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The War of the Worlds
Chapter 5. THE HEAT-RAY
After I had seen the Martians coming out of the cylinder from their planet, a kind of fascination stopped me from moving.
I stood knee-deep in the heather, staring at the mound that hid them.
I was a battleground of fear and curiosity.
I didn't dare to go back towards the pit, but I felt a strong desire to look into it.
So I began walking in a big curve, looking for a good viewpoint and constantly watching the sand-heaps that hid these new-comers to our earth.
Once a group of thin black whips, like the arms of an octopus, flashed across the sunset and was quickly pulled back.
Then a thin rod rose up, joint by joint, with a circular disk at its top that spun with a wobbling motion.
What could be happening there, in that grey mound and among those strange arms?
Most of the spectators had gathered in one or two groups.
One small crowd was towards Woking, the other a knot of people in the direction of Chobham.
Clearly they shared my mental conflict, there were few near me.
I approached one man, he was, I saw, a neighbour of mine, though I didn't know his name.
I spoke to him, but it was hardly a time for clear conversation.
"What ugly brutes!" he said.
"Good God! What ugly brutes!" He repeated this over and over again.
"Did you see a man in the pit?" I said.
But he didn't answer, we became silent and stood watching for a time side by side.
I think we found some comfort in each other's company.
Then I moved to a little hill that gave me a yard or more of extra height.
When I looked for him later, he was walking towards Woking.
The sunset faded to twilight before anything else happened.
The crowd far away on the left, towards Woking, seemed to grow.
I heard a faint murmur from it.
The little knot of people towards Chobham spread out and left.
There was almost no sign of movement from the pit.
This, as much as anything, gave people courage.
I suppose the new arrivals from Woking also helped to restore confidence.
At any rate, as dusk came, a slow, stop-and-start movement began on the sand-pits.
It seemed to grow stronger as the evening stayed quiet around the cylinder.
Vertical black figures in twos and threes would advance, stop, watch, and advance again.
They spread out in a thin, irregular curve that seemed ready to surround the pit with its narrow ends.
I, too, on my side began to move towards the pit.
Then I saw some cabmen and others had walked boldly into the sand-pits.
I heard the clatter of hoofs and the sound of wheels.
I saw a boy rolling away a barrow of apples.
And then, within thirty yards of the pit, coming from the direction of Horsell, I noticed a little black knot of men.
The man at the front was waving a white flag.
This was the Deputation, there had been a quick discussion.
Since the Martians were clearly intelligent despite their ugly forms, it was decided to approach with signals to show we were intelligent too.
Flutter, flutter, went the flag, First to the right, then to the left.
It was too far to recognise anyone, but later I learned Ogilvy, Stent, and Henderson were with others in the attempt to communicate.
This little group had, in its advance, pulled inward the circle of people, which was now almost complete.
A number of dim black figures followed it at a safe distance.
Suddenly there was a flash of light.
A quantity of bright greenish smoke came out of the pit in three separate puffs.
They rose, one after the other, straight into the still air.
The smoke, or perhaps flame, was very bright.
The deep blue sky overhead and the brown common near Chertsey seemed to darken suddenly as these puffs rose.
Black pine trees stood in the hazy distance.
They stayed darker after the smoke disappeared.
At the same time, a faint hissing sound became audible.
Beyond the pit stood the little wedge of people with the white flag at its front.
They had stopped because of these events.
They were a little knot of small vertical black shapes on the black ground.
As the green smoke rose, their faces flashed pale green, then faded again as it vanished.
Then slowly the hissing turned into a humming, then into a long, loud, droning noise.
Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker out from it.
Right away, flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men.
It was as if some invisible jet hit them and flashed into white flame.
It was as if each man was suddenly and briefly turned to fire.
Then, by the light of their own destruction, I saw them staggering and falling, Their supporters turned to run.
I stood staring, not yet understanding that this was death jumping from man to man in that little distant crowd.
All I felt was that it was something very strange.
An almost silent and blinding flash of light, and a man fell headlong and lay still.
As the unseen shaft of heat passed over them, pine trees burst into fire.
Every dry furze bush became, with one dull thud, a mass of flames.
And far away towards Knaphill I saw the flashes of trees and hedges and wooden buildings suddenly set on fire.
It was sweeping round quickly and steadily, this flaming death, this invisible, unavoidable sword of heat.
I saw it coming towards me by the flashing bushes it touched.
I was too shocked and stunned to move.
I heard the crackle of fire in the sand-pits and the sudden squeal of a horse that was suddenly silent.
Then it was as if an invisible but intensely hot finger was drawn through the heather between me and the Martians.
All along a curving line beyond the sand-pits, the dark ground smoked and crackled.
Something fell with a crash far away to the left, where the road from Woking station opens onto the common.
Right away the hissing and humming stopped.
The black, dome-like object sank slowly out of sight into the pit.
All this had happened so quickly that I had stood motionless, dumbfounded and blinded by the flashes of light.
If that death had swept through a full circle, it would surely have killed me in my surprise.
But it passed and spared me, it left the night around me suddenly dark and unfamiliar.
The rolling common now seemed dark almost to blackness, except where its roadways lay grey and pale under the deep blue sky of the early night.
It was dark, and suddenly empty of men.
Overhead the stars were gathering, In the west the sky was still a pale, bright, almost greenish blue.
The tops of the pine trees and the roofs of Horsell came out sharp and black against the western afterglow.
The Martians and their machines were completely invisible, except for that thin mast on which their restless mirror wobbled.
Patches of bush and isolated trees here and there smoked and glowed still.
The houses towards Woking station were sending up spires of flame into the stillness of the evening air.
Nothing had changed except for that and a terrible astonishment.
The little group of black specks with the white flag had been swept out of existence.
The stillness of the evening, so it seemed to me, had hardly been broken.
It came to me that I was on this dark common, helpless, unprotected, and alone.
Suddenly, like a thing falling upon me from outside, came fear.
With an effort I turned and began a stumbling run through the heather.
The fear I felt was no rational fear.
It was a panic terror, not only of the Martians, but of the dusk and stillness all around me.
It had such an extraordinary effect on me that I ran weeping silently, like a child.
Once I had turned, I didn't dare to look back.
I remember I felt a strange belief that I was being played with.
I believed that soon, when I reached the very edge of safety, this mysterious death would leap after me.
It would come as fast as the passage of light from the pit around the cylinder and strike me down.