XVII.
by H. G. Wells
**The âThunder Childâ**
If the Martians had only wanted to destroy, they could have wiped out all of London on that Monday morning as the city slowly spread through the surrounding counties. Panic swept through Barnet, Edgware, Waltham Abbey, and continued east toward Southend and Shoeburyness, and south of the Thames to Deal and Broadstairs. If someone had floated in a balloon above London that June morning, they would have seen every road leading out of the tangled streets filled with a mass of fleeing people, each tiny figure representing a wave of terror and physical suffering. In the previous chapter, I shared my brotherâs account of the chaos on the road through Chipping Barnet to help you understand how overwhelming it was for those caught in the frenzy. Never before had so many people moved and suffered together. The legendary armies of Goths and Huns, the largest forces ever seen in Asia, would have seemed insignificant compared to this. It wasnât a disciplined retreat; it was a stampedeâmassive and horrifyingâwithout any order or destination, six million unarmed and unprepared people rushing forward. This marked the beginning of the collapse of civilization, a massacre of humanity.
From the balloonistâs vantage point, the sprawling network of streets, houses, churches, squares, crescents, and gardens would have looked like a vast map, already abandoned, with dark patches spreading across the south. Over Ealing, Richmond, and Wimbledon, it would have appeared as if some giant pen had spilled ink across the landscape. Each black stain steadily grew and spread, branching out in all directions, pooling against rising ground and rushing over crests into newly discovered valleys, much like ink soaking into blotting paper.
Beyond that, over the blue hills south of the river, the Martians moved with calm precision, methodically releasing their poisonous cloud over one area after another, then laying it down again with their steam jets once it had served its purpose, claiming the conquered land. Their goal didnât seem to be extermination but rather complete demoralization and the dismantling of any resistance. They detonated any ammunition stores they found, severed telegraph lines, and damaged railways here and there. They were crippling humanity. They showed no urgency to expand their operations beyond central London that day. Itâs likely that many people remained in their homes throughout Monday morning. Unfortunately, many suffocated at home, victims of the Black Smoke.
By midday, the Pool of London was a chaotic scene. Steamboats and various ships were there, lured by the large sums of money offered by desperate fugitives. It was reported that many who swam out to these vessels were pushed away with boathooks and drowned. Around one oâclock in the afternoon, a thin remnant of the black vapor drifted between the arches of Blackfriars Bridge. This sparked a frenzy of confusion, fighting, and collisions as boats and barges became jammed in the northern arch of Tower Bridge. Sailors and lightermen had to fiercely battle against the throngs of people swarming from the riverfront. Some were even climbing down the piers of the bridge from above.
An hour later, when a Martian appeared beyond the Clock Tower and waded down the river, nothing but wreckage floated above Limehouse.
I will soon recount the fall of the fifth cylinder. The sixth fell at Wimbledon. My brother, keeping watch beside the women in the carriage in a meadow, saw its green flash far beyond the hills. On Tuesday, the small group, still determined to cross the sea, made their way through the chaotic countryside toward Colchester. News confirmed that the Martians had taken control of all of London. They had been spotted at Highgate and even, it was said, at Neasden. But my brother didnât catch sight of them until the following day.
That day, as the scattered crowds began to feel the pangs of hunger, the concept of property quickly faded away. Farmers armed themselves, ready to defend their cattle, grain stores, and ripening crops. Many people, like my brother, were looking eastward, while some desperate souls even turned back toward London in search of food. These were mostly residents from the northern suburbs, who had only heard about the Black Smoke through rumors.
He learned that about half of the government officials had gathered in Birmingham, preparing vast amounts of explosives for automatic mines across the Midlands. He also heard that the Midland Railway Company had managed to recover from the panic of the first day, resuming train services from St. Albans to alleviate the congestion in the home counties. In Chipping Ongar, a notice proclaimed that large supplies of flour were available in the northern towns, and that bread would be distributed to the starving locals within twenty-four hours. Despite this news, my brother remained focused on their escape plan, and the three of them pressed eastward all day, hearing nothing more about the bread distribution beyond that initial promise. In fact, no one else seemed to hear anything further about it either. That night, the seventh star fell upon Primrose Hill, witnessed by Miss Elphinstone, who took turns watching with my brother.
On Wednesday, the three fugitivesâhaving spent the night in a field of unripe wheatâarrived in Chelmsford. There, a group of locals, calling themselves the Committee of Public Supply, seized a pony for provisions, offering nothing in return except a promise of a share the following day. Rumors circulated about Martians spotted at Epping, and news spread of the destruction of Waltham Abbey Powder Mills in a failed attempt to blow up one of the invaders.
People were keeping watch for Martians from the church towers. Fortunately for my brother, he decided to move on toward the coast instead of waiting for food, even though all three of them were very hungry. By midday, they passed through Tillingham, which was oddly silent and deserted, save for a few furtive looters searching for food. Suddenly, near Tillingham, they caught sight of the sea and an astonishing array of ships of all kinds.
After the sailors could no longer navigate the Thames, they had come to the Essex coastâHarwich, Walton, Clacton, and later Foulness and Shoeburyâto rescue people. The vessels formed a massive sickle-shaped curve that faded into the mist toward the Naze. Close to shore, there was a multitude of fishing boatsâEnglish, Scottish, French, Dutch, and Swedish; steam launches from the Thames, yachts, electric boats; and further out, larger ships, including filthy colliers, sleek merchant vessels, cattle ships, passenger boats, oil tankers, and even an old white transport ship, along with neat white and gray liners from Southampton and Hamburg. Across the blue coast, my brother could dimly see a swarm of boats negotiating with people on the beach, extending up the Blackwater almost to Maldon.
About two miles out lay an ironclad, low in the water, almost appearing waterlogged to my brother. This was the ram _Thunder Child_. It was the only warship in sight, but far off to the right, over the calm sea, a line of black smoke marked the position of the Channel Fleet's other ironclads, ready for action across the Thames estuary during the Martian invasion, vigilant yet powerless to stop it.
At the sight of the sea, Mrs. Elphinstone, despite her sister-in-law's reassurances, succumbed to panic. She had never been outside England before, and the thought of being alone in a foreign country terrified her. She seemed to believe that the French and the Martians might be equally threatening. Over the two days of travel, she had grown increasingly hysterical, fearful, and depressed. Her main desire was to return to Stanmore, where everything had always felt safe and secure. They would find George there...
With great difficulty, they managed to get her down to the beach, where my brother eventually caught the attention of some men on a paddle steamer from the Thames. They sent a boat and struck a deal for thirty-six pounds for the three of them. The men said the steamer was headed to Ostend.
It was around two oâclock when my brother, having paid for the tickets at the gangway, finally stepped onto the steamboat with the two passengers in his care. There was food available on board, though it was priced outrageously, and the three of them managed to grab a meal on one of the seats at the front.
By then, a good number of passengers had already boarded, some having spent their last coins to secure a place on the boat. The captain held the vessel off the Blackwater until five in the afternoon, continuing to take on passengers until the decks were packed to the point of being dangerously crowded. He might have stayed longer if it hadnât been for the sound of gunfire that began echoing from the south around that time. In response, the ironclad out at sea fired a small cannon and hoisted a series of flags. A plume of smoke billowed from its funnels.
Some passengers speculated that the gunfire was coming from Shoeburyness, but soon they realized it was growing louder. Far off in the southeast, the masts and upper structures of three ironclads emerged one after another from the sea, shrouded in clouds of black smoke. My brotherâs attention quickly returned to the distant firing in the south, where he thought he saw a column of smoke rising from the hazy horizon.
The little steamer was already chugging eastward past the crescent of ships, and the low Essex coast was fading into a blue haze when a Martian appeared, small and faint in the distance, moving along the muddy shore from the direction of Foulness. At that moment, the captain on the bridge shouted in a mix of fear and anger at his own delay, and the paddles seemed to tremble with his panic. Every person on board stood at the railings or on their seats, staring at that distant figure, towering higher than the trees or church steeples inland, advancing with a slow, deliberate stride that mocked humanity.
It was the first Martian my brother had ever seen, and he stood there, more amazed than frightened, watching this giant approach the ships, wading deeper into the water as the coast receded. Then, far beyond the Crouch, he spotted another, striding over some scraggly trees, followed by yet another, even farther away, trudging through a shiny mudflat that seemed to float between sea and sky. They were all moving seaward, as if to block the escape of the many vessels crowded between Foulness and the Naze. Despite the engines of the little paddle boat working hard and the foam spraying from its wheels, it was moving away from this ominous advance at a terrifyingly slow pace.
Looking northwest, my brother saw the crescent of ships already in chaos, writhing with the impending threat. One ship passed behind another, while another turned from broadside to head-on, steamships whistled and released clouds of steam, sails were unfurled, and launches darted back and forth. He was so captivated by the unfolding scene and the creeping danger to his left that he didnât notice anything happening at sea. Suddenly, the steamboat made a sharp turn to avoid a collision, and he was thrown from his seat. There was shouting all around him, the sound of trampling feet, and a cheer that seemed to echo faintly. The boat lurched, and he found himself on his hands and knees.
He scrambled to his feet and looked to starboard, where, not a hundred yards from their tilting vessel, a massive iron shape, like the blade of a plow, was slicing through the water, sending huge waves of foam crashing toward the steamer, lifting its paddles helplessly into the air, and nearly pulling the deck down to the waterline.
A spray of water momentarily blinded him. When his vision cleared, he saw the monster had passed and was racing toward the shore. Its towering iron structure loomed above, with twin funnels belching smoke and fire. It was the torpedo ram, _Thunder Child_, charging headlong to rescue the threatened ships.
Holding onto the bulwarks to keep his balance on the rolling deck, my brother looked past this charging giant at the Martians again. He saw the three of them now clustered together, standing so far out to sea that their tripod legs were almost completely submerged. In that perspective, they seemed far less intimidating than the massive iron vessel that the steamer was struggling to keep up with. It appeared as if they were watching this new foe with astonishment. To their understanding, the giant might have seemed like another creature of their kind. The _Thunder Child_ didnât fire any weapons but simply sped toward them. Perhaps its silence allowed it to get so close to the enemy. The Martians seemed unsure of how to react; one shot from them, and they could have sent the ship to the bottom in an instant with their Heat-Ray.
She was moving at such a speed that in no time, she seemed to be halfway between the steamboat and the Martiansâa dark shape against the fading horizon of the Essex coast.
Suddenly, the leading Martian lowered its tube and fired a canister of black gas at the ironclad. It struck the ship's left side and ricocheted off in a plume of inky smoke that rolled away toward the sea, a torrent of Black Smoke from which the ironclad managed to escape. To the people watching from the steamer, low in the water with the sun glaring in their eyes, it looked as if the ship was already among the Martians.
They saw the tall figures separating and rising from the water as they retreated toward the shore, and one of them raised a device that resembled a camera, the generator of the Heat-Ray. He pointed it downward, and a cloud of steam erupted from the water where it touched. It must have penetrated the iron of the ship's hull like a hot iron rod through paper.
A flicker of flame shot up through the rising steam, and then the Martian reeled and staggered. In an instant, he was struck down, and a massive surge of water and steam shot high into the air. The guns of the _Thunder Child_ fired one after another through the haze, and one shot splashed the water nearby, ricocheted toward the other fleeing ships to the north, and shattered a small boat into splinters.
But no one paid much attention to that. At the sight of the Martian's fall, the captain on the bridge shouted something unintelligible, and the crowd of passengers on the steamer's stern erupted in cheers. They shouted again as something long and black surged out from the white chaos, flames streaming from its middle, its ventilators and funnels belching fire.
She was still alive; it seemed the steering gear was intact and the engines were running. She headed straight for a second Martian, closing in within a hundred yards when the Heat-Ray was aimed at her. Then, with a violent thud and a blinding flash, her decks and funnels erupted upward. The Martian staggered from the force of the explosion, and in the next moment, the flaming wreckage, still propelled by its momentum, collided with him, crumpling him like a piece of cardboard. My brother shouted without thinking. A boiling cloud of steam obscured everything once more.
âTwo!â yelled the captain.
Everyone was shouting. The entire steamer vibrated with frantic cheers that spread from one person to another, echoing through the throng of ships and boats that were fleeing out to sea.
The steam hung over the water for many minutes, obscuring the third Martian and the coast entirely. All the while, the boat steadily made its way out to sea, away from the battle. When the confusion finally cleared, the drifting bank of black vapor blocked any view of the _Thunder Child_ or the third Martian. However, the ironclads out at sea were now quite close, moving toward the shore past the steamboat.
The little vessel continued to push its way seaward, while the ironclads slowly retreated toward the coast, which remained hidden beneath a swirling mass of vapor, part steam and part black gas, mingling in the oddest ways. The fleet of refugees scattered to the northeast; several small boats sailed between the ironclads and the steamboat. Eventually, before reaching the thickening cloud bank, the warships turned northward, then abruptly changed course and disappeared into the evening haze to the south. The coast faded, becoming indistinct against the low clouds gathering around the setting sun.
Then, suddenly, out of the golden haze of the sunset came the sound of gunfire and the silhouette of dark shapes moving. Everyone rushed to the rail of the steamer, straining to see into the blinding light of the west, but nothing was clearly visible. A mass of smoke rose at an angle, blocking the sun. The steamboat throbbed onward through an endless suspense.
The sun sank into grey clouds, the sky flushed and darkened, and the evening star flickered into view. It was deep twilight when the captain shouted and pointed. My brother squinted into the distance. Something shot up into the sky from the greyâsomething broad and large that soared in a wide arc, growing smaller as it descended slowly, vanishing into the grey mystery of the night. And as it flew, it rained darkness upon the land.
BOOK TWO: THE EARTH UNDER THE MARTIANS.