhill. The people were coming out of their houses, astonished.
    "How are we to get to Leatherhead?" she said.
    Down the hill I saw a bevy of hussars ride under the railway bridge; three galloped through the open gates of the Oriental college; two others dismounted, and began running from house to house. The sun, shining through the
smoke that drove up from the tops of the trees, seemed blood red, and threw an unfamiliar lurid light upon everything.
    "Stop here," said I; "you are safe here"; and I started off at once for the Spotted Dog, for I knew the landlord had a horse and dog cart. I ran, for I perceived that in a moment everyone upon this side of the hill would be moving. I found him in his bar, quite unaware of what was going on behind his house. A man stood with his back to me, talking to him.
    "I must have a pound," said the landlord, "and I've no one to drive it."
    "I'll give you two," said I, over the stranger's shoulder.
    "What for?"
    "And I'll bring it back by midnight," I said.
    "Lord!" said the landlord; "what's the hurry? I'm selling my bit of a pig. Two pounds, and you bring it back? What's going on now?"
    I explained hastily that I had to leave my home, and so secured the dog cart. At the time it did not seem to me nearly so urgent that the landlord should leave his. I took care to have the cart there and then, drove it off down the road, and, leaving it in charge of my wife and servant, rushed into my house and packed a few valuables, such plate as we had, and so forth. The beech trees below the house were burning while I did this, and the palings up the road glowed red. While I was occupied in this way, one of the dismounted hussars came running up. He was going from house to house, warning people to leave. He was going on as I came out of my front door, lugging my treasures, done up in a tablecloth. I shouted after him:
    "What news?"
    He turned, stared, bawled something about "crawling out in a thing like a dish cover," and ran on to the gate of the house at the crest. A sudden whirl of black smoke driving across the road hid him for a moment. I ran to my neighbour's door and rapped to satisfy myself of what I already knew, that his wife had gone to London with him and had locked up their house. I went in again, according to my promise, to get my servant's box, lugged it out, clapped it beside her on the