Cry “Ullar, Ullar, Ullar”
Today, we follow Wells (to some extent a victim of the Martians) as he passes through the heart of an apparently dead London, witnessed only by the mournful cry of ‘Ulla Ulla Ulla’ in the distance.
Against this, Toni’s diary chronicles the events of this momentous day through the eyes of a survivor. Even though strange sounds echo through London, she and Elizabeth Cadbury make the trek north to collect more supplies for the hospital. Along the way, they encounter an empty Martian machine, and the first incredulous seeds of hope are sown.
Woke early again feeling thankful for #nurses. Had a decent night’s sleep. Think I’m still catching up from the last few weeks. #StillTired
Very quiet this morning. Can see a #Martian on the horizon. #NotMoving #RedWeed is now covered in white patches. #FeelsOminous
Lost another #patient this morning. Never knew it would #HurtSoMuch. Didn’t even know her, just her first name. #RIPMillie.
Rising at dawn, Wells, heads down the hill, taking the High Street across the bridge to Lambeth where 2 hrs later he finds the bridge roadway choked by the red weed. The weed is already showing signs of disease, it’s fronds brittle and bleached.
At the corner of the lane that runs to Putney Bridge Station Wells finds a man lying on the road. Wells describes him as being ‘as black as a sweep with the black dust, alive, but helplessly and speechlessly drunk.’ Wells gets nothing from him but curses.
Wells finds black dust along the roadway from the bridge, growing thicker as he heads north towards Walham Green which he reaches after an hour. To Wells the streets are horribly quiet, but he finds food—sour, hard, and mouldy, but quite eatable—in a baker’s shop.
Running low on #anaesthetic and #AntiSeptics. Trying to steel myself for another trip to retrieve supplies. #gasmask #Martians #BlackSmoke @GraceHarwoodStewart says only one of us can go. #SheHasMoreSkills
@LizCadbury has obtained #KnapSacks and will come with me. @EdithCavellNurse and @GraceHarwoodStewart will hold the fort here. We will leave this afternoon about 4pm and travel undercover of #RedWeed and #PartialDarkness. #MoonIsStillBright Full moon was on the 22nd.
#StillAfraid #SafeHere #MustGo #IKnowWhatWeNeed
As Wells approaches Walham Green the streets become clear of the black dust, and when he passes a white terrace of houses on fire; he reports that the noise of the burning was an absolute relief. Going on towards Brompton, he finds the streets quiet again.
As he walks Wells counts a dozen bodies in the length of the Fulham Road. They had been dead many days, the black powder covering them, and softening their outlines. One or two had been disturbed by dogs.
In the absence of black powder, Wells feels it was curiously like a Sunday in the City, with closed shops, houses locked up and their blinds drawn. In some places Wells notes that plunderers had been at work, but rarely at other than the provision and wine-shops.
In one place Wells sees a broken jeweller’s window, a number of gold chains and a watch laying scattered on the pavement. Farther on a tattered woman lies in a heap on a doorstep; seemingly asleep, but in reality dead, a smashed magnum of champagne forming a pool at her feet.
The farther Wells penetrates into London, the profounder grows the stillness. Wells writes that he thought it not so much the stillness of death—as the stillness of suspense, of expectation.
At any time the destruction that had already singed the northwestern borders of the metropolis, and had annihilated Ealing and Kilburn, might strike among these houses, leaving them smoking ruins. It appeared a city condemned and derelict.
Strange sounds #ulla-ulla #haunting #whatcanitmean?
#Ulla-Ulla hurts our ears. Echoing through #DesertedLondon.
In South Kensington Wells finds the streets clear of dead and of black powder. It is near South Kensington that he first hears the howling. It creeps almost imperceptibly upon his senses. It is a sobbing alternation of two notes, ‘Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla.’
When Wells passes streets that runs north the cry of ‘ulla’ grows in volume, even as houses and buildings deaden and cut it off. It comes to a full tide down Exhibition Road where he stops, staring towards Kensington Gardens, wondering at this strange wailing. Wells turns north.
All the large mansions on each side of Exhibition Road are empty and still, and Wells writes that his footsteps echo against the sides of the houses. At the top, near the park gate, Wells comes upon a bus overturned, and the skeleton of a horse picked clean.
The ‘Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,’ seems to Wells to be coming from the district about Regent’s Park. He later writes how the desolating cry works upon his mind, taking possession of him and he finds himself intensely weary, footsore, and now again hungry and thirsty.
To Wells, it appears London is lying in state – shrouded in black and intolerably lonely. Coming into Oxford Street by Marble Arch Wells once again finds the black powder and several bodies, and an evil, ominous smell from the gratings of the cellars of some of the houses.
We have decided to investigate. @LizCadbury and I were going out for #MedicalSupplies anyway. The sounds appear to be coming from the north. #fear #WhyAmIAlwaysFrightened #IAmWithLiz #SheIsMyRock #SoundsAreOnTheWay
#IHavePockets #IHaveGasMask #WeWillBeSafe #IKnowTheWay
Thirsty after the heat of his long walk Wells, manages-with some trouble-to break into a public-house to get food and drink. Weary after eating, Wells goes into the parlour behind the bar, and falls sleeps on a black horse-hair sofa he finds there.
Wells wakes, after dusk, to the continued dismal howling of: “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla.” After routing out some biscuits and a cheese in the bar he wanders on through the silent residential squares to Baker Street, coming out at last upon Regent’s Park.
Emerging from the top of Baker Street, he sees far away over the trees in the clearness of the sunset the hood of the Martian giant from which this howling proceeded. Wells watches him for some time, but the Martian’s machine doesn’t move.
Wells later suggests that he was too tired to be fearful. Certainly he reports that he was more curious to know the reason of this monotonous crying than afraid. He turns away from Regent’s Park and strikes into Park Road, intending to skirt the park.
Emerging 200 yards out of Baker Street Wells hears a yelping chorus, and sees a dog with a piece of putrescent red meat in his jaws pursued by a pack of starving mongrels. As the yelping dies away down the silent road, the wailing sound of “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” reasserts itself.
It is here, that Wells comes upon a wrecked handling-machine. At first he thinks a house had fallen across the road, it is only as he clambers among the ruins that he recognises the machine, its tentacles bent and smashed and twisted, among the ruins it had made.
Wells describes the machine’s forepart as shattered, as though it had driven blindly straight at the house, and had been overwhelmed in its overthrow. Perhaps, Wells considers, this might have happened by a handling-machine escaping from the guidance of its Martian.
Twilight was now so advanced that Wells fails to see the blood that smears its seat, nor the gnawed gristle of the Martian that presumably Wells’ dogs had left. Evidence recently identified in @RotchWood archives to which this program had been granted special permission.
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Wells now pushes on towards Primrose Hill. Through a gap in the trees, he can see a 2nd Martian, standing silent and motionless in the park towards the Zoological Gardens. A little beyond the smashed handling-machine he finds Regent’s Canal a spongy mass of dark-red vegetation.
Even as Wells crossed the bridge over Regent’s Canal, the sound of “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” ceases. To Wells, it is as though it were, cut off. He later writes that ‘the silence came like a thunder-clap’.
As Wells stands there, surrounded by houses: faint, tall and dim; the trees towards the park are growing black. Around him the red weed clambers among the ruins, writhing to get above him in the dimness. And in the dark he feels night, the mother of fear and mystery, approaching.
To Wells the windows in the white houses that surround him becomes the eye-sockets of skulls, and as terror seizes him, he runs headlong down St. John’s Wood Road, and away towards Kilburn.
Finally reached #BryanstonSquare Trip was strange. #UllaUlla #Martians were not moving. Found #BrokenMartianMachine along the way. #empty #blood? Took a sample for #analysis Could it be #dead?
#RedWeed turning to dust in places #hope? #IsItReallyPossible?
Knapsacks full of #MedicalSupplies Heading home to #QueenAnnesMansions Will write more on my return.
THEY ARE DEAD. WE ARE SAVED. THINGS WILL CHANGE.