Knocker fell on to a chair with a sigh. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We found the slaughterhouse and we’re pretty sure Sam’s in there, but he’s guarded by about twenty coppers with fifty in reserve. We’ll have to get past them.’
‘And what about Sussworth,’ asked Chalotte, ‘where’s he?’
Knocker looked at her and smiled. ‘We got mixed up with a bunch of dwarfs,’ he said, ‘being recruited. We were taken right into the caravan and there he was. That’s how we got the ears.’
‘You saw Sussworth?’ exclaimed Chalotte.
Knocker nodded. ‘And Hanks. We were in there ages. We had to listen to a speech on how to deal with Borribles if we caught ourselves. He knew all about us—names, everything.’
‘It was scary,’ said Swish, coming back into the room from the kitchen. ‘They even inspected our ears … I thought it was all over.’
Vulge went round everybody with mugs of tea and Napoleon snatched one from the tray, advancing into the room. ‘We can’t stand about nattering,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to pack up and be on our way before those two dwarfs get back here with half the Metropolitan Police, because they’re going to, you know.’
‘Oh no they ain’t,’ said a strained voice from the door, and the Borribles looked in that direction and saw Scooter leaning there.
Before anyone else could move, Napoleon had thrown down his tea, crossed the room and seized Scooter by the throat. He shook the dwarf, as if to loosen his teeth, and thrust him into a chair. ‘I’m going to kill you, Sunbeam,’ said the Wendle, ‘permanent.’ He raised his fist to strike the prisoner but Chalotte jumped forward and laid her hand on Napoleon’s arm.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘He’s wounded.’ Looking closer the Borribles could indeed see a dark bloodstain at the top of Scooter’s left arm and it was spreading. Chalotte removed the dwarf’s jacket and then, with her knife, slit the sweater and shirt; both garments were sopping wet with blood. There was a deep gash in the shoulder.
‘I’ll get some water,’ said Sydney. ‘We must stop the bleeding.’ And she went into the kitchen.
Napoleon sneered. ‘Don’t bother,’ he said. ‘When I’ve finished with him he won’t need blood.’
‘Let’s hear what he has to say,’ said Chalotte, ‘then we’ll decide. Say your say, dwarf.’
Scooter looked at the circle of faces and he saw no friendship. Sydney returned from the kitchen with a kettle full of cold water and bathed the wound. When it was clean she began to wrap it in white rag which she tore in strips from an old shirt. The dwarf winced with the pain but then began: ‘Ninch said we had to run,’ he said, ‘because he thought that you might find out the truth about us if you found Sussworth’s caravan …’
‘We did,’ said Knocker.
‘But I wanted to wait till you got back, so we hid along by the canal. We saw you all right, and we heard enough to realize that you’d tumbled us.’
- ‘What are we wasting time for?’ asked Torreycanyon. ‘He’s admitting it. Nap’s right … out the window.’
Knocker held up a hand. ‘Scooter, did you shop us on Clapham Common; was it you lot who told the SBG where we were and got Sam captured?’
Scooter dropped his head on to his chest and closed his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said.
The Borribles went very very quiet. Chalotte bit her lip and could think of nothing to say. Sydney stopped dressing the dwarf’s wound.
‘He’s got to go,’ said Napoleon, lifting his arms and then dropping them. ‘He can’t be trusted. He’s a spy and we know what everybody does with spies.’
‘Listen,’ said Scooter suddenly. ‘I came back to tell you this … I didn’t have to; I could have been clear away.’
‘Go on then,’ said Chalotte. ‘You’ll have to make it good.’
Scooter nodded. ‘Ninch got us the job. He saw the advertisement. He went to see Sussworth first and when he told us about it he made it sound really exciting, you know, special training, catching escaped criminals. Ninch stuck our ears on too; told us what Sussworth had said, and all us acrobats believed it, every word. How did we know any different?’
‘You shouldn’t take anything on trust, that’s why,’ said Vulge bitterly.
‘I know that now,’ said Scooter, ‘but at the time Ninch convinced us all. He was fed up with being a dwarf in a circus with people laughing at him. He told us there was a huge reward if we captured you. “Nobody laughs at you when you’ve got pockets full of money,” he said.’
‘And nobody’ll laugh at you when you’re dead and buried,’ said Napoleon.
Scooter went on with his explanation. ‘“That’s for me,” Ninch said. “I ain’t going to be no clown no more.” And he told us what to do if and when you turned up. So Ninch phoned Sussworth and when the fight was going on he showed the law where Sam was and then afterwards made us pretend to be captured like the rest of you … You see Sussworth wanted to use us to find out more things about you, during the interrogation like; that’s why he put us back in the cell when we’d had some grub … so you’d see us in the morning. But the others wanted to go home and when the Buffonis let us out they did.’
‘Oh, Scooter,’ said Sydney, her eyes red. ‘How could you be so rotten? What harm had Sam ever done to you? To betray him to Sussworth for money to be turned into catsmeat. I don’t understand it.’
The dwarf lowered his head, his face scarlet with shame. ‘I thought I was working for law and order,’ he mumbled.
Napoleon looked round the room. ‘I’m happy to take him outside if no one else will. You can find what’s left of him in the canal tomorrow morning.’
Scooter raised his head; a tear trickled across the dirt of his skin, blood seeped into his half-tied bandage. ‘I didn’t know you then. I didn’t know how much Sam meant to you, what Sam was. I wasn’t your friend then. I am now.’
‘Friend!’ said Orococco with scorn. ‘Some friend!’
‘I mean it. I liked being with you lot, even though we were on the run. I felt proud for the first time in my life. I would never have told Sussworth anything if I’d known you right from the beginning, and I don’t think Ninch would have either but …’
‘But what?’ asked Napoleon.
‘Well, he couldn’t think of anything else but the money and how he wouldn’t have to work in a sideshow any more, how he wouldn’t have people laughing at him.’
Chalotte stepped closer to the dwarf and finished tying the bandage on his shoulder. ‘How did you get this wound?’ she asked.
‘Ninch and I quarrelled tonight. He’d got worse since Madge locked us up in that cellar. He seemed to blame it all on you, on Borribles. All the time he was down there, shivering and swearing, he kept telling me how he was going to make you pay for it; how he was going to live in luxury for the rest of his life thinking of you lot with your ears clipped, growing up, working … Adults, just like us.’
‘What did you quarrel about,’ said Knocker. ‘Tell us that.’
‘Well, I ran off with him at first because I was frightened of what you’d do when you found out about us. I just wanted to get out of the way, but Ninch wanted to carry on with the job, get you all captured. I said I wouldn’t. I said that we’d been through so much with you that we were just like you now … You trusted us. I was for coming back to warn you but he drew a knife and stabbed me and pushed me into the canal. He watched me thrash around for a while and then I pretended to go under, drowning. Then he ran away up the towpath, towards Camden Town.’
‘Gone to get Sussworth,’ said Knocker. ‘We must get moving.’
‘No,’ said Scooter. ‘He won’t tell the SBG right off; he told me his plans, remember. He thinks that if he tells Sussworth where you are the Woollies will catch you and Sussworth will take all the credit. What he’s going to do is go straight over to Camden and round up some of the other dwarfs; there’s loads as didn’t look young enough for Sussworth to take on, tough they are. Ninch wants to capture you himself. That way he could screw as m
uch money out of Sussworth as possible. He wants all the glory and all the reward.’
As he finished speaking Scooter’s eyes flickered and the light went out of them. He clutched at his stomach, rolled forward and fell from the chair to the floor, unconscious. Fresh blood darkened his bandages.
Chalotte knelt by his side. ‘He’s probably got a gutful of that canal water,’ she said. ‘It’ll kill him. Pass that mug of tea there.’
‘Tea be blowed,’ said Napoleon. ‘Can’t you see that this is all a load of old codswallop? A knife wound, a dip in the canal. Easy. I bet they did this just so they could get a spy back in our camp.’ The Wendle’s face hardened. He leant over and pushing Chalotte to one side he grabbed at the false plastic ears Scooter was still wearing and ripped them off, one after the other, pulling at them so savagely that the strong glue pulled away the real skin and the tops of the ears began to bleed. ‘Look there,’ said Napoleon. ‘Ordinary ears. He’s an adult, a midget, a spy, a traitor.’
Chalotte stepped astride Scooter’s body. ‘I believe him,’ she said. She stood in the middle of her friends and looked at their faces. ‘This wound in his shoulder, it wasn’t for fun. It’s deep and it won’t stop bleeding. It’s full of dirty canal water. It could kill him. His temperature’s low; he’s shaking. He couldn’t put all that on. He didn’t have to come back to warn us.’
‘Whatever we do,’ said Knocker, ‘we can’t talk in front of him any more.’
Bingo looked down at the bloodstained figure. ‘We won’t have to,’ he said. ‘By the time he comes round we’ll be miles away.’
‘He couldn’t follow us at all from the bottom of the canal,’ said Napoleon.
‘Hang about,’ said Chalotte, and her voice sounded so shocked that the others took notice immediately. She was kneeling again, trying to staunch the blood flowing from the dwarf’s ears. ‘Look here, under where the false ears were, they’ve been growing, his ears, see … pointed. They’re more pointed than a normal’s ears but not as pointed as ours. I didn’t think it was possible, an adult going Borrible. Perhaps he was telling the truth, after all.’
The Adventurers crowded round Scooter and examined the evidence. Chalotte stood up, amazed, and found Knocker staring at her. ‘This is not possible,’ he said. ‘Adults cannot go Borrible.’
Chalotte tossed her hair over her shoulders. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but perhaps no adult has ever spent as long with Borribles as Scooter has. Who knows? I don’t.’ She looked mystified. ‘But just think what it could mean.’
‘It could mean a lot,’ said Torreycanyon, ‘but we can’t stand around talking all night. What are we going to do with him?’
‘Leave him here,’ said Knocker, ‘like Bingo said. We’ll ask the Conkers to keep an eye on him.’
Once this decision had been taken everyone began to move about the two flats with determination and speed. Rucksacks were made ready, catapults and stones were checked and the warmest clothing was chosen. It would be deathly cold along by the Grand Union Canal and the Borribles would need every bit of protection they could get.
During the bustle and activity of these preparations Swish and Treld, who had listened to the arguments about Scooter with great interest, disappeared for a while. When they returned they were carrying as much food as they had been able to find; all of it scrounged from members of the Conker tribe.
‘Take it,’ they said when the Adventurers objected. ‘Hide in one of the empty factories along by the towpath and we’ll bring you some more tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Chalotte, stuffing a raincoat into the top of her rucksack. ‘What do you mean, tomorrow?’
Treld grinned and raked her spiky blue and yellow hair with spread fingers. ‘We mean,’ she said, ‘that there’s no way you can get Sam out of that slaughterhouse without help. We saw. There’s too many Woollies.’
Swish laughed and the safety pins on the front of her jacket jangled. ‘You see, us Conkers want to help you get the horse, so we’re all coming. We’re going to create a diversion for you. It’ll be a bit of fun.’
‘Some fun,’ said Knocker. ‘You could get caught. And what about tonight? What if the coppers come here?’
‘Don’t you worry, Knocker me old china,’ said Swish. ‘This ain’t the only block of flats we got to live in. You just get on your way and we’ll catch up with yer tomorrow, just past the gasometers. Find a place with a roof and we’ll have a feast.’
Although they were on the run once more and getting closer every minute to the danger of the slaughterhouse, the Adventurers felt relieved; the attitude of the Conkers had cheered them immensely. They pushed their arms through the straps of their rucksacks, doused the lights and crept slowly downstairs, out into the cold and out into the dark.
At the very edge of the tower block the Conkers took their leave and, once more on their own, the Adventurers heaved themselves over the high wall bordering York Way and entered the no man’s land that runs uninterrupted from King’s Cross to Camden Road.
It was well past midnight now and into the early hours. All was quiet except for the soft lapping of canal water and the sound of the icy wind whistling through the decaying walls of the dead factories. Warily, testing each footstep before the next, the Adventurers struck out into the gloom along the towpath of the Grand Union. Ther were no torches in their hands, only loaded catapults. The Borribles were ready for anything for they knew they might have to be.
It was a hard night, cold and cheerless, and the Adventurers spent it in the hollow shell of a huge ruined warehouse. They did not know where they were in that darkness but they could feel the empty space of a drained dock away to the south of them; they could hear the black mud of it noisily sucking at the broken shapes of half-submerged barges and boats.
This part of London was dead, like a place where cholera had killed everything, not only in the water but in the air and on the ground. Even the warehouse had the smell of death about it and it was a smell that kept the Borribles watchful for fear that if they did sleep they might never wake. They sat close together for warmth, side by side against a wall, in the dark, cuddling their knees and staring at nothing, waiting for the dawn of the next day.
When the dawn came it came colder than the night and creaked slowly up over this uninhabited part of London. It was a dawn as pale and as bloodless as a corpse, a corpse that was soiled and cankered. The Borribles rose and stretched and moved to the holes in the walls that had once been windows. They rubbed their legs and struck each other on the back to warm their bodies, staring out at the landscape that imprisoned them on every side, and all they could see were factories as tall as churches, their girders showing like broken bones, and houses that were rotting into pieces and giving out that stench that was worse than infected flesh.
It was like living on the far side of a lifeless planet, undiscovered and unloved. There was not one creature stirring in it; not a man, not a cat, nor a dog, nor a bird. Only the low grey clouds moved, heavy and clumsy with their burden of dirty water, lurching across the sky with nowhere to go.
Knocker sighed. ‘We’d better stay here today,’ he said. ‘The slaughterhouse is only a mile or two further on and we can’t make a move until tonight.’
Vulge began to gather kindling wood from the floor, old battens and laths fallen from walls and ceilings. ‘I might as well make a brew,’ he said. ‘There’s no one to notice the smoke if I do, and a cup of tea will cheer us all up.’
Bingo crouched down to the plank floor and made a few experimental marks with a lump of plaster. ‘The SBG won’t find us here,’ he said, ‘but I think I’d better make a few Borrible signs along the towpath so the Conkers know where we are.’ He ducked through a broken doorway and was gone.
‘I hope the Conkers do come,’ said Chalotte as she watched Bingo disappear. ‘We could do with their help. In fact I don’t see how we stand a chance without it.’
Silently the other Adventurers agreed and, turning from the windows,
they sat down again and watched as Vulge took a saucepan from his haversack and filled it from a standpipe. Then they crouched by the fire he had made to wait while the water boiled. There was nothing else to do.
The Borribles stayed under cover all day, there being little to tempt them out into the dreary landscape, but towards dusk, after hours filled with dozing and cups of Vulge’s tea, they were roused to their feet by the voice of Bingo calling from the towpath where he was still on watch.
‘They’re coming,’ cried the Battersea Borrible, ‘and they look beautiful. Come and see.’
Outside, the edges of the sky had darkened and lowered themselves down to touch the earth. From the clouds the rain slanted, sharp and corrosive like acid, and long squares of shadow had fallen across everything. The surface of the canal was black and the shapes of the stranded barges were once more indistinct, disappearing into the deep mud that would never let them go.
But along the towpath, at a distance of three hundred yards, a long line of human shapes could be seen marching in single file. Each figure bore a golden flashlight and every flashlight scorched a hole as bright as fire across the evening gloom. It was the Conkers, all of them, marching to the aid of the Adventurers so that they could free Sam the horse.
Chalotte came and stood by Knocker’s side, and the others too. ‘Oh,’ she gasped, ‘isn’t it wonderful?’
Nearer and nearer came the girls of the Conker tribe, their torches held high. Now they were close to the Adventurers, climbing up from the side of the canal, over the broken walls and through the crumbling gateway and into the warehouse itself, whirling the torches above their heads to make circles of light in the air.
They were dressed in the finest gear they had been able to find and the torchlight reflected on their bicycle chains and on their barbarous brooches and bangles. Their strange spiky hair glittered with every colour of the rainbow and scintillated with silver stars. There were aerosol designs sprayed on the backs and fronts of their leather jackets and down their ragged trousers. On their faces were gaudy streaks of paint. Each and every one of them was grinning with the excitement of the moment. Warriors eager for battles, they laughed among themselves at the amazement on the faces of the Adventurers, and from the bags they carried they brought forth an immense amount of food and drink. Eventually, when they had covered the windows of the warehouse with old sacks, they sat down and invited their friends to do the same.
The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis Page 20