The War Of The Worlds ~
By H.G. Wells
stillness. In some places plunderers had been at work, but
rarely at other than the provision and wine shops. A jeweller's
window had been broken open in one place, but apparently
the thief had been disturbed, and a number of gold chains
and a watch lay scattered on the pavement. I did not trouble
to touch them. Farther on was a tattered woman in a heap
on a doorstep; the hand that hung over her knee was gashed
and bled down her rusty brown dress, and a smashed magnum
of champagne formed a pool across the pavement. She seemed
asleep, but she was dead.
The farther I penetrated into London, the profounder grew
the stillness. But it was not so much the stillness of death--
it was the stillness of suspense, of expectation. At any time
the destruction that had already singed the northwestern
borders of the metropolis, and had annihilated Ealing and
Kilburn, might strike among these houses and leave them
smoking ruins. It was a city condemned and derelict. . . .
In South Kensington the streets were clear of dead and of
black powder. It was near South Kensington that I first heard
the howling. It crept almost imperceptibly upon my senses.
It was a sobbing alternation of two notes, "Ulla, ulla, ulla,
ulla," keeping on perpetually. When I passed streets that ran
northward it grew in volume, and houses and buildings
seemed to deaden and cut it off again. It came in a full tide
down Exhibition Road. I stopped, staring towards Kensington
Gardens, wondering at this strange, remote wailing. It was as
if that mighty desert of houses had found a voice for its fear
and solitude.
"Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," wailed that superhuman note--
great waves of sound sweeping down the broad, sunlit road-
way, between the tall buildings on each side. I turned north-
wards, marvelling, towards the iron gates of Hyde Park. I had
half a mind to break into the Natural History Museum and
find my way up to the summits of the towers, in order to see
across the park. But I decided to keep to the ground, where
quick hiding was possible, and so went on up the Exhibition
Road. All the large mansions on each side of the road were
empty and still, and my footsteps echoed against the sides
of the houses. At the top, near the park gate, I came upon
a strange sight--a bus overturned, and the skeleton of a
horse picked clean. I puzzled over this for a time, and then
went on to the bridge over the Serpentine. The voice grew
stronger and stronger, though I could see nothing above the
housetops on the north side of the park, save a haze of smoke
to the northwest.
"Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," cried the voice, coming, as it
seemed to me, from the district about Regent's Park. The
desolating cry worked upon my mind. The mood that had
sustained me passed. The wailing took possession of me. I
found I was intensely weary, footsore, and now again hungry
and thirsty.
It was already past noon. Why was I wandering alone in
this city of the dead? Why was I alone when all London was
lying in state, and in its black shroud? I felt intolerably
lonely. My mind ran on old friends that I had forgotten for
years. I thought of the poisons in the chemists" shops, of the
liquors the wine merchants stored; I recalled the two sodden
creatures of despair, who so far as I knew, shared the city
with myself. . . .
I came into Oxford Street by the Marble Arch, and here
again were black powder and several bodies, and an evil,
ominous smell from the gratings of the cellars of some of the
houses. I grew very thirsty after the heat of my long walk.
With infinite trouble I managed to break into a public-house
and get food and drink. I was weary after eating, and went
into the parlour behind the bar, and slept on a black horse-
hair sofa I found there.
I awoke to find that dismal howling still in my ears,
"Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla." It was now dusk, and after I had
routed out some biscuits and a cheese in the bar--there was
a meat safe, but it contained nothing but maggots--I wan-
dered on through the silent residential squares to Baker Street
--Portman Square is the only one I can name--and so came
out at last upon Regent's Park. And as I emerged from the
top of Baker Street, I saw far away over the trees in the
clearness of the sunset the hood of the Martian giant from
which this howling proceeded. I was not terrified. I came
upon him as if it were a matter of course. I watched him for
some time, but he did not move. He appeared to be standing
and yelling, for no reason that I could discover.
I tried to formulate a plan of action. That perpetual sound
of "Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," confused my mind. Perhaps I was
too tired to be very fearful. Certainly I was more curious to
know the reason of this monotonous crying than afraid. I
turned back away from the park and struck into Park Road,
intending to skirt the park, went along under the shelter of
the terraces, and got a view of this stationary, howling
Martian from the direction of St. John's Wood. A couple of
hundred yards out of Baker Street I heard a yelping chorus,
and saw, first a dog with a piece of putrescent red meat in
his jaws coming headlong towards me, and then a pack of
starving mongrels in pursuit of him. He made a wide curve
to avoid me, as though he feared I might prove a fresh
competitor. As the yelping died away down the silent road,
the wailing sound of "Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," reasserted itself.
I came upon the wrecked handling-machine halfway to
St. John's Wood station. At first I thought a house had fallen
across the road. It was only as I clambered among the ruins
that I saw, with a start, this mechanical Samson lying, with
its tentacles bent and smashed and twisted, among the ruins
it had made. The forepart was shattered. It seemed as if it
had driven blindly straight at the house, and had been over-
whelmed in its overthrow. It seemed to me then that this
might have happened by a handling-machine escaping from
the guidance of its Martian. I could not clamber among the
ruins to see it, and the twilight was now so far advanced
that the blood with which its seat was smeared, and the
gnawed gristle of the Martian that the dogs had left, were
invisible to me.
Wondering still more at all that I had seen, I pushed on
towards Primrose Hill. Far away, through a gap in the trees,
I saw a second Martian, as motionless as the first, standing
in the park towards the Zoological Gardens, and silent. A
little beyond the ruins about the smashed handling-machine
I came upon the red weed again, and found the Regent's
Canal, a spongy mass of dark-red vegetation.
As I crossed the bridge, the sound of "Ulla, ulla, ulla,
ulla," ceased. It was, as it were, cut off. The silence came
like a thunderclap.
The dusky houses about me stood faint and tall and dim;
the trees towards the park were growing black. All about
me the red weed clambered among the ruins, writhing to
get above me in the dimness. Night, the mother of fear and
mystery, was coming upon me. But while that voice sounded
the solitude, the desolation, had been endurable; by virtue
of it London had still seemed alive, and the sense of life
about me had upheld me. Then suddenly a change, the
passing of something--I knew not what--and then a stillness
that could be felt. Nothing but this gaunt quiet.
London about me gazed at me spectrally. The windows
in the white houses were like the eye sockets of skulls. About
me my imagination found a thousand noiseless enemies
moving. Terror seized me, a horror of my temerity. In front
of me the road became pitchy black as though it was tarred,
and I saw a contorted shape lying across the pathway. I
could not bring myself to go on. I turned down St. John's
Wood Road, and ran headlong from this unendurable stillness
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