‘Let us go out with a fight,’ cried Torreycanyon excitedly.
‘Yes,’ said Knocker, ‘whatever happens we’ve won and Flinthead, with his pointed skull and his petrified grin, will not laugh like we will laugh after this battle.’
‘Then we’d better get into the mouth of the short cut,’ said Orococco. ‘We can’t possibly hold them here, out in the open.’
The Totter’s tactics were simple and obvious: the three friends crossed the Wandle, up to their waists in the slime of the river, and adopted defensive positions. As they took cover an advance party of Wendles came careering out of the main corridor, and a shower of well directed, high-velocity stones rattled round the Borribles’ hiding place.
‘Man,’ said Orococco, ‘I’ll go white with the shock.’
‘This is no time … ’ began Knocker, and then he and the others smiled instead, and they knelt in the gloom and laid their bandoliers and lances beside them.
Within a few seconds the open area by the landing stage had become
crowded with Wendle warriors, and Tron appeared in the midst of them, his face flushed with anger.
He instantly ordered a large detachment of his men to follow the course of the Wandle in pursuit of
The Silver Belle Flower
. Into the branch tunnels he dispatched smaller patrols to make sure that the fugitives were not lurking there, but the main body of his troops he directed towards the short cut so that the could block the mouth of the Wandle with a considerable force before the boat could ever get there.
‘They can’t get away,’ he shouted. ‘We’ll have them yet, suffocating in Wandle mud.’
‘Let us hold our fire till they get halfway across the river,’ whispered Knocker, ‘and we’ll soon see who is in the mud first.’
Already the Wendles, ardent and fanatical fighters, had plunged into the filthy water. Tron himself was carried shoulder high by two of his personal guard. The three adventurers loaded their catapults in the darkness and waited until Knocker hissed his command: ‘All right, now!’
Three well aimed stones struck their targets and three Wendles disappeared under the mud. The adventurers fired again and again, and the rate of their fire was phenomenal, but the Wendles came on in spite of their losses, for they did not lack bravery.
‘Aim for Tron,’ cried Orococco, ‘or his guards.’
Knocker shifted his aim to one of Tron’s porters, and his stone struck the bodyguard solidly on his helmet. He staggered, lost his footing on the river bottom and Tron was pitched face foremost into the Wandle.
‘Swallow that!’ said Knocker with relish.
This small victory gave the three defenders a breathing space, but Tron was not the Wendle to allow his enemy to relax for long. He was pulled to the bank by his followers and the mud wiped from him. He shouted more orders and wave after wave of warriors leapt into the river. Although the Adventurers fired till their arms were aching, they could not stop the Wendles crossing in force and spreading out to right and left of their tunnel.
When satisfied with his bridgehead, Tron ordered his men to attack. Fortunately only three warriors at a time could enter the short cut and deadly work was done with knife and lance in the gloom, as Torreycanyon, Knocker and Orococco fought side by side for their lives and the lives of their companions.
Suddenly Tron’s voice was heard calling on his soldiers to cease fighting
for a moment, and the attackers fell back. The three Borribles leant against the wall at the tunnel entrance, exhausted and nearly done for.
‘How long has it been now?’ asked Knocker. ‘My watch is smashed.’
‘Quarter of an hour,’ said Orococco triumphantly. ‘We’ve done it.’
Tron called again. ‘You Borribles in there, you might as well come out, you’re surrounded. The boat has been captured, we’ve got the treasure. You are fighting for nothing, I tell you. Save your lives while you can.’
‘Don’t believe him,’ said Knocker. ‘It must be a trick; our mates’ve got clean away.’
‘Keep them talking, anyway,’ said Orococco. ‘It’s not so dangerous as fighting.’
‘Show us the treasure chest,’ shouted Knocker, ‘then we might believe you, Tron.’
Tron laughed. ‘Your friends will be here soon, in chains, then you will see the box. Surrender, cause no more trouble, and we might be lenient with you. You have fought well, that is enough.’
‘We would rather fight here than go back to your dungeons,’ shouted Knocker.
‘There’ll be no dungeons for you, Knocker,’ called Tron, his voice hardening.
‘I can believe that all right,’ said Orococco.
At that moment a runner bounded up and spoke to Tron. The crowd of warriors fell back and the three Adventurers saw Flinthead himself arrive, surrounded by his guard. His face was pitiless and he was dressed for war.
Flinthead took in the situation at a glance. He spoke quietly and his guards looked at the roof of the cavern where they stood, then they ran forward and climbed one upon the shoulders of another until the last man reached the ceiling and disappeared. A rope ladder was thrown down to the ground and half a hundred warriors scrambled up it and went out of sight.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Knocker.
‘It means trouble,’ said a voice behind him, and the Adventurers spun round, weapons at the ready.
There stood Napoleon Boot, covered in mud and gashed in the head, his helmet gone and his jacket torn.
‘What happened?’ cried Knocker.
‘It’s all right,’ said Napoleon, breathing heavily. ‘They got away, I saw to it. They’ll be out on the Thames by now, I shouldn’t wonder.’
He sank to the floor and his leant back against the wall.
‘How did you get back here, man?’ asked Orococco, kneeling beside the Wendle and inspecting his head wound. ‘My, that sure is a beauty!’
‘When the boat was safely away,’ explained Napoleon, ‘I made for the short cut. The guard had been alerted but they didn’t know I was part of the getaway. As we were talking, some warriors appeared along the Wandle and shouted to the guard to hold me. I had to fight my way out. They can’t be far behind, not a lot of them but enough.’
‘What’s Flinthead playing at?’ asked Knocker.
‘He’s sending warriors up to the surface. They’ll come down through a manhole behind us. When he’s got us surrounded, he’ll come and talk to us, or just starve us out. He can wait. He can’t know yet that the boat is clean away.’
‘Well, it’s nice to hear such things,’ said Orococco, ‘but why risk your life to come back to tell us?’
Napoleon hesitated and then went on. ‘I haven’t told you all the story, yet. There is bad news. Halfway down to the mouth of the Wandle we were jumped by a large night patrol coming back from outside. They saw the box, guessed something was up and didn’t wait to ask questions. Stonks went under the water with five of them on him, but he came back up again, alone. There was about twenty of them around the boat. They dragged the box out and we dragged it back in. We fought like double our number. Honest, Knocker, we fought like tigers.’
‘Oh no! They got the box,’ cried Knocker.
‘No, they didn’t,’ said Napoleon, emphatically. ‘I’d have died, rather … after everything.’
‘Then you got it away?’
‘Not that, either. We were fighting across the mudflats, they had it halfway to the shore, we came back at them, we did for every last one of them, and when we looked for the box, to get it back into the boat, there it was, sinking in the mud. We couldn’t even get hold of a handle, it went down so quick. You know what that mud is like, like a live thing with the grip of a python. The mud is deep there, deeper than anywhere
else along the Wandle. The old stories say it goes down to the centre of the earth.’
There was a long silence. Then Napoleon spoke again. ‘I had to come back to tell you. I wanted you to know before anything happened that I’d done my best. The money’s gone for ever, and even Flinthead can’t get it where it’s gone. But the others got away, Knocker, don’t forget that. We done the Rumbles, and our Adventure was surely the best ever. That’s what-counts, isn’t it?’
Knocker knelt by the wounded and mud-splattered Wendle and took his hand gently in his own. ‘You are right, sod the money! What does that matter against friendship? We have done great things and it has been a great adventure. They will sing songs about us, all of us. For ever.’
‘Flinthead’s going to sing one to us right now,’ said Orococco, who had been watching the enemy. ‘Here he comes, to tell us no doubt what lovely treats he has in store.’
‘He’ll go raving lunatic when he finds out about the money,’ said Napoleon, and the four of them inched over to the tunnel opening, knowing, but not saying, that they were doomed to an early and unpleasant death.
‘We’ll have to go. We’ll be picked up by the Woollies if we wait any longer.’ Bingo spoke reluctantly.
The others twisted in their seats and looked over the bows of
The Silver Belle Flower
to the distant bank. The far side of the River Thames was clearly visible and the silhouettes of the factories and gasometers stood sharp against the morning sky. From time to time the rowers clipped the water with the blades of their oars so as to stay on station opposite the Wandle. Boats and barges were passing by in increasing numbers and at any moment a police launch might appear, checking that all was well on Wandsworth Reach. The city was awake; from high above, on the Wandsworth Bridge roadway, came the unbroken hum of traffic on its way to work.
The survivors shifted their attention and gazed dejectedly at the wasteland that spread out on either side of the Wandle’s mouth. Their eyes sought for some sign of their companions, but they saw no movement. Even the Wendle patrols had returned underground, shaking their fists at the five Borribles who sat offshore waiting and hoping, their hearts heavy with a great sorrow.
‘They didn’t stand a chance of getting away,’ sighed Vulge, ‘but I bet they gave a good scrap at the end.’
‘I hope Napoleon got back,’ said Bingo. ‘I hope they were all together when … ’ His voice trailed off and there were tears in his eyes. ‘Come on, we must go. There’s no point in us getting caught as well.’
Sydney, Chalotte, Stonks and Bingo leant forward to row. Vulge sat in the stern and navigated, searching for a group of two or three barges where they could hide through the daylight hours. The tide, strong as a
waterfall, bore them through the cathedral arches of Wandsworth Bridge and Vulge saw what he was looking for almost immediately. He directed
The Silver Belle Flower
into a tiny haven of motionless water and, hardly bothering to scrape the caked slime from their clothing, the Borribles huddled together in the bottom of the boat in an attempt to keep a spark of warmth glowing among them.
It was deep winter; they had neither food nor blankets and the damp river wind gnawed at their bodies. All day they tried to sleep but the pangs of hunger and the hateful cold kept them restless, and their wounds throbbed without respite.
Night rescued them. They watched the sun go down—blurred crimson on black smoke—and they took up their oars once more and warmed themselves by rowing. Though they were but four to power the strokes, the swift current of the Thames carried them homewards, and though they were clumsy and stupid with fatigue they brought.
The Silver Belle Flower
safely downriver. Just before dawn the next day the boat slid between the high-masted sailing barges—
The Ethel Ada
and
The Raven
—and ended its journey on the solid wedge of floating rubbish that had been marooned from the main stream for so long. They were in Battersea at last—spent, bedraggled, filthy.
‘Battersea,’ said Bingo. ‘I can hardly believe it, oh Battersea.’
They helped each other over the high embankment wall and stood in the quiet churchyard looking up at the green steeple. ‘It’s a good feeling,’ said Vulge, ‘being back where you belong, with a good adventure behind you and friends to remember.’
‘It must be one of the best feelings there is,’ agreed Chalotte.
They went from the churchyard and out into Church Road. There was not much traffic about and not many people, which was just as the Borribles wanted for they could not have passed as ordinary children. They had lost their helmets in their many fights and their pointed ears were plainly visible. They were covered in the dried mud of the Wandle swamps and most strange-looking of all were the Wendle waders and the orange road jackets they wore.
‘We’d better get off the street,’ said Bingo, ‘before we’re spotted.’ Opposite the Old Swan pub, near the church, were a couple of Borrible houses, derelict and falling apart, their window spaces boarded up with rough planks and corrugated iron. ‘They’ll lend us some clothes
and hats,’ said Bingo, pointing over the road, ‘just to get us as far as Spiff’s.’
Now it happened to be true that every London Borrible had heard of the expedition against the Rumbles, but it was also true that every London Borrible had, long before this time, given the Adventurers up for dead. Thus it was that it took Bingo and the others half an hour to convince this Battersea household that they weren’t attempting to perpetrate a subterfuge for stealing clothes. However, once they had been convinced, the Church Road Borribles lent the clothes eagerly, and were delighted to be the first to greet the survivors of the Adventure to end all Adventures, and proud to hear the first snippers of their stories.
The Adventurers waited until eight o’clock before returning to the streets. It was safer that way, for with the pavements crowded they could mingle with children on their way to school and remain inconspicuous. Traffic was building up, busy and dangerous, but to the Borribles it was friendly and welcoming. It was home.
They walked on until they came to the fork of Vicarage Crescent and Battersea High Street. They went past Sinjen’s School, and they came up to Trott Street and Spiff’s house, where Knocker had lived as chief Battersea lookout all that time ago. But before they went in, with one accord they walked on. They needed to see the market, to prove to themselves that they were back where they belonged.
The stallholders were putting out their merchandise, the shops were open and there was a bustle and a friendliness that made each Adventurer feel glad to be alive. The pie and eel shop was preparing for its lunch-time trade and the smell of sauce and liquor was strong. The fish and chip shop was being swabbed out by an Indian who sang as he worked—a strange spicy song—and the second-hand shop looked reassuringly the same: a cross between a pawnshop and a junkyard.
The Battersea costers whistled and shouted at each other across the street. They manhandled their barrows into position or stacked goods on them from the vans parked sideways and awkward across the road. Even when the stallholders bawled at the Borribles and told them to clear off to school, the Borribles only smiled at each other, self-consciously indulging their nostalgia.
‘Knocker loved it down here,’ said Chalotte, and they turned away
from the market at last, bringing with them a few things for their breakfast for they were ravenous. It was time to report to Spiff.
He was waiting for them. Their arrival had been reported and their story was eagerly awaited. Crowds of Borribles were in the house and more crowded in by the minute. The Adventurers had to push their way into the basement and struggle through an excited throng to arrive at Spiff’s room. He was there, just the same in his orange dressing gown, with a cup of tea held in front of his sharp face.
He bade the Adventurers sit down and eat the food they had brought with them. He noted the absences from their ranks, but his expression gave little away and he said nothing. Like the rest of the house his room was filled to overflowing, his cronies sitting on the floor or leaning against the walls. Everyone was waiting until Spiff gave the word for the stories to be told. They would listen intently and, that very day, each Borrible present would repeat those stories to those who had not heard them, and they would be told again and again from Borrible to Borrible, and so the Adventurers would become part or a legend.
And new proverbs and sayings would he added to the
Borrible Book of Proverbs.
New ambitions would be born in the hearts of Borribles as yet un-named, and some would yearn to have such an Adventure too. But many would find the Adventure unbelievable—no Borrible could have done such things—the whole expedition was a fiction and a fabrication, that was all. ‘Had anyone ever talked to those who had been on the trip?’ the sceptics would ask. ‘Who’s ever spoken to Knocker and Napoleon? Has anyone ever seen Orococco and Vulge? Oh, you heard of people who knew somebody who had met someone who had talked to Chalotte or Sydney or Torreycanyon, but in truth nobody had really met them.’
But in Spiff’s room that day were the hearers and the tellers of a great Adventure; and the tellers still had the marks of their Adventure on them. Their scars were still soft and their muscles still ached, the hearers could see this, and they knew the stories were true, and they would tell them as true and they would be believed. Only in the years to come would the stories grow in the telling and lose their firm outline to be transformed into a glorious Borrible saga: the Great Rumble Hunt.
So Spiff waited patiently until the Adventurers had finished their
breakfast, then he gave a sign and Bingo started the story at the beginning, from the moment they had rowed away from Battersea churchyard. His companions listened and added to the tale if they thought he had forgotten anything, and sometimes they went on with it themselves and the story was thrown backwards and forwards among them, and it grew and grew. And each one told of his own part in the destruction of the bunker under Rumbledom, and the tale of the great explosion and Adolf’s death brought forth deferential whistles from the audience, and they looked at the Adventurers with a measureless respect.
Then, sombrely, the Adventurers told of their imprisonment by the Wendles, and of the great dilemma of Napoleon Boot and how finally his cleverness had saved them. They told of the loss of the four friends who had stayed behind so that their companions might survive to thwart Flinthead’s greed and escape with the chest of Rumble treasure and how, after all, they had been lucky to escape with their lives alone.
When the great story was ended a heavy silence came over the room and the Adventurers looked at the floor, remembering the five who had not returned. The Borribles in the room were deeply impressed by the Adventure and indicated to Spiff, by signs and nods of the head, that they thought he ought to mark the occasion with a few well-chosen phrases.
Spiff pondered. He took his teapot from the paraffin stove, filled a cup, spooned in some sugar and stirred it well. At last he stood and cleared his throat.
‘A great Adventure!’ he began. ‘The threat of the Rumbles gone; their power destroyed. It will be many a year, if ever, before they come down here again. Today is a day of great rejoicing, and one of sadness, also. Four of you did not return, and one German person, who joined with you for the glory of the Adventure, has also perished. What can we do except try to remember them always, tell their stories and say their names, good names—Torreycanyon, Napoleon Boot, Orococco, Adolf Wolfgang Amadeus Winston—and of course our own chief lookout, Knocker. What second name is there worthy of his adventure?’
Chalotte looked up and interrupted; there were tears in her eyes. ‘He went back into the hallway of the Great Door to get the treasure when he should have been escaping, and though it was blazing with flames and
the rafters were falling in cascades of sparks, he picked it up and carried it out. I tell you, I tell you all, it was red-hot that box, and the handle burnt into his hand—down to the bone—and he bore the pain. His clothes were alight and I thought he was completely on fire. You should call him Knocker Burnthand. It is a good name.’
There was a murmur of assent from everybody present and many repeated the name to themselves to see how it sounded.
‘Burnthand it shall be,’ said Spiff, ‘and it shall be written in the book.’
He looked at the five survivors in the chairs before him. ‘Your names, too, are confirmed. You have more than won them. You left here with empty words for your titles but you return with names that are full of meaning, and every time they are heard now, great and generous deeds will be thought of. Great names they are, which will make every Borrible think of courage and cunning, loyalty and stealth, individualism and affection, every time they hear them.’ And Spiff, overacting a little, recited the names like a litany: ‘Chalotte, Sydney, Vulge, Stonks and Bingo from Lavender Hill.’
Spiff gave a sign and every member of the audience began to leave the room, quitting the house and running through the busy High Street, back to their own dwellings so they could begin retelling the tale immediately, and soon Spiff’s house was quiet. He gulped his dark brown tea and looked at the Adventurers, still slumped in their seats.
‘You must all be tired,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you go to the room upstairs and rest? I’ll see that there’s some grub for you when you wake.’
The five Adventurers rose and left the room. The elation they had felt at arriving home and telling their stories had gone, and in its place was a feeling of melancholia mixed with self-pity. They felt too a yearning love for the companions they had left to perish on the River Wandle, and the immensity of the loss made a black gap in their minds.
They climbed the stairs like old cripples. On the second landing Chalotte, who was leading, turned and stopped the others; her eyes were wet.
‘Oh,’ she said, only just holding back her sobs, ‘it all seems so useless now. We’ve won our names but lost our friends. Isn’t it all so stupid?’
‘Shuddup,’ said Bingo. ‘Don’t make things worse.’
They went on upstairs without saying another word. Alone, Spiff
topped up his cup of tea and mused over what he had heard and he thought about the loss of Knocker and the others.
‘I hate to think of what Flinthead did to ‘em when he got his hands on ‘em,’ he said to himself. ‘What a swine he is … there’s no one more cruel. Good at torture … still, they wouldn’t have lived long.’ He stirred in the sugar. ‘Shame about the treasure. I was never worried about the Rumbles, really … they probably only came down to Battersea on a little jaunt. It was the money I was after … what I could have done with that. I’d have changed things round here. Money … your average Borrible don’t know the value of the stuff, they don’t know what it’s about, what power it has. I don’t suppose I’ll ever see any real money down here. Bloody shame! Ah well, there’ll be another time, some time. It ain’t over yet.’