Westminster Bridge; and close behind him came a hay waggon with five or
six respectable-looking people in it, and some boxes and bundles. The
faces of these people were haggard, and their entire appearance
contrasted conspicuously with the Sabbath-best appearance of the people
on the omnibuses. People in fashionable clothing peeped at them out of
cabs. They stopped at the Square as if undecided which way to take, and
finally turned eastward along the Strand. Some way behind these came a
man in workday clothes, riding one of those old-fashioned tricycles
with a small front wheel. He was dirty and white in the face.
My brother turned down towards Victoria, and met a number of such
people. He had a vague idea that he might see something of me. He
noticed an unusual number of police regulating the traffic. Some of the
refugees were exchanging news with the people on the omnibuses. One was
professing to have seen the Martians. Boilers on stilts, I tell you,
striding along like men. Most of them were excited and animated by
their strange experience.
Beyond Victoria the public-houses were doing a lively trade with these
arrivals. At all the street corners groups of people were reading
papers, talking excitedly, or staring at these unusual Sunday visitors.
They seemed to increase as night drew on, until at last the roads, my
brother said, were like Epsom High Street on a Derby Day. My brother
addressed several of these fugitives and got unsatisfactory answers
from most.
None of them could tell him any news of Woking except one man, who
assured him that Woking had been entirely destroyed on the previous
night.
I come from Byfleet, he said; a man on a bicycle came through the
place in the early morning, and ran from door to door warning us to
come away. Then came soldiers. We went out to look, and there were
clouds of smoke to the south nothing but smoke, and not a soul coming
that way. Then we heard the guns at Chertsey, and folks coming from
Weybridge. So I ve locked up my house and come on.
At that time there was a strong feeling in the streets that the
authorities were to blame for their incapacity to dispose of the
invaders without all this inconvenience.
69