The Borribles

by Michael Larrabeiti

  Vulge gave no warning, his catapult was loaded and the first shot stunned one of the guards. He fell to the floor, his soft body making no sound on the carpet. Vulge reloaded quickly but not before the second guard had thrown his Rumble-stick with all his force. It struck the Borrible in his left shoulder and he fell back, staggering against the wall. He could feel blood running down his arm and the pain made him blink his eyes.

  "Dammit," he said, but pulled back the elastic of his catapult as far as his wound and the pain would let him.

  His antagonist reached for another spear and lifted it above his shoulder; he was a mighty thrower but he was not to throw again. The second stone from Vulge's catapult struck him fairly on the temple, he fell forward and the lance dropped from his hand.

  Vulge stuck his catapult into his belt and, with an effort, he pulled the four-inch barb from his shoulder and threw the lance to the ground.

  "I hope the bleeder weren't rusty," he said to himself, crossing the room, "and I hope there aren't too many guards inside."

  He rapped on the oak door with the butt of a dead guard's lance.

  "Who's there?" asked a rich and plummy voice from the other side.

  "I've come with the bweakfast," said Vulge, whose imitation of a Rumble was perfect.

  The door popped open and Vulge saw the Chieftain's major-domo standing before him. A haughty sneer was stretched along his snout and his rich beige fur was decorated with a green, white and gold sash; these were the colours of Rumbledom.

  "Here's your bweakfast," said Vulge, and prodded the regal domestic in the solar plexus with the sharp end of his lance. The butler doubled up, clutching at his stomach, and Vulge clouted him hard across the head with the shaft of the spear. The Rumble collapsed to the floor and rolled over on his back, his snout crashing open like an unhinged drawbridge.

  "That's sorted you out, weasel-chops," said Vulge.

  He stepped over the body and entered a magnificent and luxurious sitting-room. The carpet was a spotless white and a huge sofa in cream leather was matched with armchairs of the same material and on the misty green walls were original paintings in good taste. There was a colour television set, telephones in brass with ivory mouth-pieces and copies of the national newspapers and magazines resting aristocratically on small leather-covered tables.

  Vulge jerked a linen runner from one of the tables, spilling a majolica vase to the floor, where it broke. He folded the material and shoved it inside his combat jacket to pad his wound and stop the bleeding.

  "The sooner I get this over with, the better," he muttered, "otherwise this arm will go as stiff as a Rumble's snout."

  He opened another door and saw that he had come to the Chief Rumble's office. Here he found a huge desk, meant to impress visitors with its top of dark green morocco, a map of the world on the wall, bookshelves, electric typewriters, Xerox machines and, once more, everything was furnished in white and misty green. It was an expensive and oppressive room, but what Vulge wanted was not there.

  Next he entered a circular bedroom, furnished as if for some great pop-star. A huge round bed stood in the centre of white goat-skin carpets, its coverlet made from green silk, the colour of gorse bushes at dawn. The lighting was concealed and gentle.

  "Blimey," said Vulge between his teeth, "I'd like to put a match to this lot." He winced with pain, for his wound troubled him. He walked round the bed and blood dropped from him and stained the floor. On the far side of the room a door stood open and perfume-laden steam floated through it. "The bathroom," thought Vulge, and he stepped inside.

  Through the clouds of sweet-smelling vapour Vulge saw his namesake and enemy, Vulgarian Rumble. The Chieftain reclined in an oval bath of green marble which was big enough to swim in. The taps were gold and shaped like Rumble snouts, and scented water poured through them to wash across the furred body and out through an overflow grating, also of gold. The floor, where it was not covered with absorbent carpets, was covered with Italian tiles of a warm southern tint.

  Near the bath were several telephones on articulated arms that could be pulled in any direction. Two enormous electric fires faced the marble steps that led down from the magnificent pool so that Vulgarian could warm himself the moment he emerged from the water. Right by the two fires stood a hot air blower on a stand, ready to dry the Chieftain's magnificent coat.

  Vulge stepped across the room, trailing the bloody lance point noisily behind him on the tiled floor. The Rumble's snout turned, there was a flurry in his bathwater.

  "I twust you've got my bweakfast at last," he began angrily, and then he saw, not the obsequious butler, or even one of his guards. He saw a Borrible.

  Vulge was no reassuring sight at that moment. His face was still smeared black from Knocker's greasepaint. His combat jacket was filthy and torn from the scuffling and climbing about in the ventilation shaft and, even more dramatically, blood was spreading out to stain his shoulder. The Borrible cap was jaunty on his head however and there was a gleam of triumph in his eye. Vulgarian Rumble slid down into the water until only his snout was visible. His small red eyes, intelligent and cunning, fluttered over the room, but he saw no escape. For a while the only sound was the gurgling of the bath-water.

  "A Bowwible?" asked the Rumble at last.

  "A Borrible," said Vulge, "all the way from Stepney, bloody miles."

  "Don't swear," said the Rumble.

  "Knickers," answered Vulge and gobbed into the bath-water. "This is the Great Rumble Hunt, mate. You've got everything you need up here, you should have stayed out of Battersea."

  Vulgarian raised himself a little. "As if we would want your stinking markets and wubbishy old houses, but, I'll tell you this, we'll go where we like and . . ."

  "Don't want it, eh? What about all that digging down there in Battersea Park, eh? What about that, then? You started this, Rumble."

  "We started it! I know Timbucktoo is a twifle over-enthusiastic at times, always wants to be digging and that, but he's harmless. No, it won't do. This twouble is all your fault, Bowwible."

  "Cobblers," said Vulge, moving nearer the bath.

  "How many of you here?" asked the Chieftain.

  "There's only eight of us, but that's enough of us to wreck the place." Vulge stood between the two electric fires and let them warm the pain in his shoulder. He was getting weaker and stiffer by the minute. He knew he must finish the task quickly; he felt in no state to defend himself if reinforcements arrived on the scene.

  Vulgarian suddenly stood up and the water cascaded from his fur. He was the tallest of all the Rumbles, impressive and commanding. He looked down his snout imperiously at the grimy little Borrible.

  "Eight of you!" he cried. "Why, you impudent little whippersnappers, you insignificant hobbledehoys. I tell you that Wumbles will go whewever I say, fwom Hampton Wick to Arnos Park, and fwom Ealing Golf Course to Bexley Heath. We won't be stopped by a handful of ignowant stweet urchins, thieves who live in slimy slums and damp cellars, who cannot afford a bar of soap and would eat it if they could, who smell, whose ears are pointed by the effect of cheap peasant cunning and who are fit only to be our slaves. You Battersea bwat, I have only to pwess that alarm bell and my bodyguard will make a pin-cushion of you with their Wumblesticks. Hand me that towel, you scwubby little serf. Hand me that towel I say, Bowwible!"

  Vulge smiled and did not move for a moment. Then he pushed the end of his Rumble-stick through the handle of one of the electric fires and he raised the sticker and the fire pivoted on the end of it. He slid his feet up the steps, his eyes remaining steady on Vulgarian's face and he held his spear forward so that the fire was above the water and near to the Chief Rumble's fur. There was a smell of singeing and Vulgarian took a step backwards, horror replacing the expression of disdain on his snout.

  Vulge smiled ironically at the Rumble. "Don't worry about the towel," he said pleasantly, "I'll soon have your fur dry," and he allowed the lance to slant down to the water and the fire plopped into the
bath and hissed. The electric current sprang from the fire and arced across the water, and from the water it raced through the flesh of the Rumble Chieftain. It burnt through his heart and demolished it like an old fuse-box and Vulgarian Rumble's voice cried out, but he never heard the sound. His body jerked upright, his dead eyes stared in amazement, then, as stiff as a scaffolding plank, he fell forward into the bathwater and a tidal wave washed over the rim of the beautiful bath and gushed down the veined green of the marble steps.

  Vulge sniffed and prodded the body with the point of his spear. It bobbed lifelessly in the tinted foam.

  "Well, there you are, me ol' Rumble," said Vulge reflectively. "That's 'ow you singe your fur at both ends. Kilowatts will kill a weasel any day. So," he added, "I've got my name. Mind you, the way I feel, I shan't have it long . . . alive."

  He descended the steps and pulled the cables from the remaining electric fire and from the hair-drier. Next he trailed the flex across the room to the door, which he shut, and then he wound the bare wires around the metal door handles. He looked at his work and went on talking to himself. "I don't think I could fight my way out of here with this wound, so I might as well have a scrap here; saves time."

  He crossed the room once more and pressed the red alarm bell by the bath. "That should bring the bodyguard at a run," he said and he pulled a couple of chairs and cushions across the bottom of the bath steps to form a rough barricade and squatted behind it. The dead Vulgarian floated behind him.

  Vulge removed his bandoliers and placed them near to hand. He took out his knife and placed that ready, and he laid his lance on the barricade. He leant back then on a cushion, waiting, favouring his injured shoulder, which was very stiff now though it pained him less. He wagged his head and thought of a few old Borrible proverbs to while away the time.

  "It is better to die young than to be caught," he quoted from memory and he smiled and hoped the others were getting on all right.

  Knocker and Adolf ran together from the end of the tunnel and into the hallway that led to the Head Rumble's apartments. Alarm bells were ringing and lights were flashing in the ceiling. In the distance a siren howled and a recorded voice called all Rumbles to their battle stations. Knocker and Adolf stretched their catapults but they need not have bothered. The bodies of the two Rumble guards in the doorway did not move. Knocker put his catapult away and picked up a lance. "Look," he said, showing the point to Adolf, "blood."

  "Vulge?" said Adolf with a worried expression. "Verdammt, I hope he is still alive."

  "Let's see," said Knocker. Inside the doorway they found the body of the major-domo. Blood stained the whiteness of the carpet, blood already turning brown.

  "Wait a minute," Knocker whistled through his teeth. "Look!"

  In the sitting-room of the Headquarters lay several Rumbles, their bodies contorted, their fur singed. Both Borribles sniffed the air and looked at each other.

  "Electrics," said Adolf, "nasty dangerous stuff."

  "Don't touch the bodies," said Knocker and he went to the door. Here he and Adolf found more Rumbles, all scorched and twisted and all of them dead.

  "This must be the elite guard," said Knocker, "look at their uniforms, their weapons."

  "They lead to that door over there," said Adolf, gesturing with his catapult.

  "Do you notice how they are all touching each other?" said Knocker, and with the butt end of his lance he bashed the door free from the charred paw of the first in the line of electrocuted bodyguards. Inside the bathroom the wires attached to the handle told their own story. The first warrior to arrive on the scene had tried the door and died. Another had attempted to pull his comrade from the handle and he had died. Many had perished in this manner, their bodies soldered together, their fur crisp. Then the door had been broken down, but there were dozens more bodies in the bathroom, electrocuted on the threshold, knocked down by stones as they crossed the room, or stabbed as they had attempted to storm Vulge's little barricade. The room was a shambles.

  "Oh, verdammt, " said Adolf reverently, "what a scrapper, that Vulge. Who would have guessed that such a little Borrible had so much courage in him?"

  The trail of bodies led across the room and up to the very edge of the bath. At the bottom of the steps half a dozen of the bodyguard lay in a heap. There had been a terrific battle waged in this bathroom but there was no sign of the Stepney Borrible.

  Knocker scrambled over the bodies and the barricade and discovered the half-submerged form of the Rumble Chieftain.

  "He got him," he shouted. "Vulge got his name."

  "Posthumously, I should think," said the German sadly.

  "Wait," said Knocker, "I can see his foot." And it was true. Sticking out from under the pile of Rumble bodies was a Borrible foot. Knocker and Adolf pulled the corpses aside and underneath everything lay a pathetically frail Borrible holding a knife in one hand and the broken barb of a lance in the other. They knelt beside him.

  "Has he gone?" asked Knocker.

  Adolf put his head to Vulge's chest. "No," he said. "I can hear his heart."

  Tenderly they raised the Stepney Borrible into a sitting position and rubbed his hands and his cheeks. Vulge's eyes flickered and then opened weakly. He was covered in blood, though most of it was not his own. He licked his lips. "Trust you to get here when it was all over," he said and he tried to grin. "Get me something to drink."

  Adolf returned in an instant with a jade tooth-mug full of cold water and Vulge drank it greedily. "That's better," he said, looking round the room. " Pretty good fight it was," he added, "but you'd better get out of here. With those bells and alarms going the tunnels will be solid with Rumbles."

  "Okay," said Knocker, "We're going. I've just got something to do first. Adolf, watch the door."

  Vulge grabbed Knocker's arm. "Give me one of your bandoliers," he said, "I feel lonely without a few stones."

  Knocker slipped a bandolier over his head, retrieved a catapult from the floor and handed them to Vulge. "There you are," he said. "Leave some Rumbles for us, won't you."

  Knocker left the bathroom and passed into a large study. It was an inner sanctum, different from the main office, more private and intimate. Here there was just a bare desk, some books and a watercolour of the Rumbledom countryside on the wall. Knocker flung the picture to the floor and found what he had been hoping to find—a large safe. He looked at it, baffled. The safe was firmly closed and there was a complicated combination lock on the outside. He fiddled with it, listened to it, pulled the large brass handle, but the safe door would not budge. He ran back to the bathroom and shouted desperately to Adolf. "Dammit, I can't get the safe open. We're snookered."

  The German bobbed his head round the door he was guarding. "A safe," he cried, "is that all? Did I not tell you how I got my third name, Amadeus? By stealing diamonds from the most renowned burglar in all of Austria. You come and watch. I will persuade your safe to be friendly."

  In a moment Adolf had his ear pressed against the door of the safe and his nimble fingers were twiddling with the lock. There was a click, then another and another until there was a click that sounded more definite than all the rest and Adolf's eyes glowed like the jackpot lights on a fruit-machine. He seized the handle with both hands and pulled open the massive steel door.

  "Bull's-eye," he cried. "Oh, verdammt! I haven't lost my touch."

  Knocker gazed into the safe and saw a large brass-bound box. "You must be the best safe-cracker in the whole world," he said, "Adolf Wolfgang Amadeus Winston !"

  "Danke," said the German, "I am proud of my new name and will enjoy telling how I earned it—if we ever get out of here."

  They pulled the box from the safe and it thumped to the floor. Knocker flung back the lid and sat back on his heels in amazement. It was full to the top with crisp notes of the realm.

  "I'll be jiggered," he said, "there's a fortune here."

  "No good if you can't get it out," said Adolf.

  "Wait," said Knocker,
seizing the German's shoulder, "it will need two of us to carry this. We'll have to leave Vulge behind."

  Adolf stood up, his face angry. "You may do what you wish," he said. "I am taking Vulge."

  Knocker faced his friend, his mouth tight. "The whole point of the expedition is that money. I have strict orders to get the box out. Vulge has taken his chances like the rest of us. Why, he's half dead already."

  "And half of him is worth all of you, Knocker, and the money too," cried Adolf and he kicked the lid of the box so that it closed with a crash.

  "This money," said Knocker, lowering his voice, "could change life for thousands of Borribles. It's important, more important than any one of us, that's why Spiff wanted me to get it home, no matter what."

  "Who cares about your Spiff. I don't want my life changed," said Adolf passionately, "nor do other Borribles. The lives I care about at this moment are my life and Vulge's life, and yours if you will stop being stupid."

  Knocker hesitated. He knew that what the German said made sense, but there were other considerations.

  "Vulge got his name by a valiant battle," he argued. "You were destined to open the safe, my part is to take this money out of here and win my name that way. Can't you see that?"

  "I see it," said Adolf, "but it doesn't mean I have to look at it. You carry the money if you can, I will carry Vulge if I can; the rest is chance. Let us remain friends though we differ. I like stealing too you know, but sometimes other things come first."

  Just then there was a yell from Vulge in the bathroom. Both Borribles grasped their catapults and loading them as they moved they dashed through the door.

  Two Rumbles armed with stickers were coming into the room, a third lay stunned in the entrance. Vulge was reloading his catapult. A Rumble threw his sticker at Adolf who side-stepped it with ease and the spear thudded into the wall. Knocker fired, Adolf fired and both Rumbles fell. It became quiet and Adolf went to the door to look out. "Only those three," he said, "but others will be coming. Let's go." He crossed the room and knelt beside Vulge. "You're coming with me, my friend," he said. "I will give you a fireman's lift. It will be painful but safer than staying here."