Stephen Baxter - The Massacre of Mankind

‘Yes.’

‘Stop them before they get to the city. That the plan?’

He eyed Walter, taking in the residual burn-scars on his face. ‘You English?’

‘Is it obvious? My German is poor, I know.’

‘You seen anything of the Martians over there?’

‘Some. Especially the first lot.’ He gestured at his face. ‘I got this fleeing from their advance. But I was never a fighting man.’

‘Even so,’ said the corporal, ‘even so, to see them up close… No doubt I’ll have the privilege before the day is out.’

‘They are overwhelming.’

Again a glint of shrewd intelligence in the man’s eye; this was a veteran who would take nothing for granted, and not underestimate his interplanetary enemy. ‘What about you? Where will you go?’

‘Into the city.’

The corporal eyed him, then shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’

There was a revving of engines, a stirring among the men. Walter had seen enough of the military to understand; somewhere orders had been issued and received.

The corporal nipped out his cigarette and stored the stub behind his ear. ‘Thanks for the smoke. Now you’d better get out of here before my lieutenant requisitions your bicycle.’

It was only a few miles from Dahlem to central Berlin.

But Walter made slow progress. As he neared the centre the roads were increasingly crowded, with motor-cars, buses, even a few horse-drawn vehicles – and pedestrians, fewer officeworker types by this time, more of them with the familiar look of refugees, families on the move with children, old folk, suitcases. Walter was forced to dismount and push his cycle through the crush. Just as in London in 1907, there were boys selling newspapers, literally hot off the press, bearing the latest news of the coming of the Martians. Every so often, too, an official car would come by, military or police or government, perhaps a black Mercedes with official flags fluttering, and the civilian traffic would squeeze out of the way. There were soldiers everywhere, and police – in short, Walter reflected dryly, a plethora of uniforms.

If the Dahlem commuters had not quite fully grasped the significance of the day, by now Berlin was waking fully to the implication of the extraplanetary force that was approaching. And yet – so far at least – there was none of the sense of the breakdown of society that Walter had observed in London coming so quickly in those dreadful June days of ’07. Perhaps he should not have been surprised. Of course, if the Martians came, they would come to Berlin! And of course the Germans would be ready. To Walter’s astonishment, a cleaning truck came by, toiling along the gutter, brushes whirling. On such a day! That was Berlin for you.

But even as the truck passed he heard a sound like distant thunder – coming from the east, surely the sound of guns, big ones – and then came a stink of burning. The crowds stirred.

There was a greater sense of urgency as the pedestrians pushed on, the motor-cars began to bunch up at blockages and sounded their horns, and soldiers and police shouted commands.

Walter reached Potsdamer Platz, which he thought of as Berlin’s equivalent of Piccadilly Circus. Here the traffic was chaotic, the pavements even more crowded. But the brilliant electric advertising panels still glowed brightly in the May morning, and many of the shops and department stores were open, Walter saw, somewhat bemused.

And then, quite unexpectedly, Walter glimpsed a fighting machine. Faintly misty in the air it was, rising above the buildings to the north and east of his position. He saw its bronze cowl, unmistakeable, glinting bright in the flat sunlight – there and gone, moving out of sight as its animal grace took it away. A brace of aeroplanes tore over the city in that direction, very high.

Electrified, Walter began to battle his way north: where the Martians were, that was where he wanted to be.

Walter reached the Ebertstrasse, which runs along the eastern edge of the Tiergarten, the city park. Here, Walter found, people were mostly heading south, more urgently now, and he had to battle to make way – and, after a hundred yards, regretfully, he finally had to abandon his bicycle.

In the park itself – to Walter’s recollection mainly memorable before that day for its extensive collection of VERBOTEN signs – civilians had been excluded, and soldiers laboured at trenchworks and artillery emplacements. Walter thought he recognised anti-aircraft weapons, even big naval guns, as well as field artillery pieces. But he had no time to pause and study this frantic build-up as he pushed on against the flow.

He tried to understand how it was he had seen the Martian machine off to the north-east . He had been running ahead of their advance from the south-west . In the two advances they had made on London, in 1907 and 1920, they had driven more or less directly into the heart of the city. But the fighting-machines were fast, and it was evident that the Martians had become more flexible in their tactics – and indeed, it would be shown retrospectively that the Martians’ tactics varied around the planet in this war, in part for differences of geography and human resistance, in part, perhaps, through sheer experimentation. Perhaps this assault group which might number hundreds of machines – had split into packs, which were now probing into central Berlin from west, east, even north, as well as directly from the south . This would bring chaos to any planned evacuation of the city, if all possible escape routes were cut off… And if surrounded, Berlin would be turned into a ghetto by the Martians, and a gruesome larder. Some fate for the capital of Prussia, Germany and Mitteleuropa !

But such thoughts were for the future. For now the great narrator continued to drive himself straight towards the centre of events.

He reached the Unter Den Linden near the Brandenburg Gate. And here, to Walter’s surprise, people marched. Walter saw no old folk here, no children, no invalids in bath chairs; these were not refugees. And nor were they military or police; Walter made out only a handful of uniforms, shining brass helmets, standing back from the crowd warily. These marchers were the ordinary folk of the city, mostly young, male and female alike; they were heading steadily east along the great avenue, they carried the flags of Prussia and Germany, as well as crude weapons, poles and clubs, and they sang as they marched, Germany’s anthem, which shared the melody of Britain’s own: ‘ Heil dir im Siegerkranz, / Herrscher des Vaterlands! / Heil, Kaiser, dir!… ’

Walter consulted his traveller’s atlas and understood. At the eastern end of the Unter Den Linden, over a short bridge onto Museum Island, lay the Stadtschloss, the Kaiser’s city palace. Was Wilhelm in residence today? With Berlin under threat, of course he was. And where else would the people gather but at the palace of the conqueror of France and Russia? It was just as the crowds came to Buckingham Palace on great days in Britain.

‘ Fühl in des Thrones Glanz / Die hohe Wonne ganz, / Liebling des Volks zu sein! / Heil Kaiser, dir!… ’

On impulse Walter joined the marching throng, heading east towards the palace. The sun was high now, morning mist having burned off to leave a clear and bright day, and, over the heads of the crowd, beyond the rows of leafy trees, the palace was already visible, a blocky mass on the horizon. Walter had always thought he had a side susceptible to persuasion, especially when under stress; he had never forgotten how he had fallen under the spell of Bert Cook, as, on Putney Hill, that undistinguished artilleryman had laid out his plans to defeat the Martians single-handed. Now Walter had to try hard not to lose himself in this marching, singing crowd, in their mass defiance – their mass delusion, he thought, as if a little shouting and a few thousand waved fists might deter an interplanetary invasion.