Authors: Michael de Larrabeiti
The Borribles (19 page)
Vulge had not far to go. He rounded a bend in the tunnel and came upon a well lit and commodious hall. It was more luxuriously carpeted than any other part of the bunker. Rows of armchairs had been placed there for lesser Rumbles who might wait to see their chieftain, and opposite Vulge was a stout oaken door guarded by two warriors, armed with lances.
Vulge gave no warning. His catapult was loaded and the first shot slammed one of the guards on the forehead and he fell to the floor, his body making no sound on the carpet. Vulge reloaded quickly but not before the second guard had thrown his Rumble-stick with all his force. It struck the Borrible in his left shoulder and he fell back, staggering against the wall. He could feel blood running down his arm and the pain made him blink his eyes.
‘Dammit,’ he said, but pulled back the elastic of his catapult as far as his wound and the pain would let him.
His antagonist reached for another spear and lifted it above his shoulder; he was a mighty thrower but he was not to throw again. The second stone from Vulge’s catapult hit him fairly on the temple. He fell forward, the lance dropping from his hand.
Vulge stuck his catapult into his belt and, with an effort, pulled the four-inch barb from his shoulder and threw the lance to the ground.
‘I hope the bleeder weren’t rusty,’ he said to himself, crossing the room, ‘and I hope there aren’t too many guards inside.’ He rapped on the oak door with the butt of a lance.
‘Who’s there?’ asked a rich and plummy voice from the other side.
‘I’ve come with the bweakfast,’ said Vulge, whose imitation of a Rumble was perfect.
The door swung open and Vulge saw the chieftain’s major-domo standing before him. A haughty sneer was stretched along his snout and
his rich beige fur was decorated with a green, white and gold sash, the colours of Rumbledom.
his rich beige fur was decorated with a green, white and gold sash, the colours of Rumbledom.
‘Here’s your bweakfast,’ said Vulge, and prodded the regal domestic in the solar plexus with the sharp end of his lance. The butler doubled up, clutching at his chest, and Vulge clouted him hard across the head with the back of his hand. The Rumble collapsed and rolled over on his back, his snout crashing open like an unhinged drawbridge.
‘That’s sorted you out, weasel-chops,’ said Vulge.
He stepped over the body and entered a magnificent and luxurious sitting room. The carpet was a spotless white and a huge sofa in cream leather was matched with armchairs of the same material; on the misty green walls were original paintings in oils and watercolours. There was a colour television set, telephones in brass with ivory mouthpieces, and copies of the national newspapers rested aristocratically on small leather-covered tables.
Vulge jerked a linen runner from one of the tables, spilling a majolica vase to the floor, where it broke. He folded the material and shoved it inside his combat jacket to pad his wound and stop the bleeding.
‘The sooner I get this over with, the better,’ he muttered, ‘otherwise this arm will go as stiff as a Rumble’s snout.’
He opened another door and saw that he had come to the chief Rumble’s office. Here he found a huge desk meant to impress visitors with its top of dark green morocco, a map of the world on the wall, bookshelves, computers and copying machines. Once more, everything was furnished in white and misty green. It was an expensive and oppressive room, but what Vulge wanted was not there.
Next he entered a circular bedroom, furnished as if for some great pop star. A huge round bed stood in the centre of white goat-skin carpets, its coverlet made from green silk, the colour of gorse bushes at dawn. The lighting was concealed and gentle.
‘Blimey,’ said Vulge between his teeth. ‘I’d like to put a match to this lot.’ He winced with pain, for his wound troubled him. He walked round the bed and spots of blood stained the floor. On the far side of the room a door stood open and perfume-laden steam floated through it. The bathroom, thought Vulge, and he stepped inside.
Through the clouds of sweet-smelling vapour Vulge saw his namesake and enemy, Vulgarian Rumble. The chieftain reclined in an oval bath of green marble big enough to swim in. The taps were gold and shaped like Rumble snouts, and scented water poured through them to wash across the furred body and out through an overflow grating, also of gold. The floor, where it was not overlaid with absorbent carpets, was covered with Italian tiles of a warm southern tint. Near the bath were several telephones on articulated arms that could be pulled in any direction. Two enormous electric fires faced the marble steps that led down from the magnificent pool so that Vulgarian could warm himself the moment he emerged from the water. Right by the two fires stood a hot air blower on a stand, ready to dry the chieftain’s magnificent coat.
Vulge stepped across the room, trailing the bloody lance point behind him. The Rumble’s snout turned; there was a flurry in his bath water.
‘I twust you’ve got my bweakfast at last,’ he began angrily, and then he saw not the obsequious butler or even one of his guards: he saw a Borrible.
Vulge was no reassuring sight at that moment. His face was still smeared black from Knocker’s greasepaint. His combat jacket was filthy and torn from scuffling through the ventilation shaft. Even more dramatically, blood was spreading out to stain his shoulder. The Borrible hat was jaunty on his head, however, and there was a gleam of triumph in his eye. Vulgarian Rumble slid down into the water until only his snout was visible. His small red eyes, intelligent and cunning, fluttered over the room, but he saw no escape. For a while the only sound was the gurgling of the bath water.
‘A Bowwible?’ asked the Rumble at last.
‘A Borrible,’ said Vulge, ‘all the way from Stepney, bloody miles.’
‘There’s no sweawing here,’ said the Rumble.
‘Knickers,’ answered Vulge, and gobbed into the bath. ‘This is the Great Rumble Hunt, mate. You’ve got everything you need up here, you should have stayed out of Battersea.’
Vulgarian raised himself a little. ‘As if we would want your stinking markets and wubbishy old houses, but I’ll tell you this, you hooligan, we’ll go where we like and—’
‘Don’t want it, eh? What about all that digging down there in Battersea Park? What about that, then? You started this, Rumble.’
‘Started it! I know Timbucktoo is over-enthusiastic at times, always wants to be pwospecting, but he’s harmless. No, it won’t do. This twouble is all your fault, Bowwible.’
‘Cobblers,’ said Vulge, moving nearer the bath.
‘How many of you are there?’ asked the chieftain.
‘Only eight of us, but that’s enough to wreck the place.’ Vulge stood between the two electric fires and let them warm the pain in his shoulder. He was getting weaker and stiffer by the minute. He knew he must finish the task quickly; he felt in no state to defend himself if reinforcements arrived on the scene.
Vulgarian suddenly rose up and the water cascaded from his fur. He was the tallest of all the Rumbles, impressive and commanding. He looked down his snout at the grimy little Borrible.
‘Eight of you!’ he cried. ‘Why, you impudent little whippersnappers, you insignificant hobbledehoys. I tell you Wumbles will go whewever I say, fwom Hampton Wick to Amos Park, and fwom Ealing golf course to Bexley Heath. We won’t be stopped by a handful of ignowant street urchins—thieves who live in slimy slums and damp cellars—who cannot afford a bar of soap and would eat it if they could, who smell, whose ears are pointed by the effect of cheap peasant cunning and who are fit only to be our slaves. You Bowwible bwat, I have only to press that alarm bell and my bodyguard will make a pincushion of you with their Wumble-sticks. Hand me that towel, you scwubby little serf. Hand me that towel I say, barbawian!’
Vulge smiled and did not move for a moment. Then he pushed the end of his Rumble-stick through the handle of one of the electric fires and he raised the sticker and the fire pivoted on the end of it. He slid his feet up the steps, his eyes remaining steady on Vulgarian’s face, and he held his spear forward so that the fire was above the water and near to the chief Rumble’s fur. There was a smell of singeing and Vulgarian took a step backwards, horror replacing the expression of disdain on his snout.
Vulge smiled ironically at the Rumble. ‘Don’t worry about the towel,’ he said pleasantly, ‘I’ll soon have your fur dry.’ And he allowed the lance to slant down to the water and the fire plopped into the bath and hissed. In less than a millisecond the electric current had sprung from its cable and arced across the water, and from the water it raced through the flesh of the Rumble chieftain, destroying muscle and sinew. It burnt into his heart
and demolished it like an old fuse box, and Vulgarian Rumble’s voice cried out, but he never heard the sound. His body jerked upright, his dead eyes stared in amazement. Then, as stiff as a scaffolding plank, he fell forward with a gigantic splash, and a tidal wave washed over the rim of the beautiful bath and gushed down the veined green of the marble steps.
and demolished it like an old fuse box, and Vulgarian Rumble’s voice cried out, but he never heard the sound. His body jerked upright, his dead eyes stared in amazement. Then, as stiff as a scaffolding plank, he fell forward with a gigantic splash, and a tidal wave washed over the rim of the beautiful bath and gushed down the veined green of the marble steps.
Vulge sniffed and prodded the body with the point of his spear. It bobbed lifelessly in the tinted foam.
‘Well, there you are, me ol’ Rumble,’ said Vulge reflectively. ‘That’s ‘ow you singe your fur at both ends. Kilowatts will kill a weasel any day. So,’ he added, ‘I’ve got my name. Mind you, the way I feel, I shan’t have it long … alive.’
He descended the steps and unplugged the second of the electric fires and cut the cable that led to it. That done he trailed the flex across the room to the door, which he closed, scraped the wires bare and then wound them round the metal door handle. He looked at his work and continued talking to himself. ‘I don’t think I could fight my way out with this wound, so I might as well have a scrap here; saves walking.’
He crossed the room once more, reconnected the mains supply and pressed the red alarm bell by the bath. ‘That should bring the bodyguard at a run,’ he said, and he pulled a couple of chairs and cushions across the bottom of the bath steps to form a rough barricade and squatted behind it. The dead Vulgarian floated behind him.
Vulge next removed his bandoliers and placed them near to hand; his knife and lance also. He leant back then on a cushion, waiting, favouring his injured shoulder, which was very stiff now though it pained him less. He wagged his head and thought of a few old Borrible proverbs to while away the time.
‘It is better to die young than to be caught,’ he quoted from memory, and he smiled and hoped the others were getting on all right.
Knocker and Adolf ran together from the end of the tunnel and into the hall that led to the head Rumble’s apartments. Alarm bells were ringing and lights were flashing in the ceiling. In the distance a siren howled and a recorded voice called all Rumbles to their battle stations. Knocker and Adolf loaded their catapults but they need not have bothered. The bodies of the two Rumble guards lying in the doorway did not move. Knocker put his catapult away and picked up a lance.
‘Look,’ he said, showing it to Adolf. ‘Blood.’
‘Vulge?’ said Adolf. ‘I hope he is still alive.’
Inside the doorway they found the body of the major-domo. Blood stained the whiteness of the carpet, blood turning brown.
‘Wait a minute,’ Knocker whistled through his teeth and pointed. ‘Can you beat that?’
In the sitting room lay several Rumbles in a line, one behind the other, their bodies contorted, their fur singed. Both Borribles sniffed the air.
‘Electrics,’ said Adolf. ‘Dangerous stuff.’
‘They must have been the elite guard,’ said Knocker. ‘Look at their uniforms, their weapons.’
‘The bodies lead to that door over there,’ said Adolf, gesturing with his catapult.
‘And do you notice how they are all touching each other?’ said Knocker, and with the butt end of his lance he bashed the door free from the charred paw of the first in the line of electrocuted bodyguards. He stepped over the corpse, and eased himself into the bathroom where the wires attached to the doorknob told their own story.
The first warrior to arrive on the scene had grasped the handle and died. The second had attempted to pull his comrade away from danger and he too had died. Many had perished in this manner, their bodies soldered together, their fur crisp. Then the door had been broken down, but there were dozens more bodies in the bathroom, electrocuted on the threshold, slain by stones as they crossed the room, or stabbed as they had attempted to storm Vulge’s little barricade. The room was a shambles.
‘Oh,
verdammt
,’ said Adolf reverently. ‘What a scrapper, that Vulge. Who would have guessed that such a little Borrible had so much courage in him?’
verdammt
,’ said Adolf reverently. ‘What a scrapper, that Vulge. Who would have guessed that such a little Borrible had so much courage in him?’
The trail of bodies led across the room and up to the very edge of the bath. At the bottom of the steps half a dozen of the bodyguard lay in a heap. There had been a terrific battle waged in this bathroom but there was no sign of the Stepney Borrible.
Knocker scrambled over the bodies and the barricade and discovered the half-submerged form of the Rumble chieftain.
‘He got him,’ he shouted. ‘Vulge got his name.’
‘Posthumously, I should think,’ said the German.
‘Wait,’ said Knocker. ‘I can see him.’ And it was true. Sticking out
from under the pile of Rumble bodies was a human foot. Knocker and Adolf pulled the corpses aside and underneath everything lay a pathetically frail Borrible holding a knife in one hand and the broken barb of a lance in the other. They knelt beside him.
from under the pile of Rumble bodies was a human foot. Knocker and Adolf pulled the corpses aside and underneath everything lay a pathetically frail Borrible holding a knife in one hand and the broken barb of a lance in the other. They knelt beside him.
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