The bride and groom were not dancing right now, because Rocco-a singing waiter from Brooklyn-was sitting in with the band, doing a romantic version of “I Married an Angel” just for Connie.
The last verse was wrapping up when some agitated late-comers wandered in and one of them-stone sober, it would later be recalled-snatched the mike away from Rocco and said, “We’re under attack! We’re being invaded!”
The five-piece group stopped playing, in one-at-a-time train-wreck fashion, and the guests at first laughed. But the speaker-another waiter from Brooklyn, who many of them knew and trusted-told in quick but vivid detail of what he’d heard on the radio newscasts.
Murmuring confusion built to complete panic, as the guests ran to grab their coats and flee before the outer-space invaders could crash the party.
Connie, in tears, rushed to the stage and took the mike to beg her friends and family to stay. “Please don’t spoil my wedding day, everyone!”
A handful remained.
Rocco was again at the microphone.
He began singing “Amazing Grace.”
“The things, whatever they are, do not even venture to poke their heads above the pit. I can see their hiding place plainly in the glare of the searchlights here. With all their reported resources, these creatures can scarcely stand up against heavy machine-gun fire. Anyway, it’s an interesting outing for the troops. I can make out their khaki uniforms, crossing back and forth in front of the lights. It looks almost like a real war.”
At the Chapman farm, the children’s father, Luke, had arrived.
Grandfather had been moving from window to window, staring into the foggy night, his old double-barrel shotgun (retrieved from a kitchen hiding place) ready to blast Martians into green goo. He’d already organized the two boys (even the skeptical Leroy) in the effort of barricading the farmhouse doors with furniture-which of course meant unbarricading the front door to let their father, carrying his own double-barrel shotgun, inside.
Leroy gave it another try, tugging on his father’s sleeve. “Papa…”
“Yes, son?”
The boy gestured toward the glowing radio. “That isn’t real-it’s just a show, a story. The Shadow is on it.”
His father, whose face resembled Grandfather’s minus most of the wrinkles, smiled gently and knelt-leaning on the shotgun-to look the boy right in the eyes. “Son-we’ve had this talk, haven’t we?”
“What talk?”
“About make-believe and real life. I know you love your shows. I know you love to play cowboy and soldier and spaceman. I know you love the Shadow. But you simply have to learn the difference between fantasy and reality.”
“I know the difference. Do you?”
And the kindness left Luke’s expression. He took the boy roughly by the arm and almost threw him onto the sofa.
“You just sit there, young man!”
Leroy shrugged; his eyes were filling with tears, but he refused to let any fall.
Les sat before the radio hugging his sister, who had stopped crying and lapsed into a trembling silence. The altar of news continued issuing forth updates, none of them encouraging. Right now the Signal Corps captain was describing the battle scene at a farm that was within a few miles of the farmhouse the Chapmans currently cowered within.
“Well, we ought to see some action soon,” the captain was saying. “One of the companies is deploying on the left flank. A quick thrust and it will all be over. Now wait a minute, I see something on top of the cylinder. No, it’s nothing but a shadow. Now the troops are on the edge of the Wilmuth farm, seven thousand armed men closing in on an old metal tube. A tub, rather. Wait…that wasn’t a shadow!”
And Leroy, over on a sofa now, arms folded, smugly smiling as he brushed away a tear with a knuckle, thought, Oh yes it was….
Passing photographers laden with full gear, who were scurrying toward the elevator he’d just departed, Ben Gross entered a Daily News city room that bustled like election eve.
An assistant at the city desk called out, “Hey, Ben-what the hell’s going on tonight?”
“You’re asking me?”
The switchboard was ablaze, lines jammed, phones ringing like a swarm of mechanical baby birds demanding to be fed. In their cubicles, rewrite men frantically tried to get through to CBS with zero luck.
A harried switchboard girl sounded like she was doing a skit on the Jack Benny program. “No, madam…no, sir-we don’t know anything about an explosion in New Jersey…. Men from Mars?… Yeah, we know it’s on the radio, but…it didn’t happen…. Nothing’s going on, I tell you!.. No madam…No sir…there ain’t no men from Mars!”
Nearby, another city desk assistant, frazzled beyond belief, was telling an official from the police commissioner’s office, “It’s just a phony-a radio play!”
The assistant city desk man finally hung up, then turned to Gross and pointed an accusatory finger. “You’re the one always touting this guy Welles! You either get CBS on the line, or get your tail over there and see what in God’s name’s going on.”
Gross walked into the radio room and two phones jangled; he picked up a receiver in either hand.
A female voice said, “Are they abandoning New York?”
“No, lady, it’s just a play.”
“Oh no it isn’t!” she screamed, and hung up.
On the other wire was a guy from the Red Cross. “I hear they’re broadcasting about a terrible catastrophe in New Jersey-do you know where it is, so we can get our people out there?”
“It’s only Orson Welles-he’s on with a fantasy, tonight.”
“That can’t be! My wife just called and said thousands have been killed.”
Gross reassured the man that the show was just a show, hung up, and his young female assistant bounded in, looking far less attractive than usual, her hair tendrils of despair, her eyes pools of frustration.
“My God, Mr. Gross! These calls have been driving me batty!”
The radio reviewer said nothing, merely headed for the door.
His assistant nearly shrieked, “You’re not going to leave me all alone with these…these phones, are you?”
“Yes,” he said, already halfway out.
In moments he was on the street, hailing another cab.
Climbing in, Gross realized the cab’s radio was tuned to WEAF.
“Put CBS on,” Gross said, “would you?”
The cabbie did so.
“It’s something moving…solid metal, kind of a shield-like affair rising up out of the cylinder…. Going higher and higher. What?… It’s, it’s standing on legs…actually rearing up on a sort of metal framework. Now it’s reaching above the trees and the searchlights are on it. Hold on!”
“God almighty!” the cab driver said.
“It’s just fiction,” Gross said.
“Are you sure?”
“You don’t see any panic-stricken people running around the streets, do you, bud?”
And as if to prove the reviewer wrong, the cab passed a movie house on Third Avenue, from which half a dozen women and children streamed, while men poured out of nearby bars, to take root on the sidewalks and stare at the sky.
On Lexington Avenue and 51st Street, a woman sat on the curb, crying and screaming, while a cop in the middle of the street stood mobbed by agitated citizens.
“Fiction or not,” the cabbie said, “something the hell’s goin’ on!”
And yet when Gross was dropped off at the Columbia Broadcasting Building, no sign of outer or inner turmoil could be seen-the usual number of pedestrians strolled by, traffic seemed about normal.
No one would ever guess that this was the County Seat of Hysteria in the United States, right now.