‘Yes,’ said Hanks. He put two rashers of bacon on to a piece of thickly buttered bread and watched the butter melt. ‘Except two of them, they were keen to go on.’
Sussworth took another sip of tea. ‘That is correct, Hanks, and I cannot comprehend why we have heard nothing from them. We should have had a message, a sign, a communication.’
‘Perhaps they’ve had their throats cut,’ said Hanks. He placed another piece of bread on the bacon to make a sandwich. ‘I mean if the Borribles found out that they were spies, them dwarfs, well, they wouldn’t last long, would they?’
Sussworth tapped his fingers on the table and looked stern. ‘They wouldn’t, Hanks, they wouldn’t. Nooch and Scinter, whatever their names were, could well be lying dead in a drain at this very moment. But we knew that was a risk we would have to take; those Borribles will stick at nothing to maintain their so-called independence.’
‘They won’t, sir, they won’t.’
‘And that horse, that is a definite flea in the ointment between me and the DAC. I’d like to get rid of it right away, but the DAC won’t have it. Got to hang on to the horse, for the time being, at least.’
‘Make good steaks, horses do,’ said Hanks, and he sat on the kitchen table and shoved half his sandwich into his mouth.
Sussworth’s eyes went cloudy and his moustache quivered in ecstasy. ‘I have a dream, Hanks, a golden vision of the future. I see it clear. I have captured those Borribles, every one. I starve them for a few days and then I serve them up some delicious stew, really delicious and tasty. They gobble it down, and then, as I clip their ears I tell them they have just eaten their favourite horse, Sam. Isn’t that wonderful, Hanks? I’d give up my knighthood for that, I would really.’
Hanks guffawed, and half-masticated bread and bacon splattered down his tunic. ‘Oh brilliant, sir, brilliant. You deserve to be commissioner.’
Sussworth raised his mug of tea in a toast. ‘I shall be one day, Hanks, I shall be, but only if we can run these vagabonds to earth and deal with them once and for all. Double the rewards, Hanks. Those malingerers will have read the notice on the gates of Wandsworth Prison by now … We can expect them to reappear at any moment.’
‘We’ll get them,’ said Hanks. He cuddled his stomach with both arms as he enjoyed the sensation of the bacon sandwich arriving in it. He lit the gas and dropped four more rashers into his frying pan.
Sussworth got to his feet and crossed the caravan to stare into a gilt-framed mirror. He put his face close to the glass and gazed at himself, giving his moustache just the gentlest of twitches. ‘We’ll get them this time, Hanks, but we’d better hurry. If we don’t we’ll be back on the beat with Chief Superintendent Birdlime telling us what to do, just imagine that.’
Hanks prodded his bacon with a fork. ‘I can’t sir,’ he said. ‘I really can’t.’
The Adventurers were adrift on a wide and silent sea. To them it was vast, as vast as an ocean. As they floated into the centre of the river the current surged stronger, picking them up and thrusting them along, swirling the rafts round and round, making the Borribles feel sick, forcing them to cling on for all they were worth.
‘I want to get off,’ said Ninch. ‘This is dangerous.’
‘Shut yer neck and start paddling,’ said Napoleon. ‘It’s only water.’
The other Borribles said not a word. None of them liked water much, especially when it was cold and they were only a few inches above it, sitting on frail pieces of timber. Luckily for them Napoleon was an exception. He was a Wendle and had been raised along the lower reaches of the River Wandle. He knew about boats and tides. It took more than a river to frighten him.
‘Right,’ he said, lowering his voice to a whisper, ‘the first thing you have to do is take your orders from me and the second is to stop talking. For all we know the SBG may have a boat out, they might be just a few yards away, listening. Next, rope the two rafts together so we don’t get separated, and every one of you must use your own bit of rope to tie yourself to the raft. If you fall off in this we won’t be able to come back for you, even if we could see you … The current’s far too strong.’
The Borribles lost no time in doing what Napoleon had told them and when they were ready he spoke again. ‘Now remember,’ he began, ‘a raft isn’t a boat. No front, no back, it’s just a square. Get it steady and keep paddling. The tide’s in our favour and we’ll be going at a fair lick, so keep your heads … If you panic you’ll just send us round and round in circles. Be specially quiet going under the bridges. There’ll be coppers on every one, I reckon, but with this dark, even if they’re looking straight down they won’t see us … But if they hear us, they’ll switch their floodlights on.’
‘Someone should count the bridges,’ said Knocker, ‘so we don’t go too far. Who knows ’em best?’
‘I do,’ said Vulge. ‘Bridges is my hobby.’
‘We’ve got to get off between Blackfriars and Southwark,’ said Knocker. ‘At Queenhithe Dock, that’s what the map said.’
‘All right,’ said Vulge, ‘that makes six bridges, if you count Hungerford. Leave it to me, the first is Vauxhall.’
‘Okay, that’ll do,’ said Napoleon. ‘No more talking. Except for my orders and emergencies it’s quiet all the way.’
And that was how it was. Once the two rafts were steady, one towed behind the other, they settled into the grip of the current and the crews, paddling with long regular strokes, kept them on a straight course. There in the middle of the river it was all darkness and the lights of the city seemed many miles away. The Adventurers swayed forward and back, digging the paddles deep into nothingness. Spray from the curling waves fell upon them and they were soon soaked to the skin but not one of them was cold; they were toiling too hard for that and their own sweat kept them warm.
And it was darker than blindness on the river, darker than the end of an underground cavern and yet, after travelling for half an hour, a broad shape, even blacker than the water, loomed over the Adventurers. The river writhed and twisted and huge powerful ropes of it came together and were forced between solid stone columns and the water rose like a torrent escaping from the sluices of a dam. A massive wave arched slowly, higher and higher. It hesitated for a second, become motionless and then broke, crashing down against a mighty pillar that soared up and up, into the very roof of the night.
‘Vauxhall Bridge,’ came Vulge’s voice.
Now the rafts burst into slack water; they began to spin, to go out of control. ‘Keep paddling, you fairies,’ shouted Napoleon, ‘or we’ll be dragged back in, and you’ll drown. Keep paddling.’
And the Borribles did, for all they were worth, until at last, the sweat pouring into their eyes, they passed away from the danger of the first bridge and were able to journey on in silence. They drew breath, their heartbeats slowed and they regained their composure while Napoleon knelt at the front of the leading raft, still paddling as he stared into the gloom, his body swaying gracefully, his face beautiful with excitement. He loved the river.
Sydney, who was next to the Wendle, felt a shiver go down her spine. In spite of all they had been through together Napoleon could still affect her in that manner. He was an odd one, always testing himself against himself at every opportunity.
‘What are you looking for?’ she asked him.
Napoleon did not turn his head nor did he stop paddling. ‘Boats,’ he answered. ‘If we meet a bunch of barges we’ll have to get out of the way sharpish. In this temperature you don’t live long in the water, just a few minutes.’
On downriver they went, flying through the bridges on the curling waves, paddling all the time, obeying Napoleon’s commands on the instant, through Lambeth and Westminster and Hungerford, until eventually they swept under the spectral arch that was the white bridge of Waterloo.
‘We’re nearly there,’ said Vulge, but as he looked towards Blackfriars he saw a great light blazing up the river, heading straight for the two rafts.
&
nbsp; ‘The fuzz,’ said Orococco. ‘Must be a police patrol.
‘Worse,’ said Napoleon. ‘That’s a tug with about twenty barges lashed behind. Coming as fast as a train, straight up the middle. Paddle like the clappers for the north side, we’ve got to get out of the way.’
That was easier said than done. The river had them in the grip of a giant and it bore then irresistibly towards the advancing tug. The Borribles could hear the noise of engines now and bright light began to dazzle their eyes, so long accustomed to the dark. In front of the boat and pushed back by it, churned and tumbled the bow wave; dirty yellow, grinning, splitting the river open and laying bare a deep trough more than large enough to swallow up the tiny rafts and those who rode upon them.
The light towered nearer, as high as the beacon on a castle wall. Under the light was the shape of nothing, the black ship itself. The thump of the engines grew still louder. The bow wave began to race backwards, against the tide, rushing across the surface of the river and travelling faster than the boat that had made it, as if the laws of nature did not exist.
The Borribles wanted to scream with terror but could not. The engines were beating in their ears, robbing them of all thought. The waves rose; the voices of men called to one another through an empty space and behind the tug came a solid mass of barges, a floating town half as wide as the river itself.
With a courage and an energy that were born of desperation the Adventurers worked their paddles faster and faster, but a terrifying force dragged the waters from beneath them and suddenly they were paddling air. The rafts had been flung skywards until they were vertical. Now the Borribles did scream, clinging to one another in panic. The rafts staggered, nearly toppling over backwards, then, with a crash that could hardly be heard in all that din, the bow wave rushed on and the rafts fell deep into a pit and shook and shuddered. Then another wave surged under them and up went the Borribles again and they screamed again, but this time when they fell they were in a calmer place. The bow wave had carried them out of the main current although not out of danger; the barges were still to come.
Napoleon knew this. ‘Don’t stop,’ he shouted. ‘Paddle on, paddle on.’
The Borribles did as Napoleon ordered and each blow of their paddles thrust them away from the middle of the river and towards safety. The line of barges was now behind them and the bright lights no longer dazzled their eyes, but the river was still in turmoil. Its waters were moving roughly from side to side and up and down, chopping and slapping. There was a great swishing and swirling of crosscurrents too but the noise of the tug itself gradually grew less and less and, at last, like a monster crawling into its lair, the rigid flotilla of boats disappeared under Waterloo Bridge.
‘That was a close one,’ said Twilight. ‘We did well to get out of that.’
Napoleon grunted and then added to the water surrounding him by spitting into it. ‘At least no one was seasick,’ he said. ‘That’s something I suppose.’
The very last bridge of all was Blackfriars and the Adventurers navigated it with no more danger or alarm. Then they cut away from the current once more and headed for the north bank where, according to Knocker, they would find the old disused wharf going by the name of Queenhithe Dock.
‘We’ll have to find it without torches,’ said Napoleon, ‘in case anyone’s watching.’
The Borribles floated right in against the embankment; a sheer wall covered in green slime without a step or ladder. There was no way up that.
‘Just paddle along a bit,’ said Napoleon. ‘It’ll be along here.’
It was. Suddenly the cliff of the embankment fell away and there was a shelf of sloping mud running back and up into darkness. The Borribles struck out for it and the rafts ran aground on gravel and sludge.
‘Hold steady,’ said Napoleon. ‘I’ll get off and pull yer in.’
He leapt ashore and immediately sank to his waist in cold mud, soft like a sucking jelly. He ignored it; after all he was a Wendle and Wendles were used to mud. He grabbed the ropes, pulled hard and slowly the rafts edged into the beach and stuck there.
The other Adventurers stood, threw their rucksacks towards Napoleon and then jumped after them. Lacking the Wendle’s expertise they fell and floundered, covering themselves in a vile and sticky coating of filth.
‘Mud,’ said Vulge. ‘I should cocoa. What a pen and ink!’
Knocker got his arms into the straps of his rucksack and plodded forward. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get a move on.’
While Knocker went looking for a way out Napoleon cut the rope that bound the two rafts together and shoved them back into the current. ‘Don’t want ’em found too near,‘he explained. ’Southend would be close enough.’
He sheathed his knife and Knocker’s whistle came from above. The Adventurers gathered their belongings and began to squelch up the slope of the shore, no easy task. Their feet slithered and sank at every step, churning the mud into a green slime, and the sewer stench that was everywhere became stronger, escaping as steam from below and crystallizing like hot breath in the cold air. But at least the Borribles left no trace of their passing. As they pulled their legs from the clinging slurry it oozed back in an instant to fill the gaping holes they had made. In no time at all the surface of the shelving bank was as still and as smooth as it had been at any time during the previous hundred years.
So the Adventurers waded forward until they came up with Knocker, who was waiting for them near the bottom of an iron-runged, weed-covered ladder. ‘I had a good look at the map before leaving Brixton,’ he said. ‘I reckon we can make King’s Cross before daylight.’
‘Why do we have to go to King’s Cross anyway?’ That was Ninch’s voice in the dark.
‘Because,’ said Napoleon, answering for Knocker, ‘King’s Cross is a main line station and behind main line stations you always find derelict land, goods yards, empty carriages, old factories, places to hide. Any old Borrible should know that. That’s why.’
‘Well whatever we’re going there for,’ interrupted Scooter, ‘do you think we could get out of this mud? It’s right up to my armpits now and it smells like a dustbin.’
‘Okay,’ said Knocker, ‘but remember, we run fast, single file and we don’t stop. This is the City of London we’re in and there ain’t too many places to hide.’
The night was long and arduous. What with the stint from Brixton to Nine Elms and the river trip with its frights and tensions, the Adventurers were exhausted even before leaving Queenhithe Stairs. Now they had to run again and just as far as they had before.
Knocker led them at a cracking pace, leading not because this was his part of London, it wasn’t; but simply because he had studied the map and memorized it, and knew which road went where and which would bring them to their destination with the least trouble.
They ran silently and fast, spread out for safety, but they encountered no one. Occasionally a lone car bounded through the emptiness, its headlights dashing the tarmac with gold, or a lorry ground its way to a distant market. But the Borribles kept to the back streets where the lamps were separated by great stretches of nothing and where the pools of gloom were long and deep.
Tall buildings rose on either side of the runners like the hollow cliffs of abandoned cave dewellings, their roofs at one with the endless dark of the sky. Not a light shone in the skyscrapers or in the many-tiered, honeycombed car parks. Almost the only sounds the Borribles heard were the soft footfalls of their own feet and the jingling in the harness of their rucksacks.
They crossed an open piazza under the shadow of St Paul’s, up Amen Court where the frost was hard. Down Newgate and Giltspur Street they ran, past Smithfield Market where a thousand slabs of cold beef hung in rows. Along Cowcross and Turnmill, running parallel to Farringdon Road all the time, heading slightly west of north, bending over the top of London as the roads bent.
At Clerkenwell Knocker stopped and the others stopped too, crouching behind him, regaining their breath, looking l
eft and right, forward and back for the slightest sign of danger. At last, reassured, they darted across the open space and raced on through Back Hill and through Rosebery Avenue; flitting black shadows in a town that was as black as they.
As he hastened onward Knocker thought of Sussworth, asleep somewhere, flat on his back, his mouth tightly closed, his moustache like a venomous moth waiting for the dawn, waiting to lay venomous eggs. And Hanks too, his belly spilling out beyond his body, snoring, his spittle dripping on to his pillow and forming an ever-widening stain of thick saliva as he dreamt, smiling, of the breakfasts he had eaten and the breakfasts that were to come.
Somewhere too, in that vast city, was Sam the horse, locked in a stall of some slaughterhouse, the smell of death flooding into his soft nostrils and filling him with dread. Bound by tail and alter to rings in a wall so that he could not move or rest, his eyes wide with fear, expecting only the bullet in the brain and the sharp wide knife that would slit his throat and then spill his entrails on to a sloping concrete ramp, already wet and slippery with the blood of millions gone before to catsmeat.
These thoughts spurred Knocker on and he quickened his pace, always going west of north, across Mount Pleasant and down Phoenix Place; past the Royal Free Hospital, and here in the high windows there were lights shining and nurses moved behind the curtains and lifted people up on their pillows so they might breathe their last breath more easily. People dying and never been Borrible. The thought filled Knocker with terror; he ran harder and his legs ached and the weight of his rucksack chafed his shoulders. But the pain only made him grit his teeth, and his companions, following, ran harder too and cursed Knocker with all their hearts until, glancing up at the sky, they saw the greyness coming and knew why he ran so fast and far. Before daylight they must be well hidden at King’s Cross.
The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis Page 13