The narrator begins to relate the experiences of his brother, a medical student in London. Like most Londoners, his brother remained long unaware of the gravity of the situation. On Saturday (the day of the first Martian attacks), he attempted to visit the narrator to get a glimpse of the Martians, but no trains were running that evening to Woking (the town containing Maybury). The next day, as more news reached London, the narrator’s brother again tried and failed to secure passage on a train.

Soon, the narrator’s brother beholds a mass of miserable refugees arriving from the direction of Woking, and he questions some among them. Eventually, he finds a man from Woking who reports the town was destroyed entirely. The narrator’s brother reads a newspaper report which asserts that the situation will be brought under control, but he finds the haste with which it was printed and dispersed disconcerting.

That night, the narrator’s brother hears distant shooting but returns home to sleep. He is awoken before dawn Monday morning to a city under attack. The Martians have reached London, and one man reports that they have begun using a dark, poisonous gas, which the narrator later calls Black Smoke, to neutralize resistance.