XIV.

von H. G. Wells

**In London**

My younger brother was in London when the Martians landed in Woking. He was a medical student preparing for an upcoming exam, completely absorbed in his studies, and he didn’t hear about the arrival until Saturday morning. The morning papers were filled with extensive articles about Mars, life on other planets, and so on, but they also included a brief and somewhat vague telegram that stood out because of its brevity.

The telegram reported that the Martians, startled by a crowd, had killed several people with a rapid-fire weapon. It concluded with a reassuring note: “As formidable as they seem, the Martians have not moved from the pit they fell into and appear unable to do so. This is likely due to the strength of the Earth’s gravitational pull.” The editorial writer expanded on this point in a comforting manner.

Naturally, all the students in my brother’s biology class were intensely interested in the news, but the streets showed no signs of unusual excitement. The afternoon papers featured snippets of news under bold headlines, but they had little to report beyond troop movements and the burning pine woods between Woking and Weybridge. It wasn’t until eight o’clock that the *St. James’s Gazette*, in an extra edition, announced the disruption of telegraphic communication. This was believed to be caused by burning pine trees falling across the lines. That night, during my drive to Leatherhead and back, there was no further information about the fighting.

My brother wasn’t worried about us; he knew from the newspaper descriptions that the cylinder was a good two miles from our house. He decided to come down that night to see the Martians before they were dealt with. He sent a telegram around four o’clock, which never reached me, and then spent the evening at a music hall.

On Saturday night, London was hit by a thunderstorm, and my brother arrived at Waterloo in a cab. After some waiting on the platform for the midnight train, he learned that an accident had prevented trains from reaching Woking that night. He couldn’t find out what the accident was; in fact, the railway authorities were unclear about it themselves. There was little excitement at the station, as the officials didn’t realize that anything more serious than a breakdown between Byfleet and Woking Junction had occurred. They were busy rerouting theater trains that usually passed through Woking via Virginia Water or Guildford and making arrangements for the Sunday League excursions to Southampton and Portsmouth. A late-night newspaper reporter mistook my brother for the traffic manager, with whom he bore a slight resemblance, and tried to interview him. Few people, aside from the railway officials, connected the breakdown to the Martians.

I’ve read in another account that “all London was electrified by the news from Woking” on Sunday morning. In reality, there was nothing to justify such an extravagant claim. Many Londoners didn’t hear about the Martians until the panic of Monday morning. Those who did took time to grasp the meaning of the hastily written telegrams in the Sunday papers. Most people in London don’t read the Sunday papers.

Moreover, the habit of feeling personally secure is deeply ingrained in the Londoner’s mind, and shocking news is so commonplace in the papers that they could read without any personal alarm: “About seven o’clock last night, the Martians emerged from the cylinder, moving under metallic shields. They completely destroyed Woking station and the surrounding houses, massacring an entire battalion of the Cardigan Regiment. No details are known. Maxims have proven useless against their armor; field guns have been disabled. Flying hussars are galloping into Chertsey. The Martians appear to be moving slowly toward Chertsey or Windsor. Great anxiety prevails in West Surrey, and earthworks are being constructed to halt their advance toward London.” That’s how the *Sunday Sun* reported it, and a clever and remarkably prompt article in the *Referee* compared the situation to a menagerie suddenly unleashed in a village.

No one in London really understood what the armored Martians were like, and there was a persistent belief that these creatures must be slow and clumsy. Phrases like “crawling” and “creeping painfully” appeared in almost all the early reports. None of the telegrams seemed to come from anyone who had actually witnessed their advance. The Sunday papers released special editions as new information trickled in, some even publishing updates when there was nothing new to report. By late afternoon, the authorities finally shared what they knew with the press: people from Walton and Weybridge were fleeing toward London, and that was about it.

My brother attended church at the Foundling Hospital that morning, still unaware of the chaos that had unfolded the night before. During the service, he heard vague references to the invasion and a special prayer for peace. Afterward, he picked up a _Referee_ and felt a wave of alarm wash over him as he read the news. He decided to head back to Waterloo station to see if communication had been restored.

The omnibuses, carriages, cyclists, and countless pedestrians in their Sunday best seemed largely unaffected by the unsettling news the vendors were shouting. People were curious, or if they felt alarmed, it was mostly for the sake of those living nearby. At the station, he learned for the first time that the Windsor and Chertsey lines were now closed. The porters mentioned that several urgent telegrams had arrived that morning from Byfleet and Chertsey stations, but then the messages had stopped abruptly. My brother struggled to extract any concrete details from them.

“There’s fighting going on around Weybridge,” was all they could tell him.

The train service was in disarray. Many people waiting for friends arriving from the South-Western network loitered about the station. One elderly gentleman, his hair grey and wild, vented his frustration at my brother about the South-Western Company. “They need to be held accountable,” he said angrily.

A few trains arrived from Richmond, Putney, and Kingston, carrying passengers who had gone out for a day of boating only to find the locks closed and a palpable sense of panic in the air. A man in a blue and white blazer approached my brother, brimming with alarming news.

“There are crowds of people driving into Kingston in carts and carriages, loaded with valuables,” he said. “They’re coming from Molesey, Weybridge, and Walton, saying they’ve heard heavy gunfire at Chertsey. Mounted soldiers told them to leave immediately because the Martians are on their way. We thought we heard gunfire at Hampton Court station, but we thought it was just thunder. What on earth is happening? The Martians can’t get out of their pit, can they?”

My brother had no answers for him.

Later, he discovered that the vague sense of dread had spread to the underground railway passengers, and Sunday excursionists began returning from places like Barnes, Wimbledon, Richmond Park, and Kew much earlier than usual. Yet no one had anything more than secondhand rumors to share. Everyone at the station seemed irritable.

Around five o’clock, the crowd at the station buzzed with excitement as the usual closed line of communication between the South-Eastern and South-Western stations opened up. Carriage trucks rolled in, loaded with massive guns and soldiers. These were reinforcements brought in from Woolwich and Chatham to secure Kingston. The atmosphere lightened with banter: “You’ll get eaten!” “We’re the beast-tamers!”

Not long after, a squad of police arrived to clear the platforms, and my brother stepped back out onto the street.

The church bells rang for evensong, and a group of Salvation Army women sang as they made their way down Waterloo Road. On the bridge, a few onlookers stared at a strange brown scum drifting down the river in patches. The sun was setting, casting a warm glow over the Clock Tower and the Houses of Parliament against a sky that looked almost too peaceful, painted in gold with streaks of reddish-purple clouds. There was talk of a floating body. One man, claiming to be a reservist, told my brother he had seen a heliograph flashing in the west.

In Wellington Street, my brother encountered a couple of rough-looking men rushing out of Fleet Street, still clutching freshly printed newspapers with bold headlines. “Dreadful catastrophe!” one shouted to the other as they hurried down the street. “Fighting at Weybridge! Full description! Martians repulsed! London in danger!” He had to pay threepence for a copy of that paper.

It was then, and only then, that he truly grasped the full power and terror of these creatures. He realized they weren’t just a few sluggish beings; they were intelligent minds controlling massive mechanical bodies. They could move quickly and strike with such force that even the strongest artillery couldn’t withstand them.

They were described as enormous, spider-like machines, nearly a hundred feet tall, capable of moving at the speed of an express train and shooting out beams of intense heat. Masked artillery, primarily field guns, had been set up around Horsell Common, especially between Woking and London. Five of these machines had been spotted heading toward the Thames, and by a stroke of luck, one had been destroyed. In the other instances, the shells had missed, and the batteries were immediately obliterated by the Heat-Rays. Reports mentioned heavy losses among the soldiers, but the overall tone was surprisingly optimistic.

The Martians had been pushed back; they were not invincible. They had retreated to their cluster of cylinders in the area around Woking. Signalers with heliographs were advancing from all directions. Guns were being rushed in from Windsor, Portsmouth, Aldershot, Woolwich—even from the north; among them were massive ninety-five-ton wire-guns from Woolwich. In total, one hundred and sixteen guns were either in position or being hastily set up, primarily to protect London. Never before had England seen such a rapid and extensive mobilization of military resources.

There was hope that any additional cylinders that landed could be destroyed immediately with high explosives, which were being quickly manufactured and distributed. The report acknowledged that the situation was strange and serious, but urged the public to remain calm and avoid panic. Yes, the Martians were bizarre and terrifying, but surely there could be no more than twenty of them against our millions.

The authorities believed, based on the size of the cylinders, that there could be no more than five Martians in each cylinder—fifteen in total. And at least one had been dealt with—possibly more. The public would be adequately warned of any impending danger, and extensive measures were being put in place to protect those in the threatened southwestern suburbs. With repeated assurances of London’s safety and the authorities’ ability to handle the crisis, this quasi-proclamation came to an end.

This announcement was printed in large type on paper so fresh it was still damp, leaving no time for any additional commentary. It was interesting, my brother noted, to see how ruthlessly the usual content of the paper had been cut away to make room for this urgent message.

All down Wellington Street, people were seen eagerly grabbing the pink sheets and reading them, while the Strand buzzed with the voices of hawkers following in their wake. Men scrambled off buses to get their hands on copies. The news stirred intense excitement among the crowd, shaking off their earlier indifference. A map shop in the Strand was hastily taking down its shutters, and my brother noticed a man inside, dressed in his Sunday best, even sporting lemon-yellow gloves, hurriedly taping maps of Surrey to the window.

As he continued along the Strand toward Trafalgar Square, the paper in hand, my brother spotted some of the refugees from West Surrey. A man was driving a cart, typically used by greengrocers, loaded with his wife, two boys, and some furniture. He was coming from the direction of Westminster Bridge, and right behind him was a hay wagon carrying five or six respectable-looking people along with boxes and bundles. The faces of these individuals were drawn and weary, their appearance starkly contrasting with the Sunday best of those on the omnibuses. People in fashionable clothing peered at them from cabs. They paused in the Square, seemingly unsure of where to go, before finally heading east along the Strand. A little further back, a man in work clothes rode one of those old-fashioned tricycles with a small front wheel. He looked dirty and pale.

My brother turned toward Victoria and encountered more of these refugees. He had a vague hope of catching a glimpse of me. He noticed an unusual number of police managing the traffic. Some of the refugees were exchanging news with those on the omnibuses. One claimed to have seen the Martians. “Boilers on stilts, I tell you, striding along like men.” Most of them were animated and excited, sharing their strange experiences.

Beyond Victoria, the pubs were buzzing with the influx of people. At every street corner, groups gathered, reading newspapers, chatting animatedly, or simply staring at the unusual Sunday visitors. As night fell, the crowd seemed to swell, and my brother remarked that the roads resembled Epsom High Street on Derby Day. He approached several of these newcomers, but most offered little more than vague responses.

Only one man provided any real information. He claimed to have come from Byfleet and insisted that Woking had been completely destroyed the night before.

“I came through Byfleet,” he said. “A guy on a bike rode through early in the morning, warning everyone to leave. Then the soldiers arrived. We stepped outside and saw nothing but clouds of smoke to the south—just smoke, and not a single person heading that way. Then we heard gunfire from Chertsey, and people started coming from Weybridge. So, I locked up my house and left.”

At that moment, a strong sense of frustration filled the streets. Many felt the authorities were to blame for their inability to handle the invaders without causing such chaos.

By eight o’clock, the sound of heavy gunfire echoed across southern London. My brother couldn’t hear it amid the traffic on the main roads, but by cutting through the quieter back streets toward the river, he could make it out clearly.

He walked from Westminster to his apartment near Regent’s Park, arriving around two in the morning. Anxiety gnawed at him for my safety, and he was disturbed by the scale of the unfolding crisis. His thoughts, much like mine had been on Saturday, drifted toward military concerns. He envisioned those silent, waiting guns and the suddenly restless countryside; he tried to picture “boilers on stilts” towering a hundred feet high.

A few cartloads of refugees passed along Oxford Street, and several more were seen in Marylebone Road. Yet, the news spread so slowly that Regent Street and Portland Place remained filled with their usual Sunday-night strollers, albeit in clusters discussing the situation. Along the edge of Regent’s Park, couples strolled under the gas lamps just as they always had. The night was warm and still, slightly oppressive; the distant sound of gunfire continued, and after midnight, flashes of lightning appeared in the southern sky.

He read and re-read the newspaper, fearing the worst had happened to me. Restless, he wandered out again after supper, aimlessly. When he returned, he struggled to focus on his exam notes. He finally went to bed just after midnight, only to be jolted awake in the early hours of Monday by the sound of door knockers, hurried footsteps in the street, distant drumming, and a cacophony of bells. Red reflections danced on the ceiling. For a moment, he lay there, bewildered, wondering if it was daybreak or if the world had gone mad. Then he jumped out of bed and rushed to the window.

His room was an attic, and as he leaned out, he heard echoes of the noise from his window sash. Heads appeared in various states of disarray. People were shouting questions. “They are coming!” a policeman yelled, banging on a door. “The Martians are coming!” He hurried to the next house.

The sounds of drumming and trumpeting emanated from the Albany Street Barracks, while every church within earshot was ringing its bells in a chaotic alarm. Doors swung open, and windows across the street lit up one by one, breaking the darkness.

A closed carriage galloped up the street, bursting into noise as it turned the corner, clattering to a crescendo beneath his window before fading into the distance. Following closely were a couple of cabs, the first of a long line of vehicles rushing toward Chalk Farm station, where special trains were loading up, bypassing Euston.

For a long moment, my brother stared out the window in stunned silence, watching the policemen banging on door after door, delivering their incomprehensible message. Then the door behind him opened, and the man who lived across the hall stepped in, dressed only in a shirt, trousers, and slippers, his suspenders hanging loosely, hair tousled from sleep.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked. “Is there a fire? What a racket!”

They both leaned out the window, straining to catch what the policemen were shouting. People were emerging from side streets, gathering in groups at the corners, murmuring to one another.

“What’s all this about?” my brother’s fellow lodger asked.

My brother replied vaguely as he hurried to get dressed, darting to the window with each piece of clothing to catch every moment of the growing excitement. Soon, men selling newspapers began shouting in the street, their voices cutting through the chaos.

“London is on the brink of disaster! The defenses at Kingston and Richmond have been breached! Terrifying massacres are happening in the Thames Valley!”

All around him—in the rooms below, in the houses on either side, across the street, and behind in the Park Terraces, as well as in the countless other streets of Marylebone, Westbourne Park, St. Pancras, and stretching westward and northward to Kilburn, St. John’s Wood, and Hampstead, and eastward through Shoreditch, Highbury, Haggerston, and Hoxton—people were rubbing their eyes, flinging open windows to peer outside, and asking aimless questions. They were hastily dressing as the first hints of an approaching storm of Fear swept through the streets. It was the dawn of a great panic. London, which had gone to bed on Sunday night in blissful ignorance, was jolted awake in the early hours of Monday morning, suddenly aware of the looming danger.

Unable to gather any information from his window, my brother stepped out into the street just as the sky began to blush with the early dawn. The throngs of people on foot and in vehicles multiplied by the moment. “Black Smoke!” he heard someone shout, followed by another voice echoing, “Black Smoke!” The spread of such a collective fear was unavoidable. As my brother lingered on the doorstep, he noticed another newsvendor approaching and quickly grabbed a paper. The man was fleeing along with the crowd, selling his papers for a shilling each as he ran—a bizarre mix of profit and panic.

From the paper, my brother read the alarming message from the Commander-in-Chief:

“The Martians are capable of releasing vast clouds of black, poisonous vapor using rockets. They have overwhelmed our defenses, destroyed Richmond, Kingston, and Wimbledon, and are advancing slowly toward London, annihilating everything in their path. There is no way to stop them. The only escape from the Black Smoke is immediate flight.”

That was all, but it was more than enough. The entire population of the sprawling six-million city was stirring, slipping, and running; soon, it would be a mass exodus heading north.

“Black Smoke!” the voices cried. “Fire!”

The bells of the nearby church clanged in a chaotic uproar, and a cart, driven carelessly, crashed against the water trough up the street, accompanied by shrieks and curses. Sickly yellow lights flickered in the houses, and some passing cabs displayed unlit lamps. Above, the dawn was brightening, clear and steady.

He heard footsteps racing back and forth in the rooms, and up and down the stairs behind him. His landlady appeared at the door, loosely wrapped in a dressing gown and shawl, followed by her husband, who was muttering in alarm.

As my brother began to grasp the significance of it all, he hurried back to his room, stuffed all his available cash—about ten pounds—into his pockets, and stepped out into the chaos of the streets once more.