Max Collins - The War of the Worlds Murder

Passing photographers laden with full gear, who were scurrying toward the elevator he’d just departed, Ben Gross entered a Daily News city room that bustled like election eve.

An assistant at the city desk called out, “Hey, Ben-what the hell’s going on tonight?”

“You’re asking me?”

The switchboard was ablaze, lines jammed, phones ringing like a swarm of mechanical baby birds demanding to be fed. In their cubicles, rewrite men frantically tried to get through to CBS with zero luck.

A harried switchboard girl sounded like she was doing a skit on the Jack Benny program. “No, madam…no, sir-we don’t know anything about an explosion in New Jersey…. Men from Mars?… Yeah, we know it’s on the radio, but…it didn’t happen…. Nothing’s going on, I tell you!.. No madam…No sir… there ain’t no men from Mars! ”

Nearby, another city desk assistant, frazzled beyond belief, was telling an official from the police commissioner’s office, “It’s just a phony-a radio play!”

The assistant city desk man finally hung up, then turned to Gross and pointed an accusatory finger. “You’re the one always touting this guy Welles! You either get CBS on the line, or get your tail over there and see what in God’s name’s going on.”

Gross walked into the radio room and two phones jangled; he picked up a receiver in either hand.

A female voice said, “Are they abandoning New York?”

“No, lady, it’s just a play.”

“Oh no it isn’t!” she screamed, and hung up.

On the other wire was a guy from the Red Cross. “I hear they’re broadcasting about a terrible catastrophe in New Jersey-do you know where it is, so we can get our people out there?”

“It’s only Orson Welles-he’s on with a fantasy, tonight.”

“That can’t be! My wife just called and said thousands have been killed.”

Gross reassured the man that the show was just a show, hung up, and his young female assistant bounded in, looking far less attractive than usual, her hair tendrils of despair, her eyes pools of frustration.

“My God, Mr. Gross! These calls have been driving me batty!”

The radio reviewer said nothing, merely headed for the door.

His assistant nearly shrieked, “You’re not going to leave me all alone with these…these phones , are you?”

“Yes,” he said, already halfway out.

In moments he was on the street, hailing another cab.

Climbing in, Gross realized the cab’s radio was tuned to WEAF.

“Put CBS on,” Gross said, “would you?”

The cabbie did so.

“It’s something moving…solid metal, kind of a shield-like affair rising up out of the cylinder…. Going higher and higher. What?… It’s, it’s standing on legs…actually rearing up on a sort of metal framework. Now it’s reaching above the trees and the searchlights are on it. Hold on!”

“God almighty!” the cab driver said.

“It’s just fiction,” Gross said.

“Are you sure?”

“You don’t see any panic-stricken people running around the streets, do you, bud?”

And as if to prove the reviewer wrong, the cab passed a movie house on Third Avenue, from which half a dozen women and children streamed, while men poured out of nearby bars, to take root on the sidewalks and stare at the sky.

On Lexington Avenue and 51 stStreet, a woman sat on the curb, crying and screaming, while a cop in the middle of the street stood mobbed by agitated citizens.

“Fiction or not,” the cabbie said, “something the hell’s goin’ on!”

And yet when Gross was dropped off at the Columbia Broadcasting Building, no sign of outer or inner turmoil could be seen-the usual number of pedestrians strolled by, traffic seemed about normal.

No one would ever guess that this was the County Seat of Hysteria in the United States, right now.

In six weeks, the American Institute of Public Opinion would estimate 9,000,000 Americans had heard the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, a majority tuning in too late to catch the disclaimer opening. The Chapmans, the Dorns, James Roberts and his friend Bobby, Sheldon Judcroft and Professor Barrington, and the troopers at the HQ in upstate New York were among the estimated 1,700,000 listeners who believed they were hearing actual newscasts, including the following one:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have a grave announcement to make. Incredible as it may seem, both the observations of science and the evidence of our eyes lead to the inescapable assumption that those strange beings who landed in the Jersey farmlands tonight are the vanguard of an invading army from the planet Mars.”

State troopers Chuck and Carmine made it back to headquarters, despite a highway filled with lunatics driving north like the devil was on their tails.

But HQ was no better. Everyone was doing their best to follow Corporal Stevens’s orders; previously cool in any crisis, the corporal was on edge, snapping at his men wildly.

The quartermaster sergeant had come in from home to issue the troopers rifles, machine guns and ammunition, and he, too, was caught up in it, yelling like a boot-camp drill instructor.

Then Lt. Flanders showed up. Ol’ Flannel Mouth had loaded up his car with household possessions, leaving room for his wife, a blowsy middle-aged blonde who had a crucifix in one hand and a bottle of rye in the other (she would alternately kiss the cross and swig the bottle).

The lieutenant took over from the duty corporal, who had clearly been enjoying the power and disliked having it taken away from him. After Lt. Flanders gave several orders that Corporal Stevens disagreed with, the latter decided he’d had enough of the former.

“Lieutenant, I know we’re all going to die,” the corporal said. “And I’ve been waiting seven long years to tell you something.”

“Well, spit it out, man! We have things to do.”

They were outside the front of HQ, the troopers all around, weapons in hand, waiting for their orders.

The corporal was saying, “Nothing is more urgent than me saying this: you are a flannel-mouthed son of a bitch, no-good, rotten bastard. I have half a mind to grab you by your miserable neck and squeeze it till your tongue turns black.”

That wouldn’t take long, as the lieutenant was already turning purple; in the background, his wife toasted the corporal with her rye bottle, in “hear hear!” manner.

Corporal Stevens had more: “I’d be doing everybody in this troop a favor by shoving this.45 up your tail and pulling the trigger. But I just hate the thought of wasting a good bullet on your miserable carcass, when we have an enemy to fight.”

The corporal folded his arms, held his chin high and waited for a response.

The purple left the lieutenant’s face. He seemed to be working hard to retain his composure.

All the men had gathered around as the confrontation had built, and now Lt. Flanders said to them, “Men-this is no time to pull old chestnuts out of the fire. Let’s let bygones be bygones, forgive and forget, that’s what I’ve always said.”

If so, no one assembled here remembered hearing it.

“Let us pool our energies,” the lieutenant said rousingly, “and fight the common enemy that threatens us. We will make our last stand on the hill. Get to your posts…. You men with machine guns will concentrate your fire on the approaches to headquarters, and you men with rifles will make the last-ditch defense from high ground.”

Shouts of support and even applause came from the troopers-with the notable exception of the stiff-necked corporal.

Then the lieutenant showed his true colors: as his troopers were busy setting up the defenses, he got into his car with his missus and roared off into the foggy night. Heading north.