of ninety-five tons from Woolwich. Altogether one hundred and sixteen
were in position or being hastily placed, chiefly covering London.
Never before in England had there been such a vast or rapid
concentration of military material.
Any further cylinders that fell, it was hoped, could be destroyed at
once by high explosives, which were being rapidly manufactured and
distributed. No doubt, ran the report, the situation was of the
strangest and gravest description, but the public was exhorted to avoid
and discourage panic. No doubt the Martians were strange and terrible
in the extreme, but at the outside there could not be more than twenty
of them against our millions.
The authorities had reason to suppose, from the size of the cylinders,
that at the outside there could not be more than five in each
cylinder fifteen altogether. And one at least was disposed of perhaps
more. The public would be fairly warned of the approach of danger, and
elaborate measures were being taken for the protection of the people in
the threatened southwestern suburbs. And so, with reiterated assurances
of the safety of London and the ability of the authorities to cope with
the difficulty, this quasi-proclamation closed.
This was printed in enormous type on paper so fresh that it was still
wet, and there had been no time to add a word of comment. It was
curious, my brother said, to see how ruthlessly the usual contents of
the paper had been hacked and taken out to give this place.
All down Wellington Street people could be seen fluttering out the pink
sheets and reading, and the Strand was suddenly noisy with the voices
of an army of hawkers following these pioneers. Men came scrambling off
buses to secure copies. Certainly this news excited people intensely,
whatever their previous apathy. The shutters of a map shop in the
Strand were being taken down, my brother said, and a man in his Sunday
raiment, lemon-yellow gloves even, was visible inside the window
hastily fastening maps of Surrey to the glass.
Going on along the Strand to Trafalgar Square, the paper in his hand,
my brother saw some of the fugitives from West Surrey. There was a man
with his wife and two boys and some articles of furniture in a cart
such as greengrocers use. He was driving from the direction of
68