"Oh, one can't always work," he said, and in a flash I saw the man
plain.  He hesitated, holding his spade.  "We ought to reconnoitre
now," he said, "because if any come near they may hear the spades and
drop upon us unawares."

I was no longer disposed to object.  We went together to the roof
and stood on a ladder peeping out of the roof door.  No Martians were
to be seen, and we ventured out on the tiles, and slipped down under
shelter of the parapet.

From this position a shrubbery hid the greater portion of Putney,
but we could see the river below, a bubbly mass of red weed, and the
low parts of Lambeth flooded and red.  The red creeper swarmed up the
trees about the old palace, and their branches stretched gaunt and
dead, and set with shrivelled leaves, from amid its clusters.  It was
strange how entirely dependent both these things were upon flowing
water for their propagation.  About us neither had gained a footing;
laburnums, pink mays, snowballs, and trees of arbor-vitae, rose out of
laurels and hydrangeas, green and brilliant into the sunlight.  Beyond
Kensington dense smoke was rising, and that and a blue haze hid the
northward hills.