…Thunder Child.
"H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" first appeared in 1897 and described in terrifying detail how late-Victorian Britain was powerless to resist the devastation wreaked by huge Martian "walking machine" tripods armed with heat-rays (Lasers!) and "black smoke" poison gas. The most dramatic and memorable incident involves frantic efforts of refugees to escape in ships across the English Channel to France. The story is told from the viewpoint of the narrator's brother, who is on one of the steamers. Just as this vessel draws away from the British coast three Martian tripods appear and begin to wade out after her. Let's hear how Wells tells it:
"About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad, very low in the water, almost, to my brother's perception, like a waterlogged ship. This was the ram Thunder Child. It was the only warship in sight, but far away to the right over the smooth surface of the sea – for that day there was a dead calm –lay a serpent of black smoke to mark the next ironclads of the Channel Fleet, which hovered in an extended line, steam up and ready for action, across the Thames estuary during the course of the Martian conquest, vigilant and yet powerless to prevent it…"
The Thunder Child drives towards the Martians…
"…. Big iron upperworks rose out of this headlong structure, and from that twin funnels projected and spat a smoking blast shot with fire. It was the torpedo ram, Thunder Child, steaming headlong, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping…"
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Amicalement
Armand
