The Borribles

by Michael Larrabeiti

  Knocker pulled his head back and squinted at the Wendle." I've come for the Adventure, of course, that's all. What other reason could there be?"

  "I dunno," said Napoleon, "but there might be something." And he shoved a sandwich into his mouth and still looking at Knocker closely he munched the bread as if he hated it.

  They stayed in the dark shadow by the barges for nearly two hours and when they had all eaten and rested and discussed Knocker's arrival Napoleon made them take their places once more, and with gentle sideways strokes they brought the boat out into the river. There was not much of the night left to them and they would need to be well under cover, hidden from inquisitive eyes, before the slightest hint of dawn should appear in the sky.

  "We ain't going much further," said Napoleon, "then we'll have to find some more barges to hide amongst, along by Fulham Power Station."

  They rowed on. Several large shapes passed dangerously close and The Silver Belle Flower rocked badly enough to ship a little water, but nobody noticed the Borribles and not once did they see a police launch. Napoleon peered into the darkness, his eyes keen and narrow, like some mariner of the high seas, searching for a hideout. Just before dawn he spied what he had been waiting for, a cluster of four or five barges, moored below the low tide mark, and in the middle of them, he hoped, a space of calm water, large enough to hide in during the coming day. After that a little more rowing would put them at the mouth of the Wandle where they could conceal the boat and begin their long trek overland.

  Napoleon steered the boat across the tide.

  "One last good pull," said the navigator, "and then we can rest."

  The Borribles worked with a will and they shot across the river, the greasy waves knocking roughly at the boat.

  "Keep pulling," shouted Napoleon. "One two, one two." With a sharp tug on the rudder strings he pointed the boat straight at the dark mass, his eyes finding the gap he sought between the barges.

  "Ship yer oars."

  The rowers obeyed with relief and The Silver Belle Flower sailed silently and gracefully 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.

  "Very good," said Napoleon. "We can rest here all day today, and half of tonight. We've only got to get under Wandsworth Bridge and go a bit further along and we'll be there."

  It was decided to leave two Borribles as lookouts while the others slept. Knocker volunteered for the first watch, and Orococco stood with him. The rest of the crew unrolled their sleeping-bags and curled up as best they could in the bottom of the boat.

  Knocker kept his watch looking down the grey dawn of the river. Orococco stared upstream and hummed a song, a sad song, and Knocker felt wiser and bigger in himself as he listened, even though the song was sad.

  "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 wash 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 criss-cross 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 making a slit in canvas. He pulled the rubber of his catapult tighter, but as yet he had nothing to aim at. Suddenly there was a splitting sound and 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 the 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 target 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 threw down 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 in spite of the fall from the barge the new arrival was putting 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 of them 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, and his accent was thick and heavy, though his English was straightforward and easy to understand.

  "Get some rope," said Knocker quickly to Napoleon who had now joined the group, "and we'll tie him up while we see what we've caught."

  Bingo, too, had winkled his body from his sleeping-bag and suggested that he and Vulge scout round on top of the barges to see if there was anybody else around.

  Sydney and Chalotte made a step with their hands and Bingo sprang upwards and pulled himself out of sight. Vulge followed him but they both returned in a minute with the welcome information that all was 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. They 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, and gesturing as well as he could with his bound hands. "That stone you catapulted hit me hard."

  Stonks, who was kind as well as very strong, propped up the prisoner and massaged his back for a while. "Oh, thank you, thank you, I feel better now."

  "Borrible?" asked Knocker. "Borrible," affirmed the other. "All right, I'll ask the questions," said Napoleon. "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, I'll be bound."

  "No," said the foreigner, and he actually 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, grinning from ear to ear. Chalotte laughed too.

  "What's your name?" asked the navigator. "My name," said the prisoner, trying to draw himself up proudly even though he was bound hand and foot and prostrate, "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 Best of the Borribles, the Magnificent Eight—though indeed I see nine of you—and you are going to Rumbledom to teach those rabbits a lesson." And Adolf guffawed so loudly they had to tell him to be quiet in case they were spotted.

  The captors now 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 did you know? Come on, spill the beans, you little 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. Over there we are hospitable to foreign Borribles. We do not tie them up and slosh them round the head."

  "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, ha ha, ho ho," 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!" said Napoleon, who didn't like the name at all.

  "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 bargemen covered me over with canvas—luckily for me you have come here instead."

  "We can throw you ashore from here, too," said Napoleon, "quite easily."

  "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 surprised . . . lost . . . A pity? Stimmt ?"

  "We could throw you into the river," said Bingo cheerfully, "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 of what to say, or do, eventually all eyes turned to Knocker.

  "We'd better have a chat about this," he said, "up the other end of the boat."

  They made sure that Adolf was securely bound and then moved to the prow where they talked in whispers.

  "It seems to me," began Knocker, "that his story is true. I mean he seems the type to want a fourth adventure—I mean mad enough—like. But however you look at it we can't let him go in case he does give us away. We 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've got to watch him like you're watching us," said Napoleon with a sneer.

  "Leave it, then," said Knocker quickly. "I was only giving my advice. I'll shut up."

  Bingo spoke up quickly to heal the breach. "Let's vote on it, all except Knocker. Shall we keep Adolf or throw him in the river? Who's for keeping him?"

  Seven hands went up; only Napoleon abstained, so that if anything went wrong subsequently he would be able to claim that he had told them so.

  "I hope you're not making a big mistake," he said sourly. "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, see, and 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."

  "English understatement, eh?" said Adolf and he laughed, and after smiling at everyone he curled up under a seat and was soon snoring.

  "I think he'll be fine," said Knocker. "Time for second watch, I'm exhausted."

  Torreycanyon and Stonks took second watch and the others followed Adolf's example, wriggling into sleeping-bags and falling sound asleep, and the boat rose and fell softly through the morning, afternoon and evening, helping their slumbers to remain unbroken.

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

  The Borribles stretched and rubbed each other's backs and 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 really Spiff, my steward, not me," said Knocker.

  "In Germany," continued the foreigner, "most Borribles are happy enough to stay at home to get their names in an ordinary way, a burst of stealing, something like that, but if you are willing to go abroad a bit, like me, and the others don't mind, well, you can get as many names as you like, and I wanted to get an English name—Winston, you see."

  "Where'd you get the others? Wolfgang, Amadeus, and Adolf, of course."

  "Adolf I got at home, Wolfgang I got in Denmark, Amadeus in Vienna, burgling."

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

  "Every name has a story," said Adolph philosophically, "but I am glad you like them, and Winston will add something special. Yours is a fine name, too. You will tell me the story sometime? But what are the names of all the others?"

  "They haven't got them yet," said Knocker, "but I can tell you what they will be when this adventure is over." And he explained the reason for the Rumble names.

  Adolph was very interested. "We have Ru
mbles at home, too," he said. "We call them Gormutliks. They wield great power, and are dangerous and sly."

  They could have talked for much longer like this but they were interrupted by orders from Napoleon.

  "Come on," he called, "we've more rowing to do, otherwise we'll never get there. This ain't a holiday, you know."

  They went to their seats and Napoleon slipped the moorings and the boat drifted from its hiding place. Once more they crossed the river quickly and getting on station they rowed expertly along the southern shore on the last leg of their river journey. At dawn, if Napoleon's navigation was correct, they would land at the mouth of the river Wandle, the muddy stream where only Napoleon Boot's own people knew a way through the treacherous swamps which stretched for miles under the very streets of Wandsworth.

  5

  The wide curve of the river was empty and still. The ripples of the heavy green water were frozen and dirty. On the Fulham shore squatted the oil depots, faceless places waiting on faceless roads that led nowhere and where nobody lived. Just before dawn Wandsworth Bridge passed over the Battersea boat, casting a darker shadow than the night, and all that the rowers saw were the powerful and unmoving waves that stood and gnawed at the stone piers on which the bridge was built.

  They were now into Wandsworth Reach and along the southern side stretched a great wasteland, and although the Adventurers saw nothing they could sense the existence of a wild space from the shapeless whistling of the wind. On the northern bank stood the Cement Marketing Factory and the Trinidad Asphalt Company but the Borribles could not see where the buildings touched the sky because the sky was as black as roof-slate.

  It was so murky that Napoleon was convinced he would never find the mouth of the Wandle and his companions began to despair. After several fruitless attempts he went to the front of the boat and knelt down to peer into the blackness. There were dozens of barges here, deeply laden with the old lumber of all Wandsworth, for the land around the estuary was a vast rubbish dump and somewhere amongst the hillocks of refuse meandered the slimy river.