[Narrator: Richard Burton ("The Journalist")]
There were a dozen dead bodies in the Euston Road, their outlines softened by the black dust. All was still, houses locked and empty, shops closed, but looters had helped themselves to wine and food, and outside a jeweller's, some gold chains and a watch were scattered on the pavement.
In Bloomsbury, the stillness grew even more profound, an odd, unnеrving feeling of suspense, as though the dеstruction which had annihilated the countryside might at any moment strike these gracious houses in the very heart of London and leave all in smoking ruins...
I stopped, staring towards the sound. It seemed as if that mighty desert of houses had found a voice for its fear and solitude.
The desolating cry worked upon my mind. The mood that had sustained me passed. The wailing took possession of me. I was intensely weary, footsore, hungry, and thirsty. Why was I wandering alone in this city of the dead? Why was I alive when London was lying in state, in its black shroud? I felt intolerably lonely, drifting from street to empty street, drawn inexorably towards that cry...
I passed through Portman Square, and from the top of Baker Street saw over the trees in Regent's Park, glittering in the sunlight, the hood of the Martian Fighting Machine from which the howling came... Unbelievably, as I approached it, I was not afraid. It stood quite still, yelling for no reason I could discover. And as I watched, a dog with a piece of putrid meat in its jaws came running past me.
I crossed Regent's Canal, a spongy mass of dark red vegetation, and pushed on towards Primrose Hill. There stood a second Fighting Machine, upright but as still as the first...
Abruptly, the sound ceased. The silence came like a thunderclap. The dusky houses about me stood faint and tall and dim. The trees towards the park were growing black. All about me, the Red Weed crawled, its fronds threatening to overwhelm me. While that voice sounded, the solitude, the desolation, had been endurable. By virtue of it, London had still seemed alive, and the sense of life about me had upheld me. But suddenly there was a change, the passing of something, I knew not what, and then a stillness that could be felt, nothing but this gaunt, quiet...
I looked up and saw a third machine! It was erect and motionless, like the others. An insane resolve possessed me. I would give my life to the Martians here and now!...
I marched recklessly towards the titan, and then, as I drew nearer, I saw that a multitude of black birds were circling and clustering about the hood. At that, my heart gave a bound, and I began running along the road. The thought that had flashed into my mind grew real, grew credible. I felt no fear, only a wild, trembling exultation, as I ran up the hill towards the motionless monster. Out of the hood hung red shreds at which the angry birds now pecked and tore...
In another moment, I had scrambled up the earthen rampart to the crest of Primrose Hill, and the Martians' camp was below me. A mighty space it was, filled with gigantic machines, and scattered about it some in their overturned Fighting Machines, some in the crab-like Handling Machines, and a dozen of them, stark and silent, lying in a row, were the Martians - dead, slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things upon the Earth: Bacteria... Minute, invisible bacteria!...
These germs have plagued us since life began here, but through millions of years, we've developed a resistance to them, becoming immune to many, and succumbing to none without a struggle. But there are no bacteria on Mars... Directly, these invaders arrived and drank and fed, our microscopic allies attacked them. From that moment, they were doomed!...
Man's resistance has been bought at the cost of a billion lives...
