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people struggling shorewards, and heard their screaming and shouting
faintly above the seething and roar of the Martian's collapse.
For a moment I heeded nothing of the heat, forgot the patent need
of self-preservation. I splashed through the tumultuous water,
pushing aside a man in black to do so, until I could see round the
bend. Half a dozen deserted boats pitched aimlessly upon the
confusion of the waves. The fallen Martian came into sight
downstream, lying across the river, and for the most part submerged.
Thick clouds of steam were pouring off the wreckage, and through
the tumultuously whirling wisps I could see, intermittently and
vaguely, the gigantic limbs churning the water and flinging a splash
and spray of mud and froth into the air. The tentacles swayed and
struck like living arms, and, save for the helpless purposelessness of
these movements, it was as if some wounded thing were struggling for
its life amid the waves. Enormous quantities of a ruddy-brown fluid
were spurting up in noisy jets out of the machine.
My attention was diverted from this death flurry by a furious
yelling, like that of the thing called a siren in our manufacturing
towns. A man, knee-deep near the towing path, shouted inaudibly to me
and pointed. Looking back, I saw the other Martians advancing with
gigantic strides down the riverbank from the direction of Chertsey.
The Shepperton guns spoke this time unavailingly.
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