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When he broke the surface again, he knew he was nearly done. These great feats of endurance, they took their toll and he was shivering. He had drunk so much water and his strength was leaving
him. He could barely tread water; he had to lie back and float – and thank goodness for Henry. Henry was there again, his face repaired, and he held him up. Then Henry was shaking him,
because he was suddenly sleepy. His big friend was slapping him gently. He was wrapping a tie around his wrist. Then, instinct taking over, he took a great lungful of air and was diving for what
had to be the last time.

This time Henry was leading and Miles was tied to him. He hardly had to do anything; it was as if he was under the boy’s arm, drawn onwards. Then the inky water around him seemed to catch
fire and he was hallucinating more violently than ever. All around him, fire was rolling and it was the roof of Ribblestrop. He’d set it ablaze; he had no one to blame but himself. He had
packed the broken-down organ with paper and paraffin rags and it had gone up like a torch. So much anger and anger burned best of all! The whole cave was on fire and Miles was a bullet in a gun,
shooting through it. A black-and-gold tie tugged at his wrist – if he could only slip it off, undo the knot . . . but Henry was pulling hard and the waters were rushing.

He saw Sanchez now; he saw Ruskin. The headmaster was by the side too, cheering him on, and out of nowhere a boy in the luminous strip of Ribblestrop High came at him. It was a swinging tackle,
but Miles swam over it, the ball miraculously still at his feet. His mother was waving, on her feet with excitement, because he was going to score again – the winning goal was his. Still
there was fire and he knew he was the one burning. He was flying forward like a comet and the water could not extinguish him.

Someone had a handful of his hair.

They were dragging him and the pain of his torn scalp cut through the hallucinations. He was on his knees in mud and Henry was standing, pulling him up.

In his hands, Miles felt a thick, brass pipe.

He managed to look up and he saw that it ran through a low arch of rock and he glimpsed more pipework.

The two boys dragged each other, and though there was such stillness in the pump-room, and though they were half-dead, they both were overwhelmed by a feeling that time was against them. Just as
they wanted to rest, they knew they had to be fast. They crawled and staggered, using the pipes for support. The plumbing was thick about them – it was a maze. But soon they were at the
centre and there was the great glass column.

The chamber it held was full of brown water.

Miles would return, to contemplate it. Unknown to anyone, he would bring a small bottle and preserve some of that water. It would always be holy to him.

Because Millie had no more air.

The water was so dirty that they didn’t see her at first. But Miles saw movement.

If he had not, then Millie would have drowned: she had another thirty seconds of life – forty-five at the most.

He saw a hand, fluttering at the very top of the water. Then he saw a shoe kick the glass about halfway up. At once, he threw himself against it.

Henry leaped into action too. They both moved round the chamber, in an agony of helplessness, shouting – screaming. They saw Millie’s face and her eyes were closed.

Then Miles had the gun, as if someone had put it there.

He had forgotten that he had it. How had it not dropped as he swam? He had pushed it hard into his belt and it was heavy. He pulled off the safety and the mechanism ran with water – it
would not fire, but he had to try. He had a moment of terrible indecision. To shoot the lock? The lock was a wheel and the wheel had been bent. No: he would have to shoot the glass.

He did so and the first bullet ricocheted straight off and punctured pipes above his head. Spouts of water cascaded from ceiling to floor.

He tried to aim straight, but the second bullet did the same, and he feared for Henry, who was moving somewhere behind him. Again, punctured pipes sprayed over them both. Millie was helpless at
the top of her death-chamber, her face crushed against the ceiling. Miles held the gun close and fired three more times. At last the glass was broken.

It was Henry who knew what to do next. After the second gunshot, he took hold of the nearest pipe and wrenched it from its stopcock. The brass fittings were sealed and bolted, but he simply tore
at them, ignoring the new geysers that sprang up around him. With a metre of metal pipe in his hands, he set to work on Miles’s bullet-hole. The glass around it cracked, and he twisted his
weapon and attacked the centre of the crack. As Miles fired again, he had a hole as big as his wrist and water was gushing from it. He fired one more time and the glass split like an egg, the
deluge of water knocking Miles backwards.

Henry attacked the brass seals. Inspiration seized him and he leaped upwards and hung from a convenient pipe, so that he could kick with his big boots. The first kick produced a crack from top
to bottom. The second opened the chamber in half – the two sides simply came apart and the water cascaded out in a river. Millie was sluiced out onto the pump-room floor and she lay with her
hair plastered over her face, like a dead thing. Her skin was white and rubbery and she was covered in algae and weed. She was a creature of the lake; it was as if the waters had claimed her and
released her only with reluctance.

Miles lifted her carefully. They were surrounded by broken glass. He checked her airway and laid her in the recovery position.

Then he and Henry sat, dazed, unable to speak, watching her breathe. The miracle of her chest, rising and falling, drawing in air . . . it was almost too much to look at. The wonder of her face,
gradually taking colour – Miles sat close, but dared not touch her again. They were surrounded by water and glass, and the glass was like ice.

It was some ten minutes later that Brother Rees arrived.

He had led Sanchez over the lake, wading in mud so thick it threatened to suck them down. At last they got to the dry dock – the well, through which O’Hanrahan and the Cuthbertsons
had made their escape.

It was a difficult climb, but they were both desperate and fearless, and they braced themselves against the walls, helping each other. At last they found the remains of a rusty ladder, bolted in
place, and they descended to the pump-room.

The devastation was tremendous, though most of the ruptured pipes were now only trickling. They didn’t see Millie at first and stood there, astonished, trying to make sense of the
wreckage.

Miles looked up and saw his friend. Sanchez saw Miles and limped over the mess towards him. When he saw Millie, he cried out and dropped to his knees. He cried out again and again, and Miles had
to hold him tight, for he looked desperate.

‘It’s alright,’ said Miles, when he could make Sanchez hear. ‘Everything’s alright.’

On the lake, things were getting more complicated.

For the four men in the boat, it was an experience of the most terrible despair. They were wet, cold, and in pain. There had been the one moment of joy, as the boat catapulted them to what they
thought was safety: now they were frightened. A hundred metres away, a car was on the lakeside, flashing its lights. Behind them, they could hear their own engine revving uselessly.

Gary Cuthbertson was up to his chest in cold water, feeling the mudbank that gripped the keel of the boat. Darren and Percy were trying to rock in time together, to dislodge it that way. The old
man simply sat with chattering teeth, clutching the sword. After his tenth mouthful of muddy water, Gary gave up.

‘We’ll have to wait for it to drop further,’ he gasped. ‘Then we can get off. It’s either that, or swimming.’

‘We’re in the middle of the lake!’ hissed the policeman. ‘Can
you
swim that far? With half a tonne of metal under your arm?’

The policeman threw his weight against the side of the boat, hoping to dislodge it. He tripped on Darren’s legs and was a hair’s breadth from going overboard. He sat down again, his
head in his hands.

‘I can’t shift this bloody thing with you three sitting it!’ shouted Gary. ‘If you get in the water, we might have a chance!’

Their shouts drifted over the water, like the calls of furious birds.

It was at that point that Sam reappeared.

He had squeezed out from under Sushamila’s paw at his first opportunity, having been washed three times over. Once out of the cage, he was running. He took the same route as the tigers,
following the disused railway into the labyrinth and soon he was pelting up the tunnels towards Tomaz’s house. He stood in his friend’s ruined chambers, numb with shock, and turned in
confused circles, helpless and confused. On the floor lay a soldering-iron and next to that the radio-controlled submarine. At least he could salvage something, so he gathered it all together and
hurried on to Neptune.

The relief as he clambered out and saw his friends nearly made him faint. He slithered wearily down the giant’s shoulder and the boys were reunited.

Oli stared at what Sam was carrying.

‘Jake. What did I just say?’ he said, in a voice squeaking with astonishment.

‘You said you wished you had your submarine,’ said Ruskin. ‘Oh! Sam! What an inspiration! Sanjay! Plan E, section thirty-two. We can do it! We’ve got the sub.’

Sanjay squelched back to the shore, rubbing his hands.

‘You sure about this, Oli?’ he said.

‘Yes. I’m sure Millie won’t mind when I explain. You see, it’s hers really.’

‘There won’t be anything left,’ said Sanjay. ‘You clear about that?’

He picked up a watertight package and Ruskin directed the torch. Oli went down on his knees and started to unscrew a nose-panel. He had pliers in his pocket, so the wiring alterations were not a
problem.

‘She’s going to lose buoyancy,’ he said. ‘The charge is going to weigh her down. Mmm, it would be best if I swam with her, till we get the speed up.’

Sanjay started to strip. ‘You can’t even swim,’ he said.

Sam packed the explosive and Oli improvised a fusing system. He hated working at this kind of pace and was horribly aware that if he pressed the switch by accident, there’d be a huge
detonation immediately under his nose – a detonation that would take his head off. However, he was not going to confess to these fears and he carried on cutting and fixing.

They could hear the shouts of the men getting louder and louder. It looked as if three of them now were in the water, dragging at the boat. Meanwhile, the rest of the orphans were walking out
towards them on the wire.

Sanjay was shivering as he took the sub. Sam started the motors and, once the propellers were spinning, they lowered it into the shallows of the lake. It did feel heavy, but Sanjay kept pace
with it, taking some of its weight. The little craft picked up speed and Sanjay started to swim. A few metres more and it was on its own; soon it reached maximum velocity and that was just enough
to keep its central-stack proud of the water.

Oli walked out into the mud, his eyes only on the vessel. He balanced the motors so that it followed a gentle curve out towards the stricken speedboat.

As they watched, the speedboat started to move.

The shouts of rage had turned to cheers. The Cuthbertsons had tried one last time to heave the vessel upwards and – astonishingly – they must have timed it perfectly with
Darren’s pressing on the throttle. The keel was suddenly hauling itself through the mud, upwards and onwards. It took a good ten seconds to get completely clear and then it shot forward.
Darren eased the rudder round, to return for the swimmers – and so for another half-minute the speedboat was still.

Oli, Ruskin, Sam, and Sanjay were all gathered by the radio set. They watched the boat rock and right itself – the four men were inside. Oli adjusted the starboard motor and the sub veered
to the left a little. He could see how critical it was. The tightrope-walkers were coming, but they weren’t going to make it. The speedboat was turning away from them. He pushed the
sub’s motor to maximum and its mosquito-whine screeched out over the lake. It was so close!

Had Father O’Hanrahan been able to help, they might have won those critical seconds – they may have just got away with it. It was not to be.

The submarine hit the port-side of the speedboat just below the waterline and Oli detonated the explosives. There was a burst of fire and water and the tail of the boat was lifted high.
Fragments of fibreglass were blown upwards and the engine simply dropped away.

The four men were back in the water.

Imagio stopped in the smoke and the line of orphans gathered behind him, to stare as the swimmers floundered beneath them.

The youngest one – Darren – struck out for the nearest shore, immediately. The policeman and his brother turned and seemed unable to decide what to do – then they also started
to swim.

The old man, however, was having problems staying afloat. He was holding something in a red cloth and it was dragging him down. As the orphans watched, the red cloth came away in his hands and
something heavy slipped into the depths of the lake.

The old man looked stricken and he flapped helplessly in the water.

Anjoli sat down on the wire. ‘Anyone want to rescue him?’ he said.

‘No,’ said Israel.

‘I don’t,’ said Vijay.

‘I want to watch him drown,’ said Eric.

‘Come on,’ said Asilah, shrugging off his blazer. ‘We’d better get him.’

‘No way,’ said Anjoli. ‘He called me a dumb heathen. I asked him one little question.’

Asilah said, ‘Doonie liked him. Let’s get him out for Doonie.’

He stepped over Anjoli and walked along the wire. Father O’Hanrahan was gasping below him, too weak to use his arms. The boy prepared to dive, when a curious thing happened.

Father O’Hanrahan was treading water and he might have lasted. He was cold and seeing the sword slip from his hands had broken his heart. Asilah would probably have got him to the shore,
though, and he would have survived.