Who s there? he said, also whispering, standing under the window and
peering up.
Where are you going? I asked.
God knows.
Are you trying to hide?
That s it.
Come into the house, I said.
I went down, unfastened the door, and let him in, and locked the door
again. I could not see his face. He was hatless, and his coat was
unbuttoned.
My God! he said, as I drew him in.
What has happened? I asked.
What hasn t? In the obscurity I could see he made a gesture of
despair. They wiped us out simply wiped us out, he repeated again and
again.
He followed me, almost mechanically, into the dining room.
Take some whisky, I said, pouring out a stiff dose.
He drank it. Then abruptly he sat down before the table, put his head
on his arms, and began to sob and weep like a little boy, in a perfect
passion of emotion, while I, with a curious forgetfulness of my own
recent despair, stood beside him, wondering.
It was a long time before he could steady his nerves to answer my
questions, and then he answered perplexingly and brokenly. He was a
driver in the artillery, and had only come into action about seven. At
that time firing was going on across the common, and it was said the
first party of Martians were crawling slowly towards their second
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