BOOK ONE: THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS
CHAPTER 14: IN LONDON
(continued)
There were one or two cartloads of refugees passing along
Oxford Street, and several in the Marylebone Road, but so
slowly was the news spreading that Regent Street and Portland Place were full of their usual Sunday-night promenaders,
albeit they talked in groups, and along the edge of Regent's
Park there were as many silent couples "walking out" together
under the scattered gas lamps as ever there had been. The
night was warm and still, and a little oppressive; the sound
of guns continued intermittently, and after midnight there
seemed to be sheet lightning in the south.
He read and re-read the paper, fearing the worst had happened to me. He was restless, and after supper prowled out
again aimlessly. He returned and tried in vain to divert his
attention to his examination notes. He went to bed a little
after midnight, and was awakened from lurid dreams in the
small hours of Monday by the sound of door knockers, feet
running in the street, distant drumming, and a clamour
of bells. Red reflections danced on the ceiling. For a moment
he lay astonished, wondering whether day had come or the
world gone mad. Then he jumped out of bed and ran to the
window.
His room was an attic and as he thrust his head out, up
and down the street there were a dozen echoes to the noise
of his window sash, and heads in every kind of night disarray
appeared. Enquiries were being shouted. "They are coming!"
bawled a policeman, hammering at the door; "the Martians
are coming!" and hurried to the next door.
The sound of drumming and trumpeting came from the
Albany Street Barracks, and every church within earshot was
hard at work killing sleep with a vehement disorderly tocsin.
There was a noise of doors opening, and window after window in the houses opposite flashed from darkness into yellow
illumination.
Up the street came galloping a closed carriage, bursting
abruptly into noise at the corner, rising to a clattering climax
under the window, and dying away slowly in the distance.
Close on the rear of this came a couple of cabs, the forerunners of a long procession of flying vehicles, going for the most
part to Chalk Farm station, where the North-Western special
trains were loading up, instead of coming down the gradient
into Euston.
|