by Mike Brunton
THE END
By dawn on 17 August 1895, Lord Roberts and what remained of the British Army had every reason to think that they were beaten. London was on fire; the remaining police in the East End were under siege; the Red Weed had spread across every park, garden and open space in the city; and the Martians were roaming at will, destroying anything they wanted. Despite the success of the Royal Engineers at Blackheath, Roberts in St Albans asked for permission to abandon the defence of London. His assessment of the conflict was stunningly honest and forthright. HMS Revenge had been destroyed days before, and he didn’t see any point in open battle: his men would be slaughtered again.
He sent a letter proposing a plan that he admitted turned his stomach. His staff had suggested that it might be possible to poison the Martians. By this point, the aliens’ feeding method was known, so it was proposed to leave people infected with fatal diseases where the Martians could capture them and then feast. The Martians would fall victim to human diseases. Consumptives and syphilitics were recommended as the most effective ‘Trojan horses’, but other diseases were not discounted. Roberts recognized that only a ruthless approach would save humanity, but felt that deliberately sacrificing the mortally ill was a repulsive, dishonourable act. His decision to propose rather than implement the plan shifted responsibility onto the Cabinet. They were considering a further withdrawal to Liverpool (and possibly overseas) when Roberts’ letter arrived. The Royal Household at Balmoral had already been told to make ready to leave Britain.
In the end, the Cabinet did not offer up dying Britons as a hideous sacrifice to save the planet. Nature and accident did what humans hesitated to do, and the death of the Martians, when it came, was quick and complete. The destruction of the Martians was so quick that it seemed they died without warning. By afternoon there didn’t seem to be a single alien left alive on Earth. Survivors from Horsell Common reported that one Martian died in the middle of feeding, its human ‘meal’ dying from blood loss shortly afterwards. Other Martians dropped dead as they went about their assorted duties. The Martians did not show any signs of distress, confusion or illness before they collapsed. And everywhere the War and Handling Machines simply ground to a halt, never to move again.
This raises a fascinating question: why did all the Martians die at the same time? If they were killed solely by the action of Earth’s micro-organisms, then the Martians should have died in roughly the order in which they arrived on Earth and were exposed to infection. All diseases have an incubation period and therefore the first Martians to arrive on Earth should have been falling ill days before any later arrivals. They didn’t. Moreover, the early arrivals didn’t make physical contact with any of the later landing sites, so the Martians didn’t cross-infect each other. Even more oddly, not all the Martians had ‘eaten’ by draining human blood, and so they had not all been exposed to human diseases. Yet all the Martians fell ill and died at the same time, to the minute, as near as can be judged. Cylinders had landed at Brookwood Cemetery, it was true, but only a few Martians were exposed to whatever pestilence lurked in the corpses. But the ‘Brookwood Martians’ didn’t make contact with their fellows and were therefore unlikely to have passed on infections from the human dead.
It was suggested later that Martian telepathy played a part in their downfall, that it was a hideous weakness as well as a great strength. Had telepathic trauma caused still-healthy Martians to die in sympathy with their infected fellows? This morbid notion gave hope that further Martian invasions might be forestalled. Perhaps the death agonies of the Martian spearhead on Earth had been felt on Mars. If this had not killed the remaining Martians, it would have been a dire warning of the perils found on Earth. This idea gave hope as the British government rebuilt the army, examined what was left of the Martians, oversaw rebuilding and, above all, kept a wary eye on the heavens. Perhaps Earth’s natural defences were strong enough to keep the planet safe. It was also a lesson on the perils of space travel for humans visiting other worlds, although only speculative writers and fantasists were thinking along those lines.
When it became clear that the Martians were dead, the Duke of Cambridge sent troops into London as fast as they could be moved. He organized ‘flying columns’ using cavalry and yeomanry regiments from East Anglia and the Midlands. Their orders were to act against human troublemakers rather than the Martians. The columns’ commanding officers were quite clearly told that ‘Nihilists, anarchists, socialists and any members of the lower classes who raised their hands against their betters…’ were to be treated as being in league with the Martians. Exactly what should be done to people in league with the Martians was not made clear, left to the discretion of the man on the spot. It’s probable that Cambridge did not originate this order; summary executions would damage the honour of ‘his’ army. Few officers from rural counties had many qualms about the shooting of ‘looters’ or Londoners in the name of re-establishing order (a young Douglas Haig refused the orders, and then somehow lost his place at Camberley Staff College). More objected to orders to shoot the packs of dogs that had run wild after being abandoned by their owners. It went against the grain to shoot dogs…
CHAPTER 4
SEPTEMBER 1895 AND AFTER
The end came so quickly that the British on the ground were flummoxed by the unexpected turn of events. London was burning as the Martians dropped dead. The fires needed fighting and, for once, the rain of the traditional British summer was welcome. The weather did most of the work in washing away the dust from the Martians’ Black Smoke too.
There was much to do. And, to those who had been caught up in events, it seemed as though little help was immediately forthcoming from government or anywhere else. Insurers refused to pay, pointing out that damage by the Martians and their War Machines was war-related. While customers grumbled, there was little they could do when Lord Salisbury’s government, true to its principles, refused to intervene. Many insurers also refused to pay out for damage done by the Red Weed, deeming this an Act of God. Insurers were helped in this by the damage done to City offices and the loss of many documents; unkind observers felt that this ‘loss’ was all too convenient, but the well-heeled ‘names’ at Lloyd’s of London had no desire to see their money being paid out. The government also refused to get involved in ‘minor and inconsequential losses’ due to the Red Weed. However, it did set aside money from the Treasury to compensate farmers and landowners, using the argument that food production was necessary to the whole country, and not ‘…a matter of mere finance’. Quite how this excused the payments made for spoiled parklands and ornamental gardens at some stately homes was never made clear. This money, as most liberal commentators at the time noted, went to Tory and Unionist supporters.
Fortunately, there was help for the lower classes. Municipal benevolent funds were established first in Manchester by the Methodist Church and later across the industrial North and Midlands. All gave generous assistance to the many families that had lost their homes and businesses, and now found themselves without financial help.
With the Martians gone, the human dead now became a problem. The Black Smoke was ‘…a cruel weapon that might almost have been invented by landlords for clearing out ungrateful tenants while leaving investments intact.’ In the poorer parts casualties from the Smoke were appalling. Until Cambridge’s ‘flying columns’ pushed into London, there was simply no one alive who could do anything about all the bodies. It was a mammoth task, and many months passed before all the bodies were respectfully buried. However, clearing the dead was a necessary task to stop disease.
Reconstruction was an equally slow business. Property damage was total in places, and almost non-existent in others, depending on where the Martians had attacked and the prevailing winds. However, within a year damaged buildings were being demolished or repaired. A shortage of skilled tradesmen and unskilled labour in London didn’t help. The Invasion had killed a disproportionate number of the working poor; those who remained could demand be
tter wages, or move to better paid work. The reconstruction saw wages rise all across the country. The northern mill towns, the Welsh coalfields and even the Belfast and Glasgow shipyards had to pay to keep workers. Many moved south for higher pay.
The destruction wrought by the Martians and the rioters had another financial consequence. Many government tax records were destroyed, and it was considered as easy to create a new tax system as to reconstruct the old one. Her Majesty’s Government needed money and quickly, and everyone was to be taxed, even landowners and aristocrats who had largely avoided paying previously. Emergency legislation inadvertently created a fairer tax system.
When military forces reached the landing sites after the sudden death they found that the Martians had apparently dropped dead simultaneously and in ‘mid-stride’. At Horsell, caged survivors had a couple of unpleasant days surrounded by rotting Martian corpses but at least they were alive to moan about the smell! As always, illustrators of the time added savage-looking teeth to make the Martians more horrific and malign.
Belatedly, Salisbury recognized and resented the attack on aristocratic wealth, but he did see a silver lining in heavier taxes. He had no intention of leaving the lower orders with the means to better themselves; the higher wages of surviving workers were taxed to pay for ‘Imperial Defence’. By 1900 the tax system took from the middle and lower classes while maintaining a polite fiction that the rich were paying more than their share. Having weathered the Invasion and the subsequent economic problems, Salisbury remained in power at the next general election; a vote for anyone else was ‘pro-Martian’.
The army was rebuilt, although for several years there was a great reliance on colonial troops to keep order and defend the Empire. The ‘new’ British Army was professional and armed with the latest weapons that British factories could make, including automatic machine guns, Maxim’s pompom guns, flame projectors and portable mortars. Along with these new weapons came new attitudes. The Boers in South Africa were shocked to find that the British Army no longer behaved like gentlemen but fought with grim determination against the rebels, making every use of their technological advantages and offering little quarter. The British Army, scarred by its experiences, no longer believed in ‘fair play’ in war.
Before all that, though, there were tragedies to be uncovered. Every Martian camp had its share of human graves, but one group of the living was pitiable. Survivors were found living in the shadow of the Martian War Machines. These individuals had lived in sewers, tunnels and cellars, and had managed to thrive in a limited way. They emerged from their burrows only at night, and each was entirely convinced that he or she was the ‘last human’. It was a terrible blow to discover that this was not the case, a shock as severe as the Martians’ easy triumph.
Thirty of these troglodytes were found. Each had kept hidden by day, foraged for food at night, and lived underground. All were relatively well fed but unhinged, suffering from nervous exhaustion and a variety of unpleasant diseases caught during their time in the sewers. What disturbed everyone was the realization that this would have been the fate of humanity if the Martians had not perished: men reduced to living like rats in the ruins of human civilization.
At least two individuals, soldiers by their clothing, fled from their rescuers, terrified that other humans were servants of the ‘victorious’ Martians. These sad cases disappeared into London’s sewer system, presumably to live out their remaining days in terror of rediscovery. Of the rest, 20 people were cared for in Effra Hall Asylum in Brixton; all were utterly convinced that they were captives of the Martians, awaiting torture, exsanguination and death. A public subscription raised enough money to keep them in comfort, but all of them eventually ended their own terror-filled lives. The remaining seven needed much kindness before they accepted that they were safe; some even felt able to give accounts of their adventures and sufferings. One, the self-styled ‘Professor’ James Moriarty, a minor criminal and con-man, made a good living in America lecturing about ‘Life Under the Martian Heel’; his experiences were liberally enhanced to titillate and shock his audiences.
Wounded British pride was not easily mended. All offers of help from the other Great Powers were firmly, but politely, refused. The Empire was completely untouched by the Martians, and its wealth could be used to rebuild. British pride had taken enough of a battering and it was a source of satisfaction that ‘Britain’ (not ‘England’, notice, although all the damage had been suffered in English counties) did not have to go, cap-in-hand, to foreigners. Salisbury’s new taxes helped.
There was another reason for keeping the whole business a British affair. Sir Frederick Richards, the First Sea Lord, and Field Marshal Garnet Wolseley, Cambridge’s successor, persuaded Lord Salisbury that Great Britain alone should have Martian technology. The British had faced the Martians ‘…gallantly and alone, and we alone should be the beneficiaries of our victory…’ namely, the only people to get their hands on Martian machinery. The Martian weapons were too dangerous to fall into foreign hands, friends or otherwise. As soon as it was clear the Martians were dead, foreign governments generously offered their scientists as ‘co-researchers’ into the Martians’ mysteries. France, Germany and Russia hoped to buy wreckage: the proposals including basing and coaling rights for the Royal Navy in ports across the world and when this failed, whole colonies. Russia also offered to abandon its ambitions in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf.
Salisbury’s government remained unmoved. From the moment the war stopped, a veil of British official secrecy was thrown over the Martian machinery. Military attaches found themselves ‘encouraged’ to report to their ambassadors in Oxford rather than tour battlefields. The Powers would be told only what Her Majesty’s Government considered was appropriate, when it was appropriate, and possibly not even then. The army’s flying columns of regular cavalry and Yeomanry had secured the Martian wreckage to ‘protect humanity from any lingering danger’. This included firing on anyone who took an interest in the wreckage, as more than one adventurous journalist discovered!
The flying columns re-established control, and nearly succeeded in keeping Martian machinery out of foreign hands. All the Fighting Machines and Handling Machines were taken into British custody. However, one Heat Ray went missing from the wreckage scattered across South London. For a while, there was the unwarranted and unfair suspicion that Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the machine gun (and at the time still an American citizen), had sent the Heat Ray to the United States. He was entirely innocent, and the weapon had gone east rather than west. It was in Berlin, being secretly studied by the 8th Department (the Kriegsakademie) of the Großer Generalstab, the German High Command. It eventually emerged that its transfer had been arranged by Basil Zaharoff, the most notorious arms dealer of his time and the business partner of Hiram Maxim. In 1895 Zaharoff was one of the richest men in Europe, and utterly unscrupulous about the arms he sold, how he won arms contracts, or the nature of his customers. Somehow, he had gained control of a Heat Ray in all the confusion and sold it to the Germans. Zaharoff, however, did not sell them a power source; not being a technical man he probably had no idea one was needed. The Germans gained very little from what was undoubtedly a hugely expensive deal. All of this only emerged after Zaharoff’s death in 1936, and was denied by the German High Command. German engineers never understood the Heat Ray, much to the frustration of the Nazis and particularly the SS who, by 1945, were in charge of exotic weapons research.
Giovanni Schiaparelli’s discovery of the Martian ‘canali’ in 1877 should have served as a warning that mankind was not alone in the Solar System. In order to be visible from Earth the ‘canals’ were linear features as wide as the Great Lakes of North America. As such they were civil engineering projects that dwarfed any human industry. Since the invasion the canals have vanished from the Martian surface.
After the collapse of Germany, this Heat Ray disappeared again in the confusion. It was rumoured to have been captured by the advancin
g Russians. Later reports indicated that a team under physicist Andrei Sakharov had finally got it working, and this may explain why he was not allowed to leave the Soviet Union in 1975 to collect his Nobel Prize. The fate of this Heat Ray after the collapse of the Soviet Union is not known, but Sakharov’s success does explain why the Politburo had confidence in the ‘A-35 Anti-Ballistic Missile’ system that protected Moscow. Zaharoff’s theft in 1895 eventually cost the British taxpayer of the 1980s many millions on ‘Chevaline’, an improved Polaris ICBM warhead designed to get through Moscow’s ABM (Heat Ray) defences.
Everything then, apart from Zaharoff’s stolen weapon, was impounded. A tiny selection of Martian remains and artefacts were sent to the Science Museum in Kensington for display. One Martian was stuffed and given to a private collector. A suggestion that a War Machine should be used to make campaign medals was dismissed; there was a fear of alien contamination by the metal. Everything that could be removed was to be taken away. In the case of the Martian Cylinders this took some doing, and the Royal Engineers eventually used high explosives to smash the cylinders for removal.
The Martians’ remarkable machinery disappeared behind a wall of government secrecy and official obfuscation. Within five years, even direct questions by MPs were being met with bland ministerial statements that divulging any information about Martians or ‘ongoing scientific investigations’ could prejudice national or planetary security. It is entirely possible that government ministers at the time did not really know what had happened to the Martians’ remains and wreckage.
