Leaving two soldiers behind at the copse Lieutenant Dullanty led 1st and 2nd Platoons towards our target. We were less than 25 yards away when a loud cry of ‘ulla’ indicated we’d been made.
“Run,” the Lieutenant yelled, even as I felt the burning fire of the heat-ray sweep over our heads.
We reached the shelter of the building just as a crashing sound announced a tripod pounding down the hill towards us. “Fuse!” the Lieutenant called as he pressed a stick of dynamite into the soft ground surrounding the building. I copied him, and realised the metal skin of the building was white with frost. Someone swore as their hand touched the metal.
Suddenly there was a scream and I looked up to see the Martian tripod towering over us. A tentacle swept down, seizing the Lieutenant and jerking him into the air. For a moment it was as though time stopped dead, then I watched him calmly light the fuse of the stick of dynamite he still clutched in his hand.
The Martian’s tentacle lifted Lieutenant Dullanty into the air, even as his arm tossed the now sputtering stick into the cage suspended on the back of the tripod’s body. There was a muffled explosion, and a creak of tearing metal as the tripod collapsed slowly sidewards, the Lieutenant landing heavily on the ground beside it.
Two of the men ran over to the Lieutenant, pulling him back to us. He was still alive, but was coughing blood. Never a good thing.
“Are the explosives set?” he demanded.
“Another couple of minutes,” I told him.
“I don’t think you’ve got that Sergeant,” he said, as the strident cry of ‘ulla ulla ulla’ sounded from the top of the hill, and another tripod started towards us, followed by something much smaller, that seemed to crawl on multiple articulated legs. “Go! I’ll set the explosives.”
“Sir!” I protested.
“That’s an order, Sergeant. I’d only slow you down. Go!”
“Sir,” I stood up and saluted him. Before giving the order to pull back.
We’d almost reached the copse when the sharp crack of a single firecracker caused me to throw myself to the ground, just before the rolling noise of an explosion deafened my ears. Peering back I saw the building we’d targeted split as burning white light silhouetted the two Martian machines, and then the noise of the fuel exploding followed. As the light faded slightly, turning slightly yellow, I saw a speck of white flame racing up the hill, the fuel line peeling back in front of it until the flame reached the outside of the flying machine’s stable.
For a moment there was simply silence, then an explosion that was like a cannon to the previous explosion’s rifle shot. As we cowered on the ground the stable’s roof cartwheeled high into the air over our head, before crashing to the ground somewhere on the far side of Regent’s Canal.
