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The War of the Worlds, The War of the Worlds: Chapter 14 (1)

The War of the Worlds: Chapter 14 (1)

Chapter Fourteen In London

My younger brother was in London when the Martians fell at Woking. He was a medical student working for an imminent examination, and he heard nothing of the arrival until Saturday morning. The morning papers on Saturday contained, in addition to lengthy special articles on the planet Mars, on life in the planets, and so forth, a brief and vaguely worded telegram, all the more striking for its brevity.

The Martians, alarmed by the approach of a crowd, had killed a number of people with a quick-firing gun, so the story ran. The telegram concluded with the words: “Formidable as they seem to be, the Martians have not moved from the pit into which they have fallen, and, indeed, seem incapable of doing so. Probably this is due to the relative strength of the earth's gravitational energy.” On that last text their leader-writer expanded very comfortingly.

Of course all the students in the crammer's biology class, to which my brother went that day, were intensely interested, but there were no signs of any unusual excitement in the streets. The afternoon papers puffed scraps of news under big headlines. They had nothing to tell beyond the movements of troops about the common, and the burning of the pine woods between Woking and Weybridge, until eight. Then the St. James's Gazette, in an extra-special edition, announced the bare fact of the interruption of telegraphic communication. This was thought to be due to the falling of burning pine trees across the line. Nothing more of the fighting was known that night, the night of my drive to Leatherhead and back.

My brother felt no anxiety about us, as he knew from the description in the papers that the cylinder was a good two miles from my house. He made up his mind to run down that night to me, in order, as he says, to see the Things before they were killed. He despatched a telegram, which never reached me, about four o'clock, and spent the evening at a music hall.

In London, also, on Saturday night there was a thunderstorm, and my brother reached Waterloo in a cab. On the platform from which the midnight train usually starts he learned, after some waiting, that an accident prevented trains from reaching Woking that night. The nature of the accident he could not ascertain; indeed, the railway authorities did not clearly know at that time. There was very little excitement in the station, as the officials, failing to realise that anything further than a breakdown between Byfleet and Woking junction had occurred, were running the theatre trains which usually passed through Woking round by Virginia Water or Guildford. They were busy making the necessary arrangements to alter the route of the Southampton and Portsmouth Sunday League excursions. A nocturnal newspaper reporter, mistaking my brother for the traffic manager, to whom he bears a slight resemblance, waylaid and tried to interview him. Few people, excepting the railway officials, connected the breakdown with the Martians.

I have read, in another account of these events, that on Sunday morning “all London was electrified by the news from Woking.” As a matter of fact, there was nothing to justify that very extravagant phrase. Plenty of Londoners did not hear of the Martians until the panic of Monday morning. Those who did took some time to realise all that the hastily worded telegrams in the Sunday papers conveyed. The majority of people in London do not read Sunday papers.

The habit of personal security, moreover, is so deeply fixed in the Londoner's mind, and startling intelligence so much a matter of course in the papers, that they could read without any personal tremors: “About seven o'clock last night the Martians came out of the cylinder, and, moving about under an armour of metallic shields, have completely wrecked Woking station with the adjacent houses, and massacred an entire battalion of the Cardigan Regiment. No details are known. Maxims have been absolutely useless against their armour; the field guns have been disabled by them. Flying hussars have been galloping into Chertsey. The Martians appear to be moving slowly towards Chertsey or Windsor. Great anxiety prevails in West Surrey, and earthworks are being thrown up to check the advance Londonward.” That was how the Sunday Sun put it, and a clever and remarkably prompt “handbook” article in the Referee compared the affair to a menagerie suddenly let loose in a village.

No one in London knew positively of the nature of the armoured Martians, and there was still a fixed idea that these monsters must be sluggish: “crawling,” “creeping painfully”—such expressions occurred in almost all the earlier reports. None of the telegrams could have been written by an eyewitness of their advance. The Sunday papers printed separate editions as further news came to hand, some even in default of it. But there was practically nothing more to tell people until late in the afternoon, when the authorities gave the press agencies the news in their possession. It was stated that the people of Walton and Weybridge, and all the district were pouring along the roads Londonward, and that was all.

My brother went to church at the Foundling Hospital in the morning, still in ignorance of what had happened on the previous night. There he heard allusions made to the invasion, and a special prayer for peace. Coming out, he bought a Referee. He became alarmed at the news in this, and went again to Waterloo station to find out if communication were restored. The omnibuses, carriages, cyclists, and innumerable people walking in their best clothes seemed scarcely affected by the strange intelligence that the news venders were disseminating. People were interested, or, if alarmed, alarmed only on account of the local residents. At the station he heard for the first time that the Windsor and Chertsey lines were now interrupted. The porters told him that several remarkable telegrams had been received in the morning from Byfleet and Chertsey stations, but that these had abruptly ceased. My brother could get very little precise detail out of them.

“There's fighting going on about Weybridge” was the extent of their information.

The train service was now very much disorganised. Quite a number of people who had been expecting friends from places on the South-Western network were standing about the station. One grey-headed old gentleman came and abused the South-Western Company bitterly to my brother. “It wants showing up,” he said.

One or two trains came in from Richmond, Putney, and Kingston, containing people who had gone out for a day's boating and found the locks closed and a feeling of panic in the air. A man in a blue and white blazer addressed my brother, full of strange tidings.

“There's hosts of people driving into Kingston in traps and carts and things, with boxes of valuables and all that,” he said. “They come from Molesey and Weybridge and Walton, and they say there's been guns heard at Chertsey, heavy firing, and that mounted soldiers have told them to get off at once because the Martians are coming. We heard guns firing at Hampton Court station, but we thought it was thunder. What the dickens does it all mean? The Martians can't get out of their pit, can they?”

My brother could not tell him.

Afterwards he found that the vague feeling of alarm had spread to the clients of the underground railway, and that the Sunday excursionists began to return from all over the South-Western “lung”—Barnes, Wimbledon, Richmond Park, Kew, and so forth—at unnaturally early hours; but not a soul had anything more than vague hearsay to tell of. Everyone connected with the terminus seemed ill-tempered.

About five o'clock the gathering crowd in the station was immensely excited by the opening of the line of communication, which is almost invariably closed, between the South-Eastern and the South-Western stations, and the passage of carriage trucks bearing huge guns and carriages crammed with soldiers. These were the guns that were brought up from Woolwich and Chatham to cover Kingston. There was an exchange of pleasantries: “You'll get eaten!” “We're the beast-tamers!” and so forth. A little while after that a squad of police came into the station and began to clear the public off the platforms, and my brother went out into the street again.

The church bells were ringing for evensong, and a squad of Salvation Army lassies came singing down Waterloo Road. On the bridge a number of loafers were watching a curious brown scum that came drifting down the stream in patches. The sun was just setting, and the Clock Tower and the Houses of Parliament rose against one of the most peaceful skies it is possible to imagine, a sky of gold, barred with long transverse stripes of reddish-purple cloud. There was talk of a floating body. One of the men there, a reservist he said he was, told my brother he had seen the heliograph flickering in the west.

In Wellington Street my brother met a couple of sturdy roughs who had just been rushed out of Fleet Street with still-wet newspapers and staring placards. “Dreadful catastrophe!” they bawled one to the other down Wellington Street. “Fighting at Weybridge! Full description! Repulse of the Martians! London in Danger!” He had to give threepence for a copy of that paper.

Then it was, and then only, that he realised something of the full power and terror of these monsters. He learned that they were not merely a handful of small sluggish creatures, but that they were minds swaying vast mechanical bodies; and that they could move swiftly and smite with such power that even the mightiest guns could not stand against them.

They were described as “vast spiderlike machines, nearly a hundred feet high, capable of the speed of an express train, and able to shoot out a beam of intense heat.” Masked batteries, chiefly of field guns, had been planted in the country about Horsell Common, and especially between the Woking district and London. Five of the machines had been seen moving towards the Thames, and one, by a happy chance, had been destroyed. In the other cases the shells had missed, and the batteries had been at once annihilated by the Heat-Rays. Heavy losses of soldiers were mentioned, but the tone of the despatch was optimistic.

The Martians had been repulsed; they were not invulnerable. They had retreated to their triangle of cylinders again, in the circle about Woking. Signallers with heliographs were pushing forward upon them from all sides. Guns were in rapid transit from Windsor, Portsmouth, Aldershot, Woolwich—even from the north; among others, long wire-guns 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.

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The War of the Worlds: Chapter 14 (1) The||||| Der Krieg der Welten: Kapitel 14 (1) La guerra de los mundos: Capítulo 14 (1) La guerre des mondes : chapitre 14 (1) La guerra dei mondi: capitolo 14 (1) A Guerra dos Mundos: Capítulo 14 (1) Війна світів: Розділ 14 (1)

Chapter Fourteen In London

My younger brother was in London when the Martians fell at Woking. Meu irmão mais novo estava em Londres quando os marcianos caíram em Woking. He was a medical student working for an imminent examination, and he heard nothing of the arrival until Saturday morning. The morning papers on Saturday contained, in addition to lengthy special articles on the planet Mars, on life in the planets, and so forth, a brief and vaguely worded telegram, all the more striking for its brevity. Os jornais da manhã de sábado continham, além de longos artigos especiais sobre o planeta Marte, sobre a vida nos planetas e assim por diante, um telegrama breve e vagamente redigido, ainda mais notável por sua brevidade.

The Martians, alarmed by the approach of a crowd, had killed a number of people with a quick-firing gun, so the story ran. Os marcianos, alarmados com a aproximação de uma multidão, mataram várias pessoas com uma arma de fogo rápido, então a história correu. The telegram concluded with the words: “Formidable as they seem to be, the Martians have not moved from the pit into which they have fallen, and, indeed, seem incapable of doing so. O telegrama concluía com as palavras: “Por mais formidáveis que pareçam, os marcianos não saíram da cova em que caíram e, de fato, parecem incapazes de fazê-lo. Probably this is due to the relative strength of the earth’s gravitational energy.” On that last text their leader-writer expanded very comfortingly. Provavelmente, isso se deve à força relativa da energia gravitacional da Terra. ” Nesse último texto, seu líder-escritor se expandiu muito confortavelmente.

Of course all the students in the crammer’s biology class, to which my brother went that day, were intensely interested, but there were no signs of any unusual excitement in the streets. The afternoon papers puffed scraps of news under big headlines. Os jornais da tarde espalharam recados de notícias sob grandes manchetes. They had nothing to tell beyond the movements of troops about the common, and the burning of the pine woods between Woking and Weybridge, until eight. ||||||||regarding||||||||||||||||| Eles não tinham nada a dizer além dos movimentos das tropas sobre o terreno comum e o incêndio do bosque de pinheiros entre Woking e Weybridge, até as oito. Им нечего было сказать, кроме передвижений войск по просторам и горящих сосновых лесов между Уокингом и Вейбриджем до восьми. Then the St. James’s Gazette, in an extra-special edition, announced the bare fact of the interruption of telegraphic communication. «Джеймс Газетт» в особом выпуске сообщила о голом факте прерывания телеграфной связи. This was thought to be due to the falling of burning pine trees across the line. Nothing more of the fighting was known that night, the night of my drive to Leatherhead and back. Nada mais se soube da luta naquela noite, a noite em que fui de ida e volta para Leatherhead.

My brother felt no anxiety about us, as he knew from the description in the papers that the cylinder was a good two miles from my house. He made up his mind to run down that night to me, in order, as he says, to see the Things before they were killed. Ele decidiu correr naquela noite até mim, a fim, como ele diz, de ver as Coisas antes que fossem mortas. He despatched a telegram, which never reached me, about four o’clock, and spent the evening at a music hall. Ele despachou um telegrama, que não chegou a mim, por volta das quatro horas, e passou a noite em um salão de música.

In London, also, on Saturday night there was a thunderstorm, and my brother reached Waterloo in a cab. Também em Londres, no sábado à noite, houve uma tempestade e meu irmão chegou a Waterloo de táxi. On the platform from which the midnight train usually starts he learned, after some waiting, that an accident prevented trains from reaching Woking that night. The nature of the accident he could not ascertain; indeed, the railway authorities did not clearly know at that time. There was very little excitement in the station, as the officials, failing to realise that anything further than a breakdown between Byfleet and Woking junction had occurred, were running the theatre trains which usually passed through Woking round by Virginia Water or Guildford. They were busy making the necessary arrangements to alter the route of the Southampton and Portsmouth Sunday League excursions. A nocturnal newspaper reporter, mistaking my brother for the traffic manager, to whom he bears a slight resemblance, waylaid and tried to interview him. Few people, excepting the railway officials, connected the breakdown with the Martians. Мало кто, кроме железнодорожников, связывал аварию с марсианами.

I have read, in another account of these events, that on Sunday morning “all London was electrified by the news from Woking.” As a matter of fact, there was nothing to justify that very extravagant phrase. Li, em outro relato desses eventos, que na manhã de domingo “toda Londres ficou eletrizada com as notícias de Woking”. Na verdade, não havia nada que justificasse aquela frase tão extravagante. В другом отчете об этих событиях я читал, что в воскресенье утром «весь Лондон был наэлектризован новостями из Уокинга». Собственно говоря, нечем было оправдать столь экстравагантную фразу. Plenty of Londoners did not hear of the Martians until the panic of Monday morning. Muitos londrinos não ouviram falar dos marcianos até o pânico da manhã de segunda-feira. Those who did took some time to realise all that the hastily worded telegrams in the Sunday papers conveyed. Aqueles que o fizeram demoraram algum tempo para perceber tudo o que transmitiam os telegramas redigidos apressadamente nos jornais de domingo. Тем, кто это сделал, потребовалось некоторое время, чтобы понять все, что передавали наскоро сформулированные телеграммы в воскресных газетах. The majority of people in London do not read Sunday papers. A maioria das pessoas em Londres não lê jornais de domingo.

The habit of personal security, moreover, is so deeply fixed in the Londoner’s mind, and startling intelligence so much a matter of course in the papers, that they could read without any personal tremors: “About seven o’clock last night the Martians came out of the cylinder, and, moving about under an armour of metallic shields, have completely wrecked Woking station with the adjacent houses, and massacred an entire battalion of the Cardigan Regiment. Привычка к личной безопасности, кроме того, так глубоко укоренилась в уме лондонца, а поразительные сведения так само собой разумелись в газетах, что они могли прочитать без малейшего личного трепета: из цилиндра и, передвигаясь под броней из металлических щитов, полностью разрушили станцию Уокинг с прилегающими домами и вырезали целый батальон Кардиганского полка. No details are known. Nenhum detalhe é conhecido. Maxims have been absolutely useless against their armour; the field guns have been disabled by them. Máximas foram absolutamente inúteis contra sua armadura; os canhões de campanha foram desativados por eles. Максимы были абсолютно бесполезны против их доспехов; полевые орудия были ими выведены из строя. Flying hussars have been galloping into Chertsey. Hussardos voadores estão galopando em Chertsey. The Martians appear to be moving slowly towards Chertsey or Windsor. Os marcianos parecem estar se movendo lentamente em direção a Chertsey ou Windsor. Great anxiety prevails in West Surrey, and earthworks are being thrown up to check the advance Londonward.” That was how the Sunday Sun put it, and a clever and remarkably prompt “handbook” article in the Referee compared the affair to a menagerie suddenly let loose in a village. Grande ansiedade prevalece em West Surrey, e terraplenagens estão sendo erguidas para impedir o avanço de Londonward. ” Foi assim que o Sunday Sun colocou, e um artigo de “manual” inteligente e notavelmente rápido no Árbitro comparou o caso a um zoológico repentinamente solto em uma aldeia. В Западном Суррее царит большое беспокойство, и возводятся земляные укрепления, чтобы остановить продвижение в сторону Лондона». Так написала газета «Санди сан», а умная и удивительно своевременная «справочная» статья в «Рефери» сравнила это дело с зверинцем, внезапно вырвавшимся на свободу в деревне.

No one in London knew positively of the nature of the armoured Martians, and there was still a fixed idea that these monsters must be sluggish: “crawling,” “creeping painfully”—such expressions occurred in almost all the earlier reports. Ninguém em Londres sabia positivamente da natureza dos marcianos blindados, e ainda havia uma ideia fixa de que esses monstros deviam ser lentos: “rastejando”, “rastejando dolorosamente” - tais expressões ocorreram em quase todos os relatórios anteriores. None of the telegrams could have been written by an eyewitness of their advance. Nenhum dos telegramas poderia ter sido escrito por uma testemunha ocular de seu avanço. The Sunday papers printed separate editions as further news came to hand, some even in default of it. Os jornais de domingo imprimiram edições separadas à medida que novas notícias chegavam, alguns até inadimplentes. Воскресные газеты печатали отдельные выпуски по мере поступления новых новостей, некоторые даже в отсутствие таковых. But there was practically nothing more to tell people until late in the afternoon, when the authorities gave the press agencies the news in their possession. Mas não havia praticamente nada mais a contar até o final da tarde, quando as autoridades deram às agências de notícias as notícias que estavam em seu poder. It was stated that the people of Walton and Weybridge, and all the district were pouring along the roads Londonward, and that was all. Foi declarado que as pessoas de Walton e Weybridge e de todo o distrito estavam se espalhando pelas estradas de Londonward, e isso era tudo.

My brother went to church at the Foundling Hospital in the morning, still in ignorance of what had happened on the previous night. Meu irmão foi à igreja no Hospital Foundling pela manhã, ainda sem saber o que acontecera na noite anterior. There he heard allusions made to the invasion, and a special prayer for peace. Lá ele ouviu alusões feitas à invasão e uma oração especial pela paz. Coming out, he bought a Referee. Saindo, ele comprou um Árbitro. He became alarmed at the news in this, and went again to Waterloo station to find out if communication were restored. Ele ficou alarmado com a notícia e foi novamente à estação de Waterloo para descobrir se a comunicação havia sido restaurada. The omnibuses, carriages, cyclists, and innumerable people walking in their best clothes seemed scarcely affected by the strange intelligence that the news venders were disseminating. Os ônibus, carruagens, ciclistas e inúmeras pessoas andando em suas melhores roupas pareciam pouco afetados pela estranha informação que os vendedores de notícias divulgavam. Омнибусы, кареты, велосипедисты и бесчисленное множество людей, идущих в своих лучших нарядах, казалось, почти не реагировали на странные сведения, которые распространяли продавцы новостей. People were interested, or, if alarmed, alarmed only on account of the local residents. As pessoas ficaram interessadas ou, se alarmadas, alarmadas apenas por causa dos residentes locais. At the station he heard for the first time that the Windsor and Chertsey lines were now interrupted. Na estação, ele ouviu pela primeira vez que as linhas Windsor e Chertsey estavam interrompidas. The porters told him that several remarkable telegrams had been received in the morning from Byfleet and Chertsey stations, but that these had abruptly ceased. Os carregadores disseram-lhe que vários telegramas notáveis haviam sido recebidos pela manhã das estações de Byfleet e Chertsey, mas que haviam cessado abruptamente. My brother could get very little precise detail out of them. Meu irmão conseguia obter muito poucos detalhes precisos deles.

“There’s fighting going on about Weybridge” was the extent of their information. “Há uma luta acontecendo em torno de Weybridge”, foi a extensão de suas informações.

The train service was now very much disorganised. O serviço de trem agora estava muito desorganizado. Quite a number of people who had been expecting friends from places on the South-Western network were standing about the station. Muitas pessoas que esperavam amigos de lugares da rede South-Western estavam em pé ao redor da estação. One grey-headed old gentleman came and abused the South-Western Company bitterly to my brother. Um velho senhor de cabelos grisalhos veio e abusou amargamente da South-Western Company com meu irmão. “It wants showing up,” he said. “Ele quer aparecer”, disse ele. «Он хочет показать себя», — сказал он.

One or two trains came in from Richmond, Putney, and Kingston, containing people who had gone out for a day’s boating and found the locks closed and a feeling of panic in the air. Um ou dois trens chegaram de Richmond, Putney e Kingston, contendo pessoas que haviam saído para um dia de navegação e encontraram as eclusas fechadas e uma sensação de pânico no ar. Один или два поезда прибыли из Ричмонда, Патни и Кингстона с людьми, которые отправились на дневную прогулку на лодке и обнаружили, что шлюзы закрыты, а в воздухе витает паника. A man in a blue and white blazer addressed my brother, full of strange tidings. Um homem com um blazer azul e branco se dirigiu ao meu irmão, cheio de notícias estranhas.

“There’s hosts of people driving into Kingston in traps and carts and things, with boxes of valuables and all that,” he said. “Há muitas pessoas entrando em Kingston em armadilhas e carrinhos e coisas assim, com caixas de objetos de valor e tudo mais”, disse ele. “They come from Molesey and Weybridge and Walton, and they say there’s been guns heard at Chertsey, heavy firing, and that mounted soldiers have told them to get off at once because the Martians are coming. “Eles vêm de Molesey, Weybridge e Walton, e dizem que se ouviram armas em Chertsey, tiros pesados, e que soldados montados lhes disseram para descer imediatamente porque os marcianos estão chegando. We heard guns firing at Hampton Court station, but we thought it was thunder. Ouvimos tiros disparando na estação de Hampton Court, mas pensamos que eram trovões. What the dickens does it all mean? O que diabos isso tudo significa? The Martians can’t get out of their pit, can they?” Os marcianos não podem sair do buraco, podem? "

My brother could not tell him. Meu irmão não pôde contar a ele.

Afterwards he found that the vague feeling of alarm had spread to the clients of the underground railway, and that the Sunday excursionists began to return from all over the South-Western “lung”—Barnes, Wimbledon, Richmond Park, Kew, and so forth—at unnaturally early hours; but not a soul had anything more than vague hearsay to tell of. Posteriormente, ele descobriu que a vaga sensação de alarme se espalhou para os clientes da ferrovia subterrânea, e que os excursionistas de domingo começaram a retornar de todo o "pulmão" do sudoeste - Barnes, Wimbledon, Richmond Park, Kew e assim por diante —Em horas incomuns de madrugada; mas nenhuma alma tinha algo mais do que um vago boato para contar. Everyone connected with the terminus seemed ill-tempered. Todos os que estavam ligados ao terminal pareciam mal-humorados. Все, кто был связан с конечным пунктом, казались вспыльчивыми.

About five o’clock the gathering crowd in the station was immensely excited by the opening of the line of communication, which is almost invariably closed, between the South-Eastern and the South-Western stations, and the passage of carriage trucks bearing huge guns and carriages crammed with soldiers. These were the guns that were brought up from Woolwich and Chatham to cover Kingston. Essas foram as armas que foram trazidas de Woolwich e Chatham para cobrir Kingston. There was an exchange of pleasantries: “You’ll get eaten!” “We’re the beast-tamers!” and so forth. Houve uma troca de gentilezas: “Você vai ser comido!” "Nós somos os domadores de bestas!" e assim por diante. Произошел обмен любезностями: «Вас съедят!» «Мы укротители зверей!» и так далее. A little while after that a squad of police came into the station and began to clear the public off the platforms, and my brother went out into the street again. Pouco depois, um esquadrão da polícia entrou na delegacia e começou a tirar o público das plataformas, e meu irmão saiu para a rua novamente.

The church bells were ringing for evensong, and a squad of Salvation Army lassies came singing down Waterloo Road. On the bridge a number of loafers were watching a curious brown scum that came drifting down the stream in patches. На мосту несколько бездельников наблюдали за любопытной коричневой мразью, которая клочьями плыла вниз по течению. The sun was just setting, and the Clock Tower and the Houses of Parliament rose against one of the most peaceful skies it is possible to imagine, a sky of gold, barred with long transverse stripes of reddish-purple cloud. There was talk of a floating body. Falava-se de um corpo flutuante. Ходили разговоры о плавающем теле. One of the men there, a reservist he said he was, told my brother he had seen the heliograph flickering in the west. Um dos homens lá, um reservista que disse ser, disse a meu irmão que tinha visto o heliógrafo tremeluzindo no oeste.

In Wellington Street my brother met a couple of sturdy roughs who had just been rushed out of Fleet Street with still-wet newspapers and staring placards. Na Wellington Street, meu irmão conheceu dois rudes robustos que tinham acabado de sair correndo da Fleet Street com jornais ainda molhados e cartazes fixos. На Веллингтон-стрит мой брат встретил пару крепких хулиганов, которых только что выгнали с Флит-стрит с еще не высохшими газетами и вытаращенными плакатами. “Dreadful catastrophe!” they bawled one to the other down Wellington Street. “Terrível catástrofe!” eles berraram um para o outro na Wellington Street. “Fighting at Weybridge! Full description! Descrição completa! Repulse of the Martians! London in Danger!” He had to give threepence for a copy of that paper.

Then it was, and then only, that he realised something of the full power and terror of these monsters. Então foi, e somente então, que ele percebeu algo sobre todo o poder e terror desses monstros. Тогда, и только тогда, он осознал всю мощь и ужас этих монстров. He learned that they were not merely a handful of small sluggish creatures, but that they were minds swaying vast mechanical bodies; and that they could move swiftly and smite with such power that even the mightiest guns could not stand against them. Ele aprendeu que eles não eram apenas um punhado de pequenas criaturas preguiçosas, mas que eram mentes balançando vastos corpos mecânicos; e que eles podiam se mover rapidamente e golpear com tal poder que mesmo os mais poderosos canhões não poderiam resistir a eles.

They were described as “vast spiderlike machines, nearly a hundred feet high, capable of the speed of an express train, and able to shoot out a beam of intense heat.” Masked batteries, chiefly of field guns, had been planted in the country about Horsell Common, and especially between the Woking district and London. Их описывали как «огромные паукообразные машины высотой почти в сто футов, способные развивать скорость экспресса и выпускать луч сильного тепла». Батареи в масках, в основном из полевых орудий, были расставлены в окрестностях Хорсел-Коммон и особенно между округом Уокинг и Лондоном. Five of the machines had been seen moving towards the Thames, and one, by a happy chance, had been destroyed. In the other cases the shells had missed, and the batteries had been at once annihilated by the Heat-Rays. Heavy losses of soldiers were mentioned, but the tone of the despatch was optimistic. Упоминались большие потери солдат, но тон депеши был оптимистичным.

The Martians had been repulsed; they were not invulnerable. They had retreated to their triangle of cylinders again, in the circle about Woking. Signallers with heliographs were pushing forward upon them from all sides. Guns were in rapid transit from Windsor, Portsmouth, Aldershot, Woolwich—even from the north; among others, long wire-guns of ninety-five tons from Woolwich. Altogether one hundred and sixteen were in position or being hastily placed, chiefly covering London. Ao todo, cento e dezesseis estavam em posição ou sendo colocados apressadamente, cobrindo principalmente Londres. 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. Esperava-se que quaisquer outros cilindros que caíssem pudessem ser destruídos imediatamente por altos explosivos, que estavam sendo rapidamente fabricados e distribuídos. Была надежда, что любые другие упавшие цилиндры можно будет сразу же уничтожить взрывчатыми веществами, которые быстро производились и распространялись. 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. Sem dúvida, os marcianos eram estranhos e terríveis ao extremo, mas do lado de fora não poderia haver mais de vinte deles contra nossos milhões.

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. E pelo menos um foi eliminado - talvez mais. И по крайней мере один был утилизирован, а может и больше. 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. O público seria bastante alertado sobre a aproximação do perigo, e medidas elaboradas estavam sendo tomadas para a proteção das pessoas nos ameaçados subúrbios do sudoeste. 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. Итак, с повторными заверениями в безопасности Лондона и способности властей справиться с трудностями, это квазипрокламация закрылась.

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. Любопытно, сказал мой брат, видеть, как безжалостно было вырезано и изъято обычное содержание газеты, чтобы освободить это место.

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. По всей Веллингтон-стрит можно было увидеть, как люди развевают розовые простыни и читают, а на Стрэнде внезапно зашумели голоса армии лоточников, следующих за пионерами. Men came scrambling off buses to secure copies. ||||||obtain| Homens saíram correndo dos ônibus para conseguir cópias. Мужчины вылезали из автобусов, чтобы забрать копии. 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. As venezianas de uma loja de mapas em Strand estavam sendo retiradas, disse meu irmão, e um homem com sua roupa de domingo, até luvas amarelo-limão, estava visível dentro da janela, prendendo mapas de Surrey às pressas no vidro.

Going on along the Strand to Trafalgar Square, the paper in his hand, my brother saw some of the fugitives from West Surrey. Seguindo pela Strand até Trafalgar Square, o jornal na mão, meu irmão viu alguns dos fugitivos de West Surrey. There was a man with his wife and two boys and some articles of furniture in a cart such as greengrocers use. Havia um homem com sua esposa e dois meninos e alguns móveis em uma carroça, como o que os verdureiros usam. Там был мужчина с женой и двумя мальчиками, а также несколько предметов мебели в тележке, которую используют овощники.