The Power of Five Oblivion

were ready. They were further away but they began to gallop forward, following the road that would lead them through the rows of houses and eventually down to the canal path.
    The tunnel was opening up in front of us. Jamie was standing absolutely still, with one hand on the steering wheel and the other clenching the throttle as if he could somehow will the Lady Jane to go faster. The Traveller brought up his gun and fired off several shots, aiming at the police. I saw one man go down but they surged forward without hesitating. They had already let us slip through their fingers twice. It didn’t matter how many of them died. They weren’t going to let it happen a third time.
    Someone fired a shot and the handrail right next to me splintered, wood fragments flying up.
    “Get down, Holly!”
    It was the Traveller, shouting at me, and I saw that one of the policemen had been aiming at me, had come within inches of killing me. How could I be so slow and useless? I crouched down and fired six shots at the helicopter, the gun bucking in my hand. I smelled the cordite as it rose into my nostrils but I’m not sure I actually hit anyone. The police returned fire. But once again they must have been ordered not to hit Jamie and I was so close to him now that I was more or less safe. The bullets smashed into the side of the Lady Jane . Two of the windows shattered.
    I looked up. There was a fly-soldier right above us, over the entrance to the tunnel. He drew back a spear. And just as the soldier was made up of flies, so was the spear. I swear I could hear it buzzing and briefly wondered what it would be like to be hit by it, to have it go right through me. Because he was aiming at me. There could be no doubt of it. Would the flies separate again when they were in my blood? Would they destroy me from inside? I cried out, but at that exact moment we plunged into the tunnel and a great tube of darkness and damp slid over us and the police and the fly-soldiers were cut off. There was no towpath. The police would be unable to follow us unless they decided to swim, and although the insects might break up again and fly after us, perhaps the darkness and the confined space might put them off.
    Not that it mattered. We could stop and try to hide inside the tunnel. Or we could go on, in which case we’d be out the other end in about one minute. That was all the breathing space we had. The police would already be on their way to cut us off. We had come so far! We had managed to escape from Little Moulsford and we had travelled through the night. But it had all been for nothing.
    And then I saw that the Traveller was already moving. He went over to Jamie and pushed up the throttle, cutting our speed by half. Then he flipped open a panel next to the tiller. I hadn’t even noticed it before. Inside there was a dial and a red button.
    “We’ve got to move fast!” he shouted. “Leave everything behind. Go to the front of the boat. Get onto the roof.”
    “What about the steering?” Jamie asked.
    “It’s OK. It’s locked.” The Traveller turned the dial and pressed the red button. At once, a light began to flash inside the boat. I wondered what he had done. Was this a secret weapon, the surprise he had been talking about? “Move!” he shouted again. “We have to be on the roof!”
    The canal boat was still moving – but at half the speed, so we had a little more time. Nobody had followed us into the tunnel. Everything was going black–white, black–white, so I could just make out what I was doing. We dropped our weapons, dashed through the galley and the sleeping area and scrambled up. The Traveller went first, then Jamie, then me, and there we were on our feet, not moving ourselves but still gliding forward with the curved ceiling of the tunnel so close to our heads that we could reach up and touch it. I felt moisture dripping onto my neck. It was very cold in the tunnel. We were already about halfway through.
    “There’s a ladder!” the Traveller shouted. “Grab hold of it and swing yourself along. I’ll go first. Follow me!”
    I saw it almost immediately. It was attached to the ceiling, running horizontally above the water. All we had to do was grab hold of it and wait while the top of the boat moved forward underneath our feet. As the Lady Jane continued, the steering locked, the speed constant, we would be left dangling in the darkness. What was the big idea? Were we supposed to hang there until everyone went