Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds

by Manly Wade Wellman

  As we entered among the green trees, we heard a dreadful wailing just ahead of us. Instantly we crouched to hide for several minutes. Then we dared approach, moving from the shelter of one trunk to another. Finally we saw the source of the long-drawn cry, a motionless fighting-machine toward the western limits of the Park. Keeping ourselves screened from its view, we continued northward.

  The sun was beginning to set as we reached Prim­rose Hill. I did not see the green glow of five days earlier, when first I had started home from Highgate. Machines were visible on Primrose Hill, too, apparently standing quietly in their great excavation. None of them moved.

  "I shall go on," vowed Challenger, and started up the grassy slope.

  His audacity infected me and I followed him. I re­member seeing the moon above the eastern horizon as we gained the top of that steep rampart of tossed earth. I paused there, but Challenger valiantly scram­bled over the comb of the rampart and stood erect.

  "Dead!" he roared, almost deafening me. "They are all dead or dying!"

  At once I climbed over to stand beside him.

  The wide pit below us was strewn with overturned machines, stacks of metal bars, strange shelters. Against the rampart opposite us lay the circular airship that had terrorized humanity. It looked like a gigantic saucer, flung there by the hand of a Titan. At the deep center of the pit sprawled a dozen collapsed bladdery shapes. One or two stirred feebly and emitted weak wails. I looked up at one of the silent machines. Fluttering birds pecked at the body of an invader, hanging halfway out of the hood.

  "It is the end for them," said Challenger. "The end of their adventure. Come, Doctor, we must carry the news."

  Down we scrambled and hurried away as fast as our legs could carry us. At St. Martin-le-Grand we entered the telegraph office. Challenger inspected the instruments.

  "Somehow the power is still turned on," he growled, as he tinkered with the key. I watched as he experi­mented.

  At last—for his resourceful brain seemed capable of anything—he began to tap out a message. Then he paused, tensely waiting. Other tappings sounded.

  "We are in touch with Paris," he informed me, and began manipulating the key again. At last he drew him­self up impressively.

  "There, Dr. Watson, you have been present at an historic moment," he proclaimed. "You can tell of it to your children, should you ever have any. As so often in the past, it is George Edward Challenger who gives to the world scientific information of the highest im­portance. That, sir, is manifest justice. Who is more deserving, better fitted, to announce the end of the war?"

  "You seem to set yourself above Holmes," I could not help reproaching him.

  "Please do not mistake me," he said unabashed. "I myself admire Holmes to a very high degree. But the highest level of human reason is that of pure science. It transcends even the applied analysis of human be­havior,

  "There is no way for me to argue with you."

  "Naturally not, my dear Doctor. But come, my duty is done here. Let us carry our tidings to Holmes."

  In happy excitement we set out together again for Baker Street.

  25

  I need not rehearse here the familiar detail of Eng­land's resolute recovery from the blows dealt by the invasion. Wells's The War of the Worlds gives as good a brief account as any of how the nations of Europe and America hurried shiploads of necessary supplies to the sufferers of stricken London and the Home Counties. Commerce and industry returned swiftly to a high vol­ume of activity, and wrecked homes and stores and public buildings were restored. Holmes and Challenger and I helped many returning refugees as best we could.

  The preserved body of the captured invader was presented to the Natural History Museum, where it is now on display. Challenger felt, and I was inclined to agree, that Curator James Illingworth was offhandedly cool in his acknowledgment of the gift. But Holmes took little notice of any slight, for among the profes­sions that almost immediately resumed full swing in London was that of organized crime. At the end of June, Holmes solved the cunning deception that I have elsewhere chronicled as The Adventure of the Three Garridebs. In assisting Holmes to bring James Winter, alias Killer Evans, to the justice he so richly deserved, I was slightly wounded in the leg, and at the time I felt a sense of ironic comedy in suffering a hurt at the hands of my fellow man when I had come through the invasion without so much as a scratch.

  No sooner was Winter safely in the hands of the police than Holmes became busy helping Scotland Yard trace the bold thieves who had stolen certain crown jewels from the Tower of London.

  I saw little of him on that pursuit, for I had become busy on my own part. The privations and exertions of London citizens under those terrible sixteen days of oppression had stricken many with illness. Doctors were much in demand, and I returned to the practice I had all but given up, spending many days and nights in sickrooms and hospitals. It became necessary for me to leave the old lodgings in Baker Street and move to Queen Anne Street, where I could set up a dispensary and consulting room. It would be impossible to list all those who came under my care, but one of them proved a glorious reward to me for whatever useful labors I performed.

  She had been Violet Hunter when, a dozen years be­fore, Holmes and I had dealt with another case. She had been a governess like my dear first wife, and after the curious business which I have published under the title of The Adventure of the Copper Beeches she had become head of a girls' school at Walsall. Though she was only in her mid-twenties, little more than a young girl herself; she was successful at her post for more than five years. She then married a naval man, the gallant first officer of the Thunder Child, who perished with his shipmates in destroying two invader machines at the mouth of the Blackwater.

  His unhappy widow had been forced to flee from their home in Kensington, barely escaping a rush of machines herself. She spent days in a wretched cottage on the outskirts of London, where she contracted a severe fever. It was my fortune to have her as a patient, to bring her back to good health, and to find that she had never forgotten my very minor help to her years earlier. Recovering, she regained the happy, lively charm I myself had remembered so well. She was in the prime of life, with beautiful chestnut hair and a sweet, good-natured face, freckled like a plover's egg.

  It came as a dazzling surprise to me that she re­sponded to my admiration. In September, at about the time when Holmes, too, suffered wounds in The Adven­ture of the Illustrious Client, she agreed to be my wife.

  One October day I had visited her home in Ken­sington to take an early tea with her. She was engaged for dinner with some old school friends, and so I said my farewells at five o'clock and departed. Since Enmore Park was near, I decided to call upon Challenger.

  Austin answered the door, and little Mrs. Challenger appeared behind him to greet me and lead me along the hall. She knocked at a door, a booming voice answered, and I entered the study. Challenger's great bearded head and tremendous shoulders bulked behind a wide table strewn, as usual, with books, papers, and instruments.

  "My dear Doctor, you come at an opportune mo­ment," he cried out. "I have been at work on a study, a truly brilliant study, which, as I am confident, will add even greater luster to my already considerable reputation."

  I came to the table. Challenger thrust a sheet of paper under my nose. Frowning, I tried to read what he had scrawled upon it.

  "A highly complex mathematical equation," I hazarded.

  "It is a correction of some obvious errors in the late Professor Moriarty's Dynamics of an Asteroid," said Challenger. "Again and again I have reflected, how unfortunate it was that Holmes felt himself forced to destroy that brilliant intellect, that splendid adventurer among the abstractions of the cosmos. If asked to name a scientist capable of refining and advancing his re­searches, I can think of only—well, no matter for that, it does not become one to mention one's own gifts and attainments. But for these improvements in his equa­tions, I must gratefully recognize our recent acquaint­ance
s."

  "Recent acquaintances?" I repeated, uncompre­hending.

  "The invaders, or rather their fellows. The ones who did not come to earth and die of our diseases. I am in contact with some of them."

  "You are?" I had thought myself beyond amaze­ment at Challenger, but this was something new and startling. "And these figures are theirs? But I see Arabic numerals, such as we use."

  "Oh, they almost immediately learned to employ those. I began with pairs and groups of coins to demon­strate simple calculations, that two and two are four and that three from four leaves one, and so forth. Holmes has been here to observe my methods once or twice, and if he did not busy himself at his crime investigations, he might even be of some help. But come with me." He heaved himself out of his chair. "I can show you at this moment how I exchange thoughts with them."

  He opened a door at the rear of the study, I fol­lowed him into a small, dim chamber with heavy cur­tains drawn at the windows. A small desk stood in a corner, and from its top shown a familiar gleam of soft blue. As we entered, a young man rose to his feet and faced us expectantly.

  "Dr. Watson, this is my assistant, Mr. Morgan," Challenger made the introductions. "And I see that you have already recognized our crystal egg."

  It lay nested on a crumpled piece of black velvet. I nodded.

  "I thought it had been presented to the Astronomer Royal," I said, stooping above the desk to look.

  "No, he is no great improvement in scientific gifts on Stent," said Challenger. "Holmes and I only turned over the crystal I had taken from that fighting-machine.

  This is the one that can transmit images across space from planet to planet, and it is far better in my hands than in those of bungling academicians. Morgan, have you seen anything new or interesting to report?"

  "Not in particular, Professor," replied the other, his dark eyes upon me. "They've been sending the land­scapes again."

  "The landscapes of Venus," Challenger said to me.

  "Not of Mars?"

  "The instrument with which they send their images seems to have traveled past us to Venus, in her orbit closer to the sun. Have you not read in the daily papers that astronomers have reported something about an apparent landing on Venus? No, I suppose not. But sit down, Doctor, and look for yourself."

  I dropped into the chair from which Morgan had risen. The crystal reflected a view with no luminous mists to obscure it. It was of a bleak expanse, gray and pallid, with no recognizable growth of vegetation. A haze of dusty clouds drifted in the air, Through this I was able to see a strange assortment of rocks. In the middle distance stood three gaunt pinnacles, like half-dissolved sticks of candy. Beyond them rose a steep bluff, also eroded and worn, and beyond that appeared a murky horizon. Then, as I watched, the whole scene slipped away. I found myself looking into a pair of dark, round eyes with a twitching triangular mouth below them. I had seen such countenances before.

  "That is an invader," I said at once.

  "You may call him that for lack of a better term," said Challenger. "Although at the present he is invad­ing Venus. What he was exhibiting to us just now is a glimpse of the excessively inhospitable planet where he and his companions are waging a most desperate fight for life."

  "How can you know that?" I wondered.

  "They are quite adept in conveying information."

  The face had vanished in its turn. Now we could see a sort of shelf or table, with what seemed to be a dark cup clamped in a metal stand. Steamy vapors rose from the cup. A writhing tentacle came into view, pointing. Next moment the scene had abruptly shifted back to the landscape of worn rocks and dusty clouds, and then again to the steaming cup, and at last the peer­ing eyes showed themselves once more.

  "You are aware of his information by now," said Challenger.

  "I? It was amazing, somehow frightening. Yet I am obliged to confess it did not seem a clear message to me."

  "Come now, my dear Doctor," Challenger said in deep organ tones. "I should have thought that you had had some experience of parlor charades and puzzle pictures. Our friend on Venus was offering us a pro­gression of related symbols."

  I shook my head. "I saw an outdoor view, and an indoor view, and a glimpse of his face. No more than that."

  Challenger fixed his heavy-lidded gaze on Morgan, who remained discreetly silent.

  "An outdoor view, yes," he resumed at last. "He showed us the barren surface of the planet Venus. It proves to be a barren world, whipped by dust storms, its very rocks worn to points and knobs by incessant gales. Then there came the steaming container. That, as I gather, signifies an outside temperature exceeding that of boiling water."

  "But nothing could live in such a temperature," I said.

  "No more it could. Such conditions would destroy life as we know it, or as the invaders know it. Some­how they have built themselves a shelter, insulated so as to allow them to exist within it. But they dare not venture themselves in the open; they can observe only from ports or windows."

  Again I looked at the crystal. The image had faded, and blue clouds pulsed within it.

  "Professor Challenger, they actually seek to com­municate with you," I said, profoundly impressed.

  "They do indeed. By now they have come to realize that in me they have by far the most elevated human comprehension in existence on earth. You can understand now why I have not put this crystal into the hands of the Astronomer Royal or any other incapable blunderer. Well, Morgan, these are things we have seen before. Have they been sending any other mes­sages?"

  "They transmitted these," replied Morgan, picking up two sheets of neatly pencilled figures. Challenger took them and studied them.

  "I have been pleasantly surprised to find out that Morgan has a truly sound natural sense of mathe­matics," he said to me. "We have had several such tables as these, decidedly informative about Venus and her drawbacks as a possible abode of life. We have also achieved an exchange of geometrical drawings, and I have made some progress in teaching them the use of our alphabet, with a view toward sending and receiving written messages. All told, we are fast developing a profitable exchange of ideas between our two cultures."

  He said all this with a calm assurance that left me with nothing to say in reply. Again I looked at the crystal. The blue mist was clearing from it. "They seem ready with something fresh, and I my­self shall sit here and watch," Challenger decided. "Morgan, will you and Dr. Watson go out into the study. I should think you would find him interested in learning of our findings these past few weeks. Mean­while, I shall try to note down whatever further message our friend on Venus may have for me."

  26

  Morgan and I went out together into the brighter light of the study. He closed the door and turned to gaze at me. I saw him plainer now. He was middle-sized and slender, thirty years of age or so, with a shrewd, alert face, bright dark eyes, and a respectable height of forehead.

  "Are you by any chance the Dr. Watson who writes?" he asked.

  "Yes, I sometimes write."

  "I've read some of your accounts of the cases of Mr. Sherlock Holmes."

  I waited for him to elaborate on that, but he only sat down in Challenger's chair and began to spread out some papers before him.

  "I was serving in the artillery," he said. "My whole regiment was wiped out by the invaders when we tried to fight them down there near Horsell. I escaped by a miracle, more or less, and now I'm on leave while the regiment is reorganizing and recruiting."

  His manner of speech suggested that he had a better education and more intelligence than the ordinary soldier.

  "How came you here?'" I asked.

  "Since I was idle and my pay isn't much, I went looking for work. Just by chance I knocked at Pro­fessor Challenger's door, and he talked to me a while, then took me on as a helper. It's mostly looking into that crystal he has, trying to make copies of what I see there. Here are some sketches I've made, from what they've been showing us."

  He handed me a drawing of a
circular flying ma­chine, such as I had seen at Primrose Hill. It was represented as wrecked among eroded rocks. Another drawing was a diagram of one of the invaders' han­dling-machines. Both of them were executed with con­siderable skill and intelligence.

  "Did you make those?" I asked. "They seem quite well done."

  "Thank you, sir. I do have a bit of a gift with my pencil. The Professor likes me to draw the things that show in the crystal and sometimes to work up his own sketches."

  "You seem to feel fortunate to have escaped the invaders," I suggested.

  "And so I was. Afterward, there was more fighting, if you care to call it that, and everybody ran before those machines into London. But when I saw the machines were following, to take over there, I stayed where I was and let them go past me. I hid in Putney for days. I looked about me for others who might have escaped and stayed. I thought about living through it—even resistance."

  "Resistance?" I said after him. "Against the in­vaders?"

  "Oh, something of that sort. Get together some plucky men and women with sense, was my idea. Hide in the cellars and drains, keep out of sight. Try to find out all we could about those creatures, maybe capture and use their weapons. I found only one man in those parts, and he was with me a day or so, and then he wandered off by himself. I was left alone with my planning."

  "But you did plan," I said. "You planned intellligently and with courage. You should have been with Holmes and Challenger and me in London."

  "I wish I had been, sir, I wish that very much in­deed. But in any case, the invasion collapsed. They all died off."

  He said it almost as though he regretted it, as though he would have liked to do some fighting against the alien menace.

  "And then?" I prompted him.

  "Well, that's more or less my story, sir. As I said, my regiment has to reorganize and refit and recruit from scratch. Meanwhile, I'm working here for Pro­fessor Challenger until I go back."

  "And you are on good terms with those beings now on Venus."