by Mike Brunton
After the Invasion, Churchill’s account of his destruction of a War Machine was accepted without challenge, and he was mentioned in dispatches. This ignored the probability that Churchill should have been killed if all had happened as he claimed. The country, however, needed heroes. Lady Jenny Churchill lobbied vigorously among her many friends and admirers for her son to be ‘properly’ rewarded for his gallantry in single-handedly destroying a Martian, but medals were thin on the ground for everyone. The efforts of the unfortunate Mr Perks were conveniently overlooked. Churchill was happy enough to be mentioned, as this gave him some credibility for his political ambitions and he did mention Mr Perks’ part in his newspaper articles, an act of honesty that rather annoyed his ambitious mother.
Tales of heroism and ‘manly British pluck’ during the Invasion were thin on the ground, so Second Lieutenant Churchill’s escape from the Martian encampment at Brookwood had all the elements of luck, pluck and derring-do that any patriot could have wanted. Churchill had been taken, while unconscious, to the Martians’ camp. When he witnessed what the Martians were doing to captives, Churchill hurriedly organized a breakout by the military prisoners. While many were killed, Churchill managed to get away in the confusion and hide among the graves in Brookwood Cemetery. He followed the London and South Western Railway line (the Necropolis Railway trains to Brookwood used their track) back towards London only to find the city deserted. Collecting a ragtag group of soldiers, he took his revenge on the Brookwood Martians and then led his men on foot to Horse Guards. Several times they skirmished with bands of looters before reaching army headquarters, and then attached his rag-tag force to the Metropolitan Police. In the illustration Churchill carries his own .455 Webley revolver; he had another recovered from a fellow officer’s corpse. By Churchill’s own account, the Martians took all the rifles and swords from their captives but never bothered to search for smaller weapons. Churchill’s escape turned out to be the first and last of its kind as Martian security improved. Survivors among those captured after Churchill’s adventures reported that the Martians later made a point of removing anything that looked like a weapon from prisoners.
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