‘Ho, ho, ho,’ he roared, his face bright with triumph and his blue eyes flashing like police beacons revolving.
There was a clatter further along the tunnel and three more Wendles appeared, armed with powerful catapults, raised and ready, aimed at Adolf.
Napoleon waved his arms and his torch. ‘A Wendle, a Wendle!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Don’t fire! We’re Borrible! Adolf, let him up. Quick or you’re as kaput as a kipper.’
The German kept his eyes on the strung catapults and cautiously raised the limp body of his assailant from the black water. He held it in front of him like a shield and without being noticed, save for Knocker who was now in the prow of the boat with Napoleon, he slid a catapult from the unconscious Wendle’s pocket and secreted it in his own.
‘Good work,’ said Knocker to himself, ‘that kraut’s a real find.’
‘You, put that Wendle back on the path,’ said one of the new arrivals. ‘The rest of you keep dead still. There’s another fifty of us up round the next bend.’
Adolf carried his burden to the bank and unceremoniously dumped it. Napoleon shouted, ‘I’m a Wendle myself, on the Great Rumble Hunt. Flinthead knows about it, hasn’t he told you?’
‘He told us,’ came the answer, ‘but if you’ve killed Halfabar then you’re in serious trouble.’ Two of the Wendles came forward and knelt beside the half drowned warrior. They turned the sodden body over and pummelled the water out of it, then, reassured, they installed Halfabar in The Silver Belle Flower so that he might recover; meanwhile Adolf was ordered to continue pulling the boat.
‘Walk in the river, you,’ said the Wendle in charge, ‘the rest of you do everything we say. If anyone so much as makes a move towards a catapult, there’ll be more stones on your head than an avalanche. There’s fifty of us following you now, as well as fifty in front.’
Knocker glanced over his shoulder, as did his friends, and there they were, a crowd of figures wading through the water behind them, perhaps more than fifty, all bearing Rumble-sticks. It was obvious that all the Adventurers could do was obey.
‘Who’s the Borrible who’s been doing all the talking?’ Knocker whispered into Napoleon’s ear.
‘He’s a two-name Borrible,’ said Napoleon, ‘but he’s just called Tron. If he had a name for all the things he’s done he’d be a hundred-name Borrible, I can tell you. Hard as nails he is, and Flinthead, our chief, why, he’s just the same. Nobody comes in or out of here without their say-so.’
‘But you’re a Wendle yourself … ’
‘Don’t matter. I’ve been out, away; they’ve got to be careful. Only right isn’t it, when you think about it? I mean you jumped on the Rumbles quick enough when they came into your patch.’
The tunnel widened out a little now. There were paths on either side and both of them were crowded with warriors who gazed without friendliness at their brother Borribles in the boat below. Adolf they prodded with their spears and the Adventurers sat quietly in the boat, hoping that the German would not lose his temper.
They were apprehensive. Borribles, although inclined to argue among themselves, were on the whole congenial people. The Adventurers had been told that Wendles were the fiercest of all the tribes, but hadn’t realized that they were quite so military, quite so suspicious. Napoleon tried to explain the situation to his companions as they went along.
The Wendles, he argued, lived in constant fear of the Rumbles; their territory was the nearest to Rumbledom and had a long frontier with it. Along that frontier the Rumbles outnumbered the Wendles by at least five to one and the Borribles of Wandsworth had only kept their freedom by maintaining a warlike stance. Over the years this had made them warriors, mistrustful, cunning and hard.
‘I dunno about that,’ said Vulge. ‘They certainly look like a gross of top quality villains to me, and I should know, we’ve got a few over in Stepney.’
This conversation was brought to a halt by the loud voice of Tron shouting at the exhausted Adolf, tapping him on the head with a Rumble-stick.
‘Stop there, you, mush!’
‘I’ve got a name, you know, Wendle,’ said Adolf, looking up, his face covered in mud and sweat. ‘In fact. I’ve got three names, Adolf Wolfgang Amadeus, and I would never tell you the story of how I got them.’ And with that insult Adolf swore his favourite oath, ‘Verdammt.’
‘You probably got the names second hand,’ said Tron, bringing out the first in a series of Borrible sarcasms.
‘Even that is better than finding your name in a dustbin,’ said Adolf with spirit. ‘Fingy is the name that would suit you well if it were not too flattering.’
‘Cut it out,’ yelled Knocker. ‘This can only lead to trouble. Remember we are after the Rumbles, not each other.’
The Adventurers were next ordered to stand on the bank while the boat was made fast and Halfabar lifted out. He had recovered enough to stand now, although he looked a little groggy and his face was greener than usual because of the quantities of stinking water he had swallowed. He peered round until he saw Adolf, a wet and muddy figure who was being hauled ashore by Stonks and Torreycanyon. Halfabar staggered away from the two Wendles who held him upright and pushed roughly through the little knot of Adventurers who waited on the towpath. He halted in front of Adolf and shoved his green face up to the slime and sweat-covered one of the German.
‘It is not over between you and me,’ he hissed, his angry and smelly breath enveloping Adolf’s head and making him wince. ‘One day we’ll meet again, where you can play no tricks, and I’ll kill you.’
‘A Borrible who has no tricks is no Borrible,’ said Adolf pleasantly, reciting an old German proverb. ‘You’d better go and have a good rest; you need more strength, my little girl. Right now you could probably hit me a hundred times before I noticed you were there.’ And the German turned and followed his companions along a narrow but dry sewer tunnel that led upwards and away from the main river.
The Adventurers were escorted by an armed guard of Wendles, and the noise of their squelching tread echoed everywhere. On river patrols the Wendles wear waders, and the sound they make when they walk is a strange one; when a hundred march together that sound is the sound of a wet centipede on the move.
‘Where’s Napoleon?’ Knocker asked Bingo, who was beside him.
‘They took him off ahead, on his own,’ answered Bingo. ‘I hope he sticks by us.’
Knocker was made uneasy by the information, but he comforted himself with the thought that however suspicious the Wendles might be of outsiders, it was in their interest that the Great Rumble Hunt should take place. The chances of it succeeding were small, but if it did the Wendles would be safe for years to come. After all, they had sent one of their own men to be trained for the mission; that must mean something.
‘It’ll be all right,’ said Knocker, loud enough for all his companions to hear. ‘They’ve probably just taken Napoleon off to check that we are who we say we are. He’ll be back.’
They marched on and the tunnel rose and twisted and they shone their torches at the floor which was uneven and broken.
‘Keep close,’ said Knocker. ‘If there’s any trouble we’ll form two lines, back to back.’
A few minutes later the Adventurers came into a vast underground cavern with a floor that sloped steeply away from them. It must have been the central chamber for the Wandsworth sewage system back in the nineteenth century. Now it was dry and its elegant brick arches were beginning to crumble.
Scores of Wendles were already present, and latecomers were emerging from the corridors that led from all parts of the huge borough. Each Wendle held a torch and together they spread an eerie light over the scene. Tron’s voice sounded from behind: ‘Keep going, straight in front of you, over there, where you see that platform. You’re going to meet Flinthead.’
On the far side of the hall stood a small podium and on it was one chair and in that chair sat Flinthead himself; by his side stood Napoleon Boot, talking r
apidly.
Flinthead gazed down at the Adventurers as they came before him. His eyes didn’t move and though Knocker watched very carefully the chief Wendle didn’t seem to blink either. Knocker assumed that this was because he always lived in the dark and never saw the sun, though it was said that he knew exactly what happened everywhere. As Spiff had intimated, Flinthead was the most cunning, the most merciless and the most unpredictable of all the Wendles. Every Wendle went in deadly fear of him, yet he commanded a strange loyalty, a loyalty born out of the threat that surrounded the whole community.
Knocker looked across at Napoleon for some hint of what was going to happen but Napoleon ignored the glance; they would all have to wait and see what Flinthead had in mind.
Still the chief of the Wendles said nothing, and everything that had been in the boat was now brought forward and exhibited in front of the line of captives. While he waited, Knocker continued his scrutiny of Flinthead’s face. The eyes were indeed strange, frosted over like lavatory windows, impenetrable; they didn’t gleam or glint and still they didn’t move. It was uncanny. His face was rubbery, streaked with grey and dark green. His nose was like a false plastic one that had been too near the fire and had melted. It was an evil nose, a dangerous nose, a nose that could smell out treachery and deceit even when there was none. On his head he wore a helmet of copper riveted together in sections, and it had an extra piece that came between his eyes and attempted to protect, or hide, the nose, but the nose was too big for concealment. His body was small and sinewy, like that of most Borribles, and he was clothed in warm wool-lined waders and a plastic jacket painted with bright golden paint. And, in a way that Knocker could not define, in a way that puzzled him, Flinthead looked like someone Knocker knew.
The chieftain’s head moved at last and his eyes moved in the same axis, as if they had no independent life. He looked along the line of adventurers and at their belongings, then his head became immobile again. Napoleon continued to pour his story into Flinthead’s ear, pointing out his companions in turn, giving their names and telling what equipment they had brought. Flinthead nodded as the tale went on.
What power he has, thought Knocker, looking round the great hall. There must have been hundreds of Wandsworth Borribles in the cavern now, and although they talked among themselves there was none of that cheerful anarchy that Knocker associated with the meetings of any of the Borrible tribes he knew.
‘Is your lot like this?’ he asked. Chalotte was standing next to him.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘Creepy, I call it.’
It was amazing to Knocker how Flinthead had acquired this power. Normally a Borrible community has little organization above that of the Borrible house, or at the most and in emergencies only, the street.
At this point Knocker’s thoughts were interrupted; Flinthead slowly raised his left hand, and conversation in the great hall ceased immediately. Every Borrible there must have had at least one eye on the chieftain, every Borrible that is except Bingo and Adolf, who had been deeply engrossed in cheering each other with tales of what they were going to do to the Wendles when they got half a chance.
‘Ja,’ Adolf’s voice boomed over the silent hall. ‘Starting with Halfabar, I’ll obliterate them.’
‘And I’ll see to Flintbonce there, just for starters,’ yelled Bingo, and then stopped as he realized that maybe two hundred ears had heard him, that one hundred torches now beamed on him and two hundred eyes had seen him and would remember his face. Worst of all, the blank eyes of Flinthead himself now came to rest upon Bingo like the heavy hand of death.
Flinthead waited and the hall became quieter and quieter, every increase in the tension making the atmosphere more difficult to breathe. Then he spoke, and when his voice came it came as a shock. It was a friendly voice, warm and solicitous, like a kind uncle asking after a favourite nephew’s health. His mouth smiled, but no other part of his face shared in that smile. He addressed the line of Adventurers.
‘Welcome, my friends,’ he said, looking as if he wished Adolf and Bingo six feet deep in Wandle mud. ‘Welcome to Wandsworth. You must forgive us, fellow Borribles, if we seem so defensive. You live far from these rugged frontiers, whereas we exist under the constant threat of Rumbledom and its rapacious denizens. It would be so easy for them, you understand, to come pouring down the hillsides. across Southfields and into this Borough where we … pick up a poor living. Heaven knows why they covet what is ours, but then greed is a terrible thing, and although the Rumbles seem to us to be rich beyond the dreams of avarice, we find them everywhere, taking more and more. You captured only one Rumble on your frontier and yet you immediately gathered an elite force from all over London to punish them. Think how much more we feel the need to protect ourselves when we have thousands of warrior Rumbles on our very doorstep. But let us forget your awkward welcome. Now that we know exactly who you are, and where you are going, we join in common cause with you. Your enemy is our enemy, your fight our fight.’
He coughed, thought for a moment and then went on. ‘Napoleon Boot, a warrior whom we trust, has told me of you and what you intend to do when once you reach Rumbledom. It is a good plan, though hazardous, and we hope you succeed. For the present our warriors will look after you. Sleep well and tomorrow Tron will set you on your way; we shall see that your every need is satisfied. We shall give of our best.’
Knocker stepped forward and looked straight into the cold eyes.
‘What,’ he asked, making his voice sound even and mature, ‘will happen to our boat? We shall need it for the return journey.’
A smile lived for a second on Flinthead’s face and then died for want of sustenance. ‘We shall guard your boat as carefully as if it were our own. After all, you will need it to carry your spoils.’
‘We do not go for spoils,’ replied Knocker. ‘But there is another thing: will you, on our return, guarantee us a passage down the Wandle, till we are safe on the Thames?’
‘My own personal bodyguard shall be with you as you leave here and shall be at your disposition when you return. That shows how important it is to us that your mission succeeds, and will be a measure of our gratitude if it does. Next time we shall know you and our welcome will be more … amiable. For the present Tron will take you all to a comfortable room that has been prepared.’
Flinthead gestured and Tron and Halfabar came forward and indicated that the Adventurers should follow them. After a last glance in the direction of the podium, they turned about and walked across the huge hall in the footsteps of their Wendle guides.
Knocker did not follow the others immediately. He moved closer to the platform and looked up at Flinthead once again.
‘Does Napoleon come with us, or does he stay here with you?’ he asked the chieftain.
The chief Wendle smiled like a tombstone. ‘He had best stay with you, I think, then you can leave together in the morning. He has told me all I want to know, especially about you, Knocker. I think the adventure might succeed with you at its head.’
‘I am not its leader, Flinthead,’ protested Knocker, looking angrily at Napoleon.
‘I know,’ said Flinthead dismissively. ‘You are a … What is it? An Historian? We all know how to bend the rules, especially the one called Spiff. I know of him and he knows of me. Well, whatever you are, I hope you win through. I ask only one thing, and this I want you to promise: that you come back to us and recount in every detail the dangers of your expedition. One of the few pleasures I have is listening to the stories of those who make a journey to earn their names. I want to hear how you fare, including Napoleon here; a fine name he will have.’
‘It will be the least we can do by way of thanks for the hospitality we have received at your hands,’ said Knocker politely, though he was deeply troubled in his mind by Flinthead’s behaviour. But at that moment all Knocker could do was to pretend he believed everything he was told. Knocker looked at Napoleon. He was a Wendle too, and in a crisis would stand and fight with the Wendles, tha
t was only natural. It wouldn’t do to trust him with any secrets; secrets would only get to the ear of Flinthead and if the secrets were valuable then Knocker’s life, and the lives of the others, wouldn’t be worth a handful of Wandle mud.
Flinthead stood, ready to leave. ‘You are too kind,’ he said, and then without another word he raised his hand and the Wendles in the hall began to leave. Flinthead’s bodyguard assembled at the rear of the platform and the chief went down the steps and was lost in the middle of his men. Knocker watched them march away, an elite corps of well armed and experienced fighting Wendles, about fifty of them. It would, he reflected, he almost impossible to harm the chieftain without their connivance. and they were, without doubt, loyal to a man.
As they disappeared, Napoleon came to the front of the platform and jumped down to stand beside Knocker.
‘I tell yer,’ he said scornfully, ‘that is a great Borrible; no little Spiff in a dressing gown, but a warrior who plans ahead and knows things. He sees what you are thinking even as it comes to your mind.’
‘Spiff is just as crafty and just as clever,’ answered Knocker.
Napoleon shrugged his shoulders and turned to lead the way across the hall which was emptying now of Wendles. ‘They should have sent half a dozen of my tribe on this expedition,’ he said. ‘We’d have done it easy.’
Knocker did not bother to answer the jibe, and the two Borribles hastened to catch up with their companions. After marching for half a mile or so the Adventurers were led into a well furnished and comfortable room, which by Borrible standards was luxurious indeed, with carpets on the floor, a few armchairs and an abundance of cushions and blankets for relaxation and sleep. The haversacks were brought in and the Wendle escorts hurried away. When they’d gone, Tron and Halfabar stood at the door for a moment, then they too departed and there was the sound of a key turning and bolts being rammed home.
The Borribles Page 9