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.’
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.’
‘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 wh
ile. 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.’
‘She was bloody brave anyway,’ said Vulge. ‘There was a lot of certain death flying about for a quarter of an hour.’
Chalotte shook her head. ‘I wasn’t brave,’ she said, ‘just scared out of my brains.’
‘What a great story it will be,’ said Twilight. ‘It will be the greatest Borrible Adventure ever told, better even than the Great Rumble Hunt, maybe.’
Knocker looked stern. ‘I don’t know about you others,’ he said, ‘but there are some things about this Adventure I don’t like. Perhaps we shouldn’t tell this story, we should keep it secret among ourselves.’
‘A secret story,’ said Chalotte. ‘Well you might be right, you might not. We’d have to think about it.’
Knocker gazed at the scars that were burnt into the palms of his hands. ‘You know, Chalotte, I’m glad you gave me that second name, Knocker Burnthand. I’m proud of it in a funny back to front kind of a way … but I don’t want another. I’ve had enough adventures to last me a Borrible lifetime.’
And so they talked on and Ben sat and listened with great interest and passed bottles of stout to each speaker in turn so that they could build up their strength, and the Borribles came to accept the tramp as one of their very own. Indeed it was a mark of the confidence they felt in him that the Borribles told their stories in front of an adult at all, for it had never been done before.
It became obvious to them that Ben would have had the Borribles live in his lean-to for ever, but as the Adventurers felt their limbs grow stronger they began to worry about getting home, back to their tumbledown houses in their own areas of London.
‘It won’t be easy,’ said Stonks, when he had explained to Knocker how determined and well trained Inspector Sussworth and his men were. ‘The SBG know that we had something to do with Dewdrop’s death and they won’t give up till they’ve got us and clipped our ears.’
Ben knocked his pipe against the side of his chair and allowed the ash to fall to the floor. ‘Every time I go out,’ he said, ‘I see coppers everywhere; like a bloody coronation it is, except they’re searching for you lot, and they look like they’re ready to wait for ever, day and night and mainly between here and Battersea, which is where you want to go, ain’t it? We’ll have to think of something really good this time.’
The discussion went on and on and got nowhere. Some thought it would be a good idea to make a raft and drift down the river in the dark. Others suggested that it would be safer to walk along by the river’s edge and get round the police cordon that way. One or two argued that they should stay where they were and wait until Sussworth gave up his task and moved away, but then it was pointed out that there was no guarantee that the SBG would not pay Ben another visit and catch them all there, say, sleeping in the middle of the night. It was dangerous to go and every hour it became more and more dangerous to remain; the situation looked hopeless until one day Ben returned from the outside world, emptied his pockets of provisions, banged a bottle on the table and called for silence.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘and swipe me if that ain’t given me an idea. None of your plans is very good, none of ’em, but I reckon I can get you out of Wandsworth in style and comfort, the horse as well.’
‘The horse as well,’ said Sydney, her face happy. ‘How?’
Ben squinted and filled his eyes with mystery. ‘Ha,’ he said, ‘you’ll have to wait and see. Let’s say the day after tomorrow, very early in the morning. Get plenty of rest, you may need it.’
For the whole of the intervening time the Borribles could hardly contain themselves. Ben came and went on several occasions and laid in a great stock of rations and swigged from his beer bottles ceaselessly. On one of his appearances he staggered into the lean-to carrying a huge bundle of second-hand children’s clothes and threw them down on to the floor.
‘Best get out of that Wendle stuff,’ he said panting, ‘you look like a bunch of bandits. I’ve got some lovely gear here. Real posh you’ll look in this little lot, like bleedin’ choir boys … and girls o’ course.’
Bingo held up a clean shirt that had once been very expensive. ‘Where’d yer get it?’ he asked.
Ben raised his eyebrows. ‘Where’d yer think? It fell off a lorry, just like that. Wonderful thing gravity, I don’t reckon we could live without it.’
At five in the morning on the day of departure Ben crept into the room where the Borribles were sleeping and shook them gently awake.
‘Come on, mates,’ he whispered. ‘It’s time.’
As usual the tramp had sat in his armchair all night with a fire going in spite of the heatwave, drinking and thinking, and although the dawn was warm and sticky he still wore all his overcoats, just like he always did.
The Borribles stretched, rolled from their mattresses, dressed quickly in their new clothes and made their way to the kitchen.
‘Got some tea for you,’ said Ben as they appeared one by one, ‘and there’s a kettle on the hob, look, if you want more. Bacon sandwiches on the plate … get stuck in.’
It was just light when they left the lean-to a little while later. Two or three seagulls were tearing at piles of offal near the river and Ben looked up at the sky.
‘It’s going to be as hot as ’ell again today,’ he said, and pulled his collars tighter to his neck.
In single file the Borribles followed the tramp over the rough terrain of Feather’s Wharf. Across broken and deserted factories, through abandoned houses where glass crunched underfoot and where rotten floors threatened to snap and fall, Ben stepped out, travelling in safety by unmapped and forgotten ways, ways that were known only to himself and which no ordinary adult or policeman had ever seen. Over the railway line they went, along the Causeway by the River Wandle, and finally they stumbled across a dusty field of crumbling bricks and corrugated iron and found themselves on the edge of the broad thoroughfare of Armoury Way.
Ben looked up and down carefully; the Borribles stood behind him. The pavements were grey and empty and stretched for miles. Ben gave the word and he and the Borribles rushed across the road in a gang. When he was satisfied that no one was watching he grinned and pushed against a plank in the high advertising hoarding beside him. The plank swivelled on a loose nail and the Borribles saw a large hole appear.
‘This is how I gets into Young’s Brewery,’ cackled Ben. ‘This is how I goes to see my mate, Knibbsie, and this is how I brings me beer out. In yer go.’
When everyone had passed through Ben replaced the plank and breathed a sigh of relief. ‘We’re safe now,’ he explained. ‘We’re in the back of the brewery, private property, no Woollies here. Knibbsie and me used to be draymen together once, as well as being on the road. He looks after the horses now, ’cos they still delivers their beer with horses and carts you know; you ever seen ‘em?’
‘Seen ’em,’ said Bingo. ‘I should think so. Bloody great animals, big as double-decker buses.’
Ben nodded. ‘Come on then, no time to lose.’ He shuffled on through the yards and alleys of the brewery and the Borribles went with him. Eve
rywhere they passed stood gigantic wooden drays, high, like carriages for kings, with massive steel-rimmed wheels painted in bright fairground colours.
The tramp stopped by the side of one of these carts and pointed up to the polished seat that must have been a good fifteen feet off the ground.
‘That’s where the driver and his mate rides,’ he said. ‘It’s like flying, it is. You can see everything for miles up there. You can look into upstairs windows as easy as winking, and see people having their breakfast … And all the traffic has to stop for you. The hooves clip-clopping, the leather creaking, the brasses swinging and clanking. I tell you, if you have to work, and I don’t wish that on anybody, but if you has to, well that’s the best job in the world, and the beer’s free too. You just sniff the air in here, for example, and see. Why that air’s so heavy with ale that it’s good enough to make breathing a crime.’ And as if to prove his point Ben sniffed deeply and philosophically before continuing on his way.
They were very nearly at the end of their journey now. Ben took them into a wide stable yard and there, at the far end of it, stood a man in a long leather apron, leaning on a broom. ‘That,’ said Ben, ‘is my mate, Knibbsie.’
Knibbs had obviously been waiting for them for he showed no surprise at their appearance. Sydney, who had last seen him on the misty night of the escape from Fulham police station, looked at him closely.
She remembered the face now: pale, with strange spiky hair sticking out horizontally under a flat greasy cap. His nose was hard and bony, his eyes dark. He wore a big fluffy moustache too and it was stained with brown beer. His face looked glum until he smiled but he smiled now and his face changed and became warm. He beckoned and the Borribles and Ben went towards him.
Borribles Go For Broke, The Page 23
