But the weeks had gone by and there had been no sign of the enemy. The Borrible threat receded in the mind of the ordinary Rumble. The scouts deserted their posts and returned to the life of comfort and ease to which, to tell the truth, they were well used. Patrols still went out to Southfields and such, but Rumbles dislike the streets as much as Borribles hate the countryside and so the patrols had become less frequent and more inefficient.
Most Rumbles completely forgot the menace of the Great Rumble Hunt, others suggested that it had only been a vain threat made in anger, one that the Borribles could never sustain. Anyway, thought the average Rumble, if he thought about it at all, those Borribles are mean snivelling little dirty things, they could never make the long and perilous journey to Rumbledom, they don’t possess the wherewithal, the knowledge, the brains. They couldn’t mount such an expedition with their resources. They live in rotten little streets and barely scrape a living. They have enough to do to stay alive. No, they argued, the vast domain of Rumbledom, on top of the great hill, on top of the world, is safe.
But the Rumble High Command did not see the problem in quite the same way. They had been threatened, and though the threat might only be an idea as yet, it was an idea of their overthrow and a great danger lurked in it. It was a concept that could lead only to disaster if nothing was done. Furthermore, they felt, they had a perfect right to go wherever they wished, beholden to no one, and that right must be defended.
So the High Command had made a plan, emanating from their chief and dictator, Vulgarian. They must strike before they were struck; destroy the Borribles of Battersea before their idea could take root and spread. A large force of crack warriors could be equipped for a night attack on Battersea High Street, to seek out and destroy any Borribles they found and obliterate the Borrible war machine that Timbucktoo had assured them was being prepared.
Warriors had been put into special training and were ready to undertake the long journey. They had not the slightest intention of marching those many miles; they already had one motor car and only awaited the delivery of others before setting out. They intended to strike with speed and in several places at once, causing as much panic and destruction among the Borrible population as possible.
In addition to such offensive measures, the Rumbles had seen to their own defences and reviewed the whole situation. There were only two entrances to the main bunker, and both were guarded day and night. Rumbles, it was said, never let go of anything, and they would hang on to Rumbledom like grim death. What had never occurred to them was that a tiny force of chosen Borribles would infiltrate their territory and attempt to assassinate the High Command and so leave the Rumbles leaderless and ineffective. Thus the Adventurers found that the element of surprise was with them; no one knew of their arrival. That was the good news; the bad news they already knew: they were hopelessly outnumbered and retreat, even if they succeeded in their task, would be impossible.
When the Borribles were satisfied with their interrogation they moved away from their prisoner so they could talk without being overheard. They leant against the trees and discussed matters, scanning the horizon at the same time.
‘Well,’ said Bingo, ‘how are we going to play it?’
‘What our friend forgot to mention,’ said Knocker, ‘is that although there are only two entrances to the bunker, there is in fact a ventilation shaft that comes out above the kitchens. It’s in Spiff’s notes. I think that’s the way we—I mean you—should go in.’
‘Wait a minute,’ interrupted Stonks. ‘My target is the doorkeeper. I’ll have to go in through the door, otherwise I might not find him.’
‘I’ve got an idea,’ cried Torreycanyon. ‘We can make a diversionary attack on both doors, just a couple of us, and the main body can get in through the ventilator.’
‘Here comes ‘Rococco,’ said Stonks. ‘Running.’
‘I hope,’ said Sydney, ‘it’s not bad news.’
Orococco stopped a few yards from the copse, turning to make sure no one was watching before he slipped into the trees.
‘Hello,’ he panted, ‘everything okay?’
‘We’re just talking about how to attack,’ said Napoleon. ‘Any trouble?’
‘Nah,’ answered the Tooting Borrible. ‘I’ve just been for a little runaround, see what I could see.’
‘And what did you see?’ said the Wendle.
‘Well, I don’t think they know we’re here. I saw a couple of them wandering about with their Rumble-sticks, but they didn’t look worried, just stooging up and down. I found the two entrances to the place, and I found out where the ventilation comes out, on top of a hill. It will be a piece of duff.’
Napoleon turned from listening to the Totter and looked at Knocker, suspicious again. ‘And what will you be up to during the attack, eh?’
‘Adolf and me will help cause as much confusion as possible,’ answered Knocker, avoiding eye contact with the Wendle.
‘Not half, verdammt,’ agreed the German. ‘Alarm and confusion and mayhem … that I am good at.’
Napoleon scowled, unconvinced. ‘Just don’t interfere, Knocker,’ he said. ‘I still don’t trust you.’ He took out his catapult and affected to examine the thick rubber on it. ‘Well, what about Torrey’s plan?’
The discussion continued and during the next half an hour several ideas were weighed in the balance until at last Torreycanyon’s plan was adopted unanimously. Then, feeling that they had accomplished something, the Adventurers returned to the clearing. There a surprise awaited them. The Rumble had disappeared, even the ropes that had bound him were gone.
‘Who tied him up then?’ Napoleon shouted at Vulge, anger tightening his face. ‘Now we’re in trouble. He’ll tell ’em everything; they’ll be waiting for us.’
Vulge looked guilty. ‘I made sure he couldn’t get free.’ He glanced at the others. ‘Really I did.’
‘Bloody well looks like it, don’t it?’ said Napoleon. ‘Idiot. If he gets back to his bunker we’ve had it.’
‘Don’t panic,’ said Sydney, and she giggled. ‘Look at Sam.’
The horse was lying on the ground at the edge of the clearing with a stupidly contented expression on his long face. From his mouth dangled a frayed bit of rope, swinging gently with the movement of his champing jaws.
‘Well, strike me pink,’ cried Adolf. ‘Sam’s eaten him.’ And he hooted.
‘Would you Adam-and-Eve it?’ said Stonks. ‘So he has, the sly old rogue.’
‘That makes one Rumble less,’ said Napoleon. ‘I was wondering what we were going to do with him.’
Sam shook his head and snickered, then he gave a neigh of pleasure, rolled over, stuck out his legs and promptly closed his eyes. It was an excellent idea, and while most of the Adventurers followed suit, Knocker, Adolf and Chalotte volunteered for the first two hours of guard duty: two hours for them to gaze across the chill expanses of inhospitable Rumbledom, two hours for them to think of the coming battle.
It was cold now and high up on the hill the air was sharp-edged and brittle. No wonder those Rumbles have fur coats, thought Knocker, as he watched and shivered. Nothing moved in the vastness.
Chalotte came and leant against a tree nearby. She didn’t look at Knocker at first, but kept watch over the green land where the advancing mist of dusk was making it difficult to distinguish between trees and gorse bushes, pathways and grass.
‘It’s going to be dangerous, isn’t it?’ she said. It wasn’t a question.
‘We always knew some of us wouldn’t survive,’ answered Knocker.
‘I sometimes think,’ said Chalotte, ‘that we’re not really meant to go in for this kind of adventure. It would be nice to go back to being just a Borrible, living in our broken-down houses. You know the proverb, “Fruit of the barrow is enough for a Borrible.” I mean this adventure has turned out to be far beyond what we normally do. It’s suicide.’
‘Wait a minute,’ protested Knocker, surprised. ‘This is the greatest adv
enture we’re ever likely to hear of, let alone go on.’
‘Hmmmm.’ She sounded unconvinced. ‘You ought to make it clear to the others that by this time tomorrow they’re likely to be dead. Who wants to die for a name? That was never Borrible.’
‘Fruit of the barrow may be all right, but we’ve got to have adventures, too. Look, if you hadn’t come on this one you wouldn’t have seen Dewdrop and Erbie and learned what happens to us when we get caught. We’d have heard about it, but now we’ve seen it, we know.’
‘Yes, but supposing Spiff got it all wrong; supposing those Rumbles just came down on a spree, just to visit the park, not take over all of Battersea, like he said. What then, eh? It would be silly, just them scared of us and us scared of them.’
‘Oh, that’s rubbish,’ said Knocker. ‘Old Spiff don’t make cock-ups like that, he just don’t. He has studied the Rumbles for years, he knows them inside out. I mean, do you think the Wendles don’t know what they’re up against? Flinthead is like he is because of the Rumbles. They’d take Wandsworth over if they had a chance, Battersea too.’
‘You admire Spiff too much,’ said Chalotte. ‘You believe everything he says. He might have set us up for this … had his own reasons … He’s a mystery, he is, and I don’t like mysteries. After all, how important is a name? You’ve got one and yet you’re going on a suicide mission for another.’ She shook her head, glanced at Knocker, and then said what was really on her mind. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there? Something secret, that you know and Spiff knows. Ordinary expeditions are fine adventures, a bit of a laugh, but this one is making us like the Wendles, and that can’t be good, can it? The things we are doing might look right now but they could turn out wrong in the end.’
Knocker turned nasty. ‘You and Sydney have really pulled your weight all along. I didn’t believe you could at the beginning, but you have. Are you going to spoil it all now by being scared?’
Chalotte didn’t pick up on the insult, in fact she smiled. ‘I told you at the start we’d be as good as anyone else. As for scared, well, we’re all scared of something. You’re scared that you won’t get another name, and another after that … All I’m scared of is getting in too deep, too deep into something that isn’t really Borrible. That’s all.’ And she placed her hand ever so lightly on Knocker’s and took it away again.
Knocker blushed and turned his head to look at her but she was gone through the bushes, back to her lookout post. Over the sunless fields of Rumbledom the mist lay in pools and there was not a soul to be seen. Soon it would be dark.
And as the dusk deepened in the trees the Borribles watched and slept by turns, but by midnight they could rest no longer, so they roused themselves for one last meal together. They crowded under the cart and held their feast by the light of torches tied to the spokes of the wheels. They were subdued, but Adolf cheered them with tales of his travels and the stories of his names, telling them how this was the best adventure he had ever known, and how happy he was to be with such a band. He slapped Napoleon on the back and said he ‘wasn’t bad for a Wendle’ and even Napoleon had to laugh at that, and he gave the German another can of Dewdrop’s Guinness.
In the blackest part of the night the Adventurers prepared themselves. They reloaded their double bandoliers with the choicest stones, and Adolf and Knocker even took with them the spare catapults they had used for their escape from Dewdrop’s house. They removed all shiny things from their jackets, and they tucked their trousers into their socks, tying the laces of their combat boots as tightly as they could. They put Sam hack between the shafts and loaded their haversacks on to the cart so they would be ready to run for it if they ever managed to get clear of the bunker.
When all was done they shovelled up a huge pile of stones from the gravelly shore of the lake and threw them into the cart as well. If they had to make a running retreat it would be an advantage to have a good supply of ammunition with them.
At the very last, Knocker took a tin from his pocket, opened it, and began smearing his face with the contents. It was black greasepaint, so that his white skin would not be spied by the enemy in the frosty starlight. Orococco laughed as the others followed suit.
‘Man, oh man, I knew my colour would come in useful one day. If we have a daylight attack, will you fellas get me some white paint so my face don’t stick out so much?’
Then the Adventurers were ready—tough and determined. One by one they went to the horse and patted him and asked him to be patient, standing in the traces like that, and Sam neighed like a charger and stamped a hoof. Then the Borribles synchronized their watches and took a compass bearing on the copse and finally, without a light to guide them, they moved off in single file. Orococco led them out, for as he said, not only did he know the way, but he was still the blackest of them all.
8
It was a clear night and a ground frost made the Adventurers’ footsteps crunch loudly as they advanced over the stiff white grass. They said nothing, each one nursing his or her own private thoughts, each one yearning for the crowded and friendly streets that they called home, but there was no turning back now.
They walked on for about a mile, then Orococco stopped and his companions gathered around him. Even then the Borrible from Tooting could not resist a joke: ‘Why, friends,’ he laughed, ‘we looks like a Black and White Minstrel Show.’
‘Get on with it,’ snapped Stonks, who like everybody else was very tense and eager to begin.
‘Okay, Mr Bones,’ said Orococco. ‘You see that mound beginning to rise a little, over there against the sky? That’s the bunker, only it looks like a hill. There’s a couple of saplings and a few bushes to the right; they screen the Great Door. If we climb the hill and walk over it in a straight line, we’ll come to the exit hole of the ventilation network, and going on from that, ‘bout half a mile, is the back door, smaller, not so well made. Don’t stamp your feet when you’re on the hill; you’ll wake up all the rats in Rumbledom if you do.’
‘Right then,’ said Stonks, ‘I’ll get off here. My target’s just the other side of that door.’
‘With a hundred thousand unfriendly friends,’ added Napoleon.
‘Kind of odds that keep a Borrible alert,’ answered Stonks, not to be put down by a Wendle.
‘Who do you want to go with you?’ asked Knocker. ‘We must get a move on, we’ve got to be out before dawn.’
‘Torreycanyon, if he’ll come,’ said Stonks, turning to his friend.
‘Course I will,’ said Torreycanyon. ‘We’ll give you guys ten minutes, then we’ll go in.’
The others went on, moving at a trot up the side of the hill, and sure enough, at the top, hidden by thick gorse bushes, was the main outlet for the air conditioning system of the whole bunker city. It was covered by a large iron grille, solid and heavy, painted green to camouflage its appearance. Orococco said, ‘There she is. Now, who’s coming with me to the other door? I can recommend it, very frail and only five hundred and fifty Rumbles guarding it. Any offers?’
Bingo gave a nod. ‘Battersea and Tooting together,’ he cried. ‘What a team! I’ll pick you up by the legs, you old Totter, and bash them to smithereens with your head bone.’
Orococco turned to Knocker. ‘Give us five minutes.’ he said, ‘and by the time you’ve got the kettle boiled for tea we’ll be in there with you.’ And he and Bingo began the descent that led to the Small Door of Rumbledom.
There were six of them left standing at the vent now: Chalotte, Sydney, Adolf, Napoleon, Vulge and Knocker himself. They squatted and waited.
‘Friends,’ said Vulge after a while, ‘those five minutes have gone into eternity. Shall we begin the dance?’
Napoleon forced his knife under the edge of the ventilation grille and pushed it in as far as it would go, Then he exerted all his strength and levered and twisted; the grille shifted, just a little.
‘It’s coming,’ said Sydney, and shoved a stone into the gap so that the grille could not fall ba
ck into its grooves. Adolf and Knocker seized the edge of it and pulled together to upend the square of heavy iron before lowering it to the ground. Chalotte bent over the dark aperture and peered in. ‘It looks a long way down,’ she said.
Napoleon risked a quick beam of light from his torch. The ventilation shaft dropped vertically for about ten feet then turned a right-angled corner.
‘There’s only one way to find out where it goes,’ said Vulge, ‘and that’s to go.’
They had all brought a length of strong rope with them, tied around their waists, and Vulge took his and attached it to the foot of a nearby growth of gorse.
‘I’ll go first,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you the whistle if it looks all right.’ He looked closely at the faces of his fellow Adventurers. ‘This is it, then, so ‘ere we go.’ And he slipped over the edge of the air vent and was gone. One moment he had been standing there smiling and wagging his head, the next nothing was to be seen but a section of tightened rope. A minute later the rope became slack and they heard the familiar Borrible whistle.
‘I’ll go next,’ whispered Chalotte excitedly, and she took the cord firmly between her hands and stepped backwards into space, walking casually down the side of the shaft.
‘Verdammt,’ said Adolf, nudging Knocker, ‘no mug that girl.’
Napoleon decided that Sydney should follow Chalotte and then he himself would go down. To Knocker and Adolf he simply said, ‘You two come after, and remember it’s our adventure, not yours. I don’t want you interfering, ‘specially not you, Knocker. I wouldn’t trust you further than I could throw Nelson’s Column.’
Adolf watched the Wendle slither down the rope.
The Borribles Page 14