The Artilleryman’s Adventure

This is a story I wrote to fit in with H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” and as such only really makes sense if you’ve read the book.don quixotedon quixote

His regiment was gone. destroyed, obliterated, evaporated just like that. All it took was a blast from that invisible fire beam of theirs, and the Martians had erased all of them in a wave of fire. he had found Brigadier lieutenant Marvin, who had been able to throw him in with a new camp of men. he had barely had time to greet all of them before they were preparing for the appearance of the martians over the ridge, off towards Woking. None of them had seen the martians yet, and so he had been buried under a mountain of curious, and fearful, questions. he found that he barely knew how to answer half or more of them, so busy had he been with surviving his engagements with the fearsome metallic giants. it didn’t matter much, after all, since they would be seeing the creatures for themselves quite soon. at least, some of them would, though others wouldn’t be capable of catching a glimpse of their doom before the flames engulfed them. for his part, he had at least somewhat understood the death that was approaching, but even that wouldn’t have been enough to save him, had he not had the fantastic luck to see the Martians fire off the canon at a nearby regiment. he had immediately dived for cover, also known as an uncommonly deep latrine. almost nothing else would have saved him, his new allies quickly found, as the Martians had an unerringly disturbing tendency to target shelters, such as tents, buildings and lean-to’s. even under the canons wasn’t safe, as any metal has a tendency to melt under high temperature. he laid there for he didn’t know how long, smelling shit, piss, and burning flesh. When he woke up, the Martians were gone, left for London, as he was later able to learn. he made a halfhearted search for survivors, but knew that there wouldn’t be any, and if they had managed to live, they’d probably left already. he felt some sadness at the fact threat the man from Woking, who had sent his Wife to Leatherhead was probably dead, but didn’t have the time or energy to put much thought into it. as far as he knew, the rest of the country could well be dead or enslaved.