"No," I cried, "that's impossible! No human being----"

"What's the good of going on with such lies?" said the
artilleryman. "There's men who'd do it cheerful. What nonsense to
pretend there isn't!"

And I succumbed to his conviction.

"If they come after me," he said; "Lord, if they come after me!"
and subsided into a grim meditation.

I sat contemplating these things. I could find nothing to bring
against this man's reasoning. In the days before the invasion no one
would have questioned my intellectual superiority to his--I, a
professed and recognised writer on philosophical themes, and he, a
common soldier; and yet he had already formulated a situation that I
had scarcely realised.

"What are you doing?" I said presently. "What plans have you
made?"

He hesitated.

"Well, it's like this," he said. "What have we to do? We have to
invent a sort of life where men can live and breed, and be
sufficiently secure to bring the children up. Yes--wait a bit, and
I'll make it clearer what I think ought to be done. The tame ones
will go like all tame beasts; in a few generations they'll be big,
beautiful, rich-blooded, stupid--rubbish! The risk is that we who keep
wild will go savage--degenerate into a sort of big, savage rat. . . .
You see, how I mean to live is underground. I've been thinking about
the drains. Of course those who don't know drains think horrible
things; but under this London are miles and miles--hundreds of
miles--and a few days rain and London empty will leave them sweet and
clean. The main drains are big enough and airy enough for anyone.
Then there's cellars, vaults, stores, from which bolting passages may
be made to the drains. And the railway tunnels and subways. Eh? You
begin to see? And we form a band--able-bodied, clean-minded men.
We're not going to pick up any rubbish that drifts in. Weaklings
go out again."

"As you meant me to go?"

"Well--I parleyed, didn't I?"

"We won't quarrel about that. Go on."

"Those who stop obey orders. Able-bodied, clean-minded women we
want also--mothers and teachers. No lackadaisical ladies--no blasted
rolling eyes. We can't have any weak or silly. Life is real again,
and the useless and cumbersome and mischievous have to die. They
ought to die. They ought to be willing to die. It's a sort of
disloyalty, after all, to live and taint the race. And they can't be
happy. Moreover, dying's none so dreadful; it's the funking makes it
bad. And in all those places we shall gather. Our district will be
London. And we may even be able to keep a watch, and run about in the
open when the Martians keep away. Play cricket, perhaps. That's how
we shall save the race. Eh? It's a possible thing? But saving the
race is nothing in itself. As I say, that's only being rats. It's
saving our knowledge and adding to it is the thing. There men like
you come in. There's books, there's models. We must make great safe
places down deep, and get all the books we can; not novels and poetry
swipes, but ideas, science books. That's where men like you come in.
We must go to the British Museum and pick all those books through.
Especially we must keep up our science--learn more. We must watch
these Martians. Some of us must go as spies. When it's all working,
perhaps I will. Get caught, I mean. And the great thing is, we must
leave the Martians alone. We mustn't even steal. If we get in their
way, we clear out. We must show them we mean no harm. Yes, I know.
But they're intelligent things, and they won't hunt us down if they
have all they want, and think we're just harmless vermin."

The artilleryman paused and laid a brown hand upon my arm.

"After all, it may not be so much we may have to learn before--Just
imagine this: four or five of their fighting machines suddenly
starting off--Heat-Rays right and left, and not a Martian in 'em. Not
a Martian in 'em, but men--men who have learned the way how. It may
be in my time, even--those men. Fancy having one of them lovely
things, with its Heat-Ray wide and free! Fancy having it in control!
What would it matter if you smashed to smithereens at the end of the
run, after a bust like that? I reckon the Martians'll open their
beautiful eyes! Can't you see them, man? Can't you see them
hurrying, hurrying--puffing and blowing and hooting to their other
mechanical affairs? Something out of gear in every case. And swish,
bang, rattle, swish! Just as they are fumbling over it, _swish_ comes
the Heat-Ray, and, behold! man has come back to his own."

For a while the imaginative daring of the artilleryman, and the
tone of assurance and courage he assumed, completely dominated my
mind. I believed unhesitatingly both in his forecast of human destiny
and in the practicability of his astonishing scheme, and the reader
who thinks me susceptible and foolish must contrast his position,
reading steadily with all his thoughts about his subject, and mine,
crouching fearfully in the bushes and listening, distracted by
apprehension. We talked in this manner through the early morning
time, and later crept out of the bushes, and, after scanning the sky
for Martians, hurried precipitately to the house on Putney Hill where
he had made his lair. It was the coal cellar of the place, and when I


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