The Borribles

by Michael de Larrabeiti

  ‘We’ll have to get out of here quick,’ said Bingo, looking down to the far end of the street. ‘The other car will be coming round this way soon.’

  ‘I don’t mind staying here and taking them on,’ said Torreycannon. ‘I enjoyed that. I hope the Rumbles fall over as easily.’

  ‘We need somewhere to disappear,’ said Sydney. ‘The roads will be crawling with John Law in ten minutes’ time.’

  The group went silent. What Sydney had said was true, but concealment would not be easy. There were no abandoned houses in Engadine and the police would soon be knocking at every door asking if the Borribles had been seen.

  It was then that their luck changed.

  They were standing on the pavement near the wrecked car, watching the injured policemen crawl away, when at their feet they heard a slight noise—a grating and a scratching. They half turned and looked at the metal coal-hole cover set into the pavement just behind them. They glanced along the street. Every house they could see had a similar cover in front of it, circular and made from heavy iron, put there so that coalmen could lift them out of the way and empty their hundredweight sacks directly into the cellars, and so avoid tramping dirt and dust into people’s hallways. But this cover was special; it was revolving on its own.

  ‘Aye, aye,’ said Vulge. ‘What’s this then, undercover coppers?’

  Suddenly the coal-hole cover floated up an inch, balanced on a human head. It hesitated, then up it came another inch, warily. A long moment went by and it tilted to one side and a nose appeared, a large nose and crooked, with coal dust on it as well as a heavy dewdrop which looked as if it might leave the nose at any moment, but which didn’t.

  Vulge bent down quickly. ‘What’s your game, Sunshine, eh?’

  A voice came out of the hole; it was cracked and petulant but the words it used were friendly enough. ‘Borribles, ain’t yer? He! He! Only Borribles could do that to the Woollies. I was watching from my front room. I’m a good friend to the Borribles, always have been. They help me and I help them. Was one myself once, ain’t it, till I got caught. Nasty business growing old. You don’t ever want to get caught, do you?’

  Vulge looked at the others. ‘I don’t know what we’ve got here,’ he said, ‘but he might be able to get us out of this pickle.’

  ‘We’d better hurry,’ said Bingo. ‘I can see the other car at the far end of the road, getting ready.’

  ‘You come down here, mateys,’ said the voice from the coal-hole and the dewdrop quivered ecstatically, threatening to lose its passionate hold on the nose. ‘You come down here, ain’t it? I won’t tell where you are, and in a couple of days you can carry on to wherever you’re going.’

  ‘We haven’t got a lot of choice,’ said Torreycanyon. ‘None of us wants to get caught, at least not before we gets to Rumbledom and does what we came to do.’

  ‘Okay, down here,’ called Vulge. ‘Move over, we’re coming in.’ He pushed the coal-hole cover till it slid over to rest on the pavement and saw a narrow head, covered with a wisp of grey hair, duck back into the darkness.

  ‘Well,’ asked Vulge, ‘who’s first?’

  ‘Man, if we stands round here nattering all day, we’ll spend tonight in the nick with our ears clipped,’ said Orococco, and he struggled out of his haversack, threw it into the hole and then wriggled through the narrow opening.

  The others followed quickly one by one until Knocker was left alone. He looked about him. The driver was still unconscious and the two injured policemen had crawled into Replingham out of sight. The street was empty and no one had seen the disappearance of the Borrible Adventurers. The whole battle had taken no longer than two or three minutes and the crash had not yet attracted attention. However, at the far end of Engadine, Knocker could see the other police car in position. Its occupants were still too far away to see what had happened, but shortly those policemen would be driving towards him. He must get underground.

  Knocker lowered himself through the pavement until his feet touched a shifting pile of coal. The light from above got smaller as he pulled the iron lid into its grooves. Finally it dropped into place and there was a clang like the top half of a sarcophagus shutting a corpse off from the living world, and a suffocating darkness enfolded Knocker and his nine companions in its close and clammy embrace, safe below the long stretches of Engadine Street, Southfields.

  Knocker slipped and slithered on the knobs of coal. He stumbled, regained his balance for a moment, then fell forward. He was caught and the breath was crushed out of him by two wiry adult arms. He struggled but the arms were strong. He kicked and squirmed but he couldn’t free himself. Hot breath scalded his face as his assailant carried him along; the breath was foul and Knocker twisted away from it.

  The breath became words. ‘Don’t you struggle, my little beauty. We’re on your side, ain’t it? Oh, me little deario, you are in safe hands now, ain’t you thought?’

  Knocker stopped kicking and waited. The voice he heard close to his ear was the voice that had invited the Adventurers into the coal-hole; it was a sickly whining voice with a creaking edge to it. Knocker was carried into another part of the cellar and not for one second did the strong and stringy hands that clutched him relax their hold. Knocker didn’t like this at all. He slid his hand behind him to reach for his catapult but his hand encountered a large adult one in the act of pulling the weapon away, yet he was still held firmly by two other hands. Was there then another adult in the dark cellar, or did the beast that was carrying him have three hands? Knocker shivered; where on earth were the others?

  Suddenly his captor shifted his grip and Knocker was grasped by the scruff of the neck and thrown roughly into space. He landed against another body and he heard Torreycanyon shout, ‘Swipe me, what’s occurring?’ At that moment there was a clashing sound as someone slammed a steel door; then a moment’s silence and a light was switched on, revealing the most dismal of scenes.

  Knocker on his hands and knees blinked his eyes, the brightness coming after the dark almost blinding him. He shook his head. He could not believe what he saw. He and the others were imprisoned in a large cage such as one might see at a circus, only this cage had its bars placed very close together, so close that even a Borrible could not get through. In fact, the cage might well have been made especially for Borribles.

  Outside the cage, in a large cellar room, stood two men, one middle-aged, the other old. The old man, a bony creature, was rubbing his hands, grinning and sniffing with glee at his dewdrop. The younger man, Dewdrop’s son, stood nodding his head stupidly and smiling an uneasy smile, as if he had made a mess in his trousers and was not quite sure what to do about it. He was an idiot, squarely built, a monster of great strength.

  Knocker got to his feet and looked at his companions. They were motionless, staring at the evil old man. Their faces were white and hard with fear.

  ‘Shit a brick,’ cried Napoleon, his expression bitter with anger. ‘A Borrible-snatcher.’

  Stonks grabbed at the bars and tried to shake them with all his power. ‘You dirty old sod,’ he yelled at the top of his voice. ‘Let us out of here. I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you.’

  The old man only rubbed his hands harder and sniffed more happily. He elbowed his son and nodded his head so vigorously that it seemed that the dewdrop must leave his nose for ever, but it stuck like gum, swinging backwards and forwards clanging against his nostrils.

  ‘Look at the dearios,’ he chortled. ‘Ten lovely little Borribles. I’ve never had such a haul in me own whole life. We’ll be rich, Erbie, so rich that the horse and cart won’t be able to carry all our goodies. Strike me pink, ain’t it beautiful? A little bit of persuasion and they’ll be workin’ day and night, ain’t it? Best little deario burglars in the whole wide world, ain’t it, Erbie?’

  On Erbie’s vegetable visage there was not the slightest glimmer of thought, but he nodded slowly and said, ‘Yeah, Dad, yeah,’ and dead ideas sunk sightless through his muddy brain, like poisone
d fish in the Wandle.

  ‘Blimey, we’re in serious trouble now,’ said Bingo. ‘Dewdrop and Son. We’ll be lucky to get out of this alive, sure as eggs is fried.’

  ‘Keep your heads,’ said Knocker quietly, though he felt as scared as the others. ‘Anyone here got a catapult?’

  Dewdrop cackled and slapped his son on the shoulder so heartily that the moron staggered forward a step or two and lost his inane smile, though it returned in a second or two, as gormless as before.

  ‘Oh no, me deario, we got all the catapults; dangerous things as can hurt blokes, like those poor constables outside, rolling on the ground with their knees cracked, ain’t it? And my boy Erbie, he took all the stones too. We’re going to keep them for you, don’t you worry your little heads … and your haversacks, too. I’ll look after you real well while you’re here. And you’re going to be here a nice long while, me dearios, and we’re going to be real good friends, ain’t it?’

  Napoleon’s face was white with anger. He raised his fist and shook it at Dewdrop. ‘You can’t keep us for ever, you stinkin’ old goat.’

  ‘Not for ever, no,’ agreed Dewdrop, ‘but for as long as I or you live. or until you get caught, eh, me deario.’ And he smirked and slapped his legs in glee.

  His mirth was interrupted by a loud knocking on the street door. Dewdrop glanced towards the ceiling. ‘Right, Erbie,’ he said, ‘we’d better go and tell those nice peelers that we haven’t seen a thing. Wouldn’t know a Borrible from an ordinary child, would we?’ And he twisted his head on his neck and gloated over the caged Adventurers who could do nothing but hang their heads in despair.

  ‘Come on, Erbie.’ Dewdrop seized his son by the collar and pulled him away. ‘We’ll see to these pretty children in a minute and you can persuade ‘em about a bit if they don’t agree to our little plan, me deario, ain’t that just it?’

  Erbie’s smile intensified and his eyes probed the Borribles’ bodies like damp fingers. He followed his father out of the door, which Dewdrop locked and bolted with care, the sound of its closing echoing through the cellar like the sound of forever.

  The Adventurers fell silent; no one said anything because no one could think of anything to say. There was no way out. The cage was solid, not one bar in it would budge. The floor was made of iron and so was its ceiling. The situation seemed hopeless; it was hopeless.

  ‘Well, damn me,’ said Orococco at last, ‘we’re supposed to be the best in the world, and we get ambushed first time out by a snatcher. That’s the end, man, the very end.’

  ‘What will he do to us?’ asked Sydney.

  ‘What they always do,’ answered Napoleon, angry with himself and everyone else. ‘He’ll keep us prisoner, beat us, hand us over to that crazy son of his, and then he’ll divide us into two teams, and he’ll let one team out while the other stays here as hostages; and we’ll have to steal for him, day after day, night after night. Steal not for grub or things that he needs, but for things he can sell, for money, so he can get richer and richer.’

  ‘We’ll have to do shops, houses, post offices, banks, anything he can think of,’ added Bingo. ‘And if one of the team out thieving doesn’t come back, why he just beats the others near to death and makes them carry on stealing, and when we’re no good any more he’ll hand us over to the Woollies.’

  ‘So you’ve had it every way,’ said Knocker, finishing off the explanation. ‘You stay here for ever thieving till you get caught, or your mates get handed over or Dewdrop kills ‘em for fun. That’s it, no way out.’

  The group fell silent again. Borrible-snatchers were a rare phenomenon but they were the most dangerous enemy that a Borrible could encounter. Snatchers had infested London in the nineteenth century, abducting Borribles off the streets, even from their beds, and then forcing them to steal. Snatchers sometimes kidnapped ordinary children but they preferred Borribles because they ran faster, were brighter and, above all, Borribles did not grow up and could be used for ever to wriggle through small windows. In modern times only a handful of snatchers were known of and their descriptions and whereabouts were common knowledge to all Borribles.

  But in this strange and unknown part of London, below Rumbledom, Dewdrop had made his lair. He had waited patiently and now he had captured more Borribles in one swoop than he could ever have hoped for in his wildest dreams. Soon he would be rich.

  ‘This looks like the end of our adventure,’ said Torreycanyon eventually. ‘We’ll never get to Rumbledom now and no one will ever know what happened to us.’

  ‘Don’t give up hope,’ said Adolf, but he didn’t hoot and he didn’t sound as if he meant it.

  ‘There’s one way out,’ said Knocker, ‘a way that will save the expedition, but it means a sacrifice.’

  ‘You get us out of here,’ said Napoleon bitterly, ‘and I’ll sacrifice anything, anybody.’

  ‘It’s like this,’ said Knocker, and he spoke slowly as if words were hard to come by. ‘Half of us will be left here always, and five will be out stealing, turn and turn about. When things get too bad we could draw lots and the five who are out, well, they just don’t come back, but get away. That’s all we can do.’

  The Adventurers looked at each other. It was a solution but a drastic one. Five to go and face the dangers of Rumbledom even more outnumbered than before; five to be torn apart by Erbie, or handed over to the authorities, never to be Borribles again. The thought was horrid. Being caught was an extinguishing of identity, it was death. Worse than death, it was the loss of beauty, of freedom, a descent into ugliness. Look what had happened to Dewdrop; he had been a Borrible and then he had been caught and turned into something normal.

  ‘That’s not much of an option,’ said Stonks. ‘Two chances we got, a dog’s chance and no chance.’

  ‘Let us wait,’ suggested Adolf. ‘Let us wait a while before we decide on such a dreadful step.’ He tried to smile. ‘They will beat us and not give us much food, so snatchers behave, it says in the old books, but they must let us out to steal. Let us promise always to come back, for the time being at least. Maybe we will find a way.’

  With heavy hearts they agreed that for the present they would do what Dewdrop ordered. They would bide their time as well they might and hope against hope that their luck would one day turn.

  Dewdrop and his son Erbie pretended to earn their living by going from street to street with a horse and cart collecting rags and bones and old iron. On the side of the cart was painted, in deep red paint, ’D. Bunyan and Son, Breakers and Merchants’. The poor old horse who did all the work, pulling the cart up the steepest hills with the two men aboard, was called Sam.

  Dewdrop and Erbie did collect rubbish and old iron when it was positively thrust on them, but they never went out of their way to find it. They had a reason for riding round the streets: they were looking for things to steal and houses to burgle. Everything they found or stole they sold for money which they concealed in a secret hiding place in the old house in Engadine.

  Dewdrop Bunyan had snatched Borribles in the past for burgling purposes but he’d only captured them in ones and twos. Now here he was with ten and he decided to work them to within an inch of their lives so that he would become richer, quicker. He would force them to burgle the big houses on the other side of Southfields and even some on the hill leading towards Rumbledom. He would become the richest man in the whole world.

  As for the policemen who had knocked on Dewdrop’s door, they had been easily satisfied by the rag-and-bone man’s explanation.

  ‘I saw them,’ he told an inspector. ‘They ran round the corner, down Merton way; miles off by now, I should think, vicious little bleeders.’

  Several days after the policemen had given up their search and as soon as the rag-and-bone man felt secure, he began to starve the Borribles and encouraged his imbecile son to prod them with a sharp stick through the bars of the cage. And, what was worse, Erbie delighted in choosing a prisoner to drag through the house on a dog lead, tormenting
the Borrible until he or she could stand the pain no longer and would strike out in despair.

  But Erbie was so strong that the blows delivered by a tiny Borrible just made him snigger; but sniggering or not he would still beat his prisoner till the blood flowed and the bruises blossomed. Then, when he had tired of the amusement, he would haul the semi-conscious captive back to the cellar and the cage, and his imbecile smile would explode into a strange and sinister exultation.

  Dewdrop always joined in these manifestations of joy, rubbing his hands and rocking his head sideways on his shoulders so that his dewdrop wagged this way and that in the light of the single bulb that lit the underground prison. Every one of the Adventurers endured these torments and everyone of them lost weight, and all of them sported cuts and contusions and black eyes.

  ‘I’m going to kill Erbie before I’m much older,’ Napoleon would mutter under his breath. ‘I’m going to kill that great stupid loon, and then I’ll kill his father, and if I don’t, I hope as how the Wendles hear about them and come up here and take these two and stake them out on the mud flats of the Wandle, and sit around and sing songs while these two maniacs slowly slip below the surface and suffocate … bloody lovely.’

  And so the days crawled by and it was not long before Dewdrop began to take the Borribles stealing. Sometimes they went at night to burgle the houses of the rich; at other times they sallied out during working hours to steal from supermarkets and department stores.

  By way of insurance, to make sure the captives did his every bidding, the rag-and-bone man always kept at least five of them locked in the cellar under the demented eye of his son; and so sadistic were this oaf’s pleasures that it was more of a hardship for the Borribles to be kept in the cage than to be taken out to rob and steal. For stealing comes naturally to Borribles, although it is not usual for them to purloin things they do not need. On the other hand they knew that Dewdrop would let Erbie beat them into unconsciousness if they did not do well as burglars and shoplifters. Furthermore, he was eminently capable of turning them over to the police just for the pleasure of seeing them get their ears clipped.