The Borribles - Larrabeiti Michael. Страница 24

Dewdrop and Erbie did collect rubbish and old iron when it was positively thrust on them but they never went out of their way to find it. They only rode round the streets looking for things to steal and houses to burgle. Everything they found or stole they sold for money which was put away into a secret hiding-place in the old house in Engadine. Dewdrop Bunyan had snatched Borribles in the past for burgling purposes but he'd only snaffled them in ones and twos. Now here he was with ten all at once and he decided to work them very hard every day and night so that he would become even richer even quicker. He would get them to burgle the big houses on the other side of Southfields and even some on the hills leading towards Rumbledom. He would become the richest man in the whole of London.

Dewdrop had satisfied the policemen investigating the Borrible battle that the assailants had got clean away.

"I saw them," he told the gullible Inspector. "They ran round the corner, down Merton way, miles off by now, I should think, nasty little bleeders." Of course the Inspector believed the tale; there was no reason not to, for Dewdrop Bunyan was a well-known local character.

When the policemen had given up their search and the rag-and-bone man felt quite secure he began to starve the Borribles and encouraged his imbecile son to prod them with a sharp stick through the bars of the cage. Erbie often pulled one of the prisoners round the house on a dog's lead, tormenting the Borrible until he or she could stand no more and would attack the stupid adult. But Erbie was so strong that the attacks of a tiny Borrible just made him snigger, though he beat his attacker unmercifully till the blood flowed. Then he would drag the semi-conscious captive back downstairs and throw the limp body into the cage and Erbie's crazy fixed smile would explode into a strange and blood-curdling laugh.

Dewdrop always joined in the laughter, rubbing his hands and rocking his head sideways on his shoulder so that his dewdrop wagged this way and that in the light of the bare bulb that lit the cellar. Every one of the Adventurers suffered these torments and at the end of a few days all had lost weight and were covered in bruises and sported cuts and black eyes.

"I'm going to kill him one day," Napoleon would walk up and down muttering under his breath. "I'm going to kill that great stupid loon, and then I'll kill his father, and if I don't I hope as how the Wendles hear about them and come up here and take these two and stake them out on the mud flats of the Wandle, and they'll sit round and sing songs while these two maniacs slowly slip below the surface and suffocate, bloody lovely." Napoleon was a real Wendle when roused.

About a week after their capture Dewdrop began to take the Borribles out on raids. Sometimes they went at night to burgle a big house, at other times they went during normal working hours to steal from supermarkets and department stores. The rag-and-bone man always kept at least five of his captives in the cellar under the demented eye of his son, Erbie. So eccentric and sadistic were this oaf's pleasures that it was more of a hardship for the Borribles to be kept in the cage than to be taken out stealing.

They stole well for their master and there were several reasons for this, the main one being that stealing comes naturally to all Borribles, although it is not usual for them to steal stuff they don't need. But they were also well aware that Dewdrop would let Erbie beat them to within an inch of their lives if they didn't do well in house or shop. He could even turn them over to the police for the pleasure of seeing them get their ears clipped.

The key to the cage was kept in Dewdrop's pocket and it was attached by a long chain to his braces and he never let it out of his sight or gave it to his son for one minute, for Dewdrop trusted no one. He was sly and he was cunning.

Weeks went by and still the Adventurers were no nearer escape. They stole and they burgled, returning to Dewdrop after each sortie to find him sitting on the seat of his cart with Sam munching in the nosebag, shaking his head up at the sky to get to the hay. Wearily they loaded their booty onto the back of the cart and clambered in after it, hiding under a piece of canvas so they would not be seen by prying eyes. Then Dewdrop would settle back in his seat, flap the reins and the old horse would lean into the traces and take them home. Home! Back to the dreary house in Engadine and the dreadful cold cellar with a cage in it and in the cage ten desperate and forlorn Borribles.

They became cheerless and they moved like people without minds. They had not one glimmer of hope and they hardly talked to each other, which for Borribles is a sign of mental disintegration. Their spirits got lower and lower until there came a day when they spoke no more. The ten companions lost count of the weeks spent in the cage, and back in Wandsworth the Wendles forgot about the expedition; even the Borribles of Battersea gave the Adventurers up for dead. The imprisonment seemed to go on for ever. Knocker's original suggestion, that they should draw lots and that one team of Borribles should simply disappear when Dewdrop sent them thieving, seemed more and more attractive. Each Adventurer had come to believe in his own heart and mind that this was the only way. All that stopped them taking up the subject again was the bleak thought of being left behind, alone with Dewdrop and Erbie. But then, just when they needed it, luck took a hand. Something happened.

Very late one evening, about eleven o 'clock, Knocker and Adolf, Chalotte, Bingo and Torreycanyon were taken out by Dewdrop and driven in the cart almost halfway up the hill beyond Southfields. The five Borribles sat silent beneath the tarpaulin on the back of the cart and listened to the tread of Sam's hooves on the tarmac. It was a cold evening, for winter was coming on, and they shivered all the more because they were hungry. Sam pulled slowly, the hill was long and steep. Occasionally they could hear Dewdrop call out, "Come along you, Sam, my old deario," and then there was the crack of the whip as the rag-and-bone man hit the old horse as hard as he could. Once the Borribles would have said, "Poor old Sam," because Borribles are mighty fond of horses, but now they had no sympathy to spare for Borrible or beast.

Sam tugged the cart up and up the steep hill, past many silent mansions standing in great gardens, until Dewdrop stopped in front of a very large house hidden behind high hedges and surrounded by acres of lawns and flowerbeds. The Borribles heard the brake being pulled on and then the tarpaulin was jerked back and the cold air came rushing in. Dewdrop's dewdrop looked like frozen jelly, green in the pale light of the stars.

"Well, my little dearios," creaked the evil voice, "we're going to have a fine time tonight. Here's a nice big house, what we have here, family gorn away for a second holiday, ain't it? Skiing and somesuch; I hopes they breaks their legs. But that's not why we're here, is it, to look into their health? We're here because they're there, ain't it? This is a family with a lot of money, no doubt they've taken it with them, but you can't take everything, oh no, too cumbersome and heavy. Can't have a skiing holiday with a grand piano up your jumper, eh? I'm going to wait here with Sam, my horse. You three . . ." He suddenly jabbed his boney finger into the tender flesh of Chalotte, Bingo and Torreycanyon one after the other. "You three will concentrate on the downstairs, should be some lovely silver in there, knives and forks, Georgian flower bowls and such. Oh, my dearios, I do like a beautiful thing, it was beauty that put me on this road, ain't it."

He turned and jabbed Adolf and Knocker. "And you two will go upstairs, look into the studies and bedrooms, nice antique stuff they'll have up there, pottery I should think, and if that don't work out you get into the children's playroom. Rich family, ain't it, spends a fortune on their little spoilt brats, I shouldn't wonder. Well, stealing's a great leveller, ain't it? We'll take some of those rich toys, my dearios, and I'll give 'em to someone else, make 'em happy. Now go on, and don't forget to come back, else you won't see your friends no more."

The Borribles leapt down from the cart and, taking a sack each, they ran nimbly across the grounds of the house to the back garden, out of sight of the road. It was quiet and dark and not a thing moved in the whole world. Knocker soon had a window open and they lost no time in getting inside. Leaving the other three to work the ground floor, Knocker and Adolf raced for the stairs and, in the light of their torches they rifled the bedrooms, snatching up anything they considered worthwhile.

When their sacks were nearly full, they went into a long wide room that was obviously the playroom; there were models and games everywhere. Without a word Adolf and Knocker began to collect some of the smaller and more expensive items.

After a while Adolf said, "I think we've got all we can carry." His voice sounded flat and depressed. "We'd better get back to Dewdrop now, or he'll be beating us again for being too slow."

"And if we don't get enough stuff he'll beat us for that, too," said Knocker, thinking that he couldn't go on living like this much longer. He went to the last of the toy-cupboards and said, "I'll just have a look in here."

Adolf was at the other side of the room when Knocker opened the cupboard. He couldn't see what Knocker saw but he heard a gasp, and then a chuckle and then a whistle of pleasure and happiness with a note of hope in it too. It had been so long since Adolf had heard anything so cheerful that he looked up immediately and scuttled over the room shouting, "What is it, what is it?" and then he saw and he swore his favourite oath. "Verdammt," he said and then again, "verdammt," and finally, "a million verdammts. "

In front of the two Borribles, on the second shelf, level with their eyes, were two of the finest steel catapults they had ever seen. The elastic was black and square and powerful and looked new and full of resilience.

Adolf and Knocker looked at each other, their eyes gleaming and shining with a bright spark such as had not glowed there for many weeks.

"How on earth can we get them back to the cage?" asked Adolf. "That dammt Dewdrop maniac searches us every night."

"He does," said Knocker, his mouth curling into a tight muscled smile, "he does, but he never looks under our feet."

"Verdammt," shouted Adolf, "you're right. I saw some sticky tape over there, just the thing, but we must be quick, or he'll think something fishy is going on."