Stephen Baxter - The Massacre of Mankind

After a few hours of this, Verity whispered to Frank, ‘Anything that moves – anything mechanical – they fire on. Even if it isn’t a weapon, a gun. I imagine they’d fire on a field ambulance if we could get to one. But they are sparing the people, unless you’re silly enough to take a pot-shot. Just as your friend Bert Cook said – and, don’t worry, I do understand why. The Martians have to feed – as will we, in fact, at some point. Where is Cook, by the way?’

‘Long gone,’ Frank said, pointing west, towards Amersham. ‘To where the Martians are. Bert was always going to follow his own agenda, rather than the Army’s.’

‘I think it’s starting to get light.’

‘Hmm. I wish it wouldn’t.’

Verity glanced around at their charges, the young medics and the VADs, many of whom were huddled up against each other for warmth, as innocent as small children. ‘Look at them. I envy them their ability to sleep.’

‘They’re all exhausted. No sleep on the Sunday night for most of us either, remember.’

‘True.’ Evidently hearing something, she twisted and looked out of the trench.

Frank raised himself carefully, up on his elbows. In the gathering pre-dawn light, he saw yet another fighting-machine, picking its way with speed but apparent care through the ruined landscape. And at its feet scuttled something smaller, a fat body on multiple legs like a crab or spider, the whole the size of a small motor-car perhaps.

Verity breathed, ‘What’s that ?’

‘A handling-machine. It’s odd to see one outside a museum… If the handling-machines are out they’ll be bent on construction as well as destruction.’

‘Maybe they’re building a fortress.’

‘Something like that. A stockade, presumably all the way around this zone they conquered.’

She glanced at him. ‘It really is a cordon, then.’

‘It seems so.’

‘With us on the inside…’

‘Just as well I’m here, then.’

The woman’s clear voice, contrasting to their whispers, coming from behind him, startled Frank. He rolled on his back, scrambling for his revolver, and clumsily slipped down into the trench.

A horse whinnied.

Feeling foolish, and though it defied instinct to abandon his cover, Frank got to his feet. He found himself facing Mildred Tritton, who was seated on a battered old dogcart to which two sturdy horses were harnessed. ‘Good morning,’ she said cheerfully. ‘And as it is just about morning, the light ought to be good enough to tell you I’m not quite a look-alike for an invader from Mars.’

‘I apologise,’ Frank said, sheepishly holstering his gun. ‘We’ve had rather a bad night. What can I do for you, Mrs Tritton?’

‘Mildred, please. I have a feeling it’s more a question of what I can do for you just now. This is actually the third trip I’ve made out to the perimeter this night, or morning – once I discovered, by means of a rather nerve-wracking experiment, that the Martians would not fire on a wagon pulled by a horse, not unless it’s loaded up with a howitzer I suppose. The Martians go for machinery. They did for old Bessie, you know. My tractor.’ Her face worked. ‘I find that rather hard to forgive.’

Verity said, ‘The poor Martians! They’ve made a formidable enemy.’

‘You said three trips?’ Frank asked.

‘Yes, collecting up benighted souls like yourselves and taking them home.’

‘Home?’

‘I mean my own home – my farm is near Abbotsdale, which is a village some ten miles thataway,’ and she jerked her thumb over her shoulder, ‘in the vicinity of Amersham. First trip was out of the goodness of my heart. Second trip I picked up your Lieutenant-Colonel Fairfield. Pleasant chap, and one of the more senior officers to have survived – in this part of the Cordon, at least. And he told me that while the telephone and telegraph are out – the Martians seem to be busily cutting the wires – the field units have wireless telegraph, and that still works, and there’s some coordination going on among the survivors. Those caught within the Cordon are being withdrawn from the perimeter for now, and brought back to suitable rest stops – suitable meaning away from a Martian pit at least, for the cylinders fell throughout the cordoned-off zone, not just at the edge. I took Fairfield to Abbotsdale, and he requested I come back out for the rest of his unit – I think he was particularly keen to find you, Doctor Jenkins.’

‘Frank,’ he said heavily. ‘And we’re more than grateful that you did.’

‘Load up, then,’ she said briskly. ‘I can take a round dozen in the cart. Any of you who feel up to walking, you’re welcome to follow. I’ll come back for the rest, have no fear. I brought breakfast. I have hams, cheese, bread, and buckets of fresh milk – a couple of your strong lads can unload. Oh, and clean drinking water. Given what the Martian Smoke can do to the soil, you’re advised not to drink from streams and broken mains and such just yet.’

‘Still not quite dawn,’ Frank said. ‘But it’s as if the sun has come out. Thank you, Mildred.’

But she seemed distracted. She said softly, ‘What strikes me is how deuced young your people are.’

‘Indeed. Well, nobody old is foolish enough to go to war.’

After a hasty breakfast, and with the cart loaded, Mildred snapped her reins, the horses pulled with a patient, heavy plod, and the cart headed across the rough ground of the field. Frank himself rode up with the farmer – somewhat reluctantly, while there were others of his people who had no place to ride at all, but his more experienced subordinates insisted that as commanding officer he should take the lead. It felt very odd, even dream-like, to be out of cover, even if there were no Martians in sight.

As they rode they spoke softly, with Mildred asking Frank about his own background. She was interested to find out about his relationship with Walter, and had read his book; Frank later told me he felt the typical younger brother’s jealousy at this, even in such circumstances.

A hundred yards off across the field, a cluster of cows lowed mournfully. ‘I’m sure Jimmy Rodgers won’t neglect his milking, Martians or no Martians,’ Mildred said sternly.

They hit a particularly deep gully in the field, and the cart jolted violently.

Frank said, winded, ‘So you’re not troubling to use the roads, Mildred?’

For answer she pointed into the distance ahead, misty with the dawn. Now Frank saw Martians, two fighting-machines walking in the greyness, astonishingly tall – like church steeples come to life in this English countryside, Frank thought.

‘ That’s why,’ Mildred said. ‘They’re everywhere – coming in from the pits at the perimeter and from those in the interior – they’re cutting roads and rail lines and the telephone wires best to stay out of the way of them altogether, don’t you think? So we’ll stay off the roads, and bypass Gerrards Cross, and then Knotty Green, Penn, Tyler’s Green, Holmer Green, on the way to Abbotsdale. It’s up hill and down dale all the way…’

Mildred turned out to be right about that. Even crossing the fields, the going was steep, all dips and climbs. The landscape had a closed-in feeling to Frank. It was like a vast green mouth, on this cold March day. He supposed a military man would fret about the lack of long eye lines.

Mildred eyed him. ‘You don’t know the Chilterns, do you?’

He laughed. ‘Less than the Martians do already, I suspect.’

She gestured. ‘Sixty miles of high ground, from the Goring Gap in the south-west where the Thames passes, to the Hitchin Gap in the north-east – as I am sure the military planners in London and Aldershot and wherever are working out as we speak. It’s like this all the way, chalk country, lots of crowding hills and narrow valleys. It seems evident to me that the Martians have seized this place to serve as a sort of base of operations. A fortified perimeter from which they can strike out elsewhere – at London, presumably. And in the meantime we’re all stuck here.’