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Jeff Wayne's musical version of The War of the Worlds can be obtained from Columbia Records!

Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of H.G. Wells

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

To Nathan's Nest

Part one: The Coming of the Martians

No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets. And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us.

The Eve of the War

At midnight, on the 12th of August, a huge mass of luminous gas erupted from Mars and sped towards Earth. Across two hundred million miles of void, invisibly hurtling towards us, came the first of the missiles that were to bring so much calamity to Earth. As I watched, there was another jet of gas. It was another missile, starting on its way.
And that's how it was for the next ten nights. A flare, spurting out from Mars. Bright green, drawing a green mist behind it; a beautiful, but somehow disturbing sight. Ogilby, the astronomer, assured me we were in no danger. He was convinced there could be no living thing on that remote, forbidding planet.

The Astronomer

Then came the night the first missile approached Earth. It was thought to be an ordinary falling star, but next day there was a huge crater in the middle of the common, and Ogilby came to examine what lay there. A cylinder, thirty yards across, glowing hot, with faint sounds of movement coming from within. Suddenly the top began moving: rotating, unscrewing; and Ogilby feared there was a man inside trying to escape. He rushed to the cylinder but the intense heat stopped him before he could burn himself on the metal.

Horsell Common and the Heat Ray

It seems totally incredible to me now that everyone spent that evening as though it were just like any other. From the railway station came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance. It all seemed so safe and tranquil.
Next morning a crowd gathered on the common, hypnotized by the unscrewing of the cylinder. Two feet of shining screw projected when suddenly, the lid fell off. Two luminous, disk-like eyes appeared above the rim. A huge rounded bulk, larger than a bear, rose up slowly, glistening like wet leather. Its lipless mouth quivered and slathered, and snakelike tentacles writhed as the clumsy body heaved and pulsated.
A few young men crept closer to the pit. A tall funnel rose and an invisible ray of heat leapt from man to man, and there was a bright glare as each was instantly turned to fire. Every tree and bush became a mass of flames at the touch of this savage, unearthly heat.
People clawed their way off the common, and I ran too. I felt I was being toyed with, that when I was on the very verge of safety this mysterious death would leap after me and strike me down. At last I reached Maybury Hill, and in the dim coolness of my home I wrote an account for my newspaper before I sank into a restless, haunted sleep.
I awoke to alien sounds of hammering from the pit and hurried to the railway station to buy the paper. Around me, the daily routine of life, working eating, sleeping, was continuing serenely as it had for countless years. On Horsell Common, the Martians continued hammering and stirring, sleepless, indefatigable, at work on the machines they were making. Now and again a light like the beam of a warship's searchlight would sweep the common, and the heat ray was ready to follow.
In the afternoon, a company of soldiers came through and deployed along the common to form a cordon.
That evening, there was a violent crash and I realized with horror that my home was within reach of the heat ray.
At dawn, a falling star with a trail of green mist landed with a flash like summer lightning. This was the second cylinder.

The Artilleryman and the Fighting Machine

The hammering from the pit and the pounding of guns grew louder. My fear rose at the sound of someone creeping into the house. Then I saw it was a young artilleryman, weary, streaked with blood and dirt.
London! Carrie! I hadn't dreamed there could be danger to Carrie and her father, so many miles away.
At Byfleet, we came upon an inn, but it was deserted. Six cannons with gunners standing by. We hurried along the road to Weybridge. Suddenly, there was a heavy explosion and gusts of smoke erupted into the air. Quickly, one after the other, four of the fighting machines appeared. Monstrous tripods, higher than the tallest steeple, striding over the pine trees and smashing them, walking tripods of glittering metal. Each carried a huge funnel and I realized with horror that I'd seen this awful thing before.
A fifth machine appeared on the far bank. It raised itself to full height, flourished the funnel high in the air, and the ghostly terrible heat ray struck the town.
As it struck, all five fighting machines exulted, emitting deafening howls which roared like thunder: The six guns we had seen now fired simultaneously, decapitating a fighting machine. The Martian inside the hood was slain, splashed to the four winds, and the body, nothing now but an intricate device of metal, went whirling to destruction. As the other monsters advanced, people ran away blindly, the artilleryman among them, but I jumped into the water and hid until forced up to breathe. Now the guns spoke again, but this time the heat ray sent them to oblivion.
With a white flash the heat ray swept across the river. Scalded, half blinded and agonized, I staggered through leaping, hissing water towards the shore. I fell in full sight of the Martians, expecting nothing but death. The foot of a fighting machine came down close to my head, then lifted again as the four Martians carried away the debris of their fallen comrade, and I realized that by a miracle, I had escaped.

Forever Autumn

For three days I fought my way along roads packed with refugees, the homeless, burdened with boxes and bundles containing their valuables. All that was of value to me was in London. By the time I reached their little red brick house, Carrie and her father were gone.

Forever Autumn

Fire suddenly leapt from house to house. The population panicked and ran, and I was swept along with them, aimless and lost without Carrie. Finally, I headed eastward for the ocean and my only hope of survival: a boat out of England. As I hastened through Covent Garden, Blackfriars and Billingsgate, more and more people joined the painful exodus. Sad, weary women, their children stumbling in the street with tears, their men bitter and angry, the rich rubbing shoulders with beggars and outcasts. Dogs snarled and whined, the horse's bits were covered with foam, and here and there were wounded soldiers, as helpless as the rest.
We saw tripods wading up the Thames, cutting through bridges as though they were paper. Waterloo bridge, Westminster bridge, one appeared above Big Ben. Never before in the history of the world, had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together. This was no disciplined march, it was a stampede, without order and without a goal, six million people unarmed and unprovisioned driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of civilization, of the massacre of mankind.
A vast crowd buffeted me towards the already packed steamer. I looked up enviously at those safely on board... straight into the eyes of my beloved Carrie. At sight of me she began to fight her way along the packed deck to the gangplank. At that very moment, it was raised, and I caught a last glimpse of her despairing face as the crowd swept me away from her.

Thunderchild

The steamer began to move slowly away, but on the landward horizon appeared the silhouette of a fighting machine. Another came, and another, striding over hills and trees, plunging far out to sea and blocking the exit of the steamer. Between them lay the silent, gray, ironclad Thunderchild. Slowly it moved towards shore, then with a deafening roar and whoosh of spray it swung about and drove at full speed towards the waiting Martians.

Thunderchild

The Martians released their black smoke, but the ship sped on, cutting down one of the tripod figures. Instantly, the others raised their heat rays, and melted the Thunderchild's valiant heart.

When the smoke cleared, the little steamer had reached the misty horizon, and Carrie was safe. But the Thunderchild had vanished forever, taking with her man's last hope of victory. The leaden sky was lit by green flashes, cylinder following cylinder, and no one and nothing was left now to fight them. The earth belonged to the Martians.


Part Two: The Earth Under the Martians

The Red Weed (Part One)

Next day, the dawn was a brilliant, fiery red and I wandered through the weird and lurid landscape of another planet, for the vegetation that gives Mars its red appearance had taken root on earth. As man had succumbed to the Martians, so our land now succumbed to the red weed.
Wherever there was a stream the red weed clung and grew with frightening voraciousness, its claw-like fronds choking the movement of the water. And then it began to creep like a slimy red animal across the land covering field and ditch and tree and hedgerow with living scarlet feelers, crawling, crawling.

The Spirit of Man

I suddenly noticed the body of a parson lying on the ground in a ruined churchyard. I felt unable to leave him to the mercy of the red week, and decided to bury him, decently.

The parson's eyes flickered open. He was alive!

We took shelter in a cottage, and black smoke spread, hemming us in. Then a fighting machine came across the field spraying jets of steam that turned the smoke into thick, black dust.

The Spirit of Man

The Martians spent the night making a new machine. It was a squat, metallic spider with huge, articulated claws, but it, too, had a hood in which a Martian sat. I watched it pursuing some people across a field. It caught them nimbly and tossed them into a great metal basket upon its back.
Then, on the ninth day, we saw the Martians eating. Inside the hood of their new machine they were drawing the fresh, living blood of men and women and injecting it into their own veins.
The curious eye of a Martian appeared at the window slit, and a menacing claw explored the room. I dragged the parson down to the coal cellar. I heard the Martian fumbling at the latch. In the darkness I could see the claw touching things, walls, coal, wood. And then, it touched my boot. I almost shouted. For a time it was still, and then, with a click, it gripped something: the parson! With slow, deliberate movements, his unconscious body was dragged away, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.

The Red Weed (Part Two)

I crept to the blocked window slit and peered through the creeper. The Martians, and all their machinery, had gone! Trembling, I dug my way out and clambered to the top of the mound: not a Martian in sight! The day seemed dazzling bright after my imprisonment and the sky a glowing blue. Red weed covered every scrap of ground but a gentle breeze kept it swaying, and oh, the sweetness of the air.
Again, I was on my way to London through towns and villages that were blackened ruins, totally silent, desolated, deserted. Man's empire had passed away, taken swiftly and without error by these creatures who were composed entirely of brain. Unhampered by the complex systems which make up man, they made and used different bodies according to their needs. They never tired, never slept, and never suffered, having long since eliminated from their planet the bacteria which cause all fevers and other morbidities.

Brave New World

Brave New World

In the cellar there was a tunnel scarcely ten yards long. It had taken him a week to dig. I could have dug that much in a day, and I suddenly had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his power.

We drank, and then he insisted upon playing cards. With our species on the edge of extermination, with no prospect but a horrible death, we actually played games. Later he talked more of his plan, but I saw flames flashing in the deep blue night, red weed glowing, tripod figures moving distantly, and I put down my champagne glass. I felt a traitor to my kind, and I knew I must leave this strange dreamer.

Dead London

There were a dozen dead bodies in the Euston road, their outlines softened by the black dust. All was still, houses locked and empty, shops closed, but looters had helped themselves to wine and food, and outside a jewelers some gold chains and a watch were scattered on the pavement.

I stopped, staring towards the sound. It seemed as if that mighty desert of houses had found a voice for its fear and solitude.

The desolating cry worked upon my mind. The wailing took possession of me. I was intensely weary, footsore, hungry and thirsty. Why was I wandering alone in this city of the dead? Why was I alive when London was lying in state in its black shroud? I felt intolerably lonely, drifting from street to empty street, drawn inexorably towards that cry.

I saw, over the trees on Primrose Hill, the fighting machine from which the howling came. I crossed Regent's Canal. There stood a second machine, upright, but as still as the first.

Abruptly, the sound ceased. Suddenly the desolation, the solitude, became unendurable. While that voice sounded London still seemed alive. now suddenly there was a change, the passing of something, and all that remained was this gaunt quiet.
I looked up, and saw a third machine. It was erect and motionless, like the others. An insane resolve possessed me: I would give my life to the Martians, here and now.
I marched recklessly towards the titan and saw that a multitude of black birds were circling and clustering about the hood. I began running along the road. I felt no fear, only a wild, trembling exultation as I ran up the hill towards the monster. Out of the hood hung red shreds, at which the hungry birds now pecked and tore.
I scrambled up to the crest of Primrose hill, the Martian's camp was below me. A mighty space it was, and scattered about it, in their overturned machines, were the Martians, slain after all man's devices had failed by the humblest creatures on the earth: bacteria. Minute, invisible, bacteria. Directly the invaders arrived and drank and fed, our microscopic allies attacked them. From that moment, they were doomed.
The torment was ended. The people scattered over the country, desperate, leaderless, starved, the thousands who had fled by sea including the one most dear to me; all could return, the pulse of life growing stronger and stronger would beat again.
As life returns to normal, the question of another attack from Mars causes universal concern. Is our planet safe, or is this time of peace merely a reprieve? It may be that across the immensity of space, they have learned their lessons , and even now await their opportunity. Perhaps the future belongs not to us, but to the Martians.

Epilogue

To Nathan's Nest
Feb 96