Christopher Priest - The Space Machine

Considerably shaken by the prolonged incident I set myself to rowing, and in a few minutes we were passing the blasted remains of Weybridge.

If survivors there were, we saw none about. A ferry had been plying as the Martians struck, and we saw its upturned and blackened hull awash in the river. On the towpath lay scores, perhaps hundreds, of charred bodies of those who had suffered directly under the heat-beam. The town itself was well ablaze, with few if any buildings left untouched by the murderous attack. It was like a scene from a nightmare, for when a town burns in silence, unattended, it is no less than a funeral pyre.

There were many bodies in the water, presumably of those people who had thought that there lay refuge. Here the Martians, with their magnificent and wicked cunning, had turned their heat-beams on the river itself, so raising its temperature to that of boiling. As we rowed through, the water was still steaming and bubbling, and when Amelia tested it with her hand she snatched it away. Many of the bodies which floated here revealed by the brilliant redness of their skins that the people had been, quite literally, boiled to death. Fortunately for our sensibilities, the steam had the effect of obscuring our surroundings, and so, as we passed through the carnage, we were spared the sight of much of it.

It was with considerable relief that we turned the bend in the river, but our agonies were not at an end, for now we could see what damage had been inflicted on Shepperton. At Amelia’s urging I rowed more quickly, and in a few minutes I had. taken us beyond the worst.

Once we had turned another bend I slackened off a little, for I was rapidly tiring. We were both in a terrible state as a result of what we had seen, and so I pulled into the bank. We climbed to the shore and sat down in a heady state of shock. What passed between us then I will not relate, but our agonizing was much coloured by our acceptance of complicity in this devastation.

By the time we had recovered our wits, two hours had passed, and our resolve to play a more active rôle in fighting these monsters had hardened. So it was with renewed sense of urgency that we returned to the boat. Sir William Reynolds, if he were not already engaged in the problem, would be able to propose some more subtle solution than the Army had so far devised.

By now there was only the occasional piece of floating wreck age to remind us of what we had seen, but the memories were clear enough. From the moment of the Martians’ onslaught we had seen no one alive, and even now the only apparent movement was the smoke.

The rest had restored my strength, and I returned to the rowing with great vigour, taking long, easy strokes.

In spite of everything we had experienced, the day was all that I had hungered for while on Mars. The breeze was soft, and the sun was warm. The green trees and grasses of the banks were a joy to the eye, and we saw and heard many birds and insects. All this, and the pleasant regularity of my rowing, served to order my thoughts.

Would the Martians, now they had demonstrated their supremacy, be satisfied to consolidate their position? If so, how much time would this give our military forces to essay new tactics? Indeed, what was the strength of our forces? Apart from the three artillery batteries we had seen and heard, the Army was nowhere evident.

Beyond this, I felt that we needed to adjust to our actual circumstances. In some ways, Amelia and I had been living still to the routines we had established inside the projectile, which is to say that our lives were patterned by the dominance of the Martians. Now, though, we were in our own land, one where places had names we could recognize, and where there were days and weeks by which one ordered one’s life. We had established whereabouts in England we had landed, and we could see that England was enjoying a summer of splendid weather, even if other climates were foreboding, but we did not know which day of the week this was, nor even in which month we were.

It was on such matters, admittedly rather trivial, that I was dwelling as I brought our boat around the bend in the river that lies just above the bridge at Walton-on-Thames. Here it was that we saw the first living person that day: a young man, wearing a dark jacket. He sat in the reeds by the edge of the water, staring despondently across the river.

I pointed him out to Amelia, and at once altered course and headed towards him.

As we came closer I could see that he was a man of the cloth. He seemed very youthful, for his figure was slight and his head was topped with a mass of flaxen curls. Then we saw that lying on the ground beside him was the body of another man. He was more stoutly built, and his body—which from the waist up was naked—was covered with the filth of the river.

Still dwelling on my rather trivial thoughts of the moments before, I called out to the curate as soon as we were within hailing distance.

“Sir,” I shouted, “what day is this?”

The curate stared back at us, then stood up unsteadily. I could see he had been severely shocked by his experiences for his hands were never still, fretting with the torn front of his jacket. His gaze was vacant and uncertain as he answered me.

“It is the Day of Judgement, my children.”

Amelia had been staring at the man lying beside the curate, and she asked: “Father, is that man alive?”

No answer was forthcoming, for the curate had turned distractedly away from us. He made as if to move off, but then turned back and looked down at us.

“Do you need any help, Father?” Amelia said.

“Who can offer help when it is God’s wrath vented upon us?”

“Edward … row in to the shore.”

I said: “But what can we do to help?”

Nevertheless, I plied the oars and in a moment we had scrambled ashore. The curate watched as we knelt beside the prostrate man. We saw at once that he was not dead, nor even unconscious, but was turning restlessly as if in a delirium.

“Water… have you any water?” he said, his lips parched. I saw that his skin had a slightly reddened cast to it, as if he too had been caught when the Martians boiled the river.

“Have you not given him any water?” I said to the curate.

“He keeps asking for it, but we are beside a river of blood.”

I glanced at Amelia, and saw by her expression that my own opinion of the poor, distracted curate was confirmed.

“Amelia,” I said quietly, “see if you can find something to bring water in.”

I returned my attention to the delirious man, and in desperation I slapped him lightly about his face. This seemed to break through the delirium for he sat up at once, shaking his head.

Amelia had found a bottle by the river’s edge, and she brought this and gave it to the man. He raised it thankfully to his lips, and drank deeply. I noticed that he was now in command of his senses, and he was looking shrewdly at the young curate.

The curate saw how we were helping the man, and this seemed to disconcert him. He gazed across the meadows in the direction of the distant, shattered tower of Shepperton Church.

He said: “What does it mean? All our work is undone! It is the vengeance of God, for he hath taken away the children. The burning smoke goeth up for ever…”

With this cryptic incantation, he strode off determinedly through the long grass, and was soon out of our sight.

The man coughed a few times, and said: “I cannot thank you enough. I thought I must surely die.”

“Was the curate your companion?” I said.

He shook his head weakly. “I have never before laid eyes on him.”

“Are you well enough to move?” said Amelia.

“I believe so. I am not hurt, but I have had a narrow escape.”

“Were you in Weybridge?” I said.