The Borribles

by Michael de Larrabeiti

  But the swift tide was against them and it took most of their effort to stay in the same place. There was no ornamental pleasure lake beneath them now, instead a sinuous monster had them in its vigorous grip, with rolling ropes of muscles that could shatter a boat like a walnut caught in the crook of a navvy’s arm.

  They clawed every inch of the way, leaving Battersea Church and moving up to Ransome’s Dock, where Eaton House and Archer House stood at the end of Battersea High Street. Underneath the grey girders of Battersea Railway Bridge it was blacker than black, but Napoleon kept them rowing, exerting their arms and legs to the uttermost. To the north was Chelsea Creek and Lots Road LTE Generating Station. Far ahead, glowing crimson in the night sky, at the end of Battersea Reach, was Fulham Power Station, a beacon for the night’s work.

  Napoleon watched his crew carefully, determined not to overtire them, and before long he decided to take cover and let the Borribles rest and eat. His instructions came clearly and the boat slipped into the southern shore and came to a halt between two enormous barges.

  ‘Ship your oars,’ commanded Napoleon, and he went bounding over the benches to tie the boat’s painter to a cable which ran from one of the barges to a huge buoy. That done he returned to the stern of the boat and shoved his face up against Knocker’s.

  ‘Well,’ said Napoleon, and there was hatred in his voice, ‘how did you fiddle this then?’

  The attention of the others was caught by the question. How had Knocker managed to get himself included in the expedition?

  ‘I’m not here as an Adventurer,’ said Knocker. He didn’t sound too sure of his argument. ‘It was Spiff’s idea. In the rules there’s a provision for exceptional adventures … It allows an Historian to go along and write it all down … for the story … Spiff asked me to come, at the very last moment, that’s all. I couldn’t refuse really, not that I wanted to.’

  Orococco beamed. ‘I’m glad, pleased to see you with us.’

  ‘Well I ain’t,’ said Napoleon, speaking through his teeth. ‘There’s something dodgy going down here. I don’t trust Spiff and I don’t trust you, Knocker; you’re as crooked as a pair of concertinas.’

  ‘Oh it’s all right,’ said Vulge. ‘After all, he knows all about parks and countryside and stuff … useful in Rumbledom.’

  Napoleon narrowed his eyes. ‘Useful is as useful does,’ he said. ‘Let’s get one thing clear, Knocker-two-face, your status as instructor is over, you don’t give any orders. All decisions will be arrived at jointly, and you’re included out.’

  ‘Well of course.’ Knocker tried to sound reassuring. ‘I won’t even give my opinion unless you ask for it. You see, I can’t take part in the adventure until you’ve all got your names, though I can use my catapult in self-defence.’

  Napoleon thought for a while. ‘I’ll be watching you, Knocker,’ he said, ‘awake and asleep. You step out of line and I’ll rattle your skull.’ He pursed his lips and when the others were not listening he leant close to Knocker and whispered in his ear, ‘I don’t believe that’s all you’ve come for—just to be an Historian.’

  Knocker pulled his head back. ‘I’ve come for the adventure, that’s all. What other reason could there be?’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Napoleon, ‘but there’s something in the wind and I can smell it.’ And he scowled and shoved a sandwich into his mouth, munching the bread with hatred.

  The Adventurers stayed in the shadows by the barges for two hours, then, rested and fed, they took up the oars once more. There was not much of the night left to them, and they would need to be well under cover before the slightest hint of dawn should appear in the sky.

  ‘We ain’t going much further,’ said Napoleon. ‘We’ll hide along by Fulham Power Station.’

  They rowed on. Several large tugs passed dangerously close to The Silver Belle Flower, causing it to ship a little water, but the Borribles passed unseen and there was no sign of police launches. Napoleon peered into the darkness, his eyes keen, like some mariner of the high seas eager for a landfall. Just before dawn he spied what he had been searching for, a cluster of four or five moored barges, and in the middle of them, he hoped, a space of calm water, large enough to lie low in during the coming day. Another night and a little more rowing would put them at the mouth of the Wandle. There they could conceal the boat and begin their long trek overland.

  ‘One last good pull,’ said Napoleon, ‘and then we can rest.’

  The Borribles worked with a will and they shot across the river, the greasy waves striking The Silver Belle Flower on the beam, making her lurch and shudder.

  ‘Keep pulling,’ shouted Napoleon. ‘One two, one two.’ He gave a sharp tug on the rudder strings, the boat changed direction, and his eyes found the gap he sought between the barges.

  ‘Ship yer oars.’

  The rowers obeyed with relief, their craft sailed into a little haven of steady water and Napoleon secured the boat fore and aft.

  ‘How do you think we’ve done then?’ asked Stonks, massaging his biceps.

  ‘Good,’ said Napoleon. ‘We’ll stay here all day, and when it’s dark we’ll go on to Wandsworth Bridge, then it’s only a spit and a jump to the River Wandle.’

  It was decided to leave two Borribles standing guard while the others slept. Knocker volunteered for the first two hours, and Orococco stood with him. The remainder of the crew unrolled their sleeping bags and curled up as best they might in the bottom of the boat. Knocker kept his watch looking down the grey dawn of the river, while Orococco stared upstream and hummed a Borrible song as a kind of lullaby for his companions, a lullaby they did not need, so exhausted were they.

  ‘River, river, the dawn is breakin’

  On shadow and wave and wharf and wall

  And the sun’ll soon be appearin’, river,

  Like a big red ball.

  ‘River, river, stop fer a minute;

  I know yer journey never ends,

  But the city is comin’ ter life, river,

  All of yer friends!

  ‘River, river, listen, the yawnin’!

  Good and bad dreams are nearly gone,

  Bottles are clinkin’ on doorsteps, river;

  The world’s movin’ on.

  ‘River, river, windin’ ferever,

  I reckon you’ve seen it all before.

  Wot’s night’s endin’ ter you, river?

  Just one daybreak more.’

  The Thames was busy now. The two lookouts could hear the sound of hooting tugs and the swish and the slap of the waves thrown up by passing barges, low in the water, nearly sinking under the weight of tons and tons of cargo: coal for the power stations and containers bound for the London Docks.

  The first hour of the watch soon passed and Knocker was beginning to feel sleepy when he heard a very slight noise above him on the deck of the nearest barge. He tensed his muscles, slid his catapult from his back pocket and loaded it with a stone from his bandolier. Slowly he stood up and pulled the chunky elastic back so that it was half ready. He glanced quickly up the boat but Orococco was facing the other way, his head nodding. He looked asleep; Knocker waited.

  The boat rocked and the Borribles slept on. A scrabbling sound, very cautious, came from above. It seemed to Knocker that someone was trying to find a way out from underneath the tarpaulin that covered the lighter which gave them protection on the shore side. Knocker ran his gaze along the iron wall of the barge, along the crisscross of ropes that held the tarpaulin down. He could see nothing. Again he looked towards the other end of the boat. Orococco’s head still nodded.

  The scrabbling noises stopped. Then Knocker heard the noise of a knife cutting through canvas. He pulled the rubber of his catapult tighter, but as yet he had nothing to aim at. Suddenly a small figure dressed in green and brown burst into view on the very edge of the barge right above The Silver Belle Flower. Whoever it was had his back towards Knocker, who, aiming for the kidneys, pulled his catapult to its full extent and let fly.
He heard a pained intake of breath and the intruder teetered back and forth as if he could not decide which way to fall.

  At that moment Orococco turned, his catapult in his hand. He had been feigning sleep, only waiting for the unseen enemy to appear. He took in the situation, saw the enemy and fired, but luckily, as it proved, he missed. As Orococco’s stone sped from his catapult the newcomer lost his balance and fell headlong and heavily into the boatload of Borribles, landing in a crumpled heap between Knocker and the first seat. Knocker let fall his catapult and leapt on the interloper, holding him down while Orococco stumbled over the sleeping forms of his companions to give assistance.

  In spite of the blow from the stone and the fall from the barge the new arrival put up a spirited struggle. He shouted in some strange language and twice managed to get to his feet, before finally he was pinioned to the deck by the two guards. By this time Stonks and Torreycanyon were awake and the combined weight of the four Borribles was too much for the foreigner. With a sigh and a curse he stopped struggling.

  ‘All right, all right, I give no more trouble,’ he said, his English heavily accented.

  ‘Give us a bit of rope,’ said Knocker to Napoleon, who had also come awake. ‘We’ll tie him up and see what we’ve caught.’

  Bingo, too, was out of his sleeping bag and he climbed up the side of the barge to make sure there was no one else who might give them trouble. Vulge followed him but they returned in less than a minute; it was all clear. No one else on the barges, nothing suspicious on the river.

  The Borribles looked down at their prisoner.

  ‘Is it a normal, a child?’ asked Chalotte.

  Napoleon bent over and pulled off the balaclava hat in leather that the captive was wearing. The ears were pointed, very much so. The Adventurers had captured a Borrible, and moreover a foreign Borrible.

  ‘Could you please rub me here, on the back?’ said the foreigner in his strange voice. ‘That stone you catapulted hit me hard.’

  Stonks, who was kind as well as very strong, lifted the prisoner on to a seat and massaged him for a while.

  ‘Oh, thank you, thank you. I feel better now.’

  ‘You’re a Borrible,’ said Knocker.

  ‘Borrible,’ affirmed the other.

  ‘All right, Knocker,’ said Napoleon. ‘I’ll ask the questions. You ain’t on this expedition, remember, and anyhow I’m captain of this ship.’ He crouched down before the captive. ‘If you’re a Borrible, where do you come from? Not from London, not with that accent.’

  ‘No,’ said the foreigner, and he laughed. ‘I’m from Hamburg.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Orococco, ‘an immigrant.’

  ‘Cut that out,’Rococco,’ said Napoleon angrily.‘We haven’t got time for joking.’

  ‘Who’s joking?’ said the black Borrible.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘My name,’ said the prisoner, trying to draw himself up proudly even though he was bound hand and foot, ‘is Adolf Wolfgang Amadeus.’

  ‘Swipe me,’ said Torreycanyon in disbelief. ‘Three names! Don’t they have the same rules in Hamburg?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Knocker. ‘Borribles have the same set-up everywhere.’

  That means he’s had three adventures, and successful ones,’ said Sydney, and she looked at Adolf with a new interest.

  ‘That’s all very well, but he’s a nuisance,’ said Napoleon. ‘He’s in the way. He’ll have to swim ashore, and then make his own way back to Hamburg.’

  Adolf laughed again. ‘You have got it all wrong, my friends. I am not superfluous, I am extra. I have come along to join you. I am a great fighter, an experienced general, a marvellous shot with the catapult and I have a high rate of survival. My three names prove that, verdammt.’

  ‘What do you mean, join us?’ asked Napoleon. ‘We’re not going anywhere, this is just a kind of outing.’

  ‘Outing,’ scoffed Adolf. ‘You are the Eight … the Magnificent Eight—though I see nine of you—and you are going to Rumbledom to teach those rabbits a lesson.’

  Now the captors looked more uncomfortable than the captive. ‘How do you know all that?’ asked Knocker, breaking his silence. He grasped the German by the collar and shook him. ‘How do you know? Come on, spill the beans, you stinking kraut.’

  Adolf didn’t look at all perturbed. ‘Hamburg is a port; often we get English Borribles stowing away on ships for their name adventure. In Hamburg we are hospitable to foreign Borribles. We do not tie them up and beat their heads in.’

  ‘Get on with it,’ Knocker urged.

  ‘Not so long ago, we had a Battersea Borrible arrive, very tired, very hungry. I took him into my house, gave him food and beer. We became good friends; he lived under the arches by Battersea Park railway station, he said. Perhaps you know him, no? Anyway, he had been at the meeting when Knocker, that’s you—’ Adolf Wolfgang Amadeus laughed at Knocker’s surprise, ‘—you had captured a Rumble and it was decided to send an expedition to Rumbledom. My friend, the name he won by the way is Steamer, good, isn’t it? Anyway Steamer told me all about it, and I said, verdammt, what an adventure, what a chance for me to get a fourth name, and in England, too, with English Borribles! What a name I shall have then: Adolf Wolfgang Amadeus Winston.’ He looked round proudly, pleased with himself. ‘What do you think, is that not a name and another half?’

  ‘No, not a bit.’ said Napoleon.

  ‘So I came to Battersea High Street to see what you did, but, I thought, they will never let me on the boat there, they will just leave me behind, but I must get on the boat, and to get on the boat I have to get on the river, so at high tide I waited on Battersea Bridge and when there is a barge going under with a nice soft load in it, I jump and here I am. I meant to watch for you going by and swim out so you couldn’t put me ashore, but the barge men covered me over with canvas. Luckily for me you have come here instead.’

  ‘We can throw you ashore from here, too,’ said Napoleon, ‘quite easy.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ said Adolf, leaning back in his bonds quite relaxed.

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t want anyone to know which way you were coming, and if you let me go I might go around chatting about what I saw on the river and it might get to the ears of the Rumbles, and the element of surprise … lost. A pity? Stimmt?’

  ‘We might throw you into the river,’ said Napoleon, ‘tied to a convenient lump of cement.’

  Adolf hooted. ‘Anyone else, maybe, but not a friendly Borrible.’

  There was a silence then, and as no one could think what to do all eyes turned to Knocker.

  ‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that his story is true. I mean he looks the kind who would want a fourth adventure; I mean mad enough. But however you look at it we can’t let him go in case he does give us away. We’ll have to take him along, and we’ll have to watch him all the time; see if he’s a spy, if he leaves messages, things like that. If he isn’t, then he’s an extra catapult and a bloody good punch-up artist, I bet. We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled, that’s all.’

  ‘We’ll have to watch him like I’m watching you.’ Napoleon sneered as he said it.

  ‘Leave it out, Wendle,’ said Knocker.

  ‘Let’s vote on it,’ suggested Bingo, ‘all except Knocker. Shall we keep Adolf or throw him in the river? Who’s for keeping him?’

  Seven hands went up; Napoleon abstained.

  ‘You’re making a big mistake,’ he said sourly. ‘See if I ain’t right. Make sure you take his catapult away, and keep his hands tied.’

  Bingo went down the boat to the prisoner and untied his feet. Adolf was searched and a catapult and knife were found in his pockets.

  ‘You can stay for the time being,’ said Napoleon, ‘but I’m not keen on it. If you give any trouble on this boat I’ll send you to the bottom of the river so fast the fish will think you’re an anchor.’

  ‘I love your English understatement,’ said Adolf, and af
ter flashing a mad grin at his new companions he curled up under a seat and was soon snoring. Everyone else, save Torreycanyon and Stonks, who had volunteered to stand second guard, followed the German’s example, wriggling into their sleeping bags and falling sound asleep. So through the morning, afternoon and evening, the boat rose and fell softly on the waves, and the slumbers of the Borribles remained unbroken, and their dreams untroubled.

  The fog-ridden sun had long since fallen below the red horizon when the boat came alive again. Napoleon roused everyone with a rough shove and told them to eat. He wanted to be rowing again as soon as possible. The Wandle wasn’t far away but there would be much to do before the dawn of the next day.

  The Borribles stretched and rubbed each other’s backs; they shared the food from their haversacks and poured the last of the tea from their Thermos flasks. Knocker took his rations and sat by the German.

  ‘There you go, Adolf, me old china,’ he said. ‘We might have thrown you in the river quite happily but seeing as you’re still here, you’d better have some grub.’

  Adolf sat up and ate with an appetite. ‘Danke,’ he said between mouthfuls. ‘Excellent.’

  ‘How come you got three names, then?’ asked Knocker enviously.

  ‘Aha,’ said Adolf, ‘it’s a question of knowing the rules. You must know a few, otherwise you wouldn’t be here, would you?’

  ‘Oh, that was Spiff, not me,’ said Knocker. ‘He’s as sly as a saveloy. So where’d you get the names? Wolfgang, Amadeus, and Adolf, of course.’

  ‘Adolf I got at home, Wolfgang I got in Denmark, Amadeus in Salzburg of course, burgling. Now I want to get an English name: Winston.’

  ‘They are good names,’ said Knocker, ‘very good names, and I bet there are good stories behind them.’

  ‘Every name has a story,’ said Adolf philosophically, ‘but I am glad you like them, and Winston will add something special. But, please, tell me the names of all the others.’