Stephen Baxter - The Massacre of Mankind

The shore receded behind us, flat and all but featureless, turning to a dark line on the horizon. I watched it go with some trepidation; Germany was a foreign land and could never be home, and nor indeed could France, but they were a much more secure resting place than where I was going now.

We were transferred to our larger transports without significant incident. Out in deep water, somewhat to my relief, the passengers from my vessel were taken on board a kind of small river cruiser. She was called the Lady Vain. She was expensive-looking, but her smooth white paintwork had been splashed over by Navy grey, and the polished planking of her decks was scarred by the soldiers’ boots and littered with their gear. I could have done far worse, given that the fleet included herring-boats and coal-carriers!

Gray and I were admitted to a forward lounge, under the small bridge, fitted with padded seats and benches, and lined with portholes out of which we would get a good panorama of the North Sea as we sailed steadily west. Even crowded with soldiers who sat or lay sleeping on every square inch of floor space, the lounge was relatively comfortable. There was even a steward, who, after we were all boarded, came around with trays of water and fruit juice. He greeted my companion: ‘Morning, Mr Gray.’

‘I’m afraid it’s Lieutenant pro tem , Perkins.’

When he’d moved on, I said, ‘So, Lieutenant pro tem . The steward knows you, does he?’

‘Through the chap who owns the boat – has one of those big riverside villas at Marlow, you know the sort, and he’s a friend of my father. Used to go up for Henley and to play tennis.’

‘I’m sure you did.’

He winked at me, and raised a glass of fruit punch (without alcohol). ‘We’ll see enough discomfort in England. I thought I’d pull one of the few strings within my reach to make our journey a little more pleasant.’

I touched his glass with mine. ‘Right now I’m glad you did – and will be more so in ten or twelve hours, I dare say.’

For that was how long our passage was predicted to take: across the North Sea from the east Frisians, passing not far south of Dogger Bank, until we reached the Wash, where we would be transferred to another flotilla of small boats for the final step to the shore. If all went well, I might be in England, without getting my feet wet, before sun down.

But it was about lunch time when we heard the rumours that Martians had been seen.

Soon after that a sound like thunder was heard. I recognised the consternation on the faces of Gray and others, and understood its cause. For we, part of a great convoy of ships, were still in the open sea, suspended between Germany and the British Isles. And the gunfire was coming not from the west – not from the English coast, where we might have expected to encounter Martians – it came from the north, the open ocean. It was disconcerting for me to discover that none of my companions, no matter how experienced and battle-hardened, had any idea what was happening.

On the Invincible Major Eric Eden had been fast asleep. Showered, fed, dressed in a clean uniform, he napped on a heap of blankets on the carpeted floor of an officer’s cabin, which, he told me later, even in the middle of an interplanetary war, had leather armchairs and pictures of Nelson on the wall. It was about noon, but he was exhausted after a mere half shift of feeding the maw of the boilers below. He would tell me he had even slept through the bells that summoned the men to the chaplain’s services, for the day was a Sunday.

That was when action stations were sounded, with the tinny note of a bugle.

Eden woke immediately. He had never heard the call before, but understood its portent immediately – and would have moved even if the officers around him, Navy and Army alike, had not been even quicker. Eden had no specific station. He considered going down to the coal bunkers once more; perhaps he could lend a hand. But he could not resist trying to discover what was going on. So he pushed his way out to the open deck.

He got to the rail in time to see the White Ensign being hoisted overhead. All around him was apparent chaos as the crew ran to their positions, and the big guns swivelled on their mounts, and black smoke from the funnels streaked across the sky. He spared a thought for the men of the boiler crews, toiling down below as they never had before.

Looking out to sea he saw that the Invincible was one of a neat line of ships playing follow-my-leader bow to stern, the ensigns fluttering and the black coal-smoke pouring from their funnels. Some of them were dreadnoughts, their profiles shallow in the water, with the two huge chimney stacks and the four vast gun placements fore and aft. To Eden it was a tremendous sight, the scale surprising, inspiring.

And he perceived that this great rank of ships was turning, following a huge arc scrawled across the grey sea. The sun was high in a featureless blue sky. He was suddenly disoriented. The battle group was changing course, but which way? And, more to the point, why?

Then the guns started to bark, from the ships ahead of the Invincible. He thought he saw the streak of shells, but he saw as yet no target on the horizon.

‘This’ll be fun,’ said a man at the rail next to him. He was a Navy man, a rating, but not of this crew; his cap proclaimed him as a man of the Minotaur . His accent was northern, perhaps Northumbrian.

Eden, bewildered, asked, ‘What do you mean?’

The rating looked at him for the first time. ‘You’re the Martian chap. Heard you speak.’

‘The Martian chap.’ Eden laughed softly. ‘I suppose you could say that. But I’m as bewildered here as I was in that blessed cylinder.’ He glanced at the sun. ‘What time is it?’

‘Not long after midday.’

Eden tried to remember the schedule. ‘Then we’re stuck somewhere in the middle of the ocean. We’re not expecting to run into Martians until we hit the coast… Are we? And which way are we turning? The sun’s too high; I can’t even be sure which way’s south.’

The rating pointed to his right. ‘South’s that way, where we came from. We sailed out of Brest – you remember that much—’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘We made north through the Channel. We would have rendezvoused with units of the Grand Fleet, coming down from Scapa Flow, and then escorted the passenger fleet in to the English coast.’

‘But we’re nowhere near the coast. And we’re turning – what, east? Not west, towards England.’

‘Because the Martians are out there, sir. Out of our sight still – but they’re there , to the north. I can only tell you the scuttlebutt, mind. A Zepp spotted them, a cluster of fighting machines, out in the middle of the North Sea. Where they had no right to be. Zepp himself was unlucky to be there, he was on his way home after scouting the big Martian nest in England – or lucky for us he happened to spot them. Zepp managed to get off a message before he was shot down—’

‘By the Heat-Ray?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Martians can’t swim, damn it. It makes no sense. And they brought no ships. They can’t be out in the ocean.’

‘But even a man who can’t swim,’ the rating said calmly, ‘may stand in the shallows, and wield a sword.’

Then Eden saw it. ‘Dogger Bank. Of course.’

The rating nodded grimly. ‘Only a hundred feet or so deep at the shallowest, and many miles from land. Not a bad platform from which to fight, eh? If you’re in a fighting-machine a hundred feet tall, and we know they can extend those legs of theirs even higher than that…’