‘Right,’ went on Napoleon, crouching in the prow. ‘Gently does it … . Keep your heads down and I’ll fend off with my hands.’
Under the cautious power of the rowers the boat shoved its nose into the steaming dankness of the sewer and Napoleon shone his torch this way and that, but it did little good, for the rolling clouds of fog swallowed and digested the tiny beam before it could travel a yard.
The rowers leant back in their seats, digging their oars through the surface of the water. Adolf sat in the stern, shining his torch over the way they had come, and in its light the Adventurers could see the dripping roof of the cavern and sometimes the gaping holes of side tunnels where thick water slid slowly out to fasten itself to the main stream. The German hummed gently to keep up their spirits: ‘Ho, ho, heave ho. Ho, ho, heave ho. Come, my brothers, ho, ho, heave ho.’
Napoleon’s commands came regularly in a quiet voice. ‘Slowly bow side, two strokes. Easy stroke side.’ And so they groped forward, hesitating at times before tunnels that forked to right and left, Napoleon sometimes knowing where he was going, sometimes guessing.
After what seemed hours of paddling, the oars began to strike against the tunnel walls. ‘Bring ‘em in,’ said Napoleon. ‘It’s too narrow for rowing now, someone will have to get into the water and pull the boat along.’
There was silence among the Borrible crew. Napoleon bent under a seat and pulled out a pair of rubber waders. He was laughing to himself, as the others could see in the light of his torch.
‘I knew I’d have to do it,’ he said. ‘The best Borribles come from Wandsworth all right.’
Adolf chuckled. ‘Ho, I don’t know about that; we’ve got a lot of dirty water in Hamburg, my friend. Give me the waders; I will pull you. I haven’t done any of the rowing.’ The German bustled down the boat. He took the waders from Napoleon, slipped them on and jumped into the stream with no hesitation. The rowers swivelled in their seats, amazed.
Bingo knelt and shone his torch ahead so the German could see where he was going, but Adolf had his own torch hooked on to a button of his jacket. He grabbed the painter in both hands and with a ‘Ho, ho, heave ho’ he pulled the boat smartly along as if it weighed nothing.
‘Well I never,’ said Sydney.
Napoleon shook his head. ‘There’ll be a kind of path by the side of the sewer a little further on,’ he called. ‘You’ll be able to walk on that.’
This information turned out to be true and soon Adolf was striding along a brick walkway that had been built originally for the sewer men of Wandsworth. ‘This is more like it,’ he yelled, and began to sing his song even louder than before.
Suddenly the singing stopped. The rope went slack and
The Silver Belle Flower
bumped into the bank. Those in the boat looked up to discover what had stopped the German and saw, crouching aggressively against the curving wall of the sewer, an armed Wendle.
He was a wiry figure and was wearing the same kind of rubber waders that Napoleon had lent to Adolf. Instead of the normal woollen Borrible cap this Wendle, like other warriors of his tribe, wore a metal helmet made from an old beer can; it covered his ears and guarded his head, and in the light of the torches it glowed a coppery green. To keep himself warm he wore a chunky jacket of wool covered with plastic to keep out the water, and the plastic shone orange and luminous like the coats worn by the men who work on motorways. The Wendle’s face was hard and tough, much tougher than Napoleon’s even, and his eyes moved quickly. He was not afraid even though he was one against ten. With a shout he thrust forward with the Rumble-stick he bore in his hands.
It was then that Adolf showed what a redoubtable fighter he was. Although unarmed, he was not one to avoid a good fight; as he had said, he liked fighting. The spear jabbed towards him and he slid gracefully to
one side, his body folding into the water. The Adventurers, all excepting Napoleon, had come to admire the German, and they sprang to their feet in dismay. But Adolf was down not out, for as he fell he stooped under the vicious weapon and caught hold of the Wendle’s right foot. As soon as Adolf’s feet touched the river bottom he yanked as hard as he could and the Wendle lost balance and landed flat on his back on the edge of the pathway, the spear shaken from his grasp. In that same moment the German grabbed his opponent’s head and pulled it brusquely into the water, shoving it under the filthy surface.
‘Ho, ho, ho,’ he roared, his face bright with triumph and his blue eyes flashing like police beacons revolving.
There was a clatter further along the tunnel and three more Wendles appeared, armed with powerful catapults, raised and ready, aimed at Adolf.
Napoleon waved his arms and his torch. ‘A Wendle, a Wendle!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Don’t fire! We’re Borrible! Adolf, let him up. Quick or you’re as kaput as a kipper.’
The German kept his eyes on the strung catapults and cautiously raised the limp body of his assailant from the black water. He held it in front of him like a shield and without being noticed, save for Knocker who was now in the prow of the boat with Napoleon, he slid a catapult from the unconscious Wendle’s pocket and secreted it in his own.
‘Good work,’ said Knocker to himself, ‘that kraut’s a real find.’
‘You, put that Wendle back on the path,’ said one of the new arrivals. ‘The rest of you keep dead still. There’s another fifty of us up round the next bend.’
Adolf carried his burden to the bank and unceremoniously dumped it. Napoleon shouted, ‘I’m a Wendle myself, on the Great Rumble Hunt. Flinthead knows about it, hasn’t he told you?’
‘He told us,’ came the answer, ‘but if you’ve killed Halfabar then you’re in serious trouble.’ Two of the Wendles came forward and knelt beside the half drowned warrior. They turned the sodden body over and pummelled the water out of it, then, reassured, they installed Halfabar in
The Silver Belle Flower
so that he might recover; meanwhile Adolf was ordered to continue pulling the boat.
‘Walk in the river, you,’ said the Wendle in charge, ‘the rest of you do
everything we say. If anyone so much as makes a move towards a catapult, there’ll be more stones on your head than an avalanche. There’s fifty of us following you now, as well as fifty in front.’
Knocker glanced over his shoulder, as did his friends, and there they were, a crowd of figures wading through the water behind them, perhaps more than fifty, all bearing Rumble-sticks. It was obvious that all the Adventurers could do was obey.
‘Who’s the Borrible who’s been doing all the talking?’ Knocker whispered into Napoleon’s ear.
‘He’s a two-name Borrible,’ said Napoleon, ‘but he’s just called Tron. If he had a name for all the things he’s done he’d be a hundred-name Borrible, I can tell you. Hard as nails he is, and Flinthead, our chief, why, he’s just the same. Nobody comes in or out of here without their say-so.’
‘But you’re a Wendle yourself … ’
‘Don’t matter. I’ve been out, away; they’ve got to be careful. Only right isn’t it, when you think about it? I mean you jumped on the Rumbles quick enough when they came into your patch.’
The tunnel widened out a little now. There were paths on either side and both of them were crowded with warriors who gazed without friendliness at their brother Borribles in the boat below. Adolf they prodded with their spears and the Adventurers sat quietly in the boat, hoping that the German would not lose his temper.
They were apprehensive. Borribles, although inclined to argue among themselves, were on the whole congenial people. The Adventurers had been told that Wendles were the fiercest of all the tribes, but hadn’t realized that they were quite so military, quite so suspicious. Napoleon tried to explain the situation to his companions as they went along.
The Wendles, he argued, lived in constant fear of the Rumbles; their territory was the nearest to Rumbledom and had a long frontier with it. Along that frontier the Rumbles outnumbered the Wendles by at least five to one and the Borribles of Wandsworth had only kept their freedom by maintaining a warlike stance. Over the years this had made them warriors, mistrustful, cunning and hard.
‘I dunno about that,’ said Vulge. ‘They certainly look like a gross of
top quality villains to me, and I should know, we’ve got a few over in Stepney.’
This conversation was brought to a halt by the loud voice of Tron shouting at the exhausted Adolf, tapping him on the head with a Rumble-stick.
‘Stop there, you, mush!’
‘I’ve got a name, you know, Wendle,’ said Adolf, looking up, his face covered in mud and sweat. ‘In fact. I’ve got three names, Adolf Wolfgang Amadeus, and I would never tell you the story of how I got them.’ And with that insult Adolf swore his favourite oath,
‘Verdammt.’
‘You probably got the names second hand,’ said Tron, bringing out the first in a series of Borrible sarcasms.
‘Even that is better than finding your name in a dustbin,’ said Adolf with spirit. ‘Fingy is the name that would suit you well if it were not too flattering.’
‘Cut it out,’ yelled Knocker. ‘This can only lead to trouble. Remember we are after the Rumbles, not each other.’
The Adventurers were next ordered to stand on the bank while the boat was made fast and Halfabar lifted out. He had recovered enough to stand now, although he looked a little groggy and his face was greener than usual because of the quantities of stinking water he had swallowed. He peered round until he saw Adolf, a wet and muddy figure who was being hauled ashore by Stonks and Torreycanyon. Halfabar staggered away from the two Wendles who held him upright and pushed roughly through the little knot of Adventurers who waited on the towpath. He halted in front of Adolf and shoved his green face up to the slime and sweat-covered one of the German.
‘It is not over between you and me,’ he hissed, his angry and smelly breath enveloping Adolf’s head and making him wince. ‘One day we’ll meet again, where you can play no tricks, and I’ll kill you.’
‘A Borrible who has no tricks is no Borrible,’ said Adolf pleasantly, reciting an old German proverb. ‘You’d better go and have a good rest; you need more strength, my little girl. Right now you could probably hit me a hundred times before I noticed you were there.’ And the German turned and followed his companions along a narrow but dry sewer tunnel that led upwards and away from the main river.
The Adventurers were escorted by an armed guard of Wendles, and
the noise of their squelching tread echoed everywhere. On river patrols the Wendles wear waders, and the sound they make when they walk is a strange one; when a hundred march together that sound is the sound of a wet centipede on the move.
‘Where’s Napoleon?’ Knocker asked Bingo, who was beside him.
‘They took him off ahead, on his own,’ answered Bingo. ‘I hope he sticks by us.’
Knocker was made uneasy by the information, but he comforted himself with the thought that however suspicious the Wendles might be of outsiders, it was in their interest that the Great Rumble Hunt should take place. The chances of it succeeding were small, but if it did the Wendles would be safe for years to come. After all, they had sent one of their own men to be trained for the mission; that must mean something.
‘It’ll be all right,’ said Knocker, loud enough for all his companions to hear. ‘They’ve probably just taken Napoleon off to check that we are who we say we are. He’ll be back.’
They marched on and the tunnel rose and twisted and they shone their torches at the floor which was uneven and broken.
‘Keep close,’ said Knocker. ‘If there’s any trouble we’ll form two lines, back to back.’
A few minutes later the Adventurers came into a vast underground cavern with a floor that sloped steeply away from them. It must have been the central chamber for the Wandsworth sewage system back in the nineteenth century. Now it was dry and its elegant brick arches were beginning to crumble.
Scores of Wendles were already present, and latecomers were emerging from the corridors that led from all parts of the huge borough. Each Wendle held a torch and together they spread an eerie light over the scene. Tron’s voice sounded from behind: ‘Keep going, straight in front of you, over there, where you see that platform. You’re going to meet Flinthead.’
On the far side of the hall stood a small podium and on it was one chair and in that chair sat Flinthead himself; by his side stood Napoleon Boot, talking rapidly.
Flinthead gazed down at the Adventurers as they came before him. His eyes didn’t move and though Knocker watched very carefully the chief Wendle didn’t seem to blink either. Knocker assumed that this was
because he always lived in the dark and never saw the sun, though it was said that he knew exactly what happened everywhere. As Spiff had intimated, Flinthead was the most cunning, the most merciless and the most unpredictable of all the Wendles. Every Wendle went in deadly fear of him, yet he commanded a strange loyalty, a loyalty born out of the threat that surrounded the whole community.
Knocker looked across at Napoleon for some hint of what was going to happen but Napoleon ignored the glance; they would all have to wait and see what Flinthead had in mind.
Still the chief of the Wendles said nothing, and everything that had been in the boat was now brought forward and exhibited in front of the line of captives. While he waited, Knocker continued his scrutiny of Flinthead’s face. The eyes were indeed strange, frosted over like lavatory windows, impenetrable; they didn’t gleam or glint and still they didn’t move. It was uncanny. His face was rubbery, streaked with grey and dark green. His nose was like a false plastic one that had been too near the fire and had melted. It was an evil nose, a dangerous nose, a nose that could smell out treachery and deceit even when there was none. On his head he wore a helmet of copper riveted together in sections, and it had an extra piece that came between his eyes and attempted to protect, or hide, the nose, but the nose was too big for concealment. His body was small and sinewy, like that of most Borribles, and he was clothed in warm wool-lined waders and a plastic jacket painted with bright golden paint. And, in a way that Knocker could not define, in a way that puzzled him, Flinthead looked like someone Knocker knew.