The bridge passed over Blackwell’s Island, on which stood grey, utilitarian buildings: hospitals, a prison. As they crossed Harry saw that people were decanting there, apparently exhausted, or maybe thinking that this mid-river scrap of land might provide a safer refuge than Manhattan itself. But the island was already full, and what looked like prison guards were lined up with nightsticks and revolvers to turn people back.
Beyond the midstream island, on they went, shoving, clambering over stalled vehicles, until at last they reached the Manhattan side. People spilled off the bridge and out into the neighbouring streets, which were crowded but nothing yet to compare to the crush on the Queens side, or the bridge itself.
Woodward drew his party together. They were all three breathless, dishevelled. ‘Everybody OK? Now we go find the US Army.’ And, boldly, he led them north, along East 60th Street.
11
CENTRAL PARK
The Army, it turned out, along with units of the National Guard and the state militia, was bivouacking in Central Park. Woodward left Harry and Marigold waiting at the corner of 59th and Fifth Avenue while he went into the Park to find an officer and figure out what was going on.
Around Harry, Manhattan still felt like Manhattan. Traffic still flowed, if heavier and faster than usual, and with more military trucks; there were still cops at the interchanges. Harry, breathless, dishevelled, felt like a vagabond who had just wandered into the city. But even here there were people hurrying along the sidewalks with suitcases in their hands and rucksacks on their backs – little kids being dragged along, bath chairs for the elderly, just like on the Island. And they all seemed to Harry to be streaming north.
From here Harry could see the Plaza Hotel. He sighed. Marigold raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s your beef?’ He looked down at the ruin of his dress suit. ‘Look at me. I haven’t changed since I got ready for the Bigelow party, oh, twenty hours ago. I sure could use a couple of hours in one of those suites in the Plaza, a shower, a glass of champagne, a cigar, a heap of newspapers . . .’
Marigold, by comparison, looked at ease in her riding habit, practical and serviceable, which seemed to show barely a mark. She shrugged. ‘Good luck with that. As for the papers, we came here running from the news; we know it better than any editor in town.’
‘Ain’t that the truth?’
Harry spotted a phone box, and on impulse ran over to make a call to his parents; it felt odd to find change in his pocket – and odder still to find the lines working. His family, in the heart of the continent, were safe but concerned and following the news; Harry promised he would come home as soon as he could, and he meant it. When Marigold tried to follow his example, the line went dead. It would be many days, he would tell me, before Harry was able to make another call.
Woodward came strolling up, hands in pockets. ‘You should see what the Army has done to the Park. Jeez. I dug better latrine trenches in my first week of cadet training.’
Marigold raised her eyebrows. ‘So, are our brave troops ready to smite the foe?’
‘I wish. Patton wishes.’
‘Who?’
‘Oh, a friend of mine. For better or worse there aren’t many officers in the modern US Army with combat experience – but George has, he was involved in the Pancho Villa expedition back in ’16,and now he’s got himself in charge of the operation here, on the ground. And got himself bumped up to Major.’ He grinned. ‘Smart guy all round.’
Marigold looked distinctly unimpressed. ‘Enough of the backslapping. What is Patton going to do?’
Woodward shrugged. ‘Work out how best to use his forces to counter the imminent Martian threat, and protect the civilians. Right now he’s in a fierce debate with his commanding officers about when to blow the bridges from Brooklyn and Queens.’
Harry was astounded. ‘Like the Queensboro? But they’re all crammed with people – and aside from the ferries, that’s the only way off Long Island.’
‘Sure. But, in the eyes of the brass, that’s also the only way off for the Martians too. If we can keep them bottled up and off Manhattan -’
Marigold was growing angry. ‘Are you serious? Bottled up? Have none of you soldier boys read the briefings from England? The river won’t hold them!’
Woodward held his hands up. ‘Don’t shoot the messenger. Meanwhile, they are setting up evacuation routes off the island. You can go west to New Jersey – the trains are still running, for now, and there are the ferries and bridges - or you can head north and over the bridges to the Bronx, and out that way.’ He glanced around, and spoke more quietly. ‘Patton’s been ordered to detail some men to see to the shipment of the bullion stores off the island. Don’t spread that around.’
Harry thought it over. ‘So, they’re sending people west and north.’
‘Right. My problem with that is, that’s precisely the way the Martians are going to progress, after they’ve taken Manhattan. That’s the way to the mainland, after all.’
‘We go south, then,’ Harry said, working it out. ‘We’ll still be stuck on another damn island -’
‘But we won’t be in the war zone.’ Woodford grinned at Harry. ‘Anyhow, you’re a reporter. You’ll want to be on the spot, right? Martians in New York! It’s the story of the century. Listen. Make for Battery Park, which is about as far south as you can get. Keep away from the fires. If I can, I’ll come find you when things stabilise. If.’
Harry felt alarmingly exposed to lose Woodward, like a child abandoned by his father. ‘What about you?’
‘I’ll go back to the Park.’ He tapped his shoulder. ‘Broken wing or not, I’ve still got more fighting experience than half the bozos in there combined, and somebody needs to keep George Patton’s feet on the ground.’
Now a soldier came running from the direction of the river, looking for officers to report to, yelling about some new development. Woodward stayed with them long enough to figure out what was happening now.
So much for cutting the bridges.
The Martian fighting-machines were simply wading across the East River, in a broad crescent formation, between the Queensboro and Williamsburg bridges. The river was only some forty feet deep – no obstacle to the hundred-feet-tall Martian machines, which, as, Marigold furiously pointed out again, should have been apparent from the British briefings. And meanwhile smaller, squat handling-machines, at the feet of their tripedal big brothers, were scuttling under the water and clambering out on dry land, their aluminium chassis glistening, dripping filthy river scum, Heat-Ray projectors ready to wield.
Now, looking down 60th Street, Harry saw them come fighting-machines, towering at last over Manhattan. Already artillery coughed from the emplacements in Central Park.
Harry and Marigold exchanged quick handshakes with Woodward, and ran west and south.
And around the world, still the cylinders fell.
12
HOW THE MARTIANS CAME TO MELBOURNE
On the morning the Second War came to Australia, so Luke Smith believes, he was fourteen years old. At the time of my writing this account Smith is an educated young man in his late twenties, trained as a lawyer, and with a passion to defend the rights of his own people. He has a clear memory of the events of those astonishing days, and when he finally overcame his own illiteracy he wrote down what he saw.
But ‘Luke Smith’ is not his name, and was not when the Martians landed. He had been separated from his family, in upstate Victoria, at a young age. Given the name of a Gospel writer, he was raised in a Christian mission until the age of ten, and was then ‘loaned’ – he remembers the specific word being used – to a sheep farmer near Bendigo. There he was abused. He is vague on specifics. The culprit may have been one of his own people. At twelve he ran away, into the bush.
And he headed south to Melbourne, a city he had heard of but had never seen. By the age of fourteen he had joined an underclass of young Aborigines in that city, despised and even more invisible in that urban setting than were his people in
the countryside.
He was a clever if entirely untutored child, with a poor, rough-accented vocabulary. Still, from conversations with others, and from comments made by white folk in his hearing – I imagine they believed he would not understand – he gained an impression of the plight of his people. He seems to have formed a determination to survive, at a very young age. He learned how to live in Melbourne, which like all cities is a vast machine producing enormous amounts of waste, accessible to those clever enough.
Luke always felt he was effectively alone.
Then the Martians came.
The cylinders landed at Fairfield, north-east of Melbourne, at local midnight of Saturday 20th May – it was Friday afternoon in England.
Luke had been sleeping in Luna Park, which is an amusement resort at St Kilda, on the shore of Port Phillip Bay, to the south-east of Melbourne itself. When he woke, some time after dawn on that fateful Saturday, the place seemed deserted. He had heard movement during the night of motor vehicles rolling – he even heard the growl of animals – but it had not disturbed him; there were such noises every night, in the Park. It was a sprawling, casually policed place, much of it on the edge of criminality anyhow, and there was a plethora of hiding places for a boy like Luke to tuck himself away and sleep in safety.
When he emerged from his hiding place, though, there was nobody around.
He walked through the Park, past the stalls and stands and attractions, some of them locked up, others simply abandoned. Even then it occurred to Luke that he could simply break into one of the abandoned food concessions. But cautious habits drew him to the garbage pails as usual. He did notice that the rats seemed bolder.
He would learn later that after the Martians had landed, following the pattern established in America, they had quickly overcome any initial resistance by the local authorities and military, and then had advanced towards the city, their main goal, at dawn. With everyone having already heard the reports from America, there had been a mass, spontaneous evacuation, mostly to the south and west. Thus, that morning, Luna Park was deserted. But Luke Smith had heard nothing of the Martian advance – indeed he knew nothing of Martians at all, when he woke that morning. Filling his belly was a more pressing concern.
After eating, following an instinct he would not later be able to understand, he left Luna Park to walk the few miles into downtown Melbourne.
He passed through the Albert Park area, making for South Melbourne and the river. His sense of direction had always been good; after a couple of years he knew the city’s geography pretty well, even if he had trouble reading the street signs. These suburbs were not entirely deserted, but almost. He saw a few people in shut-up houses, peering fearfully through northfacing windows – looking out for a menace Luke still knew nothing of. Here and there late-goers fled, mostly on foot. Electric trams stood silent on their rails, useless. A few shops had been broken into.
And Luke saw, a couple of times, a sight he had never witnessed before: the dead bodies of white folk.
He crossed the Yarra by the Queens Bridge. Now he was in a grid of streets, the expensive part of the city. In those days Melbourne was still was a young town, and later he would learn something of its history: the Gold Rush money on which it had been founded, the banking crash of ’93 that was still talked of in hushed tones three decades later. With an instinct driven by a never-assuaged hunger he made for the Queen Victoria Market, a sprawling development with craft and clothing stalls crammed in among the food vendors. Luke knew this place; on market days it was crowded with a miscellany of folk, from gowned academics from the colleges to black-robed Italian grandmothers pushing carts. Rough types came for the petty thieving; Luke had often come here for the waste, and a bit of begging if he had to. Today, as elsewhere, the place was mysteriously deserted. But the bins behind the stalls offered rich pickings, of cold meat, stale bread, half-eaten sugary cakes. Luke considered finding a bag and filling it; he might never have a chance like this again. But the ability to run away was his key survival skill, and you couldn’t do that if you were burdened. He decided he would come back to the market later, and fill his belly when he needed to – if his luck held.
In the meantime, he was free, even of hunger.
On a whim, he made his way a short distance across town, to Swanston Street, and the State Library of Victoria. He knew that this was a building full of books, and he even had a dim idea of what books were for, even if his own reading was barely enough to pick out his own name. What interested him about the Library was the tremendous dome that topped it – supposedly, he had heard people say, the largest concrete dome in the world. Later he would learn that that hadn’t been quite true, a local’s boast. But still, this boy who ate from garbage cans and slept in the corners of an amusement park liked the idea that he could stand here and just look at something that couldn’t be bettered anywhere in the world. It is an image I like: the ragged Aborigine boy, in the deserted street of that white folks’ city, illiterate, unwashed, abused and ignored, standing on that sloping lawn before the pillars of the front portico – alone, and yet inspired by a monument to knowledge.
That was when the Martian fighting-machine appeared, looming over the Library, there at the heart of Melbourne.
Luke would later be surprised how little fear he experienced. But then for a boy from the outback, everything about the city was astonishing: the great buildings of the business district, so tall they looked as if they might topple over at any moment. Even the Ferris wheel at Luna Park, as tall as a Martian and even more massive, was more alarming than a fighting-machine at first glance.
For a moment the Martian simply stood there, as if gazing down at the boy, as he gazed up at it. But then glittering tentacles writhed about its cowled superstructure, and it wielded a device like a heavy cannon. Luke had seen guns before. He turned and ran, fast and hard. But he was curious enough to glance over his shoulder.
The Heat-Ray made the library’s dome explode in a hail of concrete shrapnel, and the incineration of the precious books began with a tremendous flare of flame.
Luke had overheard white folk talking of their justification for taking his ancestors’ land and driving them towards extinction. When the Europeans had landed in Australia it had been a terra nullius, they said, a land belonging to no one, a land as empty in law as if the native people did not exist at all. And the victory of the Europeans had been the result of a war of steel against stone. Now, thought Luke, even as he ran, whatever that tremendous machine was – he wondered if it might be Japanese, for he had heard the gentlefolk of Melbourne expressing fears at the territorial ambitions of those foreigners - now this country was seeing the waging of a new war: not steel against stone, but heat against steel.
He ran and ran, laughing.
13
IN PEKING
If Luke Smith slept through the invasion of Australia, when the Martians came to Peking – they landed a couple of hours after Australia - at first Tom Aylott didn’t believe that there was an extraterrestrial threat at all. ‘That was China for you in the Twenties,’ he told me years later in Sydney, when I met him after the launch of his own book on those times. ‘You wouldn’t have thought it could get any madder. But then . . .’
He had been shaken awake at around six a.m. by a friend, a Chinese student called Li Qichao. ‘You come! War! You see!’
Li, an ardent disciple of Sun Yat-Sen and a visionary of a future Chinese democracy, was barely twenty-one. A bright, ambitious boy from the country, his education disrupted, he had come to the city to learn as much as he could of the realities of power and diplomacy. While waiting for destiny to call he survived by means of various part-time clerical posts – and he had fallen in with Tom Aylott.
But he was prone to be excitable, and Tom tried to turn over. ‘Yeah, yeah. Wake me when the house is on fire, Qichao...’
Tom himself was only twenty-two, but he was making a name for himself as an energetic correspondent for The Times of London
. That morning Tom was having trouble surfacing from another riotous night with other young westerners in the bars of the Legation Quarter, as it was known, an area within the walls of the Inner City itself that had long been claimed as a protectorate by western governments and companies.
And after all, in those days war was no novelty in China. The Boxer Rebellion against foreign meddling, had been only twenty years in the past; the last Qing Emperor, a boy called Puyi, had abdicated just ten years before; there had been a breakdown of order in the country since the death of the first strong-man President, Yuan Shikai, in 1916. Peking was still the residence of the internationally recognised Beiyang government, but in practical terms much of the country was in the hands of one warlord faction or another, or else prostrate under foreign control.
But here was Li shaking Tom vigorously, with his English disintegrating as it often did under stress. ‘War coming, Tom!’ he insisted. ‘War coming!’
And now Tom thought he could hear it: a distant crump of explosions, the sound of running feet, women and men shouting – and the wail of frightened children, a sound that was all too familiar in Peking.
Tom’s first thought was: story.
He forced himself fully awake. He was already in his shirt, underwear and socks; he grabbed his pants, jacket and shoes. Despite Li’s protestations he used the small bathroom - his bladder was too full to allow any other course.
‘You come! Fighting close!’
‘Sure, Qichao, sure,’ he called over his shoulder while buttoning up. ‘Who is it this time? The Zhili, the Fengtian – where the hell is my Kodak? The Kuomintang, even?’
Li grinned, wildly excited – as, Tom was already mature enough to reflect, only the very young can be stirred by the coming of war. ‘Come see!’
The Massacre of Mankind Page 39
