I was soaked with hail above and puddle water below.  It was some
time before my blank astonishment would let me struggle up the bank to
a drier position, or think at all of my imminent peril.

Not far from me was a little one-roomed squatter's hut of wood,
surrounded by a patch of potato garden.  I struggled to my feet at
last, and, crouching and making use of every chance of cover, I made a
run for this.  I hammered at the door, but I could not make the people
hear (if there were any people inside), and after a time I desisted,
and, availing myself of a ditch for the greater part of the way,
succeeded in crawling, unobserved by these monstrous machines, into
the pine woods towards Maybury.