The BFG (20 page)

In the leading machine, the Head of the Air Force was sitting beside the pilot. He had a world atlas on his knees and he kept staring first at the atlas, then at the ground below, trying to figure out where they were going. Frantically he turned the pages of the atlas. ‘Where the devil
are
we going?’ he cried.

‘I haven’t the foggiest idea,’ the pilot answered. ‘The Queen’s orders were to follow the giant and that’s exactly what I’m doing.’

The pilot was a young Air Force officer with a bushy moustache. He was very proud of his moustache. He was also quite fearless and he loved adventure. He thought this was a super adventure. ‘It’s fun going to new places,’ he said.

‘
New places!
’ shouted the Head of the Air Force. ‘What the blazes d’you mean
new places
?’

‘This place we’re flying over now isn’t in the atlas, is it?’ the pilot said, grinning.

‘You’re darn right it isn’t in the atlas!’ cried the Head of the Air Force. ‘We’ve flown clear off the last page!’

‘I expect that old giant knows where he’s going,’ the young pilot said.

‘He’s leading us to disaster!’ cried the Head of the Air Force. He was shaking with fear. In the seat behind him sat the Head of the Army, who was even more terrified.

‘You don’t mean to tell me we’ve gone right out of the atlas?’ he cried, leaning forward to look.

‘That’s exactly what I
am
telling you!’ cried the Air Force man. ‘Look for yourself. Here’s the very last map in the whole flaming atlas! We went off that over an hour ago!’ He turned the page. As in all atlases, there were two completely blank pages at the very end. ‘So now we must be somewhere here,’ he said, putting a finger on one of the blank pages.

‘Where’s here?’ cried the Head of the Army.

The young pilot was still grinning broadly. He said to them, ‘That’s why they always put two blank pages at the back of the atlas. They’re for new countries. You’re meant to fill them in yourself.’

The Head of the Air Force glanced down at the ground below. ‘Just look at this godforsaken desert!’ he cried. ‘All the trees are dead and all the rocks are blue!’

‘The giant has stopped,’ the young pilot said. ‘He’s waving us down.’

The pilots throttled back the engines and all nine helicopters landed safely on the great yellow wasteland. Then each of them lowered a ramp from its belly. Nine jeeps, one from each helicopter, were driven down the ramps. Each jeep contained six soldiers and a vast quantity of thick rope and heavy chains.

‘I don’t see any giants,’ the Head of the Army said.

‘The giants is all just out of sight over there,’ the BFG told him. ‘But if you is taking these sloshbuckling noisy bellypoppers any closer, all the giants is waking up at once and then pop goes the weasel.’

‘So you want us to proceed by jeep?’ the Head of the Army said.

‘Yes,’ the BFG said. ‘But you must all be very very hushy quiet. No roaring of motors. No shouting. No mucking about. No piggery-jokery.’

The BFG, with Sophie still in his ear, trotted forward and the jeeps followed close behind.

Suddenly the most dreadful rumbling noise was heard by everyone. The Head of the Army went pea-green in the face. ‘Those are guns!’ he cried. ‘There is a battle raging somewhere up ahead of us! Turn back, the lot of you! Let’s get out of here!’

‘Pigspiffle!’ the BFG said. ‘Those noises is not guns.’

‘Of course they’re guns!’ shouted the Head of the Army. ‘I am a military man and I know a gun when I hear one! Turn back!’

‘Those is just the giants snortling in their sleep,’ the BFG said. ‘I is a giant myself and I know a giant’s snortle when I is hearing one.’

‘Are you quite sure?’ the Army man said anxiously.

‘Positive,’ the BFG said.

‘Proceed cautiously’ the Army man ordered.

They all moved on.

Then they saw them!

Even at a distance, they were enough to scare the daylights out of the soldiers. But when they got close and saw what the giants really looked like, they began to sweat with fear. Nine fearsome, ugly, half-naked, fifty-feet-long brutes lay sprawled over the ground in various grotesque attitudes of sleep, and the sound of their snoring was indeed like gunfire in a battle.

The BFG raised a hand. The jeeps all stopped. The soldiers got out.

‘What happens if one of them wakes up?’ whispered the Head of the Army, his knees knocking together from fear.

‘If any one of them is waking up, he will gobble you down before you can say knack jife,’ the BFG answered, grinning hugely. ‘Me is the only one what won’t be gobbled up because giants is never eating giants. Me and Sophie is the only safe ones because I is hiding her if that happens.’

The Head of the Army took several paces to the rear. So did the Head of the Air Force. They climbed rather quickly back into their jeep, ready to make a fast getaway if necessary. ‘Go forward, men!’ the Head of the Army said. ‘Go forward and do your duty bravely!’

The soldiers crept forward with their ropes and chains. All of them were trembling mightily. None dared speak a word.

The BFG, with Sophie now sitting on the palm of his hand, stood near by watching the operation.

To give the soldiers their due, they were extremely courageous. There were six well-trained efficient men working on each giant and within ten minutes eight out of the nine giants had been trussed up like chickens and were still snoring contentedly. The ninth, who happened to be the Fleshlumpeater, was causing trouble for the soldiers because he was lying with his right arm tucked underneath his enormous body. It was impossible to tie his wrists and arms together without first getting that arm out from underneath him.

Very very cautiously, the six soldiers who were working on the Fleshlumpeater began to pull at the huge arm, trying to release it. The Fleshlumpeater opened his tiny piggy black eyes.

‘Which of you foulpesters is wiggling my arm?’ he bellowed. ‘Is that you, you rotsome Manhugger?’

Suddenly he saw the soldiers. In a flash, he was sitting up. He looked around him. He saw more soldiers. With a roar, he leaped to his feet. The soldiers, petrified with fear, froze where they were. They had no weapons with them. The Head of the Army put his jeep into reverse.

‘Human beans!’ the Fleshlumpeater yelled. ‘What is all you flushbunking rotsome half-baked beans doing in our country?’ He made a grab at a soldier and swept him up in his hand.

‘I is having early suppers today!’ he shouted, holding the poor squirming soldier at arm’s length and roaring with laughter.

Sophie, standing on the palm of the BFG’s hand, was watching horrorstruck. ‘Do something!’ she cried. ‘Quick, before he eats him!’

‘Put that human bean down!’ the BFG shouted.

The Fleshlumpeater turned and stared at the BFG. ‘What is
you
doing here with all these grotty twiglets!’ he bellowed. ‘You is making me very suspichy!’

The BFG made a rush at the Fleshlumpeater, but the colossal fifty-four-foot-high giant simply knocked him over with a flick of his free arm. At the same time, Sophie fell off the BFG’s palm on to the ground. Her mind was racing. She
must
do something! She
must
! She
must
! She remembered the sapphire brooch the Queen had pinned on to her chest. Quickly, she undid it.

‘I is guzzling you nice and slow!’ the Fleshlumpeater was saying to the soldier in his hand. ‘Then I is guzzling ten or twenty more of you midgy little maggots down there! You is not getting away from me because I is galloping fifty times faster than you!’

Sophie ran up behind the Fleshlumpeater. She was holding the brooch between her fingers. When she was right up close to the great naked hairy legs, she rammed the three-inch-long pin of the brooch as hard as she could into the Fleshlumpeater’s right ankle. It went deep into the flesh and stayed there.

The giant gave a roar of pain and jumped high in the air. He dropped the soldier and made a grab for his ankle.

The BFG, knowing what a coward the Fleshlumpeater was, saw his chance. ‘You is bitten by a snake!’ he shouted. ‘I seed it biting you! It was a frightsome poisnowse viper! It was a dreadly dungerous vindscreen viper!’

‘Save our souls!’ bellowed the Fleshlumpeater. ‘Sound the crumpets! I is bitten by a septicous venomsome vindscreen viper!’ He flopped to the ground and sat there howling his head off and clutching his ankle with both hands. His fingers felt the brooch. ‘The teeth of the dreadly viper is still sticking into me!’ he yelled. ‘I is feeling the teeth sticking into my anklet!’

The BFG saw his second chance. ‘We must be getting those viper’s teeth out at once!’ he cried. ‘Otherwise you is deader than duck-soup! I is helping you!’

The BFG knelt down beside the Fleshlumpeater. ‘You must grab your anklet very tight with both hands!’ he ordered. ‘That will stop the poisnowse juices from the venomsome viper going up your leg and into your heart!’

The Fleshlumpeater grabbed his ankle with both hands.

‘Now close your eyes and grittle your teeth and look up to heaven and say your prayers while I is taking out the teeth of the venomsome viper,’ the BFG said.

The terrified Fleshlumpeater did exactly as he was told.

The BFG signalled for some rope. A soldier rushed it over to him. With both the Fleshlumpeater’s hands gripping his ankle, it was a simple matter for the BFG to tie the ankles and hands together with a tight knot.