第48章

As I drew nearer I perceived he was dressed in clothes as dusty and filthy as my own; he looked, indeed, as though he had been dragged through a culvert. Nearer, I distin- guished the green slime of ditches mixing with the pale drab of dried clay and shiny, coaly patches. His black hair fell over his eyes, and his face was dark and dirty and sunken, so that at first I did not recognise him. There was a red cut across the lower part of his face.

"Stop!" he cried, when I was within ten yards of him, and I stopped.

His voice was hoarse. "Where do you come from?" he said.

I thought, surveying him.

"I come from Mortlake," I said. "I was buried near the pit the Martians made about their cylinder. I have worked my way out and escaped.""There is no food about here," he said. "This is my coun- try. All this hill down to the river, and back to Clapham, and up to the edge of the common. There is only food for one. Which way are you going?"I answered slowly.

"I don't know," I said. "I have been buried in the ruins of a house thirteen or fourteen days. I don't know what has happened."He looked at me doubtfully, then started, and looked with a changed expression.

"I've no wish to stop about here," said I. "I think I shall go to Leatherhead, for my wife was there."He shot out a pointing finger.

"It is you," said he; "the man from Woking. And you weren't killed at Weybridge?"I recognised him at the same moment.

"You are the artilleryman who came into my garden.""Good luck!" he said. "We are lucky ones! Fancy YOU!" He put out a hand, and I took it. "I crawled up a drain," he said. "But they didn't kill everyone.

And after they went away I got off towards Walton across the fields. But----It's not sixteen days altogether--and your hair is grey." He looked over his shoulder suddenly. "Only a rook," he said. "One gets to know that birds have shadows these days. This is a bit open. Let us crawl under those bushes and talk.""Have you seen any Martians?" I said. "Since I crawled out----""They've gone away across London," he said. "I guess they've got a bigger camp there. Of a night, all over there, Hampstead way, the sky is alive with their lights. It's like a great city, and in the glare you can just see them moving. By daylight you can't. But nearer--I haven't seen them--"(he counted on his fingers) "five days. Then I saw a couple across Hammersmith way carrying something big. And the night before last"--he stopped and spoke impressively--"it was just a matter of lights, but it was something up in the air. I believe they've built a flying-machine, and are learn-ing to fly."

I stopped, on hands and knees, for we had come to the bushes.

"Fly!"

"Yes," he said, "fly."

I went on into a little bower, and sat down.

"It is all over with humanity," I said. "If they can do that they will simply go round the world."He nodded.

"They will. But---- It will relieve things over here a bit. And besides----"He looked at me. "Aren't you satisfied it IS up with humanity? I am. We're down; we're beat."I stared. Strange as it may seem, I had not arrived at this fact--a fact perfectly obvious so soon as he spoke. I had still held a vague hope;rather, I had kept a lifelong habit of mind. He repeated his words, "We're beat." They carried absolute conviction.

"It's all over," he said. "They've lost ONE--just ONE. And they've made their footing good and crippled the greatest power in the world. They've walked over us. The death of that one at Weybridge was an accident. And these are only pioneers. They kept on coming. These green stars--I've seen none these five or six days, but I've no doubt they're falling somewhere every night. Nothing's to be done. We're under! We're beat!"I made him no answer. I sat staring before me, trying in vain to devise some countervailing thought.

"This isn't a war," said the artilleryman. "It never was a war, any more than there's war between man and ants."Suddenly I recalled the night in the observatory.

"After the tenth shot they fired no more--at least, until the first cylinder came.""How do you know?" said the artilleryman. I explained. He thought. "Something wrong with the gun," he said. "But what if there is? They'll get it right again. And even if there's a delay, how can it alter the end? It's just men and ants. There's the ants builds their cities, live their lives, have wars, revolutions, until the men want them out of the way, and then they go out of the way. That's what we are now--just ants. Only----""Yes," I said.

"We're eatable ants."

We sat looking at each other.

"And what will they do with us?" I said.

"That's what I've been thinking," he said; "that's what I've been thinking.

After Weybridge I went south--thinking. I saw what was up. Most of the people were hard at it squealing and exciting themselves. But I'm not so fond of squealing. I've been in sight of death once or twice; I'm not an ornamental soldier, and at the best and worst, death-- it's just death.

And it's the man that keeps on thinking comes through. I saw everyone tracking away south. Says I, "Food won't last this way," and I turned right back.

I went for the Martians like a sparrow goes for man. All round"--he waved a hand to the horizon--"they're starving in heaps, bolting, treading on each other. . . ."He saw my face, and halted awkwardly.

"No doubt lots who had money have gone away to France," he said. He seemed to hesitate whether to apolo- gise, met my eyes, and went on: "There's food all about here. Canned things in shops; wines, spirits, mineral waters;and the water mains and drains are empty. Well, I was telling you what I was thinking. "Here's intelligent things," I said, "and it seems they want us for food. First, they'll smash us up--ships, machines, guns, cities, all the order and organisa- tion. All that will go. If we were the size of ants we might pull through. But we're not. It's all too bulky to stop.

That's the first certainty." Eh?"

I assented.