There was another roar: ‘You’d better come out, you kids; it’ll be the worse for you if you don’t.’
Chalotte stretched an arm and grabbed Ben by the ankle and shook his leg. The tramp swung his eyes open with a lurch of the face and stared down at Chalotte. For him she was a disembodied head rolling about on the floor and yet still speaking.
‘My God,’ said Ben, and he leant forward, his elbows on his knees, ‘bloody good stuff this Special Brew.’
‘Oh, Ben,’ pleaded Chalotte, ‘don’t be daft, it’s me. There’s coppers outside. They’ll be in here in a twinkling and your only chance is to say you haven’t seen us. You’ve got to close this manhole, roll back the carpet and then move the table over a bit. Do it now Ben, otherwise Sussworth will skin you like a banana. Hurry.’
Ben blinked. The talking head had gone but it had shocked him sober enough to do what was required. He dropped his beer bottle and fell to the carpets, landing on all fours. He took a deep breath to gather strength, and crawled round and round until he got himself behind the manhole cover. Once there he pushed it hard with his shoulder several times, grunting and swearing until it pivoted past its centre of gravity, slamming shut with a muffled thump that echoed through the sewers below but was almost silent above.
Ben was the only person in the world who could move on hands and knees and still stagger. He did it now, wobbling backwards and pulling the carpets after him, smoothing them down as he went. Another shout came from the police cordon. There was a banging of truncheons on the walls of the hut. Ben made one last effort, grabbed hold of a table leg and dragged it towards him. When this was done he smiled and groped for the bottle he had dropped earlier. As soon as he found it he rolled over and gazed at the roof, enjoying the support of the ground in his back.
‘I’m weary,’ he said, and fell fast asleep.
Sergeant Hanks was the first officer into the shack bashing hits way through the door like a fifty-ton tank, his truncheon swinging. Tramping on his heels came half a dozen policemen, heavy and tall, their arms held stiffly by their sides.
‘You’d better come quietly,’ shouted Hanks, ‘the place is surrounded. You can’t get away and if you try we’ll split yer heads open.’
‘There’s no one here,’ said a policeman after looking carefully into every corner of the room.
Hanks smashed the table with his truncheon. ‘Well investigate the other rooms,’ he cried, ‘they can’t get away.’
The sergeant moved round the table and stumbled over Ben’s body. ‘Here’s one,’ he said, and while his men searched the lean-tos he sat on a beer crate and gazed into the tramp’s dirty face.
More and more policemen stormed into the hut and prodded and stamped their way everywhere. At last Inspector Sussworth came and he stood near the door, lifting himself up on his toes every now and then, stretching his neck like a cockerel. Hanks removed his right index finger from his left nostril and wiped a yellow bogey on to the leg of Ben’s table. Then he saluted.
‘There’s no one here, sir,’ he said, ‘except this specimen on the floor.’ And he kicked Ben in the ribs to show Sussworth where the tramp lay.
The inspector squared his shoulders and sniffed and his little moustache danced under his nose as he tried to identify the various odours imprisoned in the shack.
‘There’s a malodorous pong in here,’ he said, ‘a very nasty pong. I suspect it emanates from this recumbent malefactor, alleged.’ Sussworth clasped his hands behind his back like royalty and squeezed his fingers till they hurt. He was looking very smart in his flowing overcoat and chequered cap. He took a delicate step round the table and looked at Ben, who still slept contentedly on the floor. ‘Wake him up,’ said the inspector, ‘and ascertain if he can help with enquiries.’
Hanks smiled. This was the kind of job he liked. He grabbed the tramp by the lapels, pulled him into a sitting position and began to shake him vigorously, like a pillow he was knocking the lumps out of. After a few moments of this treatment Ben’s eyes blinked, then they opened.
‘Oooer,’ he said, ‘I feel a bit sick.’
Sussworth bent over, tipped the tramp’s hat off and seized a fistful of hair, twisting it tight until the tears welled up in Ben’s eyes.
‘I want to know the present whereabouts of those children you aided and abetted,’ cried the inspector. ‘Where are those Borribles?’
‘Bobbirols,’ said Ben, ‘whazzem when they’s at home? Bobbirols.’
Sussworth pulled Ben’s hair tighter and struck him in the face with his free hand. ‘Borribles,’ was all he said.
‘Them kids you saw at Fulham police station,’ said Hanks, ‘you know who we mean.’
‘Oh, them,’ said Ben, trying to sniff up his tears, ‘them’s Bobbirols, are they? Well, I heard ’em in the fog, followed me along they did. I could hear them moving about. Scared stiff, wasn’t I? I thought they was going to mug me, you know what kids are like today. Where was the law and order then, I asked myself. I could have been duffed up by them hooligans. I’m an old man, I need protection at my age.’
Sussworth struck Ben once more. ‘You will do,’ he said.
‘I come over the bridge on me way home,’ explained the tramp, ‘and they went on towards Battersea, I think, down York Road.’
‘You’re lying,’ screamed Hanks, and he jabbed his truncheon deep into Ben’s stomach. All the breath he possessed shot out of Ben’s lungs and his face was drained of blood in an instant. ‘You liar,’ shouted Hanks again, ‘we had the bridge closed off by then. Our men heard you chatting; don’t chat to yourself, do you?’
‘Of course I bloody well does,’ retorted Ben, trying to look indignant at the same time as having no breath. ‘Who the Saint Fairy bleedin’ Anne would I talk to else? There ain’t no one, is there?’
‘For the last time,’ said Sussworth quietly, ‘those children have absconded from police custody and have stolen government property; item, one horse belonging to the Greater London Council Parks Division. Where are they?’ At each word the policeman tried to twist Ben’s head from his shoulders, yanking it round and round as if he were unscrewing it.
‘Aaagh,’ screamed Ben in pain, ‘leave off, can’t yer? I’d tell yer if I knew, wouldn’t I? Can’t stand kids, can I?’
The inspector released his grip on Ben’s hair and stood up. He stamped his feet angrily on the floor, his body jerking in a spasm of bad temper. ‘We’re getting nowhere with this imbecile, Hanks,’ said Sussworth. ‘Those children can’t have disappeared, nor the horse. They can’t be on the river, they aren’t north of us and they can’t have got through the cordon back to Battersea. There’s only one place they can be, the one place we can’t go without getting our noses bloodied.’
Hanks scrambled to his feet in consternation, releasing Ben’s lapels with such abruptness that the tramp, who hardly knew what he was doing anyway, fell backwards to the ground, rapping his head so sharply that he rendered himself unconscious.
‘You don’t mean they’ve gone below?’ the sergeant said.
The inspector looked carefully at his men who, having searched the seven rooms of the shanty, now awaited further orders. ‘They’ll have dumped the horse and gone down to Wendle country,’ he pronounced with finality. ‘That much is plain and obvious to the mind of a detective, and if we descended in pursuance of our bounden duty we’d be knee deep in mud and muck, and that I will not tolerate. If the evil vapours did not kill us then there’d be a Wendle behind every corner ready to crack our skulls open with a catapult stone.’
‘What are your orders, Inspector?’ said Hanks as he crossed his arms and hoisted a fat buttock on to the table to rest it there.
‘I know exactly what to do,’ said Sussworth twitching his moustache from side to side, delighted with the complication of his own cunning. ‘I have a map from the Wandsworth water authority, a map that has every manhole in Wandsworth marked upon it. I’ll put a guard on every exit, I’ll put a line of men round the
whole of this area … and then I’ll wait. The Wendles won’t be able to get out for supplies and will soon conclude and deduce that something amiss is afoot. Wendles are highly averse to strangers; they’ll soon find our runaways, and when they do they will boot them straight into our waiting hands.’
At the conclusion of this speech Sussworth stretched his back and made himself as tall as he could. He looked at his men and a black fire burnt in his eyes. He saluted and every officer present returned the salute in a respectful silence which might have lasted quite a long while had not Ben rolled over and farted very loudly in his sleep.
Sussworth blushed and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, embarrassed; his moustache trembled. Hanks touched Ben in the stomach with his boot.
‘What shall we do with the prisoner?’ he asked.
The inspector narrowed his nostrils against the odours that attacked him from everywhere. ‘He’s a suspect, he is,’ he said, ‘accessory after the fact, obstructing a police officer in the pursuance of his duty, drunk and disorderly, carrying an offensive weapon, that bottle for example, obscene behaviour definitely, offending public decency, contravening the health acts, all of them, vagrancy, no fixed abode, squatting, stealing council property … My goodness me, there’s enough to send him away until the year three thousand and dot. Take him back to Fulham and put him in the cells; only lock him up this time and put him somewhere I can’t smell him.’
‘Yes sir, certainly sir,’ said Hanks, ‘but shouldn’t we teach him a lesson, sir?’
Sussworth took a step away from the tramp’s smell. ‘Excellent thinking, Hanks,’ he said. ‘Get the men to turn the furniture over, break all the bottles, knock down the shelves, rip up the mattresses; let them have a bit of fun, they deserve it after a night like we’ve had. Next time we ask this slovenly human being for aid and assistance in protecting the stadium quo perhaps he’ll be a little more disposed to turn Queen’s evidence.’
Hanks slipped his bottom from the table and stood firmly planted on his fat legs. He rubbed his hands together with pleasure. ‘Oh, yes, sir,’ he said, and he gave his orders and two policemen seized the unconscious Ben by the feet and dragged him from his shack. When the tramp’s smell had gone Sussworth followed, his legs moving stiffly, his expression cold. As he walked away, along the faint path that wound between the tall piles of rubbish, he heard behind him the sound of falling planks, the crash of crockery and the shouts and laughter of the SBG men. A slow smile crept over the inspector’s face. Things were beginning to go well now.
6
The noise of the manhole cover slamming shut sounded terrifyingly loud below ground. Chalotte hung from the iron ladder just under the floor of Ben’s palace and listened. She heard a long mumble of voices and she thought she heard someone hitting Ben. Later there came the crashing of furniture and crockery and she felt the earth around her shake with the shock of it. Then there was silence.
Clinging to the ladder still, Chalotte half turned and looked down into the dark. The air was thick about her body and her nose wrinkled at the smell of the sewers. She knew from past experience that it took several days of living underground to get used to it.
‘Sounds like they’ve smashed the place up,’ she said, ‘pushing Ben about as well.’
‘Have they gone?’ asked Bingo.
‘Seems like,’ Chalotte answered.
From further down the tunnel came Spiff’s voice: ‘Leave it a bit longer.’
They waited a good half-hour, knowing they were near each other but feeling as if miles separated them because they could not see. At last Spiff said, ‘Try it now.’
Chalotte placed her ear against the cool metal of the manhole cover. She could hear nothing. She bent her shoulder and pushed, gently at first, then with all her strength. The cover wouldn’t budge. Bingo climbed up the ladder and joined his efforts to hers.
‘One, two, three,’ he said, ‘and heave.’ They shoved until their eyes bulged white with the effort but the round lump of cast iron would not move. In the end Chalotte made way for Stonks but even he, for all his force and stamina, had no success.
‘We need more help,’ he said, his breath coming in gasps.
‘I know that,’ said Bingo, ‘but there’s only room for two on this top rung.’
Twilight came up then and tried to push Bingo from below in one last despairing attempt but it made no difference. What the runaways. did not realize was that Ben’s kitchen cabinet, his armchairs and his table lay shattered in a heap over the top of the manhole. There would be no getting out that way. The Borribles were entombed right where they had not wanted to be: in the territory of the Wendles. Slowly Stonks, Bingo and Twilight clambered to the bottom of the ladder and huddled together with their companions in a sad and silent group. They had escaped the men of the SBG, certainly, but they had landed themselves in a predicament that might become far, far worse.
‘Oh, hell,’ said Sydney, ‘I never meant all this to happen.’
‘Well it has,’ said Vulge, ‘and there’s no point in moaning. We’ve got to decide what we’re going to do … Any ideas?’
‘There’s nothing we can do, except try to get out some other way,’ said Spiff. His voice came from the dark, low and steady. It sounded like he was several yards away in a tunnel. ‘The manhole cover is obviously locked or Sussworth has put some effin’ great weight on it. We have to go on.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Chalotte, ‘and how much food have we got? None. We haven’t even got a torch and we don’t know where we are. For all we know there are Wendles around us already.’
‘That’s right,’ said Stonks. ‘We don’t even have a catapult or a Rumble-stick, nothing; our goose is cooked to a cinder.’
After Stonks had spoken there was another long silence as each Borrible considered his fate, but then, when enough time had gone by, Spiff cleared his throat and began to speak, slowly, as if he knew, and had known for a long time, exactly what he was going to say.
‘I can get you out of here,’ he said, and waited to let the importance of the remark sink in. ‘I can see pretty well in the dark,’ he added, ‘almost like a Wendle.’
‘What do you mean?’ snapped Chalotte, instantly suspicious. She had never distrusted Spiff more than now and she was convinced that there was a note of triumph in his voice, as if he’d taken a chance on something and it was working out the way he had hoped.
Spiff sighed. ‘I have a long, long past,’ he said, ‘and some of it was here, because, years ago, before any of you were Borribles, I lived here. To cut a long story short, I am a Wendle.’
‘I might have known,’ said Chalotte, and the words hissed through her teeth. ‘I might have known.’
Spiff ignored her. ‘I fought against the Rumbles and won more names than I can remember, not many Borribles do that, but I ran away from Wandsworth, ended up in Battersea, been there ever since.’
‘Once a Wendle, always a Wendle,’ quoted Chalotte.
‘The fact remains,’ continued Spiff, ‘that I can get you out of here easy, if you do as I say. A Wendle never forgets the Wendle ways.’
‘That’s just what I’m frightened of,’ said Chalotte.
‘What does it matter?’ said Twilight, interrupting the conversation to stop it becoming a quarrel. ‘A Wendle’s a Borrible after all. If Spiff can get us out then so much the better.’
‘Has anyone got any other suggestion?’ asked Bingo, ‘because I haven’t.’
There was no answer, not even from Chalotte.
‘Okay,’ said Spiff. ‘First things first. I reckon Sussworth will block off as many exits from the sewers as he can. We’ll have to lie low for twenty-four hours at least, maybe more.’
‘But the Wendles will have us,’ said Vulge. ‘We aren’t even dressed like they are.’
‘Exactly,’ agreed Spiff, ‘so the first thing we got to do is find a Wendle storeroom and nick some of their gear, catapults and ammunition too. And we’ll need some food.’
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br /> ‘Oh boy, oh boy,’ said Twilight, ‘this is an adventure at last, just what I wanted.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Stupid,’ said Vulge. ‘If I could see you I’d knock your block off.’
‘Once we get some Wendle clothes and some weapons,’ Spiff went on, ‘we’ll be able to merge in with the Wendles; they’ll never even notice us. We’ll watch ’em, see if they go in and out through the various manholes and, if they do, when the time comes we slip out into the streets and back home we go. Does everyone agree?’
‘Okay by me,’ said Twilight.
‘Yes,’ said Bingo, ‘there’s no other way.’
And so the others gave their vote for the plan, even Chalotte, but in her heart she knew that Spiff was up to no good. The triumph in his voice had grown more pronounced, had even developed into a note of pleasure. It seemed to her that Spiff had brought them to Wandsworth Bridge with a purpose, as if he were glad to be back underground where the green slime slid incessantly down the curving walls. She shuddered; there were great dangers ahead. Out there in the darkness some vile horror was uncoiling itself and getting ready to swallow her and her companions one by one. She determined to watch Spiff very closely. He spoke again and she listened.
‘Until we get out of here,’ he continued, ‘you’ll have to do as I say, even if it ain’t very Borrible. Everyone grab hold of the person in front for now, and don’t let go. You get lost down here and the rats’ll chew you to nothing, right down to the toenails.’
As they followed Spiff away from the ladder, sightless into the back tunnels, Chalotte found that she was the last in line, clinging on to Bingo’s shirt tail. She drew up beside him as she walked.
‘I don’t like it,’ she whispered. ‘Spiff’s too happy down here. I bet you he’s got some scheme up his sleeve. He’s so crafty, that one, his right hand’s never even seen the left one.’
Spiff suddenly interrupted her, his words curling back along the sewer, brittle with anger. ‘Whoever that is, shuddup! Do you want every Wendle in Wandsworth to know where we are? Keep your mouth shut or Flinthead will shut it for you, with mud.’
The Borribles Go for Broke Page 12
