Up above us I could no longer see the boat, only the gap in the jelly where it had been. And on either side, four men were hanging off the plastic-bag rope, which they had tied around the tentacles. They were gripping firmly, and the long tentacles were still restrained, their muscles pulling against the rope, the thinner tendrils at the top careening wildly in mid-air.

Kate grabbed my arm and gave me a grin. Her loud song was about ‘being happy’ and ‘this is great’ and ‘we’re doing it!’

But then suddenly there was a shift. With a great groaning roll the jelly mesoglea started to seep backwards, in oozing waves of mucus. The men disappeared from sight as the Jellyfish levelled itself, and Soldier John clambered back up. Behind us, the tentacles started collecting and throwing upwards those people at our end who had swum the furthest away. There was a change in the movements in the shorter, stroking tentacles. More menace, more stickiness, more a sense that you were being pushed back in towards the creature again.

‘Climb back on!’ shouted Soldier John. ‘Climb back on!’ There was a note of desperation in his voice which I’d never heard before, not ever, during any of the other escape attempts. ‘Now!’ he shouted again, his voice cracking in his urgency. He leant over and started pulling people up. Over our heads there was the flying buzz of the large tentacles whipping somebody out of the water.

I swam quickly, reaching up for the hands that pulled me in. And then I looked over, saw what they saw. There, on the other side, was the smashed mess of the shattered, shredded boat; there was the fragmented remains of the plastic-bag rope; there were the angry, waving tentacles. But there were no people.

Of the people who had been holding the ropes in the escape attempt, there was now no sign.

Chapter 18

18

Everything felt emptier and bigger and quieter. Right from the minute we stood up and walked slowly towards the remains of the boat, it felt like there was more space on board. It also felt like everything that we knew for certain had changed.

There was a sudden wave of cold, dank pain pouring into my stomach, so intense that I could barely move, and my whole body clenched with the wrongness of it. It felt like I had been slapped with shards of sadness too sharp to bear. What could we do now? What was going to happen? Why had this happened?