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

Anyone here?
Come in here, drink this
Thank you
What's happened?
They wiped us out
Hundreds dead, maybe thousands

The heat ray?
The martians! They were inside the hoods of machines they'd made
Massive metal things on legs!
Giant machines that walked
They attacked us! They wiped us out!

Machines?
Fighting machines!
Picking up men and bashing 'em against trees
Just hunks of metal
But they knew exactly what they were doing

Mmm, there was another cylinder came last night
Yes, it looked bound for London
London! Carrie! I hadn't dreamed there could be danger to carrie and her father
So many miles away
I must go to London at once

And me, got to report to headquarters if there's anything left of it
At byfleet we came upon an inn, but it was deserted
Is everybody dead?
Not everybody. Look! Six cannons with gunners standing by
It's bows and arrows against the lightning
They haven't seen the heat ray yet

We hurried along the road to weybridge
Suddenly, there was a heavy explosion
The ground heaved, windows shattered
And gusts of smoke erupted into the air
Look! There they are! What did I tell you?

Quickly, one after the other, four of the fighting machines appeared
Monstrous tripods, higher than the tallest steeple
Striding over pine trees and smashing them
Walking engines of glistening metal
Each carried a huge funnel and I realised
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 that roared like thunder

Ulla! Ulla!

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 artillery man 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

Ulla!

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 helplessly, in full view of the martians
Expecting nothing but death

The foot of a martian 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