‘More of them?’ Walter, his progress blocked, scrambled for shelter under a chestnut tree, whose upper branches were already singed by a lick of the Heat-Ray. There he huddled, his knees against his chest. That towering noise still poured down from the sky.
And then Walter saw them, through the branches of his tree: aeroplanes, human machines, not Martian.
The centre of the group was an immense bomber, it must have been forty feet long, with four pulsing propeller engines; its course, parallel to the avenue below, was so low it seemed it must clip the top of the Brandenburg Gate, and as it passed over Walter’s head the noise from those engines battered at the ground in heavy, thrumming waves. This behemoth had a retinue of smaller planes, fighters, much faster, that darted high in the air or close to the ground, already deploying weapons with a clatter of automatic fire. Later, Walter would learn that the bomber he saw was a Gotha V, capable of reaching ten thousand feet; the fighters were the nimble, robust craft called Albatros – planes that had once, he recalled, crossed the Channel to strike at the Martians in London.
All this was itself strange to Walter, and terrifying. The best British planes were still wood and fabric biplanes, mere kites; German air power had developed out of all recognition in the great crucible of the Russian war. Now it was not the desolate plains of Russia over which these craft flew, but the heart of the capital.
Walter had to see it all, of course. He came out of what little shelter the chestnut tree afforded him, and pushed his way to the edge of the fleeing crowd. He saw the fighters duck nimbly through the air, their weapons clattering as they launched themselves at the hoods or limbs of the Martian machines – but their bullets appeared only to bounce off the sturdy bronze hoods of the Martians’ carapaces, and one by one they were touched by the Heat-Ray, almost gently it seemed, and their fragile structures crumbled, crisped and burned, and fell from the air.
But now the big bomber rose up – Walter saw it – and disgorged a load of munitions that rained heavy on the pack of Martians. The Martians fought back; the Heat-Ray projectors swivelled and snapped, and bombs popped out of existence, disintegrating harmlessly long before they reached their targets – but so plentiful was the load of the bomber that some of the munitions got through. The hoods of two Martians, three, four, exploded in dazzling flame. The crowds cheered deliriously. Walter saw more than one fighting-machine spin and topple, smoke pouring from the carapaces, and the ugly writhe of tentacles as the living occupants struggled to free themselves from the inferno. And as fireballs burst around their feet, more Martians staggered and fell, their forward march disrupted at last.
Walter would learn that the bombs used that day were incendiary weapons, D-class Elektron fire bombs, with casings of magnesium and Martian-manufacture aluminium that burned at a thousand degrees: another product of the eastern front, and tested on hapless Russian flesh. Well, the seals and linkages even of Martian machines were not immune to such temperatures. And even as the first bomber passed on, its load discharged, a deep thrumming announced the approach of a second craft, heading for the line of the Unter Den Linden as had the first.
But, as Walter watched, a handling-machine scurried through a fast-scattering crowd to the foot of the Brandenburg Gate. Somehow this machine had dashed ahead of its fellows, even as the taller fighting-machines had been targeted by the aircraft. Now, without hesitation, the handling-machine swarmed up one of the Gate’s pillars, like an outsized beetle clambering over a model, and Walter could clearly see the Martian riding the machine, a pulsing grey sack. With apparent ease the machine reached the plinth, and reared up alongside the crowning sculpture, the goddess in her chariot pulled by its four horses. And the Martian raised a bulky cylinder: a Heat-Ray projector.
When the second bomber came over, it seemed to fly straight into the path of the heat beam. One wing was sliced away, and fuel tanks began to detonate inside its structure, even as the great craft’s momentum carried it on, lumbering over the heads of the crowd. And it began to fall, twisting as its one remaining wing grabbed at the air. The gathered Martians trained their Heat-Rays, and the craft burst apart, raining hot shrapnel on the crowd.
Before the last remnants of the bomber reached the ground, Walter was gone and running, past the Gate, away from the triumphant Martian machines and the scattering crowd, and into the shadows of the Tiergarten.
22
A NEW YORK EDISONADE
In Manhattan, as night had fallen on that very long Friday, though they descended from the Monroe Tower, in the end Harry and Marigold had not dared venture far from Battery Park. The two of them found what appeared to be an abandoned gun emplacement, a grassy pit. Here they huddled under their coats; they drank water and ate the biscuits they had brought. At least the night was not cold, and Harry thought he slept a little, though the drifting smoke made him cough.
Once he got up and clambered out of the pit to see the progress of the war. The night was almost pitch dark, and he wondered if smoke obscured the sky, rather than cloud. Much of Lower Manhattan was blacked out, though here and there a building still shone brightly, an isolated jewel – a hospital, perhaps, with its own electrical generator. A hulk was burning on the river, perhaps one of the great, brave battleships slowly dying, casting gaudy reflections from the water.
And on the Brooklyn shore, illuminated by the light of fires which burned unchallenged, he saw fighting-machines at work. They moved cautiously through the ruins now, as if more circumspect. Every so often he could see a slim silhouette bend down, almost gracefully, and those metallic limbs reach out to pluck something from the ground – something wriggling, something screaming perhaps. Just as it had been in England before, here were the Martians harvesting Americans for their grisly repast.
He wondered what the hell else was going on around the world, this terrible night.
He returned with heavy heart to the gun emplacement, huddled against Marigold’s warmth, and tried to sleep.
He was shaken awake. Suddenly it was daylight. A blackened face loomed over him, grinning.
Harry struggled, but a hand was clamped over his mouth. Beyond, Harry saw Marigold, sitting up, pulling at her tousled hair.
Cautiously, the hand was removed from his mouth. ‘Bill Woodward?’
‘The very same.’
‘I – what time is it?’
‘About six in the morning, Harry; you were sleeping pretty deep.’
‘Six. On Saturday?’
‘Yeah, it’s Saturday. I guess we’re all exhausted.’
‘You went off to Central Park, the Army units…’
‘I spent the day killing Martians. Or trying to. We took a pasting,’ he said grimly. ‘They outnumbered us, two hundred to twenty thousand. But we made damn sure they knew we’re here. And the evacuation’s proceeding, maybe we saved a few lives. The radio says Babe Ruth got out safely.’
‘Well, that’s something!’
‘And then, towards the end of the day, we had a delivery.
Parachute drop. Very brave, very risky.’
‘A delivery? Of what?’
Marigold leaned over. ‘From Menlo Park, Harry.’ Harry saw now that Bill had dragged a kind of cart with him, covered by a green Army blanket. Bill pulled back the blanket to reveal three metal cylinders. He reached over and hefted one of these; perhaps a foot wide, four feet long, wrapped in leather. It looked as if it might be an engine component, or some heavy gun.