Day 15 – Tuesday – The 1897 War of the Worlds

On the Martian’s Smelting of Aluminium

15-Jun 00:01 – Tuesday

This is Wells and the curate’s 7th day confined to their Sheen prison and we join Wells as he continues to observe the mining operation the Martians have set up in the pit.

In London, Morant has pulled together a team to capture a heat ray. However, on their return they will be ambushed by a group of civilians who claim to be from the 4^th Coy. Coldstream Guards.

Today, Toni’s diary reminds us that even the strong have moments of fear. And once again, her writing foreshadows changes to come.

East of London, Lieutenant Carver and his scratch unit arrive at Tilbury to find the Ferry tied up at the quay and covered with corpses. While further West, Lieutenant Dullanty (4th Coy. Coldstream Guards) arrives at Greenwich without having been spotted by the Martians.

15-Jun 06:00 @BreakerMorant #WeWantAHeatRay

Our operation to get a heat gun is ready. Men have been formed into two teams. Vogan is taking 5 artillery men to Weybridge to knock down a tripod.

15-Jun 07:00 @BreakerMorant #WeWantAHeatRay

No Martians were sighted. With in my team are 3 railway engineers, 2 cavalry soldiers and Pierre Curie. We all ride horses and the gun carriage to our assembly point.

15-Jun 07:30 @BreakerMorant #WeWantAHeatRay

We arrive with no incident. We go through our escape plans. All of us have taken a small amount of arsenic. Won’t protect us from the heat-ray though.

15-Jun 08:00 @ToniWantsToVote

Found @lizcadbury crying before breakfast. Her #children and #husband. She has no idea if they #gotout before #blacksmoke. So relieved my parents live so far north. #abovetheline #angry #thingswillchange

15-Jun 09:25 @ToniWantsToVote

@lizcadbury is such as #strongwoman #survivor #organiser

15-Jun 10:00 @LtCarver

From the personal log of Lt. Roger Carver, #RoyalMarines HMS Thunder Child, 15 June 1897, 11:00 GMT:

We arrived at Tilbury to find the Ferry tied up at the quay and covered with dead bodies: men, women and children all bundled together. They looked strangely peaceful. Every surface is covered with a fine black dust that clings uneasily to one’s skin.

All the men – Marines, Horse Guards, and infantry – worked as one to quickly remove the bodies before placing them in a single shallow grave. I spoke the simple words of commitment and promised resurrection. Words held back from those who had shot for desertion only 6 days before.

Corporal Markinson, who served in the engine room before transferring to the marines, assures me the ferry should work once we have relit her boiler. With a pump and hose, we’ve cleared much of the black dust off the boat. After the horrors of the past few days, this is welcome news.

15-Jun 11:00 @HGWells #MartianMining

Still imprisoned with the curate in the house in Sheen, Wells observes that the capsule’s Martian has been joined by the occupants of 3 other fighting-machines.

The 3 tripods have brought with them fresh appliances. A second handling-machine has been completed, and busies itself in serving one of the contrivances a tripod had brought, and from which a stream of white powder flows into a circular basin below.
Wells is suprised to realise the Martian’s are mining aluminium from clay in the pit.

With 2 spatulate hands the machine digs out and flings clay into a pear-shaped receptacle above, before regularly opening a door and removing blackened clinkers from the middle of the machine.

Another steely tentacle then directs the powder from the basin along a ribbed channel towards some receiver hidden from Wells’ view by a mound of bluish dust. From this unseen receiver a little thread of green smoke rises vertically into the quiet air.

Then the handling-machine extends, telescopical fashion, a tentacle that a moment before was a mere blunt projection, until its end is hidden behind the mound of clay. In another second it lifts a bar of white aluminium into sight. #MartianAluminium

The shining aluminium is deposited in a growing stack of bars standing beside the pit. Wells estimates the Martians will produce more than a hundred such bars out of the crude clay during daylight hours, but cannot suggest what they will use the metal for.

15-Jun 11:30 @HGWells #MartianMining #FlyingMachine

Later examination of the Martian’s flying machine suggests that a significant proportion of the produced aluminium must have gone into its production. One recent estimate suggesting that it would have included nearly 40 tonnes of aluminium.

15-Jun 13:00 @BreakerMorant #WeWantAHeatRay

Vogan knocked down a tripod. As expected, the tripods went after Vogan and left us to retrieve the heat gun from the fallen tripod.

15-Jun 14:00 @BreakerMorant #WeWantAHeatRay

The Railway engineers help Pierre Curie to remove the heat gun. We were all needed to place it on the gun carriage.

15-Jun 14:30 @BreakerMorant #WeLostOurHeatRay

There were no problems from the Martians, and we had a heat gun on the gun carriage, but when we were headed back to Waterloo, we were ambushed by a group of civilians who claimed to be from the 4^th Coy. Coldstream Guards. They had a toff in charge, who said he was Lt. Kilvaney.

They took Pierre Curie, the gun carriage and our horses. Offered to write me a receipt and I told him exactly what he could do with that.

15-Jun 23:05 @ToniWantsToVote

@hgwellsbro was thinking of you tonight. #hope #ishealive #Woking

15-Jun 23:30 @LtJRDullanty #PersonalDiary

We camped that day at St Margaret’s Church, Plumstead. Before moving onto Greenwich we confirmed the heliograph allowed us to communicate with Tilford – it did. Just love when a plan comes together.

Arrived at Greenwich shortly before Midnight.