The Borribles - Larrabeiti Michael - Страница 15

In spite of the blow from the stone, and in spite of the fall from the barge the new arrival was putting up a spirited struggle. He shouted in some strange language and twice managed to get to his feet, before finally he was pinioned to the deck by the two guards. By this time Stonks and Torreycanyon were awake and the combined weight of the four of them was too much for the foreigner. With a sigh and a curse he stopped struggling.

"All right, all right, I give no more trouble," he said, and his accent was thick and heavy, though his English was straightforward and easy to understand.

"Get some rope," said Knocker quickly to Napoleon who had now joined the group, "and we'll tie him up while we see what we've caught."

Bingo, too, had winkled his body from his sleeping-bag and suggested that he and Vulge scout round on top of the barges to see if there was anybody else around.

Sydney and Chalotte made a step with their hands and Bingo sprang upwards and pulled himself out of sight. Vulge followed him but they both returned in a minute with the welcome information that all was clear. No one else on the barges, nothing suspicious on the river.

The Borribles looked down at their prisoner.

"Is it a normal—a child?" asked Chalotte. Napoleon bent over and pulled off the balaclava hat in leather that the captive was wearing. The ears were pointed, very much so. They had captured a Borrible, and moreover a foreign Borrible.

"Could you please rub me here, on the back?" said the foreigner in his strange voice, and gesturing as well as he could with his bound hands. "That stone you catapulted hit me hard."

Stonks, who was kind as well as very strong, propped up the prisoner and massaged his back for a while. "Oh, thank you, thank you, I feel better now."

"Borrible?" asked Knocker. "Borrible," affirmed the other. "All right, I'll ask the questions," said Napoleon. "I'm captain of this ship." He crouched down before the captive. "If you're a Borrible, where do you come from? Not from London, I'll be bound."

"No," said the foreigner, and he actually laughed. "I'm from Hamburg."

"Blimey," said Orococco, "an immigrant." "Cut that out, 'Rococco," said Napoleon angrily, "we haven't got time for joking."

"Who's joking?" said the black Borrible, grinning from ear to ear. Chalotte laughed too.

"What's your name?" asked the navigator. "My name," said the prisoner, trying to draw himself up proudly even though he was bound hand and foot and prostrate, "is Adolf Wolfgang Amadeus."

"Swipe me," said Torreycanyon in disbelief, "three names! Don't they have the same rules in Hamburg?" "Yes," said Knocker, "Borribles have the same set-up everywhere."

"That means he's had three adventures, and successful ones," said Sydney, and she looked at Adolf with a new interest.

"That's all very well, but he's a nuisance," said Napoleon. "He's in the way. He'll have to swim ashore, and then make his own way back to Hamburg."

Adolf laughed again. "You have got it all wrong, my friends, I am not superfluous, I am extra. I have come along to join you. I am a great fighter, an experienced general, a marvellous shot with the catapult and I have a high rate of survival. My three names prove that, verdammt. "

"What do you mean—join us?" asked Napoleon. "We're not going anywhere, this is . . . just a kind of outing."

"Outing," scoffed Adolf. "You are the Best of the Borribles, the Magnificent Eight—though indeed I see nine of you—and you are going to Rumbledom to teach those rabbits a lesson." And Adolf guffawed so loudly they had to tell him to be quiet in case they were spotted.

The captors now looked more uncomfortable than the captive. "How do you know all that?" asked Knocker, breaking his silence. He grasped the German by the collar and shook him. "How did you know? Come on, spill the beans, you little kraut."

Adolf didn't look at all perturbed. "Hamburg is a port; often we get English Borribles stowing away on ships for their name adventure. Over there we are hospitable to foreign Borribles. We do not tie them up and slosh them round the head."

"Get on with it," Knocker urged.

"Not so long ago, we had a Battersea Borrible arrive, very tired, very hungry. I took him into my house, gave him food and beer. We became good friends; he lived under the arches by Battersea Park railway station, he said. Perhaps you know him, no? Anyway, he had been at the meeting when Knocker, that's you, ha ha, ho ho," Adolf Wolfgang Amadeus laughed at Knocker's surprise, "you had captured a Rumble and it was decided to send an expedition to Rumbledom. My friend, the name he won by the way is Steamer, good, isn't it? Anyway Steamer told me all about it, and I said, verdammt, what an adventure, what a chance for me to get a fourth name, and in England, too, with English Borribles! What a name I shall have then: Adolf Wolfgang Amadeus Winston." He looked round proudly, pleased with himself. "What do you think, is that not a name and another half?"

"No!" said Napoleon, who didn't like the name at all.

"So I came to Battersea High Street to see what you did, but, I thought, they will never let me on the boat there, they will just leave me behind, but I must get on the boat, and to get on the boat I have to get on the river, so at high tide I waited on Battersea Bridge and when there is a barge going under, with a nice soft load in it, I jump and here I am. I meant to watch for you going by and swim out so you couldn't put me ashore, but the bargemen covered me over with canvas—luckily for me you have come here instead."

"We can throw you ashore from here, too," said Napoleon, "quite easily."

"I wouldn't do that," said Adolf, leaning back in his bonds quite relaxed.

"And why not?"

"Oh, you wouldn't want anyone to know which way you were coming, and if you let me go, I might go around chatting about what I saw on the river and it might get to the ears of the Rumbles, and the element of surprised . . . lost . . . A pity? Stimmt ?"

"We could throw you into the river," said Bingo cheerfully, "tied to a convenient lump of cement."

Adolf hooted. "Anyone else, maybe, but not a friendly Borrible."

There was a silence then and as no one could think of what to say, or do, eventually all eyes turned to Knocker.

"We'd better have a chat about this," he said, "up the other end of the boat."

They made sure that Adolf was securely bound and then moved to the prow where they talked in whispers.

"It seems to me," began Knocker, "that his story is true. I mean he seems the type to want a fourth adventure—I mean mad enough—like. But however you look at it we can't let him go in case he does give us away. We have to take him along and we'll have to watch him all the time, see if he's a spy, if he leaves messages, things like that. If he isn't, then he's an extra catapult and a bloody good punch-up artist, I bet. We'll have to keep our eyes peeled, that's all."

"We've got to watch him like you're watching us," said Napoleon with a sneer.

"Leave it, then," said Knocker quickly. "I was only giving my advice. I'll shut up."

Bingo spoke up quickly to heal the breach. "Let's vote on it, all except Knocker. Shall we keep Adolf or throw him in the river? Who's for keeping him?"

Seven hands went up; only Napoleon abstained, so that if anything went wrong subsequently he would be able to claim that he had told them so.

"I hope you're not making a big mistake," he said sourly. "Make sure you take his catapult away, and keep his hands tied."

Bingo went down the boat to the prisoner and untied his feet. Adolf was searched and a catapult and knife were found in his pockets.

"You can stay for the time being," said Napoleon "but I'm not keen on it, see, and if you give any trouble on this boat I'll send you to the bottom of the river so fast the fish will think you're an anchor."

"English understatement, eh?" said Adolf and he laughed, and after smiling at everyone he curled up under a seat and was soon snoring.

"I think he'll be fine," said Knocker. "Time for second watch, I'm exhausted."

Torreycanyon and Stonks took second watch and the others followed Adolf's example, wriggling into sleeping-bags and falling sound asleep, and the boat rose and fell softly through the morning, afternoon and evening, helping their slumbers to remain unbroken.

The fog-ridden sun had long since fallen below the red horizon when the boat came alive again. Napoleon aroused everyone with a rough shove and told them to eat up. He wanted to be rowing again as soon as possible. The Wandle wasn't far away but there would be much to do before daylight.

The Borribles stretched and rubbed each other's backs and shared the food from their haversacks and poured the last of the tea from their thermos flasks. Knocker took his rations and sat by the German.

"There you go, Adolf, me old china," he said. "We might have thrown you in the river quite happily but seeing as you're still here, you'd better have some grub."

Adolf sat up and ate with an appetite. "Danke," he said between mouthfuls. "Excellent."

"How come you got three names, then?" asked Knocker enviously.

"Aha," said Adolf, "it's a question of knowing the rules. You must know a few, otherwise you wouldn't be here, would you?"

"Oh, that was really Spiff, my steward, not me," said Knocker.

"In Germany," continued the foreigner, "most Borribles are happy enough to stay at home to get their names in an ordinary way, a burst of stealing, something like that, but if you are willing to go abroad a bit, like me, and the others don't mind, well, you can get as many names as you like, and I wanted to get an English name—Winston, you see."

"Where'd you get the others? Wolfgang, Amadeus, and Adolf, of course."

"Adolf I got at home, Wolfgang I got in Denmark, Amadeus in Vienna, burgling."

"They are good names," said Knocker, "very good names, and I bet there are good stories behind them."