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a cold bath in the afternoon. About half past four I went up to the
railway station to get an evening paper, for the morning papers had
contained only a very inaccurate description of the killing of Stent,
Henderson, Ogilvy, and the others. But there was little I didn't
know. The Martians did not show an inch of themselves. They seemed
busy in their pit, and there was a sound of hammering and an almost
continuous streamer of smoke. Apparently they were busy getting ready
for a struggle. "Fresh attempts have been made to signal, but without
success," was the stereotyped formula of the papers. A sapper told me
it was done by a man in a ditch with a flag on a long pole. The
Martians took as much notice of such advances as we should of the
lowing of a cow.
I must confess the sight of all this armament, all this
preparation, greatly excited me. My imagination became belligerent,
and defeated the invaders in a dozen striking ways; something of my
schoolboy dreams of battle and heroism came back. It hardly seemed a
fair fight to me at that time. They seemed very helpless in that pit
of theirs.
About three o'clock there began the thud of a gun at measured
intervals from Chertsey or Addlestone. I learned that the smouldering
pine wood into which the second cylinder had fallen was being shelled,
in the hope of destroying that object before it opened. It was only
about five, however, that a field gun reached Chobham for use against
the first body of Martians.
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