Read Borribles Go For Broke, The Online
Authors: Michael de Larrabeiti
Borribles Go For Broke, The (26 page)
When they were ready Stonks climbed on to their clasped hands and they lifted him into the roof of the tunnel. There was no noise while Stonks groped above his head, but soon his feet shifted and there came the sound of iron grating upon iron.
‘Got it,’ Stonks grunted, and as he spoke a cool draught carved its way into the stinking atmosphere of the underworld. Each of the Borribles took a long deep breath. It seemed like years since any of them had breathed untainted air.
‘Cripes,’ said Torreycanyon, ‘that’s beautiful, like drinking cold water; almost knocks yer unconscious, don’t it?’
Stonks’s feet disappeared and a second later they heard his voice. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ he whispered, ‘and if I ain’t, scarper.’
The Borribles waited and said nothing. Their minds were too full of what they had seen and suffered to allow them to think of talking for the sake of it, but eventually Chalotte did speak and she asked Tron something she thought she ought to know before they parted company, perhaps for ever.
‘Why are you letting us go like this, Tron?’ she asked. ‘Why aren’t you calling for your warriors?’
‘Well, look at us,’ answered the Wendle, ‘nearly dead, almost were dead, covered in slime, and for what? The proverb says that fruit of the barrow is enough for a Borrible, yet we seem to have forgotten all that. We’ve been through something really rotten and it should never have happened, but it did and we were to blame, I suppose, all of us.’
‘Funny really,’ said Knocker. ‘Once it all began it was too late to stop, but I don’t mind admitting … that mud has taught me a thing or two I won’t forget.’
Tron nodded. ‘Flinthead wanted power and money, that’s where it started, and he made a lot of Wendles think the same, me included … Spiff wanted revenge on Flinthead for things that happened long ago, things that we didn’t even know about; bloody ridiculous when you think of it.’
‘Still,’ said Chalotte, ‘the Rumble treasure’s gone now, and so much the better. That’s how it should be with us. It’s people like Flinthead who bring trouble, greedy sod, and Spiff was greedy too, in a different way. I don’t think it was only revenge he wanted; could have been lots of things, glory, another name. Maybe he did want to take what Flinthead had and keep it. For all we know he really might have wanted to take the money back and share it out equally, but even if he did it wasn’t a good idea; it wasn’t Borrible.’
‘There’s enough Rumbles to fight without fighting among ourselves,’ said Tron, ‘that’s plain madness. Anyway, with Flinthead gone I reckon there’ll be a lot of Wendles who’ll realize they can go back to being Borribles plain and simple, Norrarf here for one, and Skug, and there’ll be others.’
‘There’ll be lots all right,’ said Norrarf. ‘They didn’t dare do anything before because of Flinthead and the bodyguard. You know, just because of the way things were.’
‘That’s it, though,’ said Napoleon. ‘I’m a Wendle, remember, or was. I know the bodyguard, they won’t let you have everything your own way.’
‘We’ll have to see,’ said Tron, with a sigh. ‘We others outnumber them after all. I tell you one thing though, I won’t let anyone take over where Flinthead left off, that’s for certain.’
And that was the end of it. Stonks’s voice dropped down into the darkness and brought the discussion to a close. ‘It’s nearly dawn,’ he said, ‘but there doesn’t seem to be anyone about. There’s a light in Ben’s shed. Best thing is to come up quietly; you never know, Sussworth may have a Woollie hidden, waiting for us.’
Tron linked hands with Norrarf to make a step, and one by one the Adventurers said goodbye to the Wendles, friends now, and jumped upwards to grasp the rim of the manhole and haul themselves out into the cool of the summer dawn.
At the very end Knocker stood ready to go. He raised a weary foot and placed it in the Wendles’ hands. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘we shall meet again.’
‘Sometime,’ said Tron, ‘when things have gone one way or the other. If I’m still alive I’ll come and tell you the story of what I did.’
‘Do that,’ said Knocker. ‘I like a good story.’ He turned to Norrarf. ‘I didn’t get to know you Norrarf, but thanks. Remember, real friends will come when you call … and both of you, don’t get caught.’
‘Nor you,’ said Norrarf, and he thrust with his hands and Knocker found himself shoved up through the manhole and pulled over and on to the ground by the strong arms of Stonks. Then he heard a clang and the iron cover slid into its grooves behind him.
For a long time the Borribles lay on the uneven and rubbish-strewn dirt. They listened and they heard the sound of the Wandle where it met the River Thames. A tug hooted out on Wandsworth Reach and an early car swished along on Armoury Way. It was warm. The London heatwave had not relented but the outside air felt deliciously cool after the triple-baked temperatures of the underground mine.
Knocker relaxed flat on his back and gazed into the sky; the sky that he had thought never to see again. He smiled and the drying mud cracked on his cheeks. It made him glad to see the pale yellow stars and the deep blue of the night fading into grey on the horizon as the dawn came. His breast swelled with a pleasure he felt he could not endure: the simple pleasure of being alive, of being thankful for it and knowing he was. The tears trickled down the side of his face and into his hair, but nobody could see them, lost as they were in dirt.
He sat up. The mingled odours of river and rubbish were wholesome after the smell of the sewers. He turned his head and saw that he and the others were right by the two steam cranes that guarded Feather’s Wharf.
Napoleon sat up too. ‘Well, what do you know?’ he asked of no one in particular.
‘Man,’ said Orococco, ‘it’s like breathing for the very first time.’
The Borribles looked above their heads. In the moments that had elapsed since the closing of the manhole the stars had gone
from the sky, a quiet traffic noise was growing and bright squares of electric light were appearing in tall and distant buildings; holes cut from the black sides of Wandsworth. A breeze was riding in on the back of the river and a loose flap of corrugated iron banged on the side of a shed somewhere. In a few minutes the rubbish men would be arriving to work on the dump, digging and delving into the loose mountains of trash and loading the river barges until they almost sank, while the tipper trucks roared in from all over London. It was a new day.
from the sky, a quiet traffic noise was growing and bright squares of electric light were appearing in tall and distant buildings; holes cut from the black sides of Wandsworth. A breeze was riding in on the back of the river and a loose flap of corrugated iron banged on the side of a shed somewhere. In a few minutes the rubbish men would be arriving to work on the dump, digging and delving into the loose mountains of trash and loading the river barges until they almost sank, while the tipper trucks roared in from all over London. It was a new day.
‘Let’s go to Ben’s,’ said Sydney. ‘I’d like to find out what happened to Sam.’
‘Ben?’ said Knocker.
‘Sam?’ said Torreycanyon, who had forgotten all about the horse.
Chalotte pulled Knocker to his feet. ‘There’s new stuff to tell you—there’s Twilight here, and Ben and Sam. There’s Sussworth too, and Hanks and the SBG.’
‘Sussworth,’ Napoleon spat out the word. ‘Straight away I don’t like the sound of him.’
Stonks swore. ‘You won’t like the look of ‘im either,’ he said, ’especially if he catches us out here. Let’s get out of sight.’ He set off into the mile of space that lay between the Wandle and Wandsworth Bridge, followed by the others along a path that wound between the piles of discarded washing machines and broken refrigerators. They walked quietly in file until they came within sight of Ben’s hut, and there they saw a light flickering behind a threadbare sack which hung for a curtain at a lopsided window. They took cover and waited while Stonks went to the door. Carefully he lifted the latch and poked his head inside, then after a moment, he beckoned to his companions, indicating that all was safe.
‘This is Ben,’ he explained to those who had not been to the shack before, ‘and Ben is the only grown-up Borrible in the world.’
The interior of the hut was gloomy, lit only by one oil lamp. Ben was discovered sprawled asleep in a low broken-backed armchair
and he looked just the same as he had always looked: covered in many overcoats, his beard spreading over his chest, his long black hair tumbling to his shoulders and his skin pitted and filthy. He smelt just the same too: awful.
and he looked just the same as he had always looked: covered in many overcoats, his beard spreading over his chest, his long black hair tumbling to his shoulders and his skin pitted and filthy. He smelt just the same too: awful.
‘Blimey,’ said Orococco, ‘he’s blacker than I am.’
Sydney closed the door and the slight noise made Ben stir in his sleep. He belched and opened one eye, then the other. Slowly he came awake and shifted in his chair, rubbing his hairy face with a soiled hand.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘strike me purple.’ The old tramp shook his head, surprised, but then a broad smile began to grow behind his beard. ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he went on. ‘I thought Sussworth had got you for sure. Not my business of course, but I didn’t like it, didn’t like it one bit.’ He reached for the beer bottle on the table and took a long swig to reassure himself that the world was still in the same place. ‘There’s more of you, though,’ he said. ‘Found some friends ain’t yer? What you kids get up to is nobody’s business, but whose business is it if it ain’t nobody’s?’
Sydney, who had spent more time with Ben than any of the others and therefore knew him better, stepped up and touched him on the hand. ‘We’ve had the most terrible time, Ben,’ she said. ‘Could we hide here for a few days maybe, get some rest? We’re dropping on our feet.’
Ben rummaged in his overcoat and began to produce bottles of beer one by one. ‘Stay, sunshine,’ he bellowed, ‘why of course you can,’ and he wagged his beard like he was chewing a tough bit of meat. ‘Get this sherbet down yer, that’ll straighten you out a bit. Strewth, look ’ow muddy you are, and them clothes, waders and orange jackets … You’ve been thieving again.’
Stonks found a bottle opener and passed the bottles round. The Borribles drank and allowed the strong ale to trickle down their throats, but they stood awkwardly in the hut. After all, Ben was an adult, and Knocker and Napoleon kept near the door in case they had to run.
The tramp hoisted himself upright. ‘Blimey,’ he said, ‘you must be tired; I’ve never known you so quiet. You look dead on yer feet.
Why don’t yer get into the other rooms and spread out on the mattresses, get some sleep? It’ll all be better by the time you wakes up, you’ll see.’
Why don’t yer get into the other rooms and spread out on the mattresses, get some sleep? It’ll all be better by the time you wakes up, you’ll see.’
Twilight looked around. ‘You’ve changed all the furniture,’ he said, ‘and all your things are different.’
Ben placed his hands on his hips. ‘That was your friend Sussworth,’ he said. ‘He will have his little joke. The day you left he smashed all me bits and pieces, all me bottles, threw me locks and keys into the barges. It was worth a lot of grub that stuff was. He said he was going to scrub me clean, give me a shave, put me in a home. Bleedin’ little Hitler he is. Kept asking me where you’d gone.’
‘What happened?’ asked Vulge.
‘Well, I kept saying it was none of my business and eventually they let me go with a kick up the arse.’
‘And all this stuff,’ said Chalotte, ‘where’d that come from?’
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ said Ben. ‘If you live in the middle of the world’s biggest rubbish dump you want for nothing, do yer? There’s plenty of beds and blankets; I’ve got more bottles. I’m rich I am, Sussworth can’t bother me.’
‘Where is he now?’ asked Stonks.
‘Ah,’ answered Ben, ‘that’s the trouble. He’s got the whole of Wandsworth surrounded. He knows you haven’t gone home yet. Don’t know how he knows, but he knows, but then he makes it his business to know, don’t he?’
‘Then everything’s just as bad as it was before,’ said Bingo.
‘And so it may be,’ said Ben, ‘but we’ve got to look on the bright side, ain’t we? Well what is it to be, sleep or eat?’
‘Sleep,’ said the Borribles.
‘Right,’ said Ben, ‘you know where the beds are, just like before. You show your mates. When you wake up I’ll ’ave a feast ready for you, a regular feast. You’ll wonder what’s hit yer, see if yer don’t. Now off you go and get yer heads down.’
The Borribles needed no second bidding. They filed from the room and within a minute or two were all in a deep slumber, dirt, slime and everything. Only Sydney lingered.
‘Ben, how’s Sam, the horse, is he all right? Has Sussworth found him?’
Ben shook his shoulders loosely by way of a laugh. ‘That there horse,’ he said, ‘is as snug as a bug in a rug. Five-star hotel he’s in, first-class oats and hay, fresh water, lots of other horses for company. Saw him only yesterday, hardly recognized him, did I? Knibbsie likes him so much that he never lets him out of his sight, and Sussworth, like I said, never thought of looking for him in a stable; too subtle, that is.’
Sydney sniffed. ‘Thanks, Ben,’ she said, holding down the lump in her throat with difficulty. ‘Thanks.’
Ben spat into a pile of coal. ‘I don’t often make things my business,’ he said wisely, ‘but when I does, I does.’
Sydney smiled and went to find somewhere to sleep. Now that the tension of the escape was over she found that she could hardly stand. Ben waited until he was alone and began to feel in his pockets for a pipe. It took him a long time. ‘Them bleedin’ kids,’ he muttered, ‘they’re something special they are, something really special.’
And so the Adventurers slept and slept again. They were to stay with Ben for more than a week and for most of that time they woke only to eat. Every time they opened their eyes Ben was there with more food.
‘Eat up,’ he kept urging them, ‘eat up, you’re all so skinny. Plenty more where that came from, all the rubbish in the world here.’ And from the depths of his overcoats would come forth packets of this and bottles of that.
During this period the Borribles were quite content to leave their safety in the tramp’s hands. ‘Sussworth’s out there,’ he told them, ‘him and the SBG, but they don’t take no more notice of old Ben.’ He’d swig from a bottle and tell them not to worry about the dried mud that was flaking off their bodies and into the blankets. ‘I don’t care about a touch of dirt,’ he insisted. ‘A good bit of dirt never hurt anyone except the old lady who broke her back scrubbing the floor.’
Towards the end of the week the Borribles began to recover. Knocker, Napoleon, Torreycanyon and Orococco were the last to get on their feet but then their captivity had been long and arduous. When they finally emerged into the daylight of Feather’s Wharf the mud had gone from their skins if not from their clothes. They looked pale and thin but there was a new light in their eyes and the sparks of a new energy could be seen in their movement and thought; they started to exchange their stories, as Borribles love to do.
Vulge told how Sydney had come to Whitechapel, and how Twilight had saved Chalotte from a Woollie that very same day. Sydney spoke of the strange message telling of Sam the horse and how she and the others set out to find him, and Stonks explained to Knocker about the formation of the SBG and who Inspector Sussworth was and how the Adventurers had been captured at the Battle of Eel Brook Common. Then Bingo took up the tale and recounted Ben’s rescue of them all and the newcomers looked at Ben with a deep admiration.
‘That was the best of it,’ said Chalotte, ‘but the worst of it was what I discovered when I talked to Spiff while you were all down the mine.
You see he’d planned the whole thing; it was him that sent the message to Sydney, just to start things going, so that he could get back at Flinthead.’
‘He was devious all right,’ said Knocker, ‘double devious.’
‘I dunno,’ objected Torreycanyon. ‘Whatever you say about him he got us out of there alive remember. I don’t reckon anyone else could’ve.’
‘That’s right,’ said Napoleon with respect in his voice. ‘He fooled Flinthead all the way, and that’s not easy, and what a scrap with the spades. He was Spiff the Spifflicator, there ain’t no doubt about that.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Knocker darkly. ‘If it hadn’t been for Spiff we wouldn’t have been down the mine in the first place. He owed us a rescue … and we might not have got away at all if Chalotte hadn’t knocked the wedges out.’
‘Of course we would’ve,’ said Napoleon. ‘Chalotte nearly got
us all killed. All Spiff had to do was pretend to be Flinthead; he could have got us out whenever he liked then.’
us all killed. All Spiff had to do was pretend to be Flinthead; he could have got us out whenever he liked then.’
‘Ah,’ said Knocker, ‘that’s it. Would Spiff have done that? Who knows what he might have done once he found himself in power? He might have let us go, he might not have. There was nothing to stop him kicking us out into the street either and staying behind himself to become Flinthead, swapping identities, like.’
‘He wouldn’t have, would he?’ asked Twilight, his eyes round.
‘Spiff was capable of anything,’ said Knocker. ‘that was part of his strength, that’s why he was a danger. What’s more that box of treasure did things to people, changed ’em. It made Flinthead worse than he was before, it tempted Napoleon once, it certainly made me ambitious for more and more names. Who knows what it was doing to Spiff, eh, who knows?’
There was so much to think of after what Knocker had said that there was silence for a while. Then Sydney raised her eyes and said quietly, ‘So Chalotte was the only one of us all to see it, and when she saw it she destroyed the mine, destroyed the money … and killed Spiff.’
Chalotte stared at the floor; her face reddened. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing,’ she began, ‘and I don’t want to take credit for it. I didn’t want to kill Spiff; he was brave, he did save us all in the end, but he never told us what he was doing, you never knew which way he was going to jump. When you came out of the mine I wasn’t certain of anything. One moment I thought it was Flinthead climbing out, then I wasn’t sure. There was so much noise, so much shouting. I was frightened of what was happening and what might happen. All I know is that I didn’t want that money back among Borribles again … Knocking out the wedges was the only thing I could do, it seemed like the right thing.’
‘I think it was,’ said Knocker. ‘I think it was, even if it nearly killed the lot of us.’
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