Stephen Baxter: The Massacre of Mankind

Eric Eden shook his head. ‘Just doing their jobs, I suppose. But when they came crowding aboard – I haven’t seen so many uniforms in one place since I left Inkerman Barracks.’

Philip snorted. ‘Wait until you see London. I blame Marvin – much too pally with the Kaiser, if you ask me.’

We came to his car, which was one of the new Bentleys; its chassis, mostly of aluminium, gleamed in the watery March sunlight.

Cook, whistling, ran a finger along the smooth lines of the bonnet. ‘What a beauty.’

Philip grinned back. ‘She is, isn’t she? English aluminium, or rather Martian , and Ottoman petroleum in the tank, and the best leather from the cut-price French markets. And not entirely an indulgence. Aluminium’s my game these days, and I need to advertise the wares. I’m going to swing east and pick up the Portsmouth Road to London. Keep your papers handy. We’ll pass through the Surrey Corridor, I thought you’d like to see that, but they can be a bit twitchy at the security gates…’

The Surrey Corridor? Security gates? I had been away a long time, but I remembered a time when you hadn’t needed papers or passports even to cross international borders, let alone to move around England.

He bundled us into the car, whose interior smelled of polished leather.

Near Portsmouth, at Cook’s request, Philip turned off the main road and halted at an elevation from which we had a view of the city and the harbour beyond. Portsmouth has always been the main port of the Royal Navy, and that day we could see the English Channel crowded with ships, like grey ghosts in the March mist. Black smoke streaked from their funnels in the breeze.

Cook and Eden, military men both, were fascinated by the sight. ‘Something is afoot,’ murmured Cook. ‘Lot of traffic down there.’

Philip said, ‘Wish I’d brought my bird-watching glasses… Are either of you Army men ship-spotters? Not all those vessels out there are ours. Some are German – and some indeed are French, impounded after the Schlieffen War.’ He glanced back, almost conspiratorially. ‘There are tensions with the Americans. The rumour going round my club – well, it’s this. That the Kaiser, straddling the whole of Europe, is feeling restless again. Just as they launched the European war in the west to knock out France and have a free hand to hit Russia before she mobilised – that was the whole point of the Schlieffen Plan – now the German planners are thinking of taking on America before she becomes too big to handle. America, you know, has a decent navy but a very small standing army, and problems with her neighbour, Mexico. If the Germans can get their fleet across the Atlantic, and if the Mexicans can be encouraged to cross the border…’

‘Madness,’ murmured Eden. ‘Too many damn war rumours. Keeps everyone on edge.’

But Cook said, ‘But you’ve got to ’and it to the Kaiser. He’s winning ’is war on one continent, through being bold. Maybe ’he can do it again. Why not?’

I had watched all this martial drama from afar. In a sense it had all followed on from the Martian War. The British Navy, the best in the world, had turned out to be all but useless against forces that fell on us from the sky. Frank and I ourselves, in our flight to the sea, had seen the Channel Fleet standing useless across the Thames estuary while the Martians rampaged. So, after the War, there had been a drastic rebalancing, with funding for the home Army boosted, and the Navy drastically cut, amid much hand-wringing about the loss of tradition, and bitter inter-service rivalry. Part of the strategy had been, by 1912, our agreeing a rather shabby non-aggression pact with the Kaiser to avoid any naval arms race – and, indeed, to reduce the risk of war with Germany, whose generals were alarmed at the potential of our new, heavily expanded land army for waging a war in Europe. After that we cooperated with the Germans when it came to the oil-rich Ottomans, and we had no fear of German aggression against India – so long as we turned a blind eye to their wider plans.

At home, Marvin was cunning in how he reinforced his new position. Neutrality was popular with the financial markets, and after the shock of the Martian invasion, the general militaristic timbre of Marvin’s regime struck a chord with the populace. It was even good for business, if you were quick-footed enough: clothiers produced uniforms and other military apparel, leathermakers turned out Sam Browne belts and holsters, boots and harnesses, and our munitions factories produced arms and ammunitions to be poured down the great gullet of wars to come…

All this had led, in the end, to the betrayal of our old allies in 1914.

Phillip rubbed his jaw. ‘Whatever you think of the national interest and so forth, I think a lot of us were rather ashamed to allow the Germans to inflict a mechanised war on Belgium and France, rather as we had been subject to just such an attack from Mars. No wonder the Americans were disgusted.’

Cook grinned cynically. ‘We was too blessed busy dishing the Irish, and marching into Mesopotamia to get our ’ands on the Ottomans’ oil, to ’ave time for conscience. But as for the Germans versus the Yanks, maybe the Martians will come again and put a stop to the whole thing before it starts.’

And there you had the paradox of Albert Cook. He was not a conventionally intelligent man, and was certainly poorly educated, but he did have a kind of cunning grasp of strategy, of the big picture. For, of course, in that last playful prediction he turned out to be right.

Philip started the car. ‘Let’s press on. There’s a decent pub at Petersfield where we can stop for lunch…’

It was early in the afternoon when I discovered what Philip had meant by the Surrey Corridor.

We were passing through Guildford. Just beyond the High Street and before the junction for the London Road, we came to a barrier, like a level-crossing gate. Philip slowed as we joined the small queue of traffic before the gate, which was raised and lowered to allow each vehicle through.

When it was our turn, a police officer came to Philip’s window. He wore a regulation uniform as far as I could see, but he had a revolver in a holster at his waist, and no collar number. George had warned us to have our papers prepared. Our documents were taken into a small cabin at the side of the road, and inspected at length. I quickly grew impatient with the wait, though Eden and Cook, with more experience of the modern England than I, sat it out stoically.

Then came a new adventure. One by one, we three were led from the car and into the cabin. Eden and Cook were released quickly, with Cook returning to the car smiling. ‘Bobby in there ’as a copy of my book. ’Ad me sign it. Ha! Fame can be ’elpful sometimes.’

Which was fine for them. But when my go came, I was detained. The officer in charge was a short, bristling man with a long, mournful moustache of a style I thought of as Germanic – I was to see plenty more examples in London. ‘I’m very sorry, Miss, but I have to hold you here for now.’

I believe I managed to smile sweetly. ‘Who says so, Officer?’

‘Exchange.’

‘Which is?’

‘Big records office, in the British Library.’

‘The Library? I’m surprised there’s room with all the books.’

He shrugged. ‘All the books gone down to a bunker now, Miss.

‘I simply yelled, ‘Philip!’

Philip Parris was a man of substance even in General Marvin’s Britain. Once he was at my side, I asked again why I was being detained.

The moustached officer glanced at his notes. ‘Miss, in 1908 you became a member of a proscribed organisation, the Women’s Social and Political Union—’