Amazing Stories, August 1927 — page 27: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS the rnoment of the people running this way and that than a man would of the confusion of ants in a nest against which his foot was kicked. When, half suf- focated, I raised my head above water the Martian’s hood pointed at the batteries that were still firing across the river, and as it advanced it swung loose what must have been the generator of the Heat-Ray. a another moment it was on the bank, and in a stride wading half-way across. The knees of its foremost legs bent at the further bank, and in an- other moment it had raised itself to its full height again, close to the village of Shepperton. Forthwith the six guns, which, unknown to any one on the right bank, had been hidden behind the outskirts of that village, fired simultaneously. The sudden near concussions, the last close upon the first, made my heart jump. The monster was already raising the case generating the Heat-Ray, as the first shell burst six yards above the hood. I gave acry of astonishment. I saw and thought nothing of the other four Martian monsters: my attention was riveted upon the nearer incident. Si- multaneously two other shells burst in the air near the body as the hood twisted round in time to re- ceive, but not in time to dodge, the fourth shell. The shell burst clean in the face of the thing. The hood bulged, flashed, was whirled off in a dozen tat- tered fragments of red flesh and glittering metal. “Hit!” shouted I, with something between a scream and a cheer. I heard answering shouts from the people in the water about me. I could have leapt out of the water with that momentary exultation. The decapitated colossus reeled like a drunken giant; but it did not fall over. It recovered its bal- ance by a miracle, and, no longer heeding its steps, and with the camera that fired the Heat-Ray now rigidly upheld, it reeled swiftly upon Shepperton. The living intelligence, the Martian within the hood, was slain and splashed to the four winds of heaven, and the thing was now but a mere intricate device of metal whirling to destruction. It drove along in a straight line, incapable of guidance, It struck the tower of Shepperton Church, smashing it down as the impact of a battering ram might have done, swerved aside, blundered on, and collapsed with a tremendous impact into the river out of my sight. A violent explosion shook the air, and a spout of water, steam, mud, and shattered metal, shot far up into the sky. As the camera of the Heat-Ray hit the water, the latter had incontinently flashed into steam. In another moment a huge wave, like a muddy tidal bore, but almost scaldingly hot, came sweeping round the bend upstream. I saw people struggling shorewards and heard their screaming and shouting faintly above the seething and roar of the Martian’s collapse. For the moment I heeded nothing of the heat, for- sot the patent need of self-preservation. I splashed through the tumultuous water, pushing aside a man in black to do so, until I could see round the bend. Half a dozen deserted boats pitched aimlessly upon the confusion of the waves. The fallen Martian came into sight downstream, lying across the river, and for the most part subnietged : we 441 age, and through the tumultuously whirling wisps I could see, intermittently and vaguely, the gigantic limbs churning the water and flinging a splash and spray of mud and froth into the air. The tentacles swayed and struck like living arms, and, save for the helpless purposelessness of these movements, it was as if some wounded thing struggled for life amidst the waves. Enormous quantities of a ruddy brown fluid were spurting up in noisy jets out of the machine. My attention was diverted from this sight by a furious yelling, like that of the thing called a siren in our manufacturing towns. A man, knee-deep near the towing-path, shouted inaudibly to me and pointed. Looking back, I saw the other Martians advancing with gigantic strides down the river-bank from the direction of Chertsey. The Shepperton guns spoke this time unavailingly. At that I ducked at once under water, and, hold- ing my breath until movement was an agony, blun- dered painfully along under the surface as long as I could. The water was in a tumult about me, and rapidly growing hotter. When for a moment I raised my head to take breath, and throw the hair and water from my eyes, the steam was rising in a whirling white fog that at first hid the Martians altogether. The noise was deafening. Then I saw them dimly, colossal figures of gray, magnified by the mist. They had passed by me, and two were stooping over the frothing tumul- tuous ruins of their comrade. The third and fourth stood beside him in the water, one perhaps 200 yards from me, the other towards Laleham. The generators of the Heat-Rays waved high, and the hissing beams smote down this way and that. The air was full of sound, a deafening and con- fusing conflict of noises, the clangorous din of the Martians, the crash of falling houses, the thud of , trees, fences, sheds, flashing into flame, and the erackling and roaring of fire. Dense black smoke was leaping up to mingle with the steam from the river, and as the Heat-Ray went to and fro over Weybridge, its impact was marked by flashes of in- candescent white, that gave place at once to a smoky dance of lurid flames. The nearer houses still stood intact, awaiting their fate, shadowy, faint and pal- lid in the stream, with the fire behind them going to and fro. For a moment, perhaps, I stood there, breast-high in the almost atitaie water dumfounded at my posi- tion, hopeless of escape. Through the reek I could see the people who had been with me in the river scrambling out of the water through the reeds, like little frogs hurrying through grass from the ad- vance of a man, or running to and fro in utter dis- may on the towing-path. Then suddenly the white flashes of the Heat-Ray came leaping towards me. The houses caved in as they dissolved at its touch, and darted out flames; the trees changed to fire with a roar. It flickered up and down the towing-path, licking off the people who ran this way and fhat, and came down to the water’s edge not fifty yards from where I stood. It swept across the river to Shepperton, and vhe water z ae al « ; in its