Christopher Priest - The Space Machine

The storms of the day before had passed, and the morning was sunny, hot and still. We wasted no time in getting down to the riverside, and walked out on one of the wooden jetties to where several rowing-boats were moored. I selected what seemed to me to be a solid boat, and yet one not too heavy. I helped Amelia into it, then climbed in after her and cast off at once.

There was no sign of any of the battle-machines, but even so I rowed close to the northern bank, for here weeping willows grew beside the river and their branches overhung in many places.

We had been rowing for no more than two minutes when to our alarm there came a burst of artillery-fire from close at hand. At once I stopped rowing, and looked all about.

“Get down, Amelia!” I shouted, for I had seen over the roofs of Chertsey the four battle-machines returning. Now the glittering Titans were at their full height, and their heat-cannons were raised. The shells of the artillery exploded in the air about them, but no damage was inflicted that I could see.

Amelia had thrown herself forward across the planks at the bottom of the boat, and she crawled towards where I was Sitting. She held on to my legs, clutching me as if this alone would turn the Martians away. We watched as the battle-machines abruptly altered their course, and headed towards the artillery emplacement on the northern bank opposite Chertsey. The speed of the machines was prodigious. As they reached the river’s edge they did not hesitate, but plunged in, throwing up an immense spray. All the time their heat-beams were flashing forward, and in a moment we heard no more firing from our men.

In the same instant, Amelia pointed towards the east. Here, near where Weybridge was situated, the fifth battle-machine—the one I had seen earlier from the house—was charging at full spate towards the river. It had attracted the attentions of more artillery placed by Shepperton, and as it charged its gleaming platform was surrounded with fireballs from the exploding shells. None of these hit home, though, and we saw the Martian’s heat-cannon swinging from side to side. The beam fell across Weybridge, and instantly sections of the town burst into flame. Weybridge itself, though, was not the machine’s chosen target, for it too continued until it reached the river, and waded in at a furious speed.

Then came a moment of short-lived triumph for the Army. One of the artillery shells found its target, and with a shocking violence the platform exploded into fragments. With scarcely a pause, and as if possessed of a life of its own, the battle-machine staggered on, careening and swaying. After a few seconds it collided with the tower of a church near Shepperton, and fell back into the river. As the heat-cannon made contact with the water its furnace exploded, sending up an enormous cloud of spray and steam.

All this had taken place in less than a minute, the very speed at which the Martians were capable of making war being a decisive factor in their supremacy.

Before we had time to recover our senses, the four battle-machines which had silenced the Chertsey battery went to aid their fallen comrade. The first we knew of this was when we heard a great hissing and splashing, and glancing upstream we saw the four mighty machines racing through the water towards us. We had no time to think of hiding or escaping; indeed, so stricken with terror were we that the Martians were on us before we could react. To our own good luck, the monsters had no thought or time for us, for they were engaged in a greater war. Almost before they were beyond us, the heat-cannons were spraying their deadly beams, and once more the deep, staccato voice of the artillery by Shepperton spoke its ineffectual reply.

Then came a sight I have no wish ever to witness again. The deliberation and malice of the Martian invaders was never realized in a more conclusive fashion.

One machine went towards the artillery at Shepperton, and, ignoring the shells which burst about its head, calmly silenced the guns with a long sweep of its beam. Another, standing beside it, set about the systematic destruction of Shepperton itself. The other two battle-machines, standing in the confusion of islands where the Wey meets the Thames, dealt death upon Weybridge. Without compunction, both man and his effects were blasted and razed, and across the green Surrey meadows we heard one detonation after another, and the clamour of voices raised in the terror that precedes a violent death.

When the Martians had finished their evil work the land became silent again … but there was no stillness about. Wey bridge burned, and Shepperton burned. Steam from the river mingled with smoke from the towns, joining in a great column that poured into the cloudless sky.

The Martians, unchallenged once more, folded away their cannons, and congregated at the bend of the river where the first battle-machine had fallen. As the platforms rotated to and fro, the bright sunlight reflected from the burnished cowls.

During all this Amelia and I had been so taken with the events about us that we failed to notice that our boat continued to drift with the stream. Amelia still crouched at the bottom of the boat, but I had shipped my oars and sat on the wooden seat.

I looked at Amelia, and with my voice reflecting in its hoarseness the terror I felt, I said: “If this is a measure of their power, the Martians will conquer the world!”

“We cannot sit by and allow that to happen.”

“What do you propose we do?”

“We must get to Richmond,” she said. “Sir William will be better placed to know.”

“Then we must row on,” I said.

In my terrible confusion I had overlooked the fact that four battle-machines stood between us and Richmond at that very moment, and so I took the oars and placed them in the water again. I took just one stroke, when behind me I heard a tremendous splashing of water, and Amelia screamed.

“They’re coming this way!”

I released the oars at once, and they slipped into the water.

“Lie still!” I cried to Amelia. Putting my own words into effect, I threw myself backwards, lying at an awkward and painful angle across the wooden seat. Behind me I heard the tumultuous splashing of the battle-machines as they hurtled up-river. We were now drifting almost in the centre of the stream, and so lay directly in their path!

The four were advancing abreast of one another, and lying as I was I could see them upside-down. The wreckage of the battle-machine struck by the shell had been retrieved by the others, and now, carried between them, was being taken back the way they had come. I saw for an instant the torn and blasted metal that had been the platform, and saw too that there was gore and blood about much of it. I derived no satisfaction from the death of one monster-creature, for what was this to the spiteful destruction of two towns and the murder of countless people?

If the monsters had chosen to slay us then we would have had no chance of survival, yet once again we were spared by their preoccupations. Their victory over the two hapless towns was emphatic, and such stray survivors as ourselves were of no consequence. They closed on us with breathtaking speed, almost obscured by the clouds of spray thrown up by their churning legs. One of these sliced into the water not three yards from our little boat, and we were instantly deluged. The boat rocked and yawed, taking in water in such copious quantities that I felt we must surely sink.

Then, in a few seconds, the tripods were gone, leaving us waterlogged and unsteady on the troubled river.

It took us several minutes of paddling to retrieve our oars, and to bale out the water to make the boat manoeuvrable again. By then the Martian battle-machines had vanished towards the south, presumably heading for their pit on the common by Woking.