Spiff took a deep breath and shook his arms in front of his body as if he was emptying a sack of cement; the crowd stirred with emotion. Spiff raised his voice a further notch.
‘This is the enemy, and we all know that they must be stopped at all costs. Yes, but more than that, they must be eliminated, and who are the Borribles to do it? Why we are!’
An enormous cheer rose from the audience. ‘Throw it in the river,’ came a voice from the back of the hall, ‘with a bicycle round its neck.’
This suggestion was so popular that it was taken up on all sides.
‘Yeah,’ came the shout, ‘in the river, steal a bike someone.’
Spiff smiled indulgently. ‘I understand your feelings,’ he looked at the Rumble, ‘but I have a better plan. Let me explain. The one thing that these objects fear above all others,’ he touched the Rumble lightly with a disdainful finger, ‘is disclosure! They would hate to be unmasked and shown for what they really are. In their mythology the greatest possible disaster is what they call the Great Rumble Hunt—an attack on their citadel of power—and we, the Borribles of Battersea, will start that Rumble hunt. But,’ Spiff had to shout across the cheering, ‘this is also to be a war of nerves; we want them to know that something really nasty is on the way—us! And that is where this little rodent comes in. We propose to stick a notice on to the fur of this carpet bag, and send it back to Rumbledom, living proof that we mean business. The message will say,
“The Great Rumble Hunt is on. Beware the Borribles!” All those in favour say, “Aye”.’
Another enormous cheer rose from the assembly; Spiff’s oratory had done its work, that was what he wanted. Borribles clasped each other, jumped up and down and shouted, ‘We’ll show ’em, we’ll teach them rabbits to come down here.’
As the cheering died away Spiff and his cronies left the building with the prisoner, and the hall gradually emptied as the Borribles went back to their squats, eager to discuss the morning meeting and to wonder who would be chosen as the Battersea ‘no-name’ for the Great Rumble Hunt. Those who were not known for their bravery kept very quiet and decided not to call attention to themselves, for a few Borribles manage to pass through life without ever earning themselves a name. But most are of a different stamp, and they ran to the market without delay, stole paper and wrote directly to Spiff, begging for the position.
But Knocker was disconsolate. He returned home alone, thwarted. He knew there was no chance of him being considered for the expedition to Rumbledom. He went into the basement of the deserted house and made his way upstairs. As he passed Spiff’s door it was thrown open and the cunning face of the most cunning of Borribles appeared, beaming.
‘Right, lad,’ he said, ‘in here. Just the bloke I want, look lively … Want a word with you.’
Knocker stepped inside the room, and removed his woollen cap; he had good pointed ears, a sign of high intelligence and alertness. Spiff smiled and settled into an armchair that must have fallen from a very expensive furniture lorry.
‘Sit down, lad,’ he said. ‘I wanted to thank you for your good work last night, champion that was, champion … but now I want to ask your advice. As you know, there are eight Rumbles in the Rumble High Command. I’m sure that if we can eliminate them, the rest of the Rumble set-up will fall to pieces, they’ll be too busy even to think of us any more. So that’s why I thought of sending eight Borribles only, one for each High Rumble. There will be one from Tooting, Hoxton, Wandsworth … You heard all that already. But, Knocker, who are we going to send from
Battersea? The point is, you are out and about a lot, you see a lot of Borribles in action, who do you think would be a good choice?’
Knocker thought for a while. ‘It’s tricky,’ he said at length. ‘There’s quite a few who are good. There’s a bunch of bright lads down by the river, some others under the railway arches at Battersea Park station, but I think the brightest of the lot, out of the whole borough, is one who lives up on Lavender Hill, bright as a button and smart as paint.’
‘Whereabouts does he hang out?’ asked Spiff.
‘Underneath the nick,’ said Knocker.
‘Underneath the nick!’ cried Spiff. ‘He must be mad.’
Knocker laughed. ‘Oh, no. Bright. There’s a stack of rooms up there that are left empty every night. It’s centrally heated, blankets galore, constant electricity. You name it, he’s got it. In fact he’s very friendly with some of the coppers—the Woollies.’
‘Hmm,’ said Spiff, ‘and he’s a no-name?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right,’ Spiff went on, ‘that’s settled then. Send a runner up to Lavender Hill and get that wazzisname down here. As soon as the other seven come in from across London we shall have to begin a training session. As well as that, I want you to get some volunteers to do some spare-time thieving. We’re going to need lots of things for this expedition: grub, weatherproof clothing, high-quality catapults, watches, compasses, anything that might be useful … so get that organized. I know you’ve got your own thieving to do, and so have the others, but do what you can … We can’t afford to fail.’
Knocker nodded. His heart was bursting with pride, he was being involved in the Great Rumble Hunt, which was more than he had dared to hope.
‘Is there a chance of anything else, Spiff?’
‘What do you mean? You can’t go on the expedition, you know, that’s a rule.’
‘I know that. It’s, well, you said they would have to be trained. I’m a good Borrible lookout, well, I could train them … couldn’t I?’
Spiff gave Knocker a long look, a look that went right through him and saw everything. ‘Hmm,’ he said, smiling a secret smile, ‘you are keen, aren’t you? How many names have you got?’
‘Just the one,’ answered Knocker feeling uncomfortable.
Spiff chuckled. ‘You know what Knocker, you reminds me of me. You didn’t have to ask, I’d already thought of you … yes, you can train the team.’
Knocker got up to go, feeling proud of himself.
‘Here, take this envelope,’ said Spiff, ‘it’s instructions about the Rumble; he’s downstairs in the cupboard. Send him packing. Try not to let anyone see him, they might still chuck him in the river.’
Knocker ran downstairs and opened the cupboard. Sure enough the Rumble was there, his paws tied behind him and a notice glued on to his fur. Two other lookouts came into the room and leant against the wall to watch as Knocker read his instructions. When he had finished he removed the tape from the animal’s snout and sat it on a grape barrel.
‘You are being sent home, Rumble, alive. Take that message to your leaders and tell them what you have seen and heard.’
Knocker turned to the lookouts. ‘You two can escort him on the first stage of the journey. This envelope has instructions from Spiff. Take him to Clapham Junction and hand him over to the next Borrible tribe. Then he can be taken to the Honeywell Borribles, and they can take him up to the Wendles beyond Wandsworth Common; from there the Wendles will take him to Merton Road. This letter goes with him and explains what should be done at each stage. Finally, he should be released as near Rumbledom High Street as possible and allowed to find his way home. Any questions?’
The two lookouts shook their heads.
‘Right,’ said Knocker, ‘as soon as you’ve got rid of him report back to me. It is very important that he gets home in one piece, though it doesn’t matter what he looks like; the rougher the better. We’ve got to frighten the fur off every Rumble in existence.’
Timbucktoo jumped to his feet at this. ‘You don’t fwighten me, Bowwible, nor your fwiends. You don’t know what you’re taking on. We’ll be keeping a watch out for you; you’ll be skewered on our Wumble-sticks before you get a sight of Wumbledom Hill. You may be safe down here in your gwimy stweets and stinking back-alleys, but Wumbledom is a wilderness with twackless paths that only we can follow. This means war.’
Knocker swiped the Rumble round the ear, almost affectionately. ‘Go
on,’ he said, ‘you old doormat, before I knock that snout of yours through the back of your bonce.’
At a sign from Knocker his two assistants hauled the Rumble from the room on the first stage of his long and perilous journey, a journey on which he would be passed from hand to hand like a registered packet in the London post.
During the fortnight that followed the capture of Timbucktoo, the lookouts’ room in Spiff’s house became the centre for the collection of all gear that might turn out to be useful on the Great Rumble Hunt. Under the watchful eye of Knocker it was stacked and sorted: there were rucksacks and life jackets from the sports section of Arding and Hobbs, thick warm coats, sleeping bags, unbreakable nylon rope for climbing trees and the sides of houses, stout boots, oilskins, woollen underwear, sharp knives, sou’westers and ski goggles.
Looking at the spoils Knocker felt pleased; his job was finished and every eventuality had been foreseen. The store cupboard was full and the lookouts’ room was piled high with valuable items. The only space left clear was a small area round the desk and a kind of corridor to each of the doors. Knocker rubbed his hands together in contentment and at that moment Lightfinger appeared, sidling between the goods towering above his head.
‘You look tired,’ he said.
‘I am that,’ answered Knocker. ‘But I think I’ve got everything now, though I suppose I’m bound to have forgotten something.’
‘Well, you haven’t finished yet, mate,’ said Lightfinger. ‘Spiff wants to see you right away, upstairs.’
Knocker ran up to the ground floor landing and knocked on Spiff’s door. It was opened immediately.
‘Ah, there you are Knocker, come in, sit down. Good news, they’re here.’
‘Who?’ asked Knocker, whose mind was tired and preoccupied.
‘Oh, come on,’ said Spiff. ‘The Brightest of the Borribles, the Magnificent Eight, call ‘em what you like, they’re here.’
‘Where?’ asked Knocker.
‘In the old storeroom under the gym in Rowena Crescent, other side of Prince’s Head. I want you to put them through a complete lookout training. Make sure they are first-class thieves, good at shoplifting and Woollie-dodging; and see they know the Borrible proverbs by heart. Then take them on a few runs in Battersea Park; I know they don’t like the countryside, but they’ve got to get used to it; Rumbledom’s rough … I know, I’ve been there. I’ll give you two weeks, that’s all. There’ll be another bloke to help you, he’s from the Northcote Road tribe, was brought up in a paratrooper’s family before he was Borribled, he could be useful. By the way—’ Spiff threw over some books and Knocker caught them in his lap ‘—you’d better read those from cover to cover, they’re the Rumble manuals, their whole history from the word go, gives the layout of their place, the structure of their command and the way they fight with their Rumble-sticks. Nasty long lances they are, with a four-inch nail at the end.’
Knocker was caught off-balance. ‘Rumble manuals, Spiff, how did you get your hands on those? No Borrible’s meant to have seen ‘em.’
Spiff tapped his nose with a finger. ‘Never you mind, young feller me lad. Everything you need is there. Just get on with it. I’ll come and see you in two weeks. If there’s anything you need, send a runner.’
Knocker gathered up the books and rose to leave, but Spiff raised a hand to stop him.
‘Oh, yes, in the first volume I’ve made a list of the Eight High Rumbles of Rumbledom, their names. I thought it would be a good idea if you gave each of your Borribles one of those names to win, so if they ever get that far, each of your blokes will know exactly which Rumble he’s got to do for. All right?’
‘How shall I give them out? Did you decide that?’
Spiff laughed to himself mysteriously. ‘You’d better put the names into a hat and your guys can draw for them, then there can be no arguments about the targets they are given.’ Spiff hesitated, and then laughed again. ‘That is except for two of them, those you’ll have to put into a separate hat. You’ll see them marked on the list. Go on, buzz off, Knocker.’
As he went down the stairs Knocker let out a long low whistle. He would have loved to have gone on the expedition, to have earned a new name and a new story to tell, but fancy going through life with a Rumble title; that would be strange. Then he reflected that it was not the name after all, but the story it carried with it that mattered. He could think of some fine Borribles with the most extraordinary monikers, but when you saw them or heard their names you didn’t think of the word alone or its sound, you thought of the life and the deeds that lay beyond it—the story.
But then stories are very important to Borribles. Most of the time they can’t have a real adventure because they are too busy making sure they get enough to eat, so to compensate they read tales like westerns or spy stories or science fiction. For a Borrible the next best thing to an adventure of his own is hearing other Borribles tell how they won their names; and it doesn’t matter if they exaggerate their deeds in the telling, exaggeration is accepted as long as it makes a good story.
So in Knocker’s mind, as he made his way up the High Street, there was no doubt that the eight Borribles who were going on this adventure would have wonderful stories to tell. The Rumble names they were going to win would remind them of their targets during the expedition and, in years to come, if they were successful, everyone who heard the names would know how they had been won. ‘Yes,’ concluded Knocker as he turned into Rowena Crescent, Spiff had come up with a good idea, but then Spiff was as sharp as a cut-throat razor.
Outside the gym Knocker stopped to make sure his hat was on firmly, his ears covered. The building was long and low, looking like an empty pub and faced with green tiles. Above the door and three long windows was a sign. Knocker looked up at it, though he knew what it said: ‘Rowena Gym. Tough Guys for Stage and Screen and TV. Stunt Men. Kung Fu. Laetitia Martin, prop.’
Knocker could hear grunts and groans coming from inside: adult males trying to break into show business. In the pavement he saw the telltale grilles revealing where the basement was, where the Borribles would be. Tightening his grip on the Rumble books, Knocker went through the gym’s main entrance and down a corridor that was tiled in the same dirty colour as the front of the building. As he went forward a
security guard threw open the door of his office and came to stand in Knocker’s way. He was huge, with his legs spread and his hands on his hips. He had a cauliflower ear and his breath smelt sickly-sweet of brown ale.
‘And where d’you think you’re going, mush?’
‘It’s all right,’ lied Knocker, ‘my big brother’s here and I got to give him these books. I’m late already.’
The man thought slowly, then: ‘Okay, but don’t hang about. Kids ain’t allowed in here, ‘specially little squirts like you.’ With that he retreated into his office and slammed the door.
At the end of the corridor Knocker ignored the up staircase and descended a flight of dank cement steps until he was in a darkness so deep that he had to feel his way. He groped along a wall until he came up against a rough wooden door which did not give when he pushed it. He tried the Borrible knock, gently at first and then, when nothing happened, a little louder—one long, two shorts, then a long—Dah … di-di … dah.
There was a slight noise behind the door, a bolt clanged, a lock clashed and an eye peered through a slit.
‘Borrible?’ asked the person behind the door.
‘Borrible,’ answered Knocker.
The door was opened, just wide enough for Knocker to pass through, and then it was closed and bolted behind him. He found himself in a long dusty space with exercise bars covering each wall from floor to ceiling. From central beams hung thick ropes for climbing; jute mats were piled in the corners and here and there various bits of machinery, designed to improve the efficiency of the human body, had been abandoned. The light in the room was grey and faltering; indeed it was so weak that Knocker could hardly make out the eight shapes sitting quietly on a bench at the far end of the gym.
The chief lookout turned to the Borrible next to him. ‘Northcote Road?’ he asked, and his companion nodded.
‘Name is Dodger,’ he said, and smiled.
‘That sounds like a good name,’ said Knocker, ‘you must have had a good adventure getting it. Perhaps you’ll tell me one day.’
‘Everyone knows how you got your name, Knocker, that’s one of the best Borrible stories ever told.’
Knocker was pleased by this tribute to his celebrity and he felt sure that he and Dodger would get on. It is usual for Borribles meeting for the first time to exchange compliments on their respective names and the winning of them. Until they have a name Borribles are known simply as ‘You’, ‘Oi’ or ‘Mush’, sometimes as ‘Fingy’, or even ‘Wazzisname’. But to call a named Borrible by one of the foregoing is an unforgivable insult and will lead to fighting.
An even greater insult for a named Borrible is for him to be told that he acquired his name only because he’d found it, or someone had thrown it away. And for an un-named one it is very galling to have it suggested that he is nameless because no one has yet had the devious ingenuity to invent an epithet bad enough for him.
Knocker glanced at the beret Dodger was wearing; it was dark red in colour, and bore the badge of the Parachute Regiment, shining bright.
‘Army?’ observed Knocker.
‘Oh yes,’ said Dodger proudly. ‘My family was Parachute Regiment and SAS until I became a Borrible. I wouldn’t have run away at all if they hadn’t wanted to pack me off to some school. Up until then I’d spent all my time watching the soldiers doing their training. That was the life.’
Knocker laughed. ‘Well, we’d better get a shift on, we’ve only got two weeks.’ They turned from the door and made their way down the long hall, their feet kicking into piles of rubbish and releasing stale smells from old cardboard cartons.
‘How did you get in here?’ asked Knocker.
Dodger pointed to the ceiling. ‘I had the bolts off a couple of those grilles in the pavement. Easy. That way we won’t have to go past “Punchie the porter” every day.’
Knocker nodded. ‘I’ll remember next time.’
The Eight Adventurers sat motionless on their bench. Some were leaning back against the wall with their eyes closed; some held their heads in their hands and others sat looking straight in front of them, staring at nothing.
At a sign from Knocker, Dodger switched on some electric lights and the Borribles blinked their eyes.
‘Stand up. Get your hats off.’
When they had done what Knocker asked he walked down the line and inspected their ears to see if they showed signs of the intelligence he was expecting. It was a manoeuvre that gave him time to think. He would have admitted to no one, apart from Spiff perhaps, that he was flabbergasted; one of the champions was black. Of course he knew that many Borribles were black, more and more all the time. There were legions of them in Battersea and Tooting, and an even greater number in Brixton; he just hadn’t thought of one on this expedition. He had no one to blame but himself for this oversight. He was, after all, a chief lookout and his mind should have been open to all possibilities, not drifting around in preconceptions and prejudices.
Mentally he kicked himself for being a fool, but he hadn’t finished kicking himself. When he stopped at the end of the row he found that the last two Borribles were females. Here his surprise nearly got the better of him, but he pursed his lips and pretended to be thinking. One of the girls smiled and to cover his embarrassment Knocker looked closely at her ears. They indicated a high degree of intelligence and great individuality, and that could mean trouble. Now Knocker knew why Spiff had laughed and why he’d said he’d have to put the names into two different hats.
Knocker went back to where Dodger stood, handed over the Rumble books, and took the list of names from his pocket. He looked at it, making the eight champions wait. Finally he said, ‘You will be here for two weeks. We are going to see how good you really are. When Dodger and I have satisfied ourselves about your basic knowledge we will move on to more specialist skills, but before that I want to be convinced that you are good: good with a catapult, good with your hands, good with your feet. I want you to be the best runners, the best fighters, and I want to see how you deal with tricky situations. You’ll have to be the best if you want to go on this trip, because if I don’t think you are, you ain’t going.’
Knocker looked along the faces, scrutinizing them one after the other. ‘Anyone hears an order from me or Dodger, jump. That’s against the grain for a Borrible, I know it, but there hasn’t been an adventure like this in years and if you want to be in on it you’ve got to do what I say. Any questions?’
There were no questions.
‘Good, now to the names. It was decided to give you your names now—provisionally.’
There was a stir in the line and eyes flashed.
‘This is to make it more convenient for me during training and for you all when you’re out on the adventure. These names will not be confirmed until your return—if you ever make it. These names have been lent to you on trust. One false step at any time and your name will be withdrawn, and you will never be given another adventure.’
There was silence; the eight faces looked at him and waited. They were tense and excited, but these Borribles were too canny to give much away. He went on.
‘These are fine names, names that have a good ring to them and will remind you, and others in the future, of this adventure: but more important, the name that each of you will be given is also the name of the Rumble that is your individual target. While you remember your own name you cannot forget the name of your enemy.’