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- Герберт Уеллс
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- Война миров
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- Стр. 43/99
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My
younger
brother
was
in
London
when
the
Martians
fell
at
Woking
.
He
was
a
medical
student
working
for
an
imminent
examination
,
and
he
heard
nothing
of
the
arrival
until
Saturday
morning
.
The
morning
papers
on
Saturday
contained
,
in
addition
to
lengthy
special
articles
on
the
planet
Mars
,
on
life
in
the
planets
,
and
so
forth
,
a
brief
and
vaguely
worded
telegram
,
all
the
more
striking
for
its
brevity
.
The
Martians
,
alarmed
by
the
approach
of
a
crowd
,
had
killed
a
number
of
people
with
a
quick-firing
gun
,
so
the
story
ran
.
The
telegram
concluded
with
the
words
:
"
Formidable
as
they
seem
to
be
,
the
Martians
have
not
moved
from
the
pit
into
which
they
have
fallen
,
and
,
indeed
,
seem
incapable
of
doing
so
.
Probably
this
is
due
to
the
relative
strength
of
the
earth
's
gravitational
energy
.
"
On
that
last
text
their
leader-writer
expanded
very
comfortingly
.
Of
course
all
the
students
in
the
crammer
's
biology
class
,
to
which
my
brother
went
that
day
,
were
intensely
interested
,
but
there
were
no
signs
of
any
unusual
excitement
in
the
streets
.
The
afternoon
papers
puffed
scraps
of
news
under
big
headlines
.
They
had
nothing
to
tell
beyond
the
movements
of
troops
about
the
common
,
and
the
burning
of
the
pine
woods
between
Woking
and
Weybridge
,
until
eight
.
Then
the
St.
James
's
Gazette
,
in
an
extra-special
edition
,
announced
the
bare
fact
of
the
interruption
of
telegraphic
communication
.
This
was
thought
to
be
due
to
the
falling
of
burning
pine
trees
across
the
line
.
Nothing
more
of
the
fighting
was
known
that
night
,
the
night
of
my
drive
to
Leatherhead
and
back
.
My
brother
felt
no
anxiety
about
us
,
as
he
knew
from
the
description
in
the
papers
that
the
cylinder
was
a
good
two
miles
from
my
house
.
He
made
up
his
mind
to
run
down
that
night
to
me
,
in
order
,
as
he
says
,
to
see
the
Things
before
they
were
killed
.
He
dispatched
a
telegram
,
which
never
reached
me
,
about
four
o'clock
,
and
spent
the
evening
at
a
music
hall
.
In
London
,
also
,
on
Saturday
night
there
was
a
thunderstorm
,
and
my
brother
reached
Waterloo
in
a
cab
.
On
the
platform
from
which
the
midnight
train
usually
starts
he
learned
,
after
some
waiting
,
that
an
accident
prevented
trains
from
reaching
Woking
that
night
.
The
nature
of
the
accident
he
could
not
ascertain
;
indeed
,
the
railway
authorities
did
not
clearly
know
at
that
time
.
There
was
very
little
excitement
in
the
station
,
as
the
officials
,
failing
to
realise
that
anything
further
than
a
breakdown
between
Byfleet
and
Woking
junction
had
occurred
,
were
running
the
theatre
trains
which
usually
passed
through
Woking
round
by
Virginia
Water
or
Guildford
.
They
were
busy
making
the
necessary
arrangements
to
alter
the
route
of
the
Southampton
and
Portsmouth
Sunday
League
excursions
.
A
nocturnal
newspaper
reporter
,
mistaking
my
brother
for
the
traffic
manager
,
to
whom
he
bears
a
slight
resemblance
,
waylaid
and
tried
to
interview
him
.
Few
people
,
excepting
the
railway
officials
,
connected
the
breakdown
with
the
Martians
.
I
have
read
,
in
another
account
of
these
events
,
that
on
Sunday
morning
"
all
London
was
electrified
by
the
news
from
Woking
.
"
As
a
matter
of
fact
,
there
was
nothing
to
justify
that
very
extravagant
phrase
.
Plenty
of
Londoners
did
not
hear
of
the
Martians
until
the
panic
of
Monday
morning
.
Those
who
did
took
some
time
to
realise
all
that
the
hastily
worded
telegrams
in
the
Sunday
papers
conveyed
.
The
majority
of
people
in
London
do
not
read
Sunday
papers
.
The
habit
of
personal
security
,
moreover
,
is
so
deeply
fixed
in
the
Londoner
's
mind
,
and
startling
intelligence
so
much
a
matter
of
course
in
the
papers
,
that
they
could
read
without
any
personal
tremors
:
"
About
seven
o'clock
last
night
the
Martians
came
out
of
the
cylinder
,
and
,
moving
about
under
an
armour
of
metallic
shields
,
have
completely
wrecked
Woking
station
with
the
adjacent
houses
,
and
massacred
an
entire
battalion
of
the
Cardigan
Regiment
.
No
details
are
known
.
Maxims
have
been
absolutely
useless
against
their
armour
;
the
field
guns
have
been
disabled
by
them
.
Flying
hussars
have
been
galloping
into
Chertsey
.
The
Martians
appear
to
be
moving
slowly
towards
Chertsey
or
Windsor
.
Great
anxiety
prevails
in
West
Surrey
,
and
earthworks
are
being
thrown
up
to
check
the
advance
Londonward
.
"
That
was
how
the
Sunday
Sun
put
it
,
and
a
clever
and
remarkably
prompt
"
handbook
"
article
in
the
Referee
compared
the
affair
to
a
menagerie
suddenly
let
loose
in
a
village
.
No
one
in
London
knew
positively
of
the
nature
of
the
armoured
Martians
,
and
there
was
still
a
fixed
idea
that
these
monsters
must
be
sluggish
:
"
crawling
,
"
"
creeping
painfully
"
--
such
expressions
occurred
in
almost
all
the
earlier
reports
.
None
of
the
telegrams
could
have
been
written
by
an
eyewitness
of
their
advance
.
The
Sunday
papers
printed
separate
editions
as
further
news
came
to
hand
,
some
even
in
default
of
it
.
But
there
was
practically
nothing
more
to
tell
people
until
late
in
the
afternoon
,
when
the
authorities
gave
the
press
agencies
the
news
in
their
possession
.
It
was
stated
that
the
people
of
Walton
and
Weybridge
,
and
all
the
district
were
pouring
along
the
roads
Londonward
,
and
that
was
all
.
My
brother
went
to
church
at
the
Foundling
Hospital
in
the
morning
,
still
in
ignorance
of
what
had
happened
on
the
previous
night
.
There
he
heard
allusions
made
to
the
invasion
,
and
a
special
prayer
for
peace
.
