Artilleryman And The Fighting Machine

The hammering from the pit and the pounding

Of guns grew louder

My fear rose at the sound of someone creeping into the house

Then I saw it was a young artilleryman

Weary, streaked with blood and dirt

Anyone here?

Come in here, drink this

Thank you

What's happened?

They wiped us out

Hundreds dead, maybe thousands

The heat ray?

The martians! They were inside the hoods of machines they'd made

Massive metal things on legs!

Giant machines that walked

They attacked us! They wiped us out!

Machines?

Fighting machines!

Picking up men and bashing 'em against trees

Just hunks of metal

But they knew exactly what they were doing

Mmm, there was another cylinder came last night

Yes, it looked bound for London

London! Carrie! I hadn't dreamed there could be danger to carrie and her father

So many miles away

I must go to London at once

And me, got to report to headquarters if there's anything left of it

At byfleet we came upon an inn, but it was deserted

Is everybody dead?

Not everybody. Look! Six cannons with gunners standing by

It's bows and arrows against the lightning

They haven't seen the heat ray yet

We hurried along the road to weybridge

Suddenly, there was a heavy explosion

The ground heaved, windows shattered

And gusts of smoke erupted into the air

Look! There they are! What did I tell you?

Quickly, one after the other, four of the fighting machines appeared

Monstrous tripods, higher than the tallest steeple

Striding over pine trees and smashing them

Walking engines of glistening metal

Each carried a huge funnel and I realised

With horror that I'd seen this awful thing before

A fifth machine appeared on the far bank

It raised itself to full height

Flourished the funnel high in the air

And the ghostly terrible heat ray struck the town

As it struck, all five fighting machines exulted

Emitting deafening howls that roared like thunder

Ulla! Ulla!

The six guns we had seen now fired simultaneously

Decapitating a fighting machine

The martian inside the hood was slain

Splashed to the four winds, and the body

Nothing now but an intricate device of metal

Went whirling to destruction

As the other monsters advanced

People ran away blindly, the artillery man among them

But I jumped into the water and hid until forced up to breathe

Now the guns spoke again

But this time the heat ray sent them to oblivion

Ulla!

With a white flash, the heat ray swept across the river

Scalded, half-blinded and agonized

I staggered through leaping, hissing water towards the shore

I fell helplessly, in full view of the martians

Expecting nothing but death

The foot of a martian came down close to my head

Then lifted again, as the four martians carried away

The debris of their fallen comrade

And I realized that by a miracle I had escaped