The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis

by Michael de Larrabeiti

  8

  The Borribles pressed ahead as fast as the condition of Ninch and Scooter would allow, but they had no intention, that night, of travelling any great distance. They realized that what the two acrobats needed above all else was rest and recuperation. So, with this idea first in their minds, they went quickly forward and came eventually into a wide road named Goods Way, which took them into a main thoroughfare just at the place where it passed over the Grand Union Canal on Maiden Lane Bridge. Here, following the instructions given them by the Queen Mum, they turned right and then left. This brought them through Balfe Street into New Wharf Road which itself runs behind a huge but abandoned section of the canal called Battlebridge Basin. Alongside this basin, fenced in behind a high wooden barrier, was a block of flats, tall and forbidding and dark, their legal inhabitants long since gone to friendlier and cleaner places. Across the road, not a hundred yards distant from this block, the Borribles gathered together in the doorless doorway of a ruined workshop and peered into a deep gloom.

  ‘Can’t see any lights,’ said Vulge, ‘but then you wouldn’t if there was any Borribles in there.’

  ‘Borribles, eh?’ said a strange voice behind them. ‘That’s all right then, ’cos we’re Borribles too.’

  Stonks spun round and switched on his torch. In its broad beam the adventurers saw two figures sitting side by side on an old oil drum only a few yards away. As the light revealed them the two strangers leapt to their feet and crossed the floor. ‘We’ve been looking for you,’ they said as they advanced, ‘in fact a lot of us have.’

  The Adventurers bunched together. ‘What do you mean, looking for us?’ asked Napoleon suspiciously. His hand felt for his catapult.

  Still in the light of Stonk’s torch the newcomers halted. They were an odd sight and the Adventurers stared. Both of them girls, they were dressed in a more outlandish way than most Borribles care for. Borribles normally like to pass unnoticed; these two were different. They wore leather jackets—torn in many places and then repaired with dozens of safety pins—baggy khaki trousers, metal belts and cut down welly boots. They both had their hair brilliantly coloured; one had dyed hers scarlet and the other had sprayed hers pale blue with broad golden streaks running through it. The hair itself stuck out stiff and spiky in all directions though there was enough of it combed over the ears to make sure they were well and truly hidden.

  ‘My name’s Swish,’ said the girl with the scarlet hair, ‘and this here’s my mate. She’s called Treld.’

  There was a long silence following this announcement until Chalotte pushed to the front of the group of Adventurers. ‘My name’s Chalotte,’ she said, ‘from Whitechapel, and this is Sydney from Neasden. Your names are good names and we hope you will tell us the story of them one day.’

  Treld nodded and her hair sparkled with golden glitter in the torchlight. ‘And your names have a good story behind them … like the Great Rumble Hunt, maybe.’

  ‘How do you know about that?’ asked Orococco.

  ‘We’ve been watching you on our railway stations,’ explained Treld. ‘We know old Queenie too. She told us that Madge had you, and how you were going to escape. She said something about Wandsworth too, a horse and Ben the tramp. We hear rumours and things you know, even in King’s Cross. We want you to tell us the whole business … We’ve been waiting for yer.’

  ‘We’ll tell you the story all right,’ said Chalotte, ‘and a few more, but what we need right now is to get under cover for a few days.’

  ‘Easy,’ said Treld. ‘That’s our block of flats over there and only about half of it is lived in.’

  ‘You can have a room each, if you want,’ said Swish. ‘We’ve got plenty of grub too.’

  Swish and Treld belonged to a tribe of Borribles who took their name from the Caledonian Road. They called themselves the Caledonian Conkers, or Conkers for short. They ran the whole block of flats among themselves and to the surprise of the Adventurers they were all girls. Most of them wore their hair coloured and their clothes bizarre, but as Chalotte said, ‘What does that matter? As long as they’re as good as their ward.’ And the Conkers were.

  That night they installed the Adventurers in two joined-together flats on the third floor of the tower block, and Ninch and Scooter were made comfortable on old mattresses and kept warm with piles of old blankets. The food followed almost immediately: stews and soups boiled up on small fires, slices of bread and meat paste and as much fruit as anyone could eat. There were even some tins of beer.

  As the Adventurers ate and relaxed, girl after girl from the Conker tribe visited the two flats and brought more and more things to make the travellers feel welcome. Everyone gave a gift, however small. There were orange boxes, old cushions and armchairs, more mattresses and more blankets. In that friendly place the lights gleamed safely behind the blackout curtains and with a fire in every grate it was not long before everyone felt warm and happy and the memories of the hateful Madge and her army of meffos seemed far, far away.

  It did not take long for the hideout to become crowded, so keen were the Conkers to hear stories of the Great Rumble Hunt and of the fight between Spiff and Flinthead. They sat cross-legged on the floor and squeezed themselves into every available place; and a fine, exotic sight they were, like visitors from a distant country.

  They had hair of all colours and shapes: green, blue, yellow and silver, twisted into spikes, combed into bushes and sprinkled over with sparkle dust like rainbows. Some wore polished bicycle chains round their waists or safety pins on their trousers; some had jackets that were completely covered in badges, both back and front. Others had pale make-up on, their faces marked with brilliant stripes of colour across their foreheads or down their cheeks.

  ‘The stories, the stories,’ they yelled, and before the Adventurers were allowed to sleep they were obliged to take it in turn to tell their name stories and the stories of their great adventures. And some of the tales told were humorous and some were sad; some were ancient and some were new, and everyone there laughed and cried and clapped their hands at the telling of such sagas.

  And the minds of the Adventurers reeled with all the new names of the people they met, and they could not remember half of them. There were Wazo and Splinters, Mower and Turpentine, Mudguard, Vanilla, Keffa, Batty, Scarpa, Yarmouth, Tintacks, Tramlines and Vendredi and dozens more. But remembering names did not matter too much just then because everyone was so busy talking and listening, shouting and laughing, although, when they spoke of Sam, the Adventurers became melancholy, for his story only reminded them of how many obstacles there still remained to overcome before they could rescue the horse from Sussworth and Hanks and see him safely to Neasden.

  After an hour or two it was all over and the Conkers rose at last to leave the Adventurers to their rest. ‘Well,’ said Swish as she stood at the door, ‘we’re glad we found you and if you need any help when it comes to getting Sam out of that slaughterhouse you just let us know. That’s just up our street that is, blood and guts.’ And with a toss of her wild red hair she left the room.

  Knocker followed the girl out into the open and from the balcony he could see that dawn was just beginning to spread its light over the endless city and the traffic was coming to life in the streets. Knocker gazed into the distance on the southern side of the river, looking across the jagged outlines of houses and office buildings, right down to infinity at the edge of the horizon where the blue and the grey, the mist and the sky, mingled in rain and smoke. A seagull glided through his line of sight and landed on a piece of waste ground to scratch for offal. An early train rolled along the hollow arches into King’s Cross, just beyond the gasometers with the golden tops.

  ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’

  Knocker looked up and saw Chalotte standing a few yards away from him, further along the balcony.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘most of the time. I was really wondering how things will turn out in the next few days … when we go to look for Sussworth
and this slaughterhouse.’

  ‘It’ll be dangerous,’ said Chalotte, ‘very dangerous.’

  ‘I know it will,’ said Knocker, ‘and I ain’t mad keen about it, but on the other hand, I can’t think of any other way. Can you?’

  Chalotte stared at the landscape. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I can’t … but I wish I could.’

  When Knocker awoke after a long and restful sleep it was late in the afternoon and almost dark. It was quiet and everyone else except Napoleon was asleep. Napoleon was half on watch, his body stretched across the doorway. Knocker smiled to himself; even when Napoleon trusted someone he didn’t trust them. Knocker crawled out of his blankets and went over to the Wendle.

  ‘I’m going to have a chat with Swish and Treld,’ he said. ‘Coming?’

  Napoleon nodded.

  One flight lower down the tower block the two Adventurers found the Conkers in the middle of making breakfast.

  ‘Cuppa tea?’ asked Treld, and without waiting for an answer she reached into an orange box for two large mugs.

  Knocker and Napoleon made themselves comfortable on the floor.

  ‘I’ve got to go to Camden Town,’ said Knocker, ‘I’ve got to find out where Sussworth is and I’ve got to scout out the slaughterhouse. Find out what their trap looks like without falling into it.’

  Treld poured the tea. ‘It’s easy getting to Camden Town,’ she said. ‘The rest of it, not so easy.’

  ‘We’re pretty sure we know where the slaughterhouse is,’ said Napoleon. ‘In an alley in Baynes Street near the canal.’

  ‘And Sussworth’s caravan can’t be too far from there,’ added Knocker. ‘All we want you to do is show us on the map.’ He put his hand into his pocket and brought out his A to Z.

  Treld looked at Knocker and smiled, then took his map, opened it at the correct page and put her finger right on the spot.

  ‘When do you want to go?’ asked Swish.

  Knocker sipped his tea. ‘I want to go as soon as I’ve got a bit of food inside me. It’ll be a couple of days before Ninch and Scooter are fit to travel. That’s why I thought it would be a good idea to do a little recce now. ’

  Swish and Treld drained their mugs and handed round some bread rolls. ‘Come on them,’ said Swish. ‘We’ll have this grub and then be off.

  Knocker choked on his mouthful. ‘Not you guys,’ he spluttered. ‘It’s a trap up there; it will be dangerous.’

  ‘It’s no trouble,’ said Swish. ‘We follow the canal. On the west side is St Pancras and King’s Cross. On the east side is a goods yard and lots of factories. It’s a wasteland more than anything. We go that way to Camden Market all the time. It’s a piece of cake.’

  Knocker and Napoleon grinned and that decided it. Taking only enough time to pack some provisions and load bandoliers with good stones the four Borribles set off. ‘I left a message,’ said Swish as they crossed York Way. ‘I wouldn’t want the others to wonder where we’d got to.’

  The journey was as easy as Swish and Treld had said it would be. Once over the high brick wall that ran along one side of the main road the four Borribles were in a land that might have been a million miles from London. It was dark and quiet and they could distinguish nothing, although, according to the girls, in daylight they would have seen the canal striking between disused industrial buildings on one side and empty spaces on the other. A no man’s land belonging to no one and in it the Borribles were safe.

  After walking for nearly an hour Swish stopped at the bottom of a flight of stone steps. At the top of the flight was an iron gate and the sound of traffic.

  ‘This’ll be Royal College Street,’ she explained, and climbing the steps she popped her head into the open, level with the pavement. ‘The coast is clear,’ she said, and the Borribles went out on to the street, turned right and then turned right again to find themselves in a narrow road with only a few lamp posts in it. There was no traffic here.

  ‘How’s that for navigation?’ said Treld, pleased with herself. ‘This is Baynes Street and the slaughterhouse must be along here somewhere. Follow us.’

  With no hesitation the two Conker girls took the lead and Knocker and Napoleon came behind. At the end of the road, at the point where it met St Pancras Way, Treld stopped. ‘Did you see it?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Napoleon. ‘A dead end, on the right, seems to run down to the canal. There was a big building there and outside was an SBG van.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Treld. ‘That’s got to be the slaughterhouse. We’ll have a look at the back of it on the way home, see if we can get to it from the canal.’

  ‘Keep walking,’ said Knocker. ‘Don’t hang about. It must be lousy with Woollies round here and if we look the slightest bit suspicious they’ll have us.’

  Swish agreed. ‘We’ll just walk up and down a few of these back streets,’ she said. ‘If the slaughterhouse is here then Sussworth’s caravan can’t be far.’

  ‘Which way?’ asked Treld.

  Knocker scratched an ear. ‘There’s a funny place opposite,‘he said. ‘Let’s have a butcher’s at that.’

  The Borribles crossed over and passed between two huge houses that made a kind of gateway at the beginning of a narrow street. After walking into this street for fifty yards or so they found that it opened into a circular area in the middle of which was a large patch of threadbare grass. Here there was one weak street lamp and beneath it, painted white, its chrome gleaming, its wheels enormous, was a massive caravan, a bright light shining through its windows.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Knocker. ‘That’s it.’

  Napoleon gazed into the dark corners of the cul-de-sac. ‘I don’t like this at all,’ he said. ‘Only one way out and that’s behind us.’ He stared up at the blackness of the houses. They were faceless and tall, as friendly as glaciers.

  The Borribles did not move for a few minutes, made apprehensive by the closeness of Sussworth’s caravan and the feeling of copper everywhere. When they had recovered themselves they turned to retreat but it was too late. Four policemen stood behind them, their hands reaching out to grab the runaways by their collars. So surprised were the Borribles that they did not even bother to struggle. In any event such a struggle would have served no purpose; behind these four policemen were four more and beyond those four who knew how many? They had been there in the dark, leaning in the doorways, moving on rubber-soled boots. Knocker’s heart died and his knees gave beneath him. Was it to finish as stupidly as this? Sam not saved and the Adventurers not knowing where he and Napoleon were, separated for ever without time to say goodbye, captured without a fight; it was pathetic.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said one of the policemen at last. ‘Come to join us have you? That’s nice, very nice, very very nice.’

  ‘We were just looking,’ said Swish.

  ‘Course you were,’ said the policeman, ‘and we’re pleased to have you looking. Our inspector wants as many of you dwarfs as he can get. You’d better come and wait with the others. I never knew there were so many.’

  The Borribles felt themselves propelled towards the caravan and the grip on their collars did not loosen for a moment.

  Knocker cursed this luck. It had been his idea to come scouting in such a heavily policed area. He had known it would be dangerous. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Swish. ‘This is nothing to do with you. If you get a chance, try and make a break for it.’

  As Knocker was speaking he and the others were pushed past the end of the caravan and could now see what had been previously hidden from them. On the far side, between the caravan and the front fence of the nearest houses, stood two unmarked police cars, several policeman in uniform and a line of about twenty Borribles, complete with catapults and woollen hats. In the soft light of the one street lamp everything was quiet and orderly.

  ‘Go and wait in line,’ said one of the Woollies, and the four captives felt their collars released and they were each given a shove in the back. With that the four policemen left
them and returned round the corner of the caravan so that they might take up, once more, their guard duty at the entrance to the cul-de-sac.

  ‘Do we run for it now?’ asked Treld.

  ‘No,’ said Knocker. ‘Wait till them four coppers are well out of it; there’s something going on here. We’ll have to—’

  But there was no time for Knocker to say more. At that very moment yet another policeman approached the four Borribles with a clipboard in his hand. ‘Right,’ he said, pen poised above his paper, ‘have you thought yourselves up a Borrible name, you lads, because that’s how you’ll be known by us for purpose of administration and pay?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Swish, ‘it’s Swish.’

  The policeman wrote it down. ‘Swish,’ he said. ‘I should think so with that red hair. What’s this one’s name, the one with the ’airstyle like a runny egg?’

  ‘My name’s Treld,’ said Treld. ‘I done my hair special.’ She smiled and twisted one of the spikes on her head.

  Knocker glanced at Napoleon and they understood each other. They daren’t use their own names; they were too well known to the SBG, perhaps the best known of all Borrible names.

  ‘Well,’ said the policemen, his pen poised again. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Backander,’ said Knocker.

  ‘Sprazi,’ said Napoleon.

  ‘Sprazi!’ said the policeman. ‘Sounds foreign, that does. What’s it mean?’

  Napoleon placed his hand on his catapult. ‘It mean a tanner,’ he said. ‘Sixpence. Before your time I should think.’

  The policeman smiled. ‘Probably,’ he said. ‘Cheeky sod. Right that’s fine. Over there then and get on the end of the line with the rest of them dwarfs. You’ll be going in to see the inspector in a minute, four at a time. He’ll give you your orders and tell you all about it. You’ll get your plastic ears while you’re waiting.’

  ‘Plastic ears?’ said Swish.

  The policeman put his fists on his hips. ‘So you look like Borribles of course. They’d torture you to death if they found out you weren’t real. Go on, wait over there.’