Stealing a quick peek out of a sniper window, Gwen caught sight of the cracking defensive wall. The soldiers had leapt out into the knee-deep water and started attacking the wall with machine gun fire at close range. When bullets began breaking though, the firing stopped and they began sledgehammering it.
A few quick shots of magic suppressant exacerbated the crack, allowing them to punch a passable hole into it. The one who finally broke it down with the butt of his gun misstepped and tumbled down into the trench twenty feet below. The soft sand gave him a forgiving landing, but he had no means of getting out. The hardened sand that sculpted the castle walls offered no handhold to climb out with.
Water splashed down into the pit, and the steady trickle grew fiercer with every wave of the morning's incoming tide. The wall now dissolving, the tide water eroded the adult's hole faster and faster. Up to their knees in the foamy water, the adults weren't worried about their compatriot below. They put their energy into extending a ladder across the trench.
The children continued shooting their darts, but it was riskier work. The adults' returning fire struck one of the boys. He was immediately placed in the care of Nurse Inch, who did her best to revive him from the magic repelent with flimsy chest compressions and fairy dust. “CLEAR!” she yelled, before Hawkbit and Dillweed flung themselves against the boy's chest.
Great Waters unsheathed the tomahawk at his hip and flung the small axe with inhuman precision at the ladder as the adults started to cross. Whatever the ladder was made of, the blade of Great Waters's tomahawk was stronger. It cut through one of the ladder's poles, and as the bridge destabilized, the other side cracked in half from the pressure. The four adults crossing it tumbled down as it collapsed into the pit. With them in the empty trench and a dozen adults passed out, the children still had twenty-some soldiers to worry about, now all standing in the thigh-high waters of Neverland's fast-rising tide.
The entire defensive wall started to crumble away, and water rushed in faster. Turning to ordinary, mucky sand, the wall sunk back into the beach. Before it could finish melting, Great Waters leapt out of a turret window and landed, crouching, on the sinking castle wall. Without any goodbye to his fellow fighters, he spread his arms and leapt into the ocean.
The children did not see him impact, but they watched as the tide waters ebbed away, much faster than they had come in. The immediate change of water direction even caught the attention of the soldiers. They turned around, in horror, to see the tsunami wave building behind them.
The wave bludgeoned forward and swept the black coats up. It pounded them against the sinking wall, blasted them through it, and dumped them into the trench. The water lapped against the castle itself, but did no damage to the intact magical structure.
The flooded trench became a frothy salt water moat, and the adults floundered in the swishing waters, trying to stay afloat.
Peter nodded to Yam. Yam nodded to Dew. Dew nodded to Spurt, and Spurt yelled, “RELEASE THE CROCODILE!”
As the tsunami wave pulled back out, the remaining water began to drain into the deep dungeon underneath the castle. If the adults possessed any desire to swim counter to this current, they abandoned it when they saw the crocodile swimming toward them.
The children laughed as they watched the screaming adults ferociously paddle down current. They screamed even more as they dropped with the waterfall into the dungeon. The moist floor of the dungeon let the water seep back into its sands, and the crocodile did not follow down—the moat's drain into the dungeon was too slender for the massive, scaly beast. The soldiers found themselves trapped in a damp underground chamber with no escape. The only way out of the dungeon was the trench opening they'd been washed through. Several feet out of reach and guarded by Peach, Pear, Plum, and the crocodile, the opening offered no hope of escape.
“The last boat's heading weast!” Blink called from behind her spyglass.
“The other two found the pirates in the nouth!” Goose added, her studious ear still plugged into the radio inceptor, despite the chaos. “One slipped past Starkey—they have foot soldiers landing now!”
Gwen tried to mentally map Neverland. “Which way is nouth again? Which way weast?”
“Just remember,” Rosemary told her, pointing in two different directions and reciting, “Nouth is this way and weast is that way.”
The mnemonic didn't help, but things moved too fast for it to matter.
“Everybody who can, fall back! The wounded, nurses, and guard crew stay here, everyone else…” Peter ordered, “into the jungle, and look out for shadows!”
Chapter 19
The retreating children divided into two teams. The first took the tunnels out to the weastern shore to wait at the jungle's edge for the last of the boat's soldiers to land. The other spread out into the jungle at once.
Peter and Gwen, too big to comfortably keep pace with the smaller children running through the tunnels, both headed into the jungle, but prepared to part ways.
“Remember,” Peter cautioned everyone. “Keep them away from the heart of the island. Don't let them get near the Never Tree!” The children already knew the plan and had a keen understanding of where they had laid all their traps. They would have no problem leading the adults through the confusing forest and into their snares. Their plan depended on them spreading out and covering as much ground as possible.
“Peter,” Gwen grabbed his arm with one hand, and dug through her purse with the other. “Take this.” She handed him
