The Eve Of The War

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 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.

At midnight on the twelfth 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. Ogilvy,

the astronomer, assured me we were in no danger. He was convinced there could be no

living thing on that remote, forbidding planet.

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one," he said.

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one - but still they

come!"

JOURNALIST: 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 Ogilvy came to examine what lay there: a cylinder, thirty yards across,

glowing hot... and with faint sounds of movement coming from within.

Suddenly the top began moving, rotating, unscrewing, and Ogilvy 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.

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one," he said.

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one - but they still

come!"

"Yes, the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one," he said.

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one - but they still come!"

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.