A ruthless invader equipped with armoured war machines pursues a beaten army and thousands of civilian refugees to a small coastal town. A motley collection of civilian boats of all shapes and sizes – "fishing smacks… steam launches from the Thames, yachts" - comes to their rescue. The Royal Navy fights a heroic battle to gain them time as they flee.

This sounds like Dunkirk in 1940, in which Maldon's "little ships" played no small part, but it's actually a description written in 1897 of an alien invasion, and the evacuation of civilians from Maldon and the Blackwater.

Maldon is the subject of two literary battles: the factual Battle of Maldon in the Anglo-Saxon poem, and the fictional dramatic encounter between three Martian tripods and HMS Thunder Child in H.G. Wells' visionary novel, The War of the Worlds.

H.G. Wells lived in Little Easton, Great Dunmow, between 1910 and 1928. He was already familiar with the area through his association with the Duchess of Warwick, who lived at Easton Lodge. The War of the Worlds was actually published in novel form in 1898 (having been serialised the year before), but it's clear from reading it that Wells was familiar with both the Dengie Peninsula and the Blackwater.

In the book, the narrator's brother is fleeing the Martian war machines with two women. London falls to the invaders, amid scenes of mass panic. The three head towards Colchester, and stop at Chelmsford, where a "Committee of Public Supply" confiscate their pony. They decide to head for the sea, and end up at Tillingham, where they see a multitude of ships and boats, which, unable to access the Thames, have headed up the Blackwater to rescue refugees.

They manage to board a paddle steamer, and at this point they see the "torpedo-ram" HMS Thunder Child. Wells' description is chilling: "The low Essex coast was growing blue and hazy, when a Martian appeared, small and faint in the remote distance, advancing along the muddy coast from the direction of Foulness."

Wells describes other machines approaching and wading into the water after the ships with terrifying determination. At this point HMS Thunder Child intervenes, steaming straight towards the first war machine. The ship uses its ram to bring down the first tripod before it realises what is happening, and advances on the second. This deploys its heat ray to destroy the ship, but is caught up in the explosion and disappears. The refugees' ship escape in the confusion.

While this is an extraordinary work of imagination, H.G. Wells was serious about his research. HMS Thunder Child is clearly based on HMS Polyphemus, an experimental ship designed to operate in shallow coastal waters (such as the Blackwater).

While Maldon readers probably appreciated the local references (while perhaps wondering why the tripods didn't get stuck in the mud), The War of the Worlds caused widespread panic in the USA in 1938 when Orson Welles broadcast an adaptation posing as a real-time news transmission. Some men even queued at army recruiting offices.

The War of the Worlds has an uncanny relevance to our current times – not that alien invasion is on the agenda for 2021 (so far!). Wells' description of eerily deserted city streets seem disturbingly familiar, as is his portrayal of a society shaken by totally unanticipated events. Wells' novel even has deadly microbes – only they are on our side. After overwhelming all defences the aliens are laid low by the unfamiliar germs of Earth: "the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this Earth."