War of the Worlds

by Mike Brunton

  A hint of what had gone on emerged in 1955. Treasury documents released under the 50-year rule included an intriguing aside. In one (staggeringly boring) memo from 1905 there was a single reference ‘…ten years of work at Orford Ness on Ares-related materials … have yielded little in the way of results…’ with a note that funding should be cut. The Treasury mandarin did not know or care about ‘Ares-related material’ or ‘Orford Ness’, but they were costing too much. Orford Ness is certainly a remote enough spot on the Suffolk coastline to be unknown to a civil servant in London. It was the home of radar research in the 1930s, and nuclear weapons detonator work in the 1950s. But in 1905, it did not exist (or should not have existed?) if official histories are to be believed. The use of ‘Ares’, the Greek name for the god Mars, as some kind of project codename suggests that something to do with Mars or Martians was going on. Maybe the Martian materials did end up in Orford Ness, protected by salt marshes inland and swift, treacherous tides offshore. This would explain how everything vanished so completely.

  COULD THE MARTIANS HAVE WON?

  The answer to this question is a most definite yes.

  Even at the time, a Martian victory was thought to be only a matter of time. The heart of the British Empire was within days of being overwhelmed by the Martians, the population exterminated or caged. The British Army was in the process of being swept aside in the same fashion as Africans and Asians had been destroyed by European arms. And while Europeans had the advantage in their colonial wars, the difference between Martians and humans was a thousand times greater. There was, to be blunt, precious little hope for mankind. Wiping out humanity might have taken the Martians years of effort but, based on their conduct during the Invasion, extermination was their goal. The Martians were without mercy or consideration to the natives of Earth: they treated humans as cattle to be fed upon (at best) or rats to be poisoned (at worst).

  In such a situation, would any kind of human resistance movement have been possible? Humans are nothing if not cunning and tenacious so someone would have fought on in the ruins. The locally-organized defence gangs in London’s East End that assisted the police, and the small aristocratic group organized by Adam Llewellyn De Vere Adamant, give a hint as to what these resistance bands might have looked like, and what they might have achieved. Against a limited number of Martians, a few, disorganized defenders could have continued to do worthwhile damage but time would have been against them. The Martians were in the process of budding a new generation of warriors, and reinforcements from Mars would surely have added to their numbers. And then, as winter came on, the weather would have turned against any human resistance. The Martians, being used to the colder climate of Mars, would have been quite at home in an earthly winter. There would have been no pause in their campaigning season.

  We cannot know how many Cylinders would have followed in subsequent waves of conquest, but the Martians showed a remorseless intelligence in all their efforts. Many more Cylinder flights must have been planned, if the initial landings had been successful. To judge from the Martians’ choice of initial invasion site, their plan was to secure a foothold in the British Isles and await reinforcements from home. The war would have then continued against the rest of humanity. Realistically, their success could only have been delayed by human resistance, not stopped.

  Even if the initial force was a one-off colonizing effort, expected to spawn new Martians on Earth rather than to receive reinforcement from home, the Martians could have constructed extra Fighting Machines from captured raw materials. Against increasingly numerous Martians, any human resistance would have had to use the tactics of the Spanish guerrillas of the Peninsular War: deceit, ambush and refusal to give battle on enemy terms. Such tactics against overwhelming strength can have disproportionately successful results. But they would never have been an easy thing for Victoria’s officers and gentlemen, inculcated with the manly virtues of courage and fair play. Maybe, it would have become a patriotic duty to employ every underhanded tactic in the book to weaken the Martians in the hope of victory. It says much for the intelligence of young Second Lieutenant Churchill that he understood these necessities and possibilities, and acted ruthlessly during his escapade.

  In the end, the micro-organisms that defeated the Martians turned out to be a better weapon than any battleship, howitzer or explosive. Sadly, this particular lesson of the war was not lost on governments, nor on the biologists and chemists in their pay. Humanity had been given fresh lessons in chemical warfare (the Black Smoke) and biological warfare (the fate of the Martians). Both of these ideas took hold in military minds and were used in entirely human conflicts, to the great shame of us all.

  CHAPTER 5

  LAST WORDS

  THE ‘LOST’ CYLINDER OF KNIGHTSBRIDGE

  The fate of the ‘missing’ Martian Cylinder remained a mystery until 1958 when workmen unearthed some metal fragments in Knightsbridge. The work was a planned extension to the London Underground station at Hobbs Lane where new platforms and an underground booking hall were needed.

  At first, the wreckage was thought to be an unexploded German V2 but there was far too much material. When the Royal Engineers disposal team realized what they had really found, all further digging work in the area was handed over to a team from University College, London and the Ministry of Defence (to avoid inter-service rivalries). It took them weeks to uncover the shattered remains of the ‘Lost Cylinder’, and the decayed remains of its occupants. The cylinder had broken up on landing and had plunged deep into the London clay. The crater had then slumped in on itself, leaving little on the surface. By chance, one small internal compartment did survive intact, and in it were the skeletons of six Martian servitors. The scattered remains of at least 15 other servitors and Martians were also found in the wreckage, although little more than skull fragments and a few tentacle root bones had survived. All the flesh outside the compartment had been entirely consumed by micro-organisms, even in the near-anaerobic conditions of the crash site. There were, sadly, no new clues as to the Martians’ purposes or technology: everything that was recovered had been seen during the post-Invasion investigations in 1895–97. Work was resumed on the Hobbs Lane Underground station.

  Almost as soon as the station was finished plans were being made to close it; it was unpopular with staff and passengers alike because of the Martian connection. After 6 April 1967 trains sped past Hobbs Lane without stopping. For a short while it was used as a film set; Hobbs Lane was in good condition and there was the frisson of the Martians, although it was mostly used for (very) low-budget horror movies. Film companies that could afford better used the Aldwych branch line where a train was also made available by London Transport. Today, Hobbs Lane is no longer accessible from the surface, and any remaining Martians and their secrets lie in the London clay behind the tunnel linings.

  The archaeologists never published any papers on the Hobbs Lane excavation, and University College ‘misfiled’ all the work at some point in the late 1960s, ‘possibly as the result of an undergraduate prank’. The Ministry of Defence sealed all their files for a century.

  TUNGUSKA 1908

  The Tunguska explosion of 1908 in Siberia in the distant east of the Russian Empire was huge, and its effects were measured as far away as London. It prompted the British government to offer the Russians any and all the help that they required to investigate what had happened. The British feared that the explosion could have been a Martian Cylinder exploding during a wrongly calculated entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Well aware of what a second incursion could mean, the British made no secret of their worries in Moscow, and lobbied other European powers to mount an expedition. The British position was that someone should go and find out, preferably in force. They were, not to put too fine a point on the matter, scared. A Martian force in the wastes of Siberia would have plenty of time to establish a secure lodgement, and there was concern that the Russians didn’t seem to be acting with urgency.

  The Ru
ssians, not surprisingly, refused. Siberia was Russian, not British. The British minister in Moscow was called in to the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs and given a severe dressing down for interfering in the Russian Empire’s internal affairs. After all, Britain had refused all help during the Invasion and there was no proof that the event was anything to do with Martians. Several British nationals were arrested by members of the Okhrana (the Imperial secret police), and expelled from Russia for spreading panic. The Imperial government shut down all investigations into Tunguska. Not surprisingly, this worried the British government. Fortunately, whatever caused the Tunguska event, it was not a Martian attack.

  WHERE ARE THE MARTIANS NOW?

  As the decades passed and the Martians did not come again we began to think that perhaps the threat was over. Maybe the Martians had realized that Earth was not an easy target for conquest. As human-built robots now insolently trundle across the surface of Mars, perhaps we shall wake the Martians. Or perhaps we shall discover a dead race, struck down by the psychic equivalent of a smallpox-riddled blanket…

  APPENDIX 1

  THE HUNTER

  Martian bodies and artefacts were tightly controlled by the authorities after the Invasion. The only public place to see them was in the Martian Gallery at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. This remained popular until it was destroyed during a Zeppelin raid. The only other place to see a dead Martian was in the collection of Colonel Sebastian Moran, the only man who was ever permitted to have a Martian stuffed and mounted as a game trophy.

  Colonel Sebastian Moran, the author of Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas (1881) and other books on hunting, was a superlative shot. His military career with the 1st Bangalore Pioneers (Madras), however, came to a halt under somewhat mysterious circumstances; in August 1895 he was living in semi-retirement in London, his days spent at the gaming tables at various clubs, and in other pursuits.

  A hunter during his younger days in India, in London he had a new weapon. Before the Martians invaded he had ‘acquired’ a Rigby .450 Nitro Express double rifle. Moran never explained why he needed such a powerful gun in London, a place where Bengal tigers were really quite rare. However, in the light of Moran’s actions during the crisis the authorities simply put aside their questions. His achievement was enough to silence any critics for, as far as can be determined, Sebastian Moran was the only man to single-handedly stalk and destroy a Martian War Machine. After the Invasion, the directors of John Rigby & Company were amazed that Colonel Moran had even heard of, let alone owned, one of their experimental weapons.

  Moran went after his prey by observing Martian behaviour from a distance over a couple of days. He was also fortunate in his choice of Kew, because it was a site where the Martians apparently felt safe. Always careful to remain hidden, he took no action until he was ready even though he witnessed the Martians’ feeding process, something he later, and somewhat uncouthly, described as ‘… less conducive to the digestion than lunching with Scotch [sic] Presbyterians in a Limehouse brothel, and at their expense’. However, his meticulous reconnaissance paid off, when he spotted that as part of their regular routine the Martians always left one War Machine in the camp as a guard and reserve.

  According to Moran’s own account, he took up a firing position in the church nave at St Luke’s in Kew before dawn on Saturday 10 August with a clear view of the camp across the rubble. The steeple, he later said, was too obvious a perch for any prudent shooter. He removed a section of stained glass from one of the windows and, being careful to keep his rifle within the building, took his aim. His exceptional marksmanship made sure that shots from both barrels hit their marks, even at long range.

  Colonel Sebastian Moran (retired) was briefly feted as a hero for his single-handed assassination of a Martian. His biggest ‘big game’ trophy bagged, Moran did not wait to be discovered in the nave of St Luke’s, Kew, and took to his heels. This was not considered the act of a gentleman. Moran remained unbothered by his critics until the day he died.

  His first shot struck the guardian War Machine in the Heat Ray, which drooped and fired into the ground, starting a fire. The Machine was otherwise undamaged, but the Martian whirled round and looked in the direction of the shot, even though it must have been powerless to reply. Moran fired again, putting a .450 Nitro Express bullet through the machine’s front viewing port and directly into the Martian’s brain sac. The War Machine fell to its knees and was stilled, save for a crackling where the Heat Ray was still cooking the ground beneath it. It was the Rigby rifle that gave Moran’s uncanny marksmanship such deadly effect. Compared to the army’s standard .303 bullet, the .450 Nitro Express was huge: it weighed three times as much and delivered twice the energy into the target. Colonel Moran took note of the time and the target in his pocket game book and then made himself scarce, deliberately avoiding any other Martians.

  After the Invasion he gave an accurate and convincing account, and his achievement was briefly feted by the newspapers. More was not made of it because Moran had only ‘bagged’ one Martian. A single individual, he confided later, was all he had wanted ‘for the sport of it’. For him, a second Martian was no challenge, and so he simply didn’t bother to hunt another. He wanted a trophy and with his stuffed Martian in his possession after the Invasion, Moran slipped back into the obscurity of his clubs and gambling dens, a most unlikely hero. The government, considering his unsavoury record in India and elsewhere, was happy to leave him to his obscurity.

  APPENDIX 2

  WINSTON CHURCHILL’S MARTIAN WAR

  One young man very keen to come to grips with the Martians was Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, a keen young second lieutenant in the socially exclusive 4th Hussars in Aldershot. After the death of his father, the politician Lord Randolph Churchill, Winston’s mother had used her influence to get him transferred to the Hussars. His father had refused to help with such an appointment because of the expense; some £300 per year on top of army pay of £120 was required to finance a junior officer’s cavalry career. Such considerations didn’t matter to the young Winston. Soldiering was his taste, and as a politician-in-waiting, he was eager to do well and gain a reputation.

  In the 4th Hussars officers’ mess the news of the Martians’ arrival was first greeted with amused incredulity, and then with outraged patriotic annoyance: who were these Martians to make such an appearance, unannounced, and in England too? There was general agreement that the Martians were probably not gentlemen, were certainly ill-mannered, and probably required a good thrashing.

  The 4th were ordered forward to Horsell Common on the Sunday after the Martians’ arrival. Churchill and his fellow officers began to realize that the business was no laughing matter as his unit approached Woking. Refugees were already fleeing from the town, and the sky was darkened by smoke. The 4th pushed on and gathered around the Shah Jahan Mosque, a distinctive landmark just to the south of the railway line. The horses were rested and fed, and the men given permission to eat.

  Then, with little warning, the battle found them.

  The mosque’s minaret was burned away, and within seconds the Hussars were destroyed as an organized force. Men and horses burst into flames as the Heat Ray did dreadful slaughter. Churchill was not burned, but was hit in the head by flying debris. When he came round the slaughter was over and night had fallen. Dead hussars littered the ground, the mosque was in ruins and everything stank of burnt meat. Churchill had been unconscious for many hours and, although convinced that even Aldershot lay in ruins, he made his way west along the railway line. In doing so he also stumbled right into the waiting tentacles of a Handling Machine and was captured.

  He was taken to the second Martian camp, in Brookwood Cemetery, and witnessed the Martians feeding on their captives. A lesser man might well have gone mad at that moment, but Churchill had the strength of character to convince his fellow prisoners that escape was still possible. He was also armed, as the Martians hadn’t bothered taking his service
revolver. He shot out the locking mechanism of the cage, but many escaping prisoners were cut down by Heat Rays. Churchill was among the lucky ones, and was able to hide among Brookwood’s many tombs until night fell again.

  Desperately tired and hungry, Churchill again followed the railway, this time heading towards London. Along the way he collected a band of stragglers from various units, ‘waifs, strays and good honest fighting men, but all plucky fellows of the best English stock’. Beyond their own experiences, these men had no idea what was happening, but Churchill learned that the 4th Hussars no longer existed; he was the last surviving officer. On several occasions they had to hide from Martian patrols but the group reached Waterloo after three days, only to find it deserted.

  It was there that one of the ‘plucky fellows’, Albert Perks, an experienced engine driver, spotted that there was an ordnance train sitting at one of the platforms. It was stuffed with explosives, and Churchill decided to take the train back to Brookwood to blow up the Martians there ‘…with all their blood-stained and alien filth’. Churchill had recognized that half-measures of any kind would not work against the Martians. Perks – an absolutely vital part of the scheme – was willing to drive the train. They contrived a series of slow fuses from the cab to the explosives, and set off. Everything went well, with Churchill leaping from the train to alter the points as needed.

  They did not, however, get as far as Brookwood. Instead, at Weybridge station, they met a Martian War Machine walking along the line towards London. By Churchill’s own account, he and Driver Perks set the fuses and accelerated towards the Martian. The Heat Ray struck the locomotive, causing the boiler to burst. Perks was killed instantaneously, Churchill was thrown clear and in the next moment the wrecked train rolled to a halt at the feet of the War Machine and its cargo exploded, removing all the Machine’s legs in the explosion. Churchill had the presence of mind to pick up a fragment of Martian metal and run for his life. After this, Churchill returned to London and was attached to the Metropolitan Police; he spent his time as a liaison officer shooting looters in the West End before the Martians set fire to much of the city.