Authors: Michael de Larrabeiti
The Borribles (12 page)
‘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.
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.’
‘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.
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.
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.
And Dewdrop took no chances: the key to the cage was kept in his pocket and it was attached by a long chain to his braces and he never let it out of his sight or gave it to his son for one minute, for Dewdrop trusted no one. He was sly and he was cunning.
Weeks went by and still the Adventurers were no nearer escape. They stole and they burgled, returning to Dewdrop after each sortie to find him waiting by his horse, with Sam munching in the nosebag, shaking his head at the sky to get to the hay. Wearily they would load their booty on to the back of the cart and clamber in after it, hiding under a piece of canvas so they would not be seen by prying eyes. Then Dewdrop would settle back in his seat, flap the reins and Sam would lean into the traces and take them home. Back to the dreary house in Engadine and the dreadful cold cellar with a cage in it, and in the cage ten desperate and forlorn Borribles.
During this period of time they became cheerless and moved without minds. There was not one glimmer of hope anywhere and they hardly talked to each other. Their spirits sank lower and lower until there came a day when they spoke no more. The ten companions lost count of the weeks spent in the cage, and back in Wandsworth the Wendles forgot about the expedition; even the Borribles of Battersea gave the Adventurers up for dead.
The imprisonment seemed eternal, and Knocker’s original suggestion—that they should draw lots and allow one team of Borribles to escape—became more and more attractive. Each Adventurer was convinced in his own heart and mind that this was the only way. All that stopped them taking up the subject again was the bleak thought of being left behind, alone with Dewdrop and Erbie. But then, just when they needed it, luck took a hand. Something happened.
Very late one evening, about eleven o’clock, Knocker and Adolf, Chalotte, Bingo and Torreycanyon were taken out by Dewdrop and driven in the cart to a spot halfway up the hill beyond Southfields. The five Borribles sat silent beneath the tarpaulin on the back of the cart and listened to the tread of Sam’s hooves on the tarmac. It was a cold evening, for winter was coming on, and they shivered all the more because they were hungry. Sam pulled slowly; the hill was long and steep.
Occasionally they could hear Dewdrop call out, ‘Come along you, Sam, me old deario.’ and then there was the crack of the whip as the rag-and-bone man hit the old horse as hard as he could. Once the Borribles would have said, ‘Poor old Sam,’ because Borribles are mighty fond of horses, but now they had no sympathy to spare for Borrible or beast.
Sam tugged the cart far up the steep hill, past many silent mansions standing in great gardens, until Dewdrop stopped in front of the largest house of all, hidden behind high hedges and surrounded by acres of lawns and flower beds. The Borribles heard the brake being wound on and then the tarpaulin was jerked back and the cold air came rushing in. Dewdrop’s dewdrop was a frozen jelly of snot, green in the pale light of the stars.
‘Well, me little dearios,’ creaked the evil voice, ‘we’re going to have a fine time tonight. Here’s a nice big house, what we have here, family gorn away for a second holiday, ain’t it? Skiing and somesuch; I hopes they breaks their legs. But that’s not why we’re here, is it, to look into
their health? We’re here because they’re there, ain’t it? This is a family with a lot of money;no doubt they’ve taken it with them, but you can’t take everything, oh no, too cumbersome and heavy. Can’t have a skiing holiday with a grand piano stuck up your jumper, eh? Now, I’m going to wait here with Sam, me horse. You three … ’ He suddenly jabbed his bony finger into Chalotte, Bingo and Torreycanyon one after the other. ‘You three will concentrate on the downstairs; should be some lovely silver in there, knives and forks, Georgian flower bowls and such. Oh, me dearios, I do like a beautiful thing, it was beauty that put me on this road, ain’t it?’
their health? We’re here because they’re there, ain’t it? This is a family with a lot of money;no doubt they’ve taken it with them, but you can’t take everything, oh no, too cumbersome and heavy. Can’t have a skiing holiday with a grand piano stuck up your jumper, eh? Now, I’m going to wait here with Sam, me horse. You three … ’ He suddenly jabbed his bony finger into Chalotte, Bingo and Torreycanyon one after the other. ‘You three will concentrate on the downstairs; should be some lovely silver in there, knives and forks, Georgian flower bowls and such. Oh, me dearios, I do like a beautiful thing, it was beauty that put me on this road, ain’t it?’
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