Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds Page 7

  "Now, Mr. Holmes," said Lord John, a touch of irritation coming into his voice, "I agree with you that we'd be fools to meet these Martian devils in the open, try to make a standup fight of it. But we could shikar and stalk, set up ambushes, flankin' movements and all that. I've had such things to do myself, here and there in Asia and Africa, and among man-eatin' tribes in the South Pacific when they got pressin' with their attentions. A cool hand and a sure eye are what we need to do the trick. That's the English way, what?"

  "If you heard what I said of their methods when they are opened on with guns," said Holmes, "you know that I consider any such muster against them as only asking for death."

  Lord John's eye glittered. "You seem to think that I'm afraid of death, Mr. Holmes," he said coldly.

  "I think nothing of the sort," Holmes replied, "nor have you any right to think it of me. Dying in battle may be dramatic, but it does not always win. Surrey and the south of London are full of those who died in battle to no avail. If the Martians should come here, I say that I advocate a retreat before them, but a well-planned retreat that will draw them away from Donnithorpe and other towns. A fight near any village means it will be destroyed in a flash of the heat-ray."

  "Retreat," said Lord John after him. "Retreat where, may I ask?"

  "Into the roughest country hereabouts, where there is cover and the protection of dunes and banks. What­ever the power of the invaders, just now they are few—far too few to occupy all England at present. That gives us some chance, some time to prepare. You, Lord John, will be useful in observing the country here and choosing proper lines for an ordered retirement such as I suggest. Meanwhile, they are not here yet. And they may not come at all."

  "Pray heaven they do not," said Trevor, as from a full heart.

  Lord John Roxton raked Holmes with his brilliant eyes.

  "You speak with some penetration, don't you know," he said at last. "You have it right. I venture to say that I was more or less going on instinct, had some idea of a last stand of the Scots Greys. But you've made me think twice, and thinkin' twice never yet harmed a fightin' man. Very well, Mr. Holmes. I'll do as you say—help form the company here, and look out lines of retreat."

  And he gave Holmes his hard, brown hand.

  Alone in his room again, Holmes studied out the messages and solved the mystery of the code fairly quickly. The news from Sir Percy was of widespread, unreasoning panic throughout London as the invaders had come their terrible way up the Surrey side below the Thames. All organized military resistance in the area was at an end. Nobody could estimate the number of dead. A fourth cylinder had fallen in Surrey. Chiefs of staff at Birmingham were pondering chances of reaching it with high explosives to destroy it.

  Holmes sat with the telegrams in his hand, pondering this intelligence. The invaders seemed to be in a position of triumphant conquest in whatever part of England they ranged. Did they plan to exterminate all men? If not, why not? Using the cipher he had just decoded, he wrote out an answer:

  Available facts indicate enemy concentration in relatively small area. Invader attention now fixed on London. Six more cylinders on way, doubtless to land on sites chosen by precise instruments on Mars. If arrivals continue to show close pattern in Surrey, localized occupation manifest. Full in­tentions of Martians may clarify, whether extermi­nation of mankind or exploitation.

  At the village post office, the telegrapher stared at the coded message, but sent it. Holmes returned to the inn and found Martha waiting in the shadowed rose garden behind.

  "You were gone so long," she said. "What have you been doing?"

  "Little enough of any real consequence, I fear. You haven't lost faith in me, I hope."

  "Never that," said Martha. "Nor must our world lose faith in you."

  It occurred to Holmes that Challenger would have puffed up importantly had those words been addressed to him.

  He went into the parlor and studied several morning papers. None had come from London, of course. The Norwich and Cambridge journals were crazily printed and gave disjointed accounts of the destruction in the London suburbs. The heat ray and the Black Smoke were mentioned, but with no explanatory details.

  Martha's uncle said that train service to Donnithorpe had ceased. "Are any running southward through Langmere?" asked Holmes.

  "Southward, Mr. Holmes?" echoed the innkeeper. "Bless you, sir, no train in all these parts even dares point its nose south. The last ones up from London came packed with people like salt herring in a Dutch­man's pail. Those I've spoken to, I can't make aught of their stories. They seem fair stunned by what was going on in London. Nor can I blame them."

  By evening the inn was crowded with pale, unstrung refugees, and the overflow paid high prices for beds and food in cottages throughout Donnithorpe. Out on the street, Holmes met Dr. Fordham and remembered him at once from that visit long ago. Fordham was elderly and plump, with a daunted, sidewhiskered face.

  "I was in London myself, I had planned a pleasant weekend at the theaters," he said moodily. "Then those Martians tramped all through town, killing street after street with their Black Smoke—killing's the only word for it—and came following on as everyone, myself included, took to running. I was lucky to get home here, jammed aboard a goods train last night."

  "So far, I have heard only the scantiest reports of the Black Smoke," said Holmes. "But if they came following through it, as you say, I daresay it moved at too low an elevation to do them any hurt in their tall machines."

  "And you are right, Mr. Holmes. "They use great blasts of steam to precipitate their gas into black grains, like soot, after it has done its deadly work."

  "Thank you," said Holmes. "You have given me some useful information. It shows, first, that the Mar­tians are not really bent on exterminating us, since they nullify their deadly vapor when it has routed opposi­tion; and, second, that steam is a counteragent, some­thing that perhaps men can use."

  He sought the post office at once, to wire these observations to Sir Percy Phelps at Birmingham and to his brother Mycroft in Scotland. Back from Mycroft came congratulations for having escaped from London. Reading this reply, Holmes reflected that, if the Mar­tians were occupying London as reported, the Black Smoke could hardly be rampant there any longer. He wired another promise to Sir Percy that he would make an effort to return and told Martha of that promise as they walked together among the flowers in the garden.

  She clasped his hand in both of hers. He could feel her trembling.

  "Please stay here," she pleaded, a hint of tears in her blue eyes. "What could I do, alone here without you?"

  "You might pray, perhaps," he said, speaking cheer­fully to comfort her. "Prayer would seem indicated. My time here is not wholly wasted, my dear, but it is my sworn duty to observe the enemy at closer hand than Donnithorpe."

  Tuesday found him busy interviewing refugees, as­sessing information and communicating it to Birming­ham. Early on Wednesday morning, news arrived at the inn from Cambridge that not one but two cylinders had fallen overnight, one of them somewhere close to Wimbleton in Surrey, the other directly upon Prim­rose Hill in northeast London, making six arrivals in all. Holmes and Dr. Fordham discussed these reports as they ate breakfast together in the inn parlor.

  "But how could two of them strike almost at once?" wondered Fordham, plaintive in his mystification. "We know now that there were ten cylinders shot from Mars, at twenty-four-hour intervals. The thing's downright incomprehensible, Mr. Holmes."

  "My dear Dr. Fordham, you sound to me like an­other medical man, my old friend Dr. John H. Watson," said Holmes, buttering a muffin. "It is always a capital mistake to theorize before one has data, but I think it should be manifest by now that these cylinders are not launched from Mars by anything as simple as a giant gun. They are not mere bullets aimed at a target millions of miles away. The closeness of their earlier landings strongly suggests that they have deliberately concentrated their points of arrival. Undoubtedly they are able to
control speed and direction of flight while in space."

  "But if they have been making their landings in Surrey, why now in London?"

  "That, too, is susceptible of explanation, and helps us to understand their reasoning. The first landings were in relatively open country, where they could quickly estimate their situation and its possible hazards. But by now, with London in their possession, they can come down safely within its limits. Primrose Hill would be a logical point to establish a command post, rising as it does above all surrounding districts in town."

  Fordham chewed and thought. "I am obliged to say, Mr. Holmes, you make all these things sound simple. Simple, that is, after you have explained them to me."

  "Again you remind me of Watson. I hope he is safe somewhere." Holmes sipped coffee. "After wit­nessing only the heat-ray, I deduced a second weapon, which turns out to be the Black Smoke. What, I now ask myself, will their third device be?"

  "Their third?" Fordham almost squealed.

  "The heat-ray mechanism arrived in the very first cylinder. The Black Smoke of which you told me was also in use by Sunday, and seems a compact bit of freight, also a practical arrival in any cylinder. But by now, as we are aware, there are six cylinders on earth. I take leave to wonder if something larger, more com­plex, might have been brought here in several shipments, to be assembled against us."

  Fordham sank back in his chair, his sidewhiskers drooping. Trevor entered and came to sit at their table.

  "You look shocked, Dr. Fordham," he said. "Not bad news, I hope."

  "It's what Mr. Holmes has been saying," said Fordham. "Now I wait to hear what this terrible new weapon may be."

  "I hesitate to go into speculation," said Holmes, "but I would suggest something that flies."

  Fordham moved so violently in his chair that the dishes clinked before him.

  "A flying machine? My dear sir, that's impossible."

  "Not to the Martians," said Holmes. "They have already flown through millions of miles, landing at their own time and place. If they can accomplish that, why not a machine that would course over the earth, spying us out, striking us?"

  "You have seen such a thing?" asked Trevor.

  "Not as yet. I remind you, I said I was going into speculation."

  Trevor shook his head. "But I came here with an answer to another of your questions, Holmes. A train is being made up, here in Norfolk, to approach Lon­don in hopes of gathering refugees. It will stop at Langmere. Since you seem determined to go, I am ready to drive you there to board it." He looked earnestly at Holmes. "You are acting with your usual recklessness, I think, but I tell myself that I can only trust your judgment. I learned to do that long ago, when we two were students together at the university."

  "Thank you for that trust," said Holmes, rising. "Let's be off."

  The refugee train was a long string of cars, but Holmes, wearing a soft hat and a checked cape, was the only one aboard other than the volunteer crew. They chugged down to Cambridge. Holmes heard from men at the station there that the Martians had taken com­plete possession of London and that some of their hurrying machines had pursued frightened crowds all the way to the sea. What use, he wondered, did these monsters have for men?

  As they trundled on, his thoughts were banished by a baleful shadow above the train. He leaned from the open window to look. Against the cloudless June sky soared a distant round object like a saucer in flight. It made a sweeping turn and glided above them again.

  The train speeded up and the flying machine sailed out of sight beyond the horizon.

  Silently he congratulated himself. He had foreseen another weapon, and this could be a terrible one. But foreseeing it gave him new confidence in his reasoning powers.

  The train scraped to a halt at Ware. Its crew fairly sprang out upon the station platform. As Holmes, too, stepped down, several of the men came together, all talking excitedly. The engineer was there, sweaty-faced and wide-eyed, loudly proclaiming that the crew would approach London no closer, that the train would seek a siding, turn itself around and flee northward again.

  "What of your duty to find refugees and bring them back?" Holmes asked him.

  "There's a plenty of refugees to take on, right here in Ware," mouthed the engineer, "and I've got a wife and nippers at home. No more of that flying thing, sir, not for me. It hung over us like a bloody great hawk, ready to pounce on a poor running hare."

  "If it happened to want you, it could come back and get you as you ran," said Holmes coldly. "Well, if you're running away, good-bye to you."

  "But what will you do, sir? Bide here at Ware?"

  "No," snapped Holmes over his shoulder as he turned away. "I am going to London."

  He strode quickly off along the platform. Beyond, he followed a grassy lane beside the railroad tracks with hedge growing close at hand. He could dart in there to hide should the flying thing come back. No­body passed him, and nobody peered from the doors and windows of silent houses. As he walked, he ate the sandwiches Martha had disconsolately made for his lunch. By late evening he reached Cheshunt. The rail­road station was empty, but he found food and water in its restaurant. He rested on a bench, until twilight, he took the way to London once again.

  The stars came winking out overhead, and a new moon like a curved blade. On trudged Holmes, and on. In the deep darkness he crossed the bridge over Hack­ney Marsh and entered among the dark, deserted streets of London. He heard no sound other than his own tireless footsteps on the pavement until, distant but shrill and piercing, rose a burst of noise like a steam siren. Holmes stood still under a shop awning to listen. Another howl rose, as though in reply. The invaders, he decided, signaling to each other. That meant that they could hear, though not keenly if they needed such strident voices for signals.

  At any rate, there was no movement anywhere in those streets by those giant machines. Perhaps, like men, they preferred to hunt by daylight. But hunt what? If man was their prey, how would they use him? He pondered several possibilities as he resumed his journey.

  He began to feel increasingly weary as he negotiated square after square. On his way through Hoxton he heard a clatter of metal, at a remote distance. No hu­man contrivance could make such a noise as that. He wished he were close enough to observe without being observed.

  As dawn came, he slowed his journey. The voices of the invaders were loud to the north of him. They must be on patrol again. He was shrewdly careful at crossing a street whenever he came to a corner, and he stopped again and again to look both ways before he ventured into the open. One strident clanging came near at hand, and he slipped inside a tobacconist's to wait until it departed. From the counter he took two pouches of shag. It was fairly late on Thursday evening when once more he mounted the stairs at 221-B Baker Street.

  He counted the seventeen steps—it had become a habit with him over the years. Unlocking his door, he entered his quarters. It was dark inside, but he made no light as he explored. His sheaf of notes and the mes­sage to Watson were still undisturbed, 'nere on the blade of the knife at the mantel. He tested the taps and found that a small stream of water still ran in the pipes. He drew a cold bath and washed himself quickly, feeling much the better for it. Then, at last, he kindled his spirit stove and set a kettle of water to boil. A supper of tea and sweet biscuits gave him a further sense of refreshment. After eating, he lay down in his old blue dressing gown and slept fitfully. Now and then he wakened to the sound of metallic stirrings, not unthinkably far away. But finally his weariness lulled him soundly to sleep, and he did not waken until early morning.

  He went along the corridor to Martha's rooms, let himself in with his pass key, and from her kitchen took potted ham, marmalade, a plate of stale scones, and a saucer of radishes. With these and some more strong tea he made his breakfast. He peered from behind his window curtains, but saw nothing outside to dismay him. The prolonged scream of an invader's siren rose, but this time far away, somewhere well to northward, as he judged.

&nb
sp; Suddenly he was startled by the sound of the bell at his front door. He hurried to open and saw young Stanley Hopkins, his chief friend and reliance at Scot­land Yard. Hopkins's usually neat clothing looked sadly rumpled, and his square jaw was stubbled with several days' growth of dark beard.

  "You're alive, Mr. Holmes," Hopkins stammered. "Thank God for that! I've been to the Yard, but found nobody there—nobody much anywhere. Nobody but those damnable Martians, tramping around in their great machines, like constables on their beats."

  Holmes stepped back to let his friend in, studying him closely. "I can see that you have been riding horse­back, and at a fast pace," he commented after a mo­ment.

  "Yes, so I have," said Hopkins, amazed. "That is quite true. But how can you know? I left the beast miles away, out on the eastern edge of town."

  "It is quite simple. I see traces of dried foam on your trouser knee and on the skirt of your coat. And I will add that, if you dismounted at the eastern limits, you came from considerably farther beyond in that direction. Perhaps as far as the sea."

  "Mr. Holmes, you are right, as usual. Yes, I have been to the coast."

  "Sit down, Hopkins," Holmes invited him. "Please have something to eat. There is plenty here."

  Hopkins sank gratefully into a chair, helped himself, and ate eagerly. Holmes busied himself making more tea. "And now," he said at last, filling a cup for Hop­kins and pouring a fresh one for himself, "if you have been east of town, you can fill in some of my deduc­tions. Tell me how far you went, and what you saw."

  "I went east on Monday, with the main retreat of people from town." Hopkins told him between mouthfuls. "The Martians came up from the west and south, and the impulse was to get away to the east. I got hold of a bicycle, but even then it was an ordeal—a great, wild scramble, like rats from a burning house," He drew up his broad shoulders, almost shuddering. "I never want to go through such an experience again. I reached the coast by Tuesday afternoon, and there was a tremendous crowd already on the beach, at the mouth of the Blackwater, growing and growing with every hour. On Wednesday, all sorts of shipping gathered offshore to take away the refugees. And then —" He paused, trembling. "Then those Martians came rushing in."