One of the men had fallen to the floor and lay ominously still, sprawled in a pile of sawdust and wood shavings. Another had dived for cover behind a stacked pile of wood, but he’d hardly crawled there when Seb loomed out of the darkness and dealt him a vicious kick to the ribs then hauled him up by the collar and punched him across the jaw. The man slumped down just as Benedict threw Johnstone against one of the workbenches with an almighty crash of metal and wood. Johnstone shouted in pain and renewed his attack, and it was then that Georgie noticed the flames.

The lamp had shattered as the first man hit the ground, and now the acrid scent of burning filled her nose. A wicked streak of flame snaked along the trickle of paraffin on the floor and set alight a bucket and paint brushes covered in tar. The whole thing caught with a wicked whoosh!

Seb rushed forward, scooped up the pail, and tossed it into the water next to the sub, but the burning paraffin had splashed liberally in several other places. Flames leapt, eagerly finding fuel in the wood shavings, oil cloth, and hemp ropes scattered around. Soon smoke, thick and black, began to fill the space, and Georgie poked her head out from the submarine in panic. “Get out of there!” she shrieked. “The gunpowder!”

Jem broke cover from behind one of the benches and darted toward the gangway, his fear of the flames apparently overcoming his dislike of the water. Georgie hauled herself out onto the deck and tried to maneuver the vessel closer to the side so the boy could climb aboard. She reached out her hand to help him just as the boat shifted away on the skittish tide.

Jem teetered on the edge of the sloping boards. He took a desperate leap toward the front of the boat but missed her outstretched hand. His fingers clawed the front of the deck, but there was nothing for him to hold on to, and with a strangled shriek, he fell into the water. Georgie threw herself flat on her stomach and reached out over the water as far as she could, trying to grab him as he splashed about. For a moment she thought she could get him, but then his head disappeared beneath the muddy water.

“Jem!” she screamed.

He surfaced a few feet from the side of the boat, and she caught sight of his face, white with terror. His arms clawed upward as if he were climbing an invisible ladder, and his mouth opened in a silent scream. Georgie stood, about to leap into the water, when Seb appeared from the smoky warehouse.

“Help him! He can’t swim!”