In another moment the huge wave, well-nigh at the boiling-point had
rushed upon me.  I screamed aloud, and scalded, half blinded,
agonised, I staggered through the leaping, hissing water towards the
shore.  Had my foot stumbled, it would have been the end.  I fell
helplessly, in full sight of the Martians, upon the broad, bare
gravelly spit that runs down to mark the angle of the Wey and Thames.
I expected nothing but death.