It was a cold and clear night and a ground frost made their footsteps crunch loudly as they walked over the stiff white grass. They did not speak but there was not one of them who did not yearn at that moment for the crowded and friendly streets of his Borough. After a walk of about a mile Orococco stopped and the Adventurers gathered in a circle. The Borrible from Tooting could not resist a joke even then. "Why, friends," he laughed, "we looks like a Black and White Minstrel Show."
"Get on with it," snapped Stonks, who like everybody else was very tense and eager to begin.
"Okay, Mr Bones," said Orococco, "you see that mound beginning to rise a little, over there, against the sky? That's the Bunker, only it looks like a hill. There's a couple of saplings and a few bushes to the right; they screens the Great Door. If we climbs the hill and walks over it in a straight line, we'll come to the exit hole of the ventilation network, and on in a straight line from that, 'bout half a mile, is the back door, smaller, not so well made. Don't stamp your feet when you're on the hill, you'll wake up all the rats in Rumbledom if you do."
"Right then," said Stonks, "I get off here. My target's just the other side of that door."
"With a hundred thousand friends," added Napoleon, sardonically.
"Kind of odds that keep a Borrible alert," answered Stonks, not to be put down even by a friendly jest . . . and you never knew with a Wendle.
"Who do you want to go with you?" asked Knocker. "We must get on, we've got to be out by dawn."
"Torreycanyon, if he'll come," said Stonks turning to his friend.
" 'Course I will," said Torreycanyon in answer and he began to creep quietly away. "We'll give you ten minutes, then we go in."
The remainder went on, moving at a jogging trot up the side of the hill that rose over the Bunker. Sure enough, at the top, hidden by thick gorse bushes, was the main outlet for the air conditioning system of the whole Bunker city. It was covered by a large iron grille, solid and heavy, painted green to camouflage its appearance. Orococco said, "There she is. Now, who's coming with me to the other door? I can recommend it, very frail and only five hundred and fifty Rumbles guarding it. Any offers?"
Bingo sprang up. "Battersea and Tooting together," he cried, "what a team! I'll pick you up by the legs, you old Totter, and bash them to smithereens with your head bone."
Orococco turned to Knocker." Give us five minutes," he said, "and by the time you've got the kettle boiled for tea we'll be in there with you," and he and Bingo ran off.
There were six of them left round the vent now; Chalotte, Sydney, Adolf, Napoleon, Vulge and Knocker himself. They squatted and waited.
"Friends," said Vulge after a while, "those five minutes have gone into eternity. Shall we dance?"
Napoleon forced his knife under the edge of the ventilation grille and pushed it in as far as it would go. Then he exerted all his strength and levered and twisted; the grille shifted in its sockets just a little.
"It's coming," said Sydney, and shoved a stone into the gap so that the grille could not fall back into its grooves. Adolf and Knocker seized the edge of it and pulled together to upend the square of heavy iron before lowering it to the ground. Chalotte bent over the dark aperture and peered in. "It looks a long way down," she said.
Napoleon risked a quick beam of light from his torch. The ventilation shaft dropped vertically for about ten feet then turned a right-angled corner.
"There's only one way to find out where it goes," said Vulge, "and that's to go."
They had all brought a length of strong rope with them, wound round their waists, and Vulge took his and tied it firmly to the foot of a nearby growth of gorse.
"I'll go first," he said. "I'll give you the whistle if it looks all right." He tested the rope and looked closely at the faces of his fellow Adventurers. " 'Ere we go—and don't let's get caught."
And he slipped over the edge and was gone. One moment he had been standing there smiling and wagging his head, the next nothing was to be seen but a section of tightened rope. A minute later the rope became slack and they heard the familiar Borrible whistle.
"I'll go next," cried Chalotte excitedly, and she took the cord firmly between her hands and stepped backwards into space, walking casually down the side of the shaft.
"Verdammt," said Adolf, nudging Knocker, "she is very good that girl."
Napoleon decided that Sydney should follow Chalotte and then he himself would go down. To Knocker and Adolf he simply said, "You two come afterwards, and remember the Adventure has really come to its climax now. You are not to interfere with any of us unless we ask. This is our Adventure, see."
Adolf watched the Wendle slither down the rope, leaving him and Knocker standing alone on the windy hill. "He doesn't like you very much, you know," he said to Knocker. "He thinks you are up to something."
Knocker grinned and whispered to the German, "I am up to something, mate, and you're going to be up to it with me. As for Napoleon it's in his nature to be suspicious, Wendles always are."
"Ho ho," hooted Adolf, "never mind all that. Something is what I like to be up to. Let's hurry."
Stonks and Torreycanyon sneaked through the gorse bushes on their bellies and approached the Great Door with caution. A premature alarm would alert the defences and change the task of the Borrible attackers from a difficult to an impossible one. The grass and bushes were damp with the threat of the coming dew and soon the two attackers and their clothes were drenched.
"We'll soon dry off when we get inside," said Torreycanyon. "I'll use my Rumble as a towel."
"It's funny in a way, isn't it?" said Stonks. He stopped crawling and faced his companion. "Going after a bloke with the same name. It's like going after yourself. I mean, the names we've got aren't our names, they're really theirs, and when we've eliminated them, why then the names will be ours for ever, and the Adventure we've had, even if we've been killed, can never be taken away."
"It'll be taken away if we're all killed and nobody gets back to tell the story. If it's never written down, then it's gone for ever, have you thought of that?"
"Yeah, maybe Knocker shouldn't have come this far. He can't be Historian if he's captured or killed."
Torreycanyon held Stonks by the arm for a moment. "Ah," he said, "but if he hadn't have come this far he would have had no story to tell."
About ten yards from the door they stopped side by side and checked their watches.
"Another five minutes."
"Look at that door," said Stonks, with respect in his voice, "im-bloody-pregnable." It was true. Although not large, for Rumbles are about the same size as Borribles, it was stoutly built in oak, with iron bars reinforcing it. Its hinges were massive and heavy, designed to withstand a great deal of battering. By the time it was vanquished, that door, all the Rumbles in Rumbledom could be behind it.
"This is the time for guile," said Torreycanyon wisely, "but what kind of guile, I do not know."
Stonks looked at his watch. "Come on," he said, "I have an idea. Let's unwind our ropes."
Stonks joined the two pieces of cord together, then crouching, he made for the trees that grew a short distance from the Bunker door. Torreycanyon followed.
At the foot of a stout sapling Stonks said, "You're going to climb this tree, so as it'll bend down with your weight. Here's the rope, tie the middle of it round the top of the tree and drop both ends down. Got it?"
"Yeah," said Torreycanyon, " 'course I got it," and he scrambled up the tree which drooped more and more as he climbed higher.
The tree swooped and bobbed as Torreycanyon tied the rope to the slim trunk and threw the loose ends to Stonks, whose shape he could make out only dimly in the darkness below. Then Torreycanyon felt himself drawn nearer and nearer to the ground, as the strongest of the Borribles pulled on the rope until the topmost twigs of the tree touched the grass.
"Stay where you are, Torrey," said Stonks breathlessly, "keep your weight on while I tie it down to this root over here."
It took Stonks but a moment to secure the sapling and when he had finished he allowed Torreycanyon to step from his perch.
"Whatever it is you're going to do, Stonksie, you'd better do it now, because the others are going in at this very moment."
As Torreycanyon said this someone stirred behind the Great Door. Stonks winked at his companion and took up the spare piece of rope that dangled from the tree-top. He went over to the Great Door, knocked and then spoke up firmly in a Rumble voice. "Sowwy to twouble you, old bean, but I've something splendid here and I thought you might like it, I mean it could do wonders for your weputation. Come on, Stonks, open up there's a good sort."
There was a second's hesitation on the far side of the door and then Stonks and Torreycanyon heard the bolts being slid and a key being turned in the massive lock.
"Torrey," whispered Stonks, "when I tip you the wink, do that rope," and Stonks stood behind the door as it swung slowly open.
Then Stonks the Borrible spoke to Stonks the Rumble, both of them the strongest of their tribe.
"I wealise you're vewy stwong, Stonksie, but even I don't think you can keep hold of this," and the Borrible put the rope's end around the door and thrust it into the greedy hand of the Rumble. "Hang on," said the Borrible, "wemember we Wumbles never let go," and he made a gesture to Torreycanyon who severed the restraining cord with one sweep of his knife. The sapling was released and it sprang upright with enormous power and speed, dragging the short end of rope with it. The Rumble door-keeper at the end of the rope, true to his breeding and upbringing, held on tightly and shot through the doorway like the first Rumble rocket to the moon, knocking the Great Door open with such force that it would have killed Stonks had he not jumped away from the danger.
The Rumble whizzed over the Borrible's head at escape velocity and was swung away in a wide arc. Still he held on and if he could have strengthened his grip he might have lived for ever, but when the sapling reached its apogee it suddenly and treacherously reversed its direction. So there came a moment when the Rumble was travelling away from the door at a speed that was much faster than safe, and the top of the sapling was travelling at the same speed but back towards the door. The rope became taut and even the remarkable strength of Stonks the Rumble could not hold onto it and it was torn from his grasp. He disappeared into the black night, a fast-moving silhouette against the starry sky.
"He'll be burned to a frazzle on re-entry," said Stonks with a sniff and a spit. They waited a long while in silence.
"He's been ages up there," said Torreycanyon with irritation.
Just then there came a scream and a crashing of branches from about three hundred yards away. Then there was a dull crump and the ground where the Borribles stood shook and shivered.
"Ah, that sounds like a satisfactory abort," said Torreycanyon, rising from his crouching position and sheathing his knife at last. He stepped over to Stonks and took his hand and shook it. "I'd like to be the first," he said, "to congratulate you on being the first of us to win a name. Well done, Stonks, no other's name but yours now."
The Great Door to the Bunker now stood open and undefended. The two Borribles tip-toed towards it and peered in. An electric light showed an entrance hallway with a comfortable armchair for the guard on duty. There were some blankets and nearby a little table with food and books to sustain the watcher during the long night. On the other side of the hallway a lighted tunnel led off to the heart of the Burrow. Both the hallway and the tunnel were lined with bricks and there was carpet on the floor and pictures on the walls. It looked very warm and comfortable, homely.
"Nobody about," said Stonks and they entered the hallway and pulled the massive door shut behind them.
"What a smashing place," said Torreycanyon. "Don't stint themselves, do they?"
"They have no need to, mate, no need," said Stonks and he shot the bolts and turned the key in the lock. "Look," he went on, "I've done my bloke so I'll stay here and watch the exit, that way we've got a line of retreat." He picked up the Rumble-stick which had belonged to the guard who had left his post so precipitately and he hefted it in his hand. "Any Rumble who tries to get the door from me will have four inches of nail in him. You can tell the others when you see them. I'll also pull some bricks from the wall and make a couple of barricades across the tunnel. If you come back this way you'll have to give the whistle and I'll let you over."
"It's a good idea," said Torreycanyon. "I'll tell anybody I see." Then he said, "I'd better get going. Goodbye, Stonks—don't get caught, eh?" And there was a catch to his voice as he spoke.
Stonks caught hold of his friend and embraced him. "Take care, my old china. Win your name well. Don't you get caught now, I'd miss you."
And Torreycanyon turned abruptly, a tear in his eye, and he ran down the lighted, twisting, dangerous tunnel as fast as he could go, eager for his name.
Orococco and Bingo slid down the bumpy hillside, getting wet where they sat and slithered on the soaking grass. The slope ended in a small cliff and they fell together, all of a heap, into a little open space at the bottom of the hill.
"Quiet, Bingo," whispered Orococco, "we've landed right on their doorstep."
"Saves walking," said the Battersea-ite.
They crept on all fours till they came up against the Small Door. As its name indicated it was less important then the Great Door on the other side of the hill; even a Borrible would have to crawl through this one. There was a judas in the door so that the guard could see outside without having to open the barricade. Still kneeling the two Borribles looked at each other, then back at the peep-hole.
"I suppose this calls for guile," said Bingo.
"That's all we got, man," said Orococco. He knocked at the door. There was no answer.
"He's sleeping," said Bingo and he knocked, this time with the butt of his catapult, very loudly indeed.
There was a sudden and muffled snort from behind the door. Orococco shook his head. "Sleepin' on duty, they deserves to get duffed up!" He put his face close up to the judas. It was very dark there under the bank where the door was concealed.
The flap in the door flew open and a sleepy voice said, "Who goes there, Wumble or foe?"
"A weal Wumble," said Orococco, flashing his teeth.
"No such thing as a black Wumble," said the guard, his snout coming up close to the opening and quivering distrustfully. "What's your name?"
"My name's Owococco," said Orococco, winking at Bingo who was close to the door but out of sight of the person within.
There was a shocked silence from the Rumble, then he said, "Wait a minute, that can't be your name, it's my name."
"Tewwibly sowwy," said Orococco, "you must be mistaken, old boy. Owococco is posalutely my name, always has been, don't yer know."
"I have no wish to be offensive," said the voice behind the door, "but I ought to know my own name. I'm fwightfully sowwy but I am Owococco," and the snout came nearer the little opening and sniffed and sniffed.
"You don't even smell like a Wumble," said the snout.
"Well," said the Totter from Tooting, "all I can say is open the door and have a look, and you will absotively wecognise me as one of your vewy own."
"I can't do that," said the guardian, "it's against the wules, and according to my list evewyone is in tonight."
"All wight then," said the black Borrible, "stick your nose wight out and take a weally good sniff and wecognise me and let me in. I'm exhausted, and I have important news for the High Command."
"I'm one of the High Command," said the Rumble, suddenly intrigued, "you may tell me all."
"I'll tell you nothing until you let me in," insisted Orococco. The snout came further out and attempted to sniff round the Borrible's face but he fell back half a step and the snout was obliged to push itself a little further and again a little further, still snuffling and vibrating. It was then that Bingo rose and seized the snout in both hands and held on with all his might. Orococco slipped the strong cord from his waist and wound it several times round the snout and, tying it very tightly, he fastened the free end to the root of a strong growing bush. The Rumble could hardly breathe but Bingo did not let go, nor did the rope slacken, for all the animal's struggles behind the door. Orococco got close to the snout. "Shaddup," he whispered, "if you don't stop that wriggling I'll beat your nose till it looks like a limp wind-sock."
The struggling abated, then stopped altogether.
"Now, listen," went on the black Totter, "you can reach the bolts, and you can reach the lock. Open up. We have an ultimatum for your mates, and they're going to get it one way or the other, whether you have a snout or not."
Orococco Rumble hesitated, there was a little more kicking of padded feet and a flailing of arms, but the snout did not move an inch from its imprisonment. Then the two Borribles heard the bolts slide and the key grate in the lock and Orococco threw his body at the door with such force that the cord holding the snout broke with a loud twang and nearly pulled the Rumble's head through the small aperture. This fierce assault slammed the body of the guardian back against the wall of the passage and there was a sickening thud.
Bingo vaulted into the corridor, rolled over and came to his feet holding his catapult at the ready, but he did not fire for this was Orococco's game. Orococco seized the Rumble-stick that leant inside the doorway and used the point to fling aside the door. The Totter drew back his arm, ready to thrust the deadly sticker into the furry breast of his namesake, but before his muscles could act the Rumble fell forward onto the floor, the weight of his body banging the Small Door shut.
Bingo sprang to his feet and turned the body over. "Strewth," he said, "you must've broke his neck when you opened the door."
"Never stand behind a door when there's someone coming through the other side," said Orococco. "That's an old Tooting proverb which ain't in the book but ought to be."
"Hey," said Bingo, coming over to stand before his comrade, "you've got your name already. That's great, congratulations," and he slapped the Totter on the shoulder.
"Thanks, man," said Orococco, "now we'd better see about getting yours." And he turned and locked and bolted the door before slipping the key into his pocket. "Remember I got the key, Bingo, just in case I don't make it. Now let's go see if the others got the kettle on yet." And holding the sticker across his body he ran as fast as he could down the tunnel and Bingo sped along close behind him.
Vulge lay full length in the narrow ventilation shaft and inched his body along with his elbows; the top of the tunnel scraped his back. Behind him he could hear the others breathing hard as they followed. After a few yards, which seemed like miles, he came to a greasy grating set in the floor. He reached behind him with an effort and pulled his torch from a pocket of his combat jacket. He masked the beam with his hand and saw that he was at the end of the tunnel. Something bumped against his feet.
"Chalotte," he heard her say.
He shone his torch on the grating and saw that it was held down by four screws. He reached for his knife and slowly began to unscrew them.
"What's up?" asked Chalotte.
Vulge twisted his head as far as he was able. "Grating to the kitchens, four screws," he whispered and then went back to his work. It took a long while but at last the grating came free and he slid it below his body and stuck his head down to look into the kitchens.
It was an enormous modern installation, equipped with long stainless-steel ranges and endless working surfaces, for it had to cater for the hundreds of Rumbles who lived in the Bunker and on its smooth running would depend their health and well-being. The management and ordering of such a place would demand complex skills and the Rumble commissariat could only be controlled by members of the High Command.
At that moment only three Rumbles of any importance were visible to Vulge, two females and one male, and they had not been in the kitchens long for they were rubbing their eyes and yawning. The two female Rumbles began bellowing orders, and skivvies and scullions, about a dozen of them, rushed to their duties. Huge saucepans were sent clanging and spinning onto the stoves, the hot-plates glowed red and herbs and plants were washed and shredded and the morning gruel soon simmered in the pots.
With a start that nearly gave him away Vulge recognised the male Rumble; it was the chief, the main one, his very own target. Vulge withdrew his head quickly and scrambled over the opening into the end section of the shaft, allowing Chalotte to move up a little. He shone his torch behind her and saw Sydney. He popped his head down through the hole again and watched. The High Rumbles stood in the middle of the kitchen urging their minions on, smelling the soups and supervising the baking of the Rumble bread. Vulge pulled out his catapult and was easing a stone from his bandolier when the Chief Rumble, Vulgarian himself, spoke to the women. He sounded irritable and short-tempered.
"I wish you'd huwwy, you two. When I say an early bweakfast, I mean an early bweakfast. I've got a nasty feeling something's afoot. Last night, one of our Wumbles didn't weturn, and I'm wowwied. Come on, huwwy it up."
"It's no good," snapped Chalotte Rumble, "it can't be weady for another half-hour at least," and she jerked her snout up an inch to indicate the end of the discussion.
"Hmm," said Vulgarian, "then I'll go and have a bath. Send me my bweakfast on a tway as soon as it's weady," and he pulled his dressing-gown tight about him and stalked off without another word.
"What a bully," said the Chief of the Commissariat to her companion. "Who does he think he is? We wun this department."
"Don't take any notice," said Sydney Rumble, "he's due for a nasty shock one day."
"Yeah and today's the day," said Vulge to himself grimly. "I missed a chance there, dammit." He pulled his head back into the darkness of the tunnel where Chalotte waited.
"Mine's gone to have a bath," said Vulge, "but yours is right below you, and Sydney's. All you got to do is thump 'em."
Chalotte twisted and spoke to Sydney, then she crouched over the hole and looked down. Below her was a good ten foot drop, enormous for a Borrible, to the top of a wide kitchen table, white with scrubbing. She took her catapult from her back pocket, wrapped the elastic carefully round the butt and clenched the weapon between her teeth, then with a nod at Vulge, she let herself fall from his sight. Immediately Chalotte had gone Sydney wriggled forward, her catapult already prepared, and sprang, eager as a cat, through the opening. Napoleon was still some distance away but inching nearer. Vulge did not wait for him. He sat on the edge of the hatch, lowered himself by his arms till his body was at full extent, and then let go.
His feet hit the wooden surface and, following the precepts of Dodger's paratroop training, he allowed his legs to crumble and he rolled over curving his shoulder to take the force of the fall. He came off the edge of the table and fell easily into a crouching position on the kitchen floor. From there he witnessed a fight that made his eyes twinkle.
Chalotte and Sydney had arrived in the kitchen perhaps ten seconds before Vulge, but they had wasted no time. The two Rumbles of the High Command had been caught flat-footed by Chalotte's inexplicable appearance but they had soon rallied. They each seized a Rumble-stick from a rack which stood against the wall and shouted to the kitchen-hands to arm themselves and give the alarm. But Chalotte was a magician with the catapult. She had loaded and fired her weapon twice before the two Rumbles could cast their spears and they retreated down the kitchen towards the hot stoves and steaming ranges. The sound of Chalotte's stones as they sliced through the air unnerved the Rumbles, and their lances, when they were thrown, skeetered harmlessly along the tiled floor.
Now Sydney's catapult was ready and, ignoring the shouts of the scullions and the possible threat of a flying Rumble-stick, she stood and drew the heavy-duty elastic right back to her ear and a well-aimed stone flew to strike her foe in the centre of the forehead. Sydney Rumble fell lifeless to the floor, bringing down a pile of soup bowls with her.
Chalotte's enemy was to meet a more grisly fate. At the noise of the crashing crockery the High Rumble took fright, for she was now outnumbered three to one, and pushing and kicking the terrified menials from her path she ran quickly to the far end of the kitchen where huge cauldrons boiled quietly on deep square stoves, warming the day's broth. Against the largest of the containers leant a step-ladder, placed there so that ingredients could be added without difficulty and so that the soup could be inspected from time to time by the chief cooks. But now Chalotte Rumble wanted only to get away. If she were to climb that ladder and take one step across the cauldron she could squeeze through a large vent that led into a different part of the Bunker, escaping to raise the alarm and fight another day. But Chalotte the Borrible, her blood pounding with the heat of battle, was a fast and nimble runner and she pursued her namesake closely. As the Rumble reached the top of the step-ladder, Chalotte reached the bottom, seized the whole contraption and lifted it up with all her energy. There was the briefest of silences as the poor Rumble spun in space, weightless for a second, then a scream split the steamy air and the scream wailed on long and loud until, with a splash, it was submerged deep in the hot and lumpy soup, but even then the scream went on, freighted up to the surface of the stew in rippling bubbles, like a fart in bath-water.
Vulge ran across the room and covered the saucepan with a huge and heavy lid. "Blimey," he crowed, "she's really in the soup now, ain't she?"
Napoleon's legs appeared through the opening in the ceiling and he dropped to the table and jumped to the floor. He ran to a corner and grabbed a Rumble-stick. He felt the weight of it and looked at the group of kitchen-hands who cowered together in a corner.
"Okay, you bunch of bunnies," he snarled, "you move and I'll tear yer ears off."
Sydney pulled her target's body into a broom-cupboard, closed the door and locked it. "Cripes," she gasped, "that was over too fast, don't seem right."
"Getting in was easy," agreed Chalotte, "it's the getting out."
"What are we going to do with the skivvies?" asked Vulge.
"Lock 'em in the pantry," suggested Sydney, "they won't give us any trouble."
"You do that," said Napoleon, making for the door. "Me and Vulge better get going, we've still got work to do. Before you leave here turn the electrics up; let it all burn dry so it'll smoke and fuse and catch fire. Hungry Rumbles can't fight."
"That's it." Vulge crossed the room to leave with Napoleon. "When you've done you'd better try to make your way to the Great Door and see if you can meet up with Stonks and Torrey."
"We might see you again at the Central," said Napoleon, "and then again we might not. Don't wait for anybody. As from now we each takes our chance." With this he and Vulge slipped through the door and were gone.
Sydney and Chalotte herded the kitchen-hands into the larder, using sharp spears to encourage them. Once the Rumbles had been disposed of the two girls ran around the kitchen switching all the stoves and ovens to full on, and then, propped against their lances, they looked at each other and a slow smile crept from their eyes to their lips and became a grin.
"Here, we've got our names," said Sydney. "Fancy that."
Torreycanyon made his way down the main tunnel. It felt strange to be alone after so long in the company of the others, but there was no stopping now. Somewhere ahead of him would be the main hallway with the corridors running out from it like a spider's web. The Bunker was deserted, for the Rumbles were still sleeping, but in a very short while they would be coming from their bedrooms and making for the refectory to enjoy a copious breakfast.
Occasionally Torreycanyon saw a signpost which, he supposed, was to direct the younger Rumbles until they had learnt their way around. There weren't enough indications for his taste and he realised what a task the Borrible team had taken on. He understood suddenly that he was going to need a lot of luck to find his target, and a lot more to get out of this labyrinth alive. He gripped his catapult tightly, a stone ready for firing, and he stepped bravely forward. Best to press on and meet the dangers as they came, no point in worrying about them prematurely. Good old Stonks was behind, guarding the Great Door, and it would take an avalanche of Rumbles to move him.
Torreycanyon crept past several doors leading from the corridor. On each was a notice saying, "Dormitory"; he listened but heard no noises from within. So far so good. He went on, halting and listening at every branch corridor, peeping around every corner before going on and then peering back to make sure he was not being followed.
"Cripes," he said, often. "I wish I could find my target and then get out of here, it's creepy being on your own."
At last luck was with him. He nearly passed a narrow passage leading off to his left but his foot slipped and looking down he saw a patch of oil on the floor. He moved into the passage and shone his torch on the wall, for it was darker there. At eye level words had been daubed in blue paint, and although faded and difficult to decipher, they were still legible. "Garage and Workshops. Keep Out. signed TORREYCANYON RUMBLE."
"Oh boy, oh boy," said Torreycanyon, "I've done it right. I'll get in the garage and wait for him." He knew from his reading of the Rumble histories that the workshops were a vital nerve centre of this underground complex and it was part of the Borrible plan, once they had eliminated their targets, to cause as much confusion as possible. Torreycanyon hoped that possession of the workshops would enable him to wreak great damage throughout the Bunker, merely by pulling a few switches. If he could break in before the Rumbles awoke, he would be in a strong position.
The dark corridor sloped downwards beneath the Rumbledom hillsides. It was slippery and oily underfoot because so much machinery had passed that way but Torreycanyon moved forward only when he had verified with his torch that it was safe to do so. At last he came up against a heavy wooden door, sagging on its hinges. It was scarred and battered where sharp metal edges had been bashed against it. To Torreycanyon's amazement the door was open and a light shone inside.
He pushed his torch back into his pocket and flexed the rubber on his catapult. He was ready. However many Rumbles were in the workshops he would take them on and then destroy their equipment before they destroyed him. But he must be sure to get his target; not one of the Rumble High Command must be left to organise pursuit or retaliation. Torreycanyon took a deep breath, thought briefly of the others and wondered where they were, then he shoved the door with a vigorous thrust of his foot and jumped into the room in the style of the adventure stories he had read or of the spy films he had seen when bunking-in at the Imperial Cinema, Clapham Junction. The door swung back and banged into the wall. Torreycanyon burst through the doorway and landed in the crouched position. His eyes raced over the workshops, his head turned, searching, but there was not one enemy to fire at. Torreycanyon relaxed.
He was in a large rectangular room. It was lined with shelves on which was stowed every tool that might be needed in the underground stronghold and, in addition, there was row upon row of spare parts for the machinery that kept the Bunker ticking over. There were work-benches and power-points, electric drills and lathes, winches and a conveyor belt. It was an extremely well-equipped and functional place and Torreycanyon liked it.
"Blimey," he said, looking round in wonder and respect, "what couldn't we do with this little lot," but then he remembered why he was there and he shook the feeling of awe from his mind. He bolted the door and made a tour of inspection, making sure that no unseen Rumble lurked behind the shelves, or between the work-benches. The more he saw of the place the more impressed he became. He had a practical turn of mind himself, and when he saw all those shining tools, laid out in perfect order, and those handy work-benches, the wood, the carpentry, the work in progress and the projects nearly finished, he felt that it was a great pity to destory such order. Why, oh why, did he not have such a workshop back in Hoxton? He knew he could have done it justice.
He sighed and came to a corner where he thought the shop ended, but he had discovered another section of the room and he could see at a glance that this was the garage. He remembered that the Rumbles had built a car and had in fact used it for their trip to Battersea, that time when Knocker had captured one of their number. And here it was, he had discovered that car. He lowered his catapult; this place seemed empty too. The car itself was long and sleek and powerful-looking, but what struck Torreycanyon as he inspected it were the changes being made to the bodywork. Someone was converting it into an armoured troop-carrier, a weapon of war. There were little slits in the side of it, so that missiles could be fired from inside while the occupants remained protected. And on the steel panelling, not yet painted, some Rumble had scrawled in chalk, "Death to the Borribles". Torreycanyon glanced back down the long workshops. So that was it; those workshops did not look beautiful now, they looked sinister, and compassion drained from his heart.
His thinking was interrupted by the clink of a spanner falling to the concrete floor and Torreycanyon heard a Rumble oath. He raised his catapult, crouched and looked towards the armoured car, all in one movement. Protruding from underneath the rear axle were two padded feet. A Rumble was doing an early morning stint on the mechanics and the car had been jacked up high at the back to enable the fitter to move comfortably about his business.
Torreycanyon thought quickly. If that Rumble was the only one present, then all well and good, but was there another entrance, and were there more Rumbles to come? He stepped towards the car.
"I say," he said politely, "any twouble?"
"Who's that? What are you doing here? Hand me that Fourteen Whitworth," said the mechanic, rapidly and without waiting for answers.
"It's Bingo," said Torreycanyon, using the first Rumble name that came into his head.
"Bingo," cried the voice attached to the two feet. "Look, if you give me a hand for a couple of hours, we can do the test wun tonight. This car will be invincible; it'll take us down to Battersea High Stweet in half an hour, give those Bowwibles a beating and bwing us back in time for bweakfast."
The Borrible tensed his muscles and was just about to drag the Rumble out from underneath the car when he had a thought. "Who is that under there, anyway?" he asked. "I can't wecognise you by your feet, they're not vewy distinctive."
"Towweycanyon, of course—who else would be here at thwee in the morning when evewy other Wumble is still in bed? We of the High Command have got a sense of wesponsibility, a devotion to duty."
Torreycanyon stood up and smiled to himself. What a stroke of luck. Unbelievably his target was right there with him, and they were all alone.
The voice below the car said, "Go wound the back and pass me the working light, it's wolled out of my weach. Time is of the essence. The sooner we can teach those Bowwibles a lesson the better. We'll give them a twouncing all wight."
"All wight," said Torreycanyon, and he began to walk round the car hoping Torreycanyon Rumble wouldn't notice that his feet were not padded as they should be. But the Rumble said nothing and he continued to talk as he struggled with spanners and nuts.
"Now, when you get wound the back, be vewy careful, the handle of the jack is sticking out, just don't touch it at all, do you hear that, Bingo? It's vewy dangewous, cars and jacks and that, specially if you're underneath them. Nice things motors, but not seen fwom this angle, like a lot of things weally, all depends on the angle and that."
Torreycanyon moved stealthily to the rear of the garage. Here was the enormous jack, here tools littered the floor, and there was the working light, up against the second entrance to the workshop—a sliding door of steel, large enough to allow the passage of the armoured car. No doubt, thought Torreycanyon, the door was concealed on the other side; camouflaged to look like a grassy bank behind gorse bushes or trees.
The voice under the car went on. "If I stwetch out my hand you can put the working light underneath, there, just by the nearside fwont wheel and then I can . . ." The voice trailed off, and then, falteringly, it started again. "Bingo . . . you've got shoes, feet, weal feet. You can't be Bingo. You're human . . . or . . ."
"A Borrible," cried Torreycanyon. He leapt for the car jack, knocked off the safety catch and triggered the mechanism that released its power. The mighty car, the massive tool of destruction, sank slowly and relentlessly to the oily floor, crushing the small life out of the Rumble who had tended it so lovingly. There was a scream, then quiet, and Torreycanyon slipped his catapult into his back pocket. He spoke out loud to himself and his voice echoed round the hard walls of the garage. "Congratulations to you, Torreycanyon," he said, "on achieving your name. Now you may construct a little mayhem out of the materials that lie about you."
Knocker dropped down into the kitchen as the others had done. Adolf followed him and they both seized Rumble-sticks from the corner of the room.
"Aha," said Adolf, "good weapons for close work." The door opened and they stiffened but it was Chalotte and Sydney returning from the corridor.
"It's all quiet outside," said Chalotte, "but we don't know for how long."
"What's all this nasty steam and stink?" asked Knocker, peering round the room. Sydney gestured to the huge pots still boiling and bubbling on the stoves. "Chalotte shoved her namesake into the porridge," she said.
Adolf hooted. "So we have to felicitate you on your first name. I'm sure you will have many in the future."
"I got mine as well," said Sydney, "in the cupboard."
"You certainly wasted no time," said Knocker. "What about the others?"
The two girls told them that Napoleon and Vulge had set off already, suggesting before they left a rendezvous in the heart of the Bunker, where most of the tunnels met.
"That sounds all right," agreed Knocker. "Adolf and I will try to stir things up a bit; some alarm and despondency is what we want. Meanwhile, you girls could start preparing a line of retreat."
When Chalotte and Sydney had gone, Adolf leant on his Rumble-stick and looked at Knocker from under his brow. "Well, my Battersea friend," he asked with the bright light burning in his blue eyes, "what is it we are up to?"
Knocker laughed with happy excitement. "I'm going to get a second name out of this, and you can help Adolf. Somewhere in this maze of tunnels and corridors is a chest of treasure, money. My job is to get it back to Battersea High Street, so that it can be shared amongst all Borribles."
"A fine Historian and Observer you are," said Adolf. "Where is it?"
"I don't know," said Knocker, making his catapult ready and inspecting the nail on the end of his lance. "The Head Rumble's office seems a likely place, and that's where I am going."
"Excuse." Adolf held up his hand. "That is where we are going."
"Come on then," yelled Knocker and they dashed from the room.
Vulge came to a halt at a place where the corridor divided. A notice showed him which way to go, it said, "Headquarters." He turned to Napoleon.
"See you back at the Central, or at the Great Door."
"Or not at all," said the Wendle, with an ironic smile.
"It is sad to pass through life without one good Adventure," said Vulge, quoting one of the oldest of Borrible proverbs, and plunged forward with a mad eagerness.
"And remember," said Napoleon to himself as he watched the energetic figure recede, "it is foolish to run faster than what you chase." Then he settled the bandoliers on his shoulders and marched away down the other corridor.
Vulge had not far to go. He rounded a bend in the tunnel and came upon a well-lit and spacious hallway. It was more luxuriously carpeted than any other part of the Bunker. Rows of armchairs were there for lesser Rumbles who might wait to see their chieftain, and opposite Vulge was a stout oaken door. It was guarded by two stalwart Rumbles, armed with lances.
Vulge gave no warning, his catapult was loaded and the first shot stunned one of the guards. He fell to the floor, his soft 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 struck him fairly on the temple, he fell forward and the lance dropped from his hand.
Vulge stuck his catapult into his belt and, with an effort, he 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 dead guard's 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 popped 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; these were 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 stomach, and Vulge clouted him hard across the head with the shaft of the spear. The Rumble collapsed to the floor 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 and on the misty green walls were original paintings in good taste. There was a colour television set, telephones in brass with ivory mouth-pieces and copies of the national newspapers and magazines resting 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, electric typewriters, Xerox machines and, 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 blood dropped from him and 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 which was 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 covered 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 noisily behind him on the tiled floor. The Rumble's snout turned, there was a flurry in his bathwater.
"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 the scuffling and climbing about in the ventilation shaft and, even more dramatically, blood was spreading out to stain his shoulder. The Borrible cap 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."
"Don't swear," said the Rumble.
"Knickers," answered Vulge and gobbed into the bath-water. "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, we'll go where we like and . . ."
"Don't want it, eh? What about all that digging down there in Battersea Park, eh? What about that, then? You started this, Rumble."
"We started it! I know Timbucktoo is a twifle over-enthusiastic at times, always wants to be digging and that, 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 here?" asked the Chieftain.
"There's only eight of us, but that's enough of us 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 stood up and the water cascaded from his fur. He was the tallest of all the Rumbles, impressive and commanding. He looked down his snout imperiously at the grimy little Borrible.
"Eight of you!" he cried. "Why, you impudent little whippersnappers, you insignificant hobbledehoys. I tell you that Wumbles will go whewever I say, fwom Hampton Wick to Arnos Park, and fwom Ealing Golf Course to Bexley Heath. We won't be stopped by a handful of ignowant stweet 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 Battersea bwat, I have only to pwess that alarm bell and my bodyguard will make a pin-cushion of you with their Wumblesticks. Hand me that towel, you scwubby little serf. Hand me that towel I say, Bowwible!"
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. The electric current sprang from the fire and arced across the water, and from the water it raced through the flesh of the Rumble Chieftain. It burnt through 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 into the bathwater 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 pulled the cables from the remaining electric fire and from the hair-drier. Next he trailed the flex across the room to the door, which he shut, and then he wound the bare wires around the metal door handles. He looked at his work and went on talking to himself. "I don't think I could fight my way out of here with this wound, so I might as well have a scrap here; saves time."
He crossed the room once more 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 removed his bandoliers and placed them near to hand. He took out his knife and placed that ready, and he laid his lance on the barricade. 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 hallway 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 stretched their catapults but they need not have bothered. The bodies of the two Rumble guards in the doorway did not move. Knocker put his catapult away and picked up a lance. "Look," he said, showing the point to Adolf, "blood."
"Vulge?" said Adolf with a worried expression. "Verdammt, I hope he is still alive."
"Let's see," said Knocker. Inside the doorway they found the body of the major-domo. Blood stained the whiteness of the carpet, blood already turning brown.
"Wait a minute," Knocker whistled through his teeth. "Look!"
In the sitting-room of the Headquarters lay several Rumbles, their bodies contorted, their fur singed. Both Borribles sniffed the air and looked at each other.
"Electrics," said Adolf, "nasty dangerous stuff."
"Don't touch the bodies," said Knocker and he went to the door. Here he and Adolf found more Rumbles, all scorched and twisted and all of them dead.
"This must be the elite guard," said Knocker, "look at their uniforms, their weapons."
"They lead to that door over there," said Adolf, gesturing with his catapult.
"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. Inside the bathroom the wires attached to the handle told their own story. The first warrior to arrive on the scene had tried the door and died. Another had attempted to pull his comrade from the handle and he 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, knocked down 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?"
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 sadly.
"Wait," said Knocker, "I can see his foot." And it was true. Sticking out from under the pile of Rumble bodies was a Borrible 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.
"Has he gone?" asked Knocker.
Adolf put his head to Vulge's chest. "No," he said. "I can hear his heart."
Tenderly they raised the Stepney Borrible into a sitting position and rubbed his hands and his cheeks. Vulge's eyes flickered and then opened weakly. He was covered in blood, though most of it was not his own. He licked his lips. "Trust you to get here when it was all over," he said and he tried to grin. "Get me something to drink."
Adolf returned in an instant with a jade tooth-mug full of cold water and Vulge drank it greedily. "That's better," he said, looking round the room. " Pretty good fight it was," he added, "but you'd better get out of here. With those bells and alarms going the tunnels will be solid with Rumbles."
"Okay," said Knocker, "We're going. I've just got something to do first. Adolf, watch the door."
Vulge grabbed Knocker's arm. "Give me one of your bandoliers," he said, "I feel lonely without a few stones."
Knocker slipped a bandolier over his head, retrieved a catapult from the floor and handed them to Vulge. "There you are," he said. "Leave some Rumbles for us, won't you."
Knocker left the bathroom and passed into a large study. It was an inner sanctum, different from the main office, more private and intimate. Here there was just a bare desk, some books and a watercolour of the Rumbledom countryside on the wall. Knocker flung the picture to the floor and found what he had been hoping to find—a large safe. He looked at it, baffled. The safe was firmly closed and there was a complicated combination lock on the outside. He fiddled with it, listened to it, pulled the large brass handle, but the safe door would not budge. He ran back to the bathroom and shouted desperately to Adolf. "Dammit, I can't get the safe open. We're snookered."
The German bobbed his head round the door he was guarding. "A safe," he cried, "is that all? Did I not tell you how I got my third name, Amadeus? By stealing diamonds from the most renowned burglar in all of Austria. You come and watch. I will persuade your safe to be friendly."
In a moment Adolf had his ear pressed against the door of the safe and his nimble fingers were twiddling with the lock. There was a click, then another and another until there was a click that sounded more definite than all the rest and Adolf's eyes glowed like the jackpot lights on a fruit-machine. He seized the handle with both hands and pulled open the massive steel door.
"Bull's-eye," he cried. "Oh, verdammt! I haven't lost my touch."
Knocker gazed into the safe and saw a large brass-bound box. "You must be the best safe-cracker in the whole world," he said, "Adolf Wolfgang Amadeus Winston !"
"Danke," said the German, "I am proud of my new name and will enjoy telling how I earned it—if we ever get out of here."
They pulled the box from the safe and it thumped to the floor. Knocker flung back the lid and sat back on his heels in amazement. It was full to the top with crisp notes of the realm.
"I'll be jiggered," he said, "there's a fortune here."
"No good if you can't get it out," said Adolf.
"Wait," said Knocker, seizing the German's shoulder, "it will need two of us to carry this. We'll have to leave Vulge behind."
Adolf stood up, his face angry. "You may do what you wish," he said. "I am taking Vulge."
Knocker faced his friend, his mouth tight. "The whole point of the expedition is that money. I have strict orders to get the box out. Vulge has taken his chances like the rest of us. Why, he's half dead already."
"And half of him is worth all of you, Knocker, and the money too," cried Adolf and he kicked the lid of the box so that it closed with a crash.
"This money," said Knocker, lowering his voice, "could change life for thousands of Borribles. It's important, more important than any one of us, that's why Spiff wanted me to get it home, no matter what."
"Who cares about your Spiff. I don't want my life changed," said Adolf passionately, "nor do other Borribles. The lives I care about at this moment are my life and Vulge's life, and yours if you will stop being stupid."
Knocker hesitated. He knew that what the German said made sense, but there were other considerations.
"Vulge got his name by a valiant battle," he argued. "You were destined to open the safe, my part is to take this money out of here and win my name that way. Can't you see that?"
"I see it," said Adolf, "but it doesn't mean I have to look at it. You carry the money if you can, I will carry Vulge if I can; the rest is chance. Let us remain friends though we differ. I like stealing too you know, but sometimes other things come first."
Just then there was a yell from Vulge in the bathroom. Both Borribles grasped their catapults and loading them as they moved they dashed through the door.
Two Rumbles armed with stickers were coming into the room, a third lay stunned in the entrance. Vulge was reloading his catapult. A Rumble threw his sticker at Adolf who side-stepped it with ease and the spear thudded into the wall. Knocker fired, Adolf fired and both Rumbles fell. It became quiet and Adolf went to the door to look out. "Only those three," he said, "but others will be coming. Let's go." He crossed the room and knelt beside Vulge. "You're coming with me, my friend," he said. "I will give you a fireman's lift. It will be painful but safer than staying here."
"You can't take me," grimaced the wounded Borrible. "Leave me another bandolier, and I'll do for a few more."
"Rubbish," laughed the German, "are you content to die with only one name?"
Vulge wagged his head in the old way of his. "Go on then, idiot. 'It is madness to quarrel with a madman'."
Adolf ignored the proverb, hoisted his wounded comrade up and carried him towards the door. Knocker meanwhile ran back into the inner sanctum and lifted the box onto his shoulders with a supreme effort. "With both of us laden like this," thought Knocker, "there is very little chance of us getting out. Adolf was right, but then so am I. We will just have to play it by ear."
Their progress was slow and awkward. They stopped frequently to rest and Vulge was in great pain, though he said nothing.
The lighting system had obviously suffered serious damage, for the lights often went out. Bells and sirens clanged and wailed as the general alarm spread through the maze of corridors, and shouts and calls could be heard echoing from side tunnels. Something somewhere was burning and smoke was beginning to drift by, sucked along by the ventilation fans. Steam from the cauldrons left boiling in the kitchens lent an acrid smell to the atmosphere, and the temperature in the Bunker was rising fast.
The fugitives encountered several dazed and panic-stricken bands of Rumbles but they were not trained warriors and a show of belligerence was enough to make them sheer off. But every time they passed a branch corridor Rumbles issued from it noiselessly on their padded feet and followed at a safe distance, waiting for the right moment to pounce and bear down upon the Adventurers.
"I must rest," said Knocker for the fifth time. "Money weighs you down."
"I too could rest," said Adolf panting, and he lowered Vulge to the floor.
"How are you, my friend?" asked the German.
Vulge was near to fainting with pain but he said, "Mustn't grumble. Got to keep going till you can't go any more, isn't it?"
They had stopped by the entrance to a dark branch corridor and suddenly two figures leapt out with a cry, brandishing lances. Adolf and Knocker stepped back and reached for their weapons but then held their hands. Before them stood Bingo and Orococco, fresh and alert.
"Well, hello sailor," said Orococco. "What's a nice Borrible like you doing in a place like this?"
Knocker smiled with relief. He gestured towards Vulge and the box. "We're trying to get Vulge out. He's done for the Chief, but the bodyguard nearly did for him."
"He knocked them about beautifully," laughed Adolf. "He deserves twenty names."
"He doesn't look too good," said Bingo, "that's for sure."
"How have you got on?" asked Knocker, sitting down on the box of money.
Bingo knelt by Vulge and felt his pulse, saying, " 'Rococco's got his, at the door. He came along to keep me company. I've been running all over the place but I'm damned if I can find mine anywhere. I hope someone else hasn't done him. I'll be stuck without a name if they have."
The lights in the corridor flickered off and the Borribles grasped their lances and stood back to back. They heard the snuffling sound of Rumbles moving nearer but then the lights snapped on again and the Adventurers saw their foes scrambling to get beyond the range of the Borrible weapons.
Knocker came to a decision. "You could come along with us, then, give me a hand with this box and help carry Vulge."
"I don't mind that," agreed Bingo, "as long as I am free to take off after my bloke at any time."
The five Borribles moved on, pausing at every intersection. They were followed, sniffed and snuffled at but not attacked. The hazards would increase when they reached the open space of the Central. There hosts of angry Rumbles could trample them down, no matter how well they defended themselves.
At length Bingo, who was leading, stopped and held up a hand. "It's the Central," he whispered.
They gathered at the end of the corridor and looked out into the wide cavern from which radiated the main arteries of the Bunker. A fearful sight met their eyes. Hundreds of Rumbles ran backwards and forwards across the immense hallway. Blue lights flashed in the ceiling and the alarm bells rang. The roadway leading to the Great Door was crammed with Warrior Rumbles, struggling to enter the tunnel and do battle with whoever was at the other end; thick smoke issued from a corridor above which was written "Kitchens". Some Rumbles were disappearing into a tunnel marked "Infirmary", bearing wounded comrades on stretchers.
Bingo took in the scene and turned to the others. "I've got an idea," he said. "There's a tunnel over there with no one in it, or so it seems, the one that says 'Library'. I'll run across the hall, throw a few spears and some of those warriors will chase after me. You'll have to fight the rest. Not much of an idea but it's Hobson's, isn't it?"
Knocker spoke for them all. "It's the only way."
Bingo took extra stickers from his companions and with no goodbyes he ran light-footed into the hall. So sudden was his appearance that he got three-quarters of the way across before he was noticed by some non-combatant Rumbles, who shouted out to the Warriors who were crowded round the Great Door tunnel.
Bingo planted his feet firmly on the floor and threw sticker after sticker at the enemy. He threw well and he threw hard, each of his lances struck a mark and half a dozen Rumbles fell dead or sorely wounded. The others fell back and hesitated, so Bingo drew his catapult and two more Rumbles fell stunned before he turned and with a remarkable burst of speed vanished into the Library tunnel yelling defiantly, "A Borrible, a Borrible." Scores of Warrior Rumbles raced after Bingo, shouting fiercely in their turn, and in a few seconds the entrance to the Great Door corridor was left deserted.
"Vulge," said Knocker, kneeling, "can you make it across the Central? We'll need all hands to fight our way over."
"Get me to my feet," said Vulge, sitting up, "and give me a sticker to lean on. I'll waltz it over there."
They pulled him upright and thrust a lance into his hand. He tucked the butt of it under his good armpit and used it like a crutch. "There you go," he wheezed, "nice as ninepence."
Knocker got the box onto his back once more and Orococco and Adolf formed up on either side of him. They had few Rumble-sticks left but here there would be room for catapult work.
"You lead the way, Vulge," said Knocker. "We'll take your pace."
Because of the terrible confusion and panic that had followed Bingo's exit the retreating Borribles got a good way into the Central before being seen, and when they were, the Rumbles were at a loss, for they had no troops of their own present to deal with this unexpected situation. They knew that Borribles were loose in the tunnels but they had no idea how large the invading force was. Above all they had not expected a band of Borrible fighters to appear suddenly like that right in their midst. They shouted and squealed and their stomachs turned to water. They ran in every direction, except towards their enemies; they knocked each other down and exchanged blows, anything to get away from the deadly stones that flew so rapidly from the Borrible catapults. They screamed out for Warriors, but their Warriors were engaged deep in the tunnels, or were chasing phantoms or other Rumbles in the belief that they were Borribles. Smoke made pursuit and identification difficult and confusion was spreading into the very outposts of the Rumble Bunker.
Slowly the Borribles moved over the dangerous open area. Vulge hobbled and stumbled manfully, gritting his teeth to keep back his pain, willing himself not to fall and ruin the escape. The Rumbles held back still and made no attempt to attack until, suddenly, a party of their Warriors burst from a tunnel on the Borrible flank.
"We've been rumbled," said Orococco.
"This is no time for bad jokes," panted Knocker, sweating under the weight of his box and wishing he had his hands free.
"The proverb says," hissed Orococco as he fired and reloaded his catapult, " 'Bad times need jokes though never so bad'."
A flight of lances whistled over from the Rumbles but the catapult fire, rapid and sustained, detracted from their aim and the stickers missed their targets and fell harmlessly to the floor: all save one, which struck the box that Knocker carried and pierced the lid and stayed there quivering. The force of the blow staggered Knocker and he went down to one knee and had to be helped back to his feet.
The Rumbles searched round for more lances but the flying Borrible stones still hampered them and one by one they were hit and retreated to the safety of the tunnels. But there was one Rumble, braver and quicker than the rest, who exhorted his comrades to come out again and he began to organise the non-Warriors into a compact mass, ready to charge the little band of Borribles. If he could get them to act together, all would be over with the retreating Adventurers—but Orococco had other ideas.
Snatching a lance from the floor, he ran forward, one Borrible charging a hundred Rumbles. About twenty yards away from the brave but offending Rumble, Orococco threw his lance like a javelin. It left his hand with the power of a bullet and the four-inch nail buried itself deep in the thick fur of the Warrior. A groan went up from the enemy ranks and scores of stickers clattered about the head of Orococco, but he bobbed and ducked and returned to his friends unscathed and they gained the temporary safety of the Great Door tunnel.
Vulge fell to the floor in a dead faint. Knocker flung down his box, tugged the lance free of the lid and threw the weapon back into the Great Hall.
"And work it," he shouted, trembling with anger.
Adolf knelt to inspect Vulge's injury, lifting the jacket aside to reveal the blood-soaked bandage.
"Our Vulge has lost lots of his strength," he said, "but the wound has stopped bleeding. He may be all right, if he can rest." He refolded the cloth and replaced it.
Orococco, watching from the mouth of the corridor, called a warning. "There's a lot of those Warrior boys getting together out there. They're coming our way."
Knocker looked at the others and said, "Rest, just a minute or two. We've not finished. I can hear fighting up ahead; we ain't out of this holiday camp yet."
"It's a lovely place," said Vulge, who was becoming delirious. "Lots and lots of Rumbles in it."
Bingo ran like the wind along the corridor. As far as he could see it was empty of Rumbles ahead, but from behind came the noise of shouting as the Warriors from the Central gave chase.
Bingo ran easily, keeping plenty of strength in reserve. Wherever it was this Library it seemed a long way. He ran on, outdistancing his pursurers until at length he could hear them no more. He slowed his pace and jogged along, a sticker swinging loosely in his right hand, his catapult in his belt. He was in the furthest reaches of the Bunker here and it was strangely quiet; there was no smoke or acrid steam on the air, either.
After what seemed miles Bingo came to a green baize-covered door that was hanging crazily on one hinge. Several stickers stood embedded in it and two Rumble Warriors, with their throats slit, lay dead across the threshold.
"Wendle work," said Bingo, and he went past the bodies and slipped into the room that lay beyond. It was indeed the Library but it had been badly mauled. It was a high room with massively tall bookcases soaring up to an embossed oaken ceiling, which was painted in bright colours with the coats-of-arms of the richest and most ancient Rumble families. Little wooden balconies ran round the walls and beautifully carved staircases led down from ceiling height at each corner. Quiet alcoves with comfortable desks were situated between the bookshelves and little green shaded lamps gave friendly and academic glow. It was a place for rest and study, richly decorated in the Rumble colours, and it had obviously cost a great deal of money and labour to establish and build up over long years. Here was assembled all the knowledge and wisdom and power that the Rumbles had amassed over many centuries, and now it was being dismantled by a very busy Borrible. Napoleon Boot was hard at work with the cool ferocity of a Wendle with a grudge.
Bingo glanced round the room to see that there was no enemy, and there wasn't, alive. The bodies of a dozen or so vanquished Rumble Warriors littered the dark green carpet, all but covered in mounds of heavy books. Napoleon carried on with his work, unperturbed by Bingo's arrival, which he acknowledged with a curt nod. The Wendle had already pushed or levered over two or three of the huge bookcases and spilled the enormous volumes out across the floor. At the far end of the room one of the long library ladders was propped up to a grating of the ventilation system. Napoleon had prepared his retreat, but was not going to leave before he had caused the maximum amount of damage. The Wendle was nobody's fool.
Bingo watched as Napoleon pushed over a few more bookcases and the tomes cascaded down, covering more of the Rumble dead. He advanced, climbing across the treacherous surface of jumbled books.
"How are you getting on?" he asked.
"Nicely, thanks," said the Wendle, tersely, preoccupied, "and you?"
"I can't find mine anywhere. Where's yours?"
"Under that pile of encyclopaedias. Nice little fellow, didn't cause any trouble."
"How?" asked Bingo, adopting the same terse speech as the Wendle.
"He was at the top of a long ladder," explained Napoleon, pleased to tell the story of his name for the very first time. "I came to the bottom of it and said, very politely, 'Excuse me, are you Napoleon Boot Rumble?' and he said, 'Yes, I am.' So I says, 'Could you come down please, I have a word to say to you.' Bloke didn't even look at me, toffee-nosed little twit. 'Oh, no,' he says, 'I'm too busy. You'll have to wait. I'm looking for a book on Bowwible fighting methods, for the High Command—of which I am a member, I'll have you know. So be off.' So I says, 'You're coming down one way or the other, mate. Gravity is stronger than you are.' That was a remark that caught his fancy, must have, cos he looked at me then. 'Aaaaaagh,' he says, like they do, and drops his book, nearly hit me on the head, bloody dangerous, and he grabs hold of the top of the bookcase. At the same time I kicked the ladder away, so he's got nothing to stand on, has he? Well, the sudden increase of weight at the top of the bookcase made it wobble violently, so that gave me an idea. I runs round the back, up another ladder on the next bookcase and pushes with me sticker, and over went the whole lot, bookcase, books, Rumble and all. Goodnight, Napoleon Rumble. Splat!"
Bingo shook his head. "What a way to go."
"Overcome by the weight of his studies, you might say," said Napoleon and he smirked like a cold draught. "Got any matches on you?" he asked suddenly.
"What for?"asked Bingo.
"Don't be slow," said Napoleon, sighing. "Start a fire, of course, bit of mayhem, cover our retreat. Seen the others?"
Bingo told him what he knew.
"Aha," crowed the Wendle, nodding his head, "I knew that Knocker was up to something. Got a box, eh? That is money, that is. Well, we'll have to see about that, won't we?"
"We haven't got away yet," pointed out Bingo, reasonably.
"I'm getting out, mate," said Napoleon, indicating the ladder. "I'm getting into that ventilation shaft and no Rumble in the world is going to stop me leaving for home. Only two Rumbles can get at you at once up there, one in front, one behind. Any Borrible ought to be a match for a score of Rumbles and a Wendle can deal with twice that number."
"You do for these?" asked Bingo, indicating the prone Rumble Warriors.
"Well, they didn't commit suicide," said Napoleon. "Mind you, they only came into the place in fives and sixes. It was easy really, like falling off a . . . bookcase."
Bingo took a box of matches from his pocket and handed them to Napoleon. "It's a shame about the books. Are there any good adventure stories there?"
Napoleon gave him an old-fashioned look. "I haven't had a lot of time for reading in the last half-hour," he said, and he went over to a stack of books. He put a match to them and, dusty and dry, they burst into flames on the instant.
"What I mean," persisted Bingo, "is that it's a shame; they're sort of nice things, books."
"Nice things! You sound like a bloody Rumble. Can't have no half-measures in an attack like this, Bingo, got to go the whole hog or it don't work. What would happen if we left these books up here untouched? I'll tell you what, there'd be another Rumble High Command on the go in five minutes. This is what it's all about, sonny, power!" And he threw another book on the fire.
"I suppose you're right," said Bingo. "I never thought of it like that."
" 'Course I'm right," said Napoleon. "Now then, it's time for me to go home. Can't stand fires, water's my element. Are you coming?"
"Can't," said Bingo miserably." I told you, I haven't found my bloke."
"Tough, but I'm off. I want to see that Knocker; that money's not all his." Napoleon winked mysteriously and made his way from the fire, which was now burning well, and began to climb his ladder. "You could come with me, Bingo, and drop down through the ventilation system somewhere else. It's going to get very hot in this library very shortly."
"It's going to be hotter than you think," said Bingo. "There were two million Rumble Warriors chasing me down the corridor out there. They don't run very fast, do they—but they ought to be here at any moment."
Napoleon became immobilised on the ladder and looked down. "How many? You can't have that lot to yourself, that's greedy," and he came back down the ladder and threw a few more books on the fire.
They waited and the fire crept along the mounds of books and began to rise towards the high ceiling. Soon there was a noise of shouting from the tunnel beyond the green baize door and Bingo and Napoleon placed themselves within sticker-throwing range of the entrance.
"We'll let the first ones have it with these stickers," said Napoleon, "then we'll get behind that pile of books, there beyond the fire, and then let then have it with the catapults as they try to get in. When we're out of ammo, we'll scarper up the ladder, okay?"
"Right," said Bingo. He picked up a couple of lances from the floor and hefted one ready in his right hand. Two breathless Rumbles burst into the room together and Bingo and Napoleon threw their weapons as one man and the two Warriors fell.
Other Rumbles crowded into the room in a compact mass, urged and pushed on by their eager companions behind, and the two Borribles continued to throw spears until they had exhausted their meagre supply. Several Rumbles had been accounted for, but so great were their numbers, it was impossible to prevent them from spilling into the Library and taking cover behind desks and bookcases.
Napoleon and Bingo fell back and crouched behind an enormous pile of books, their catapults stretched.
"I've hardly fired a stone yet," said Bingo. "It's all been lance work."
Napoleon peered through the smoke that was rising from the energetic fire that lay between them and the enemy. "This smoke is going to help them to creep up on us," he said to Bingo. "That's not good." He broke off and fired a shot towards the door. "Look," he said, "there's scores of them coming."
Bingo saw that many more Warrior Rumbles were rushing into the room. They were led by a slim but powerful-looking Rumble, covered in sleek brown fur and with a hard expression on his dangerous-looking snout. He carried three or four lances and wore a sash of gold, green and white to denote his position as Commander of the Warriors. He looked proud and impatient and Bingo knew that at last he had found his target.
The Commander ran this way and that at the far end of the Library, gathering his forces and making them emerge from their hiding places between the fallen bookshelves. He shouted and waved his arms and slowly the Rumbles came forward, throwing lances at the two Borribles who crouched behind the pile of books, only standing up every now and then to fire a stone. Things would have gone very badly with the two Borribles if the Rumbles had been in possession of any reasonable number of lances, but most of their missiles had been thrown in a panicky fashion at the beginning of the skirmish. Now there was a great pile of spears on the Borribles' side of the room and there soon came a moment when Napoleon and Bingo could stand up in full view of their enemy because the Rumbles had no stickers left to throw.
With a sign, the Rumble Commander sent some of his troops off into the corridor to bring more weapons and the rest of his Warriors took up defensive positions amongst the bookcases and the piles of burning books. It was hard to breathe in the room now as the fire gradually gained a firmer hold and the smoke grew thicker. Some Rumbles tried to stamp or beat out the fire, but more often than not their fur was singed or caught fire and their friends had to come to their rescue and save them from being scorched to death.
Napoleon checked his bandoliers. "Not many stones left," he said. "How about you?"
"I've got a lot still, but they won't last for ever," said Bingo, and he fired a stone at a Rumble who was trying to creep along the side of the room to get at a stray lance. "But I can't leave now, I've got to have a crack at my target, and I'd better do it before his mates get back with a new load of stickers."
Bingo reached behind and picked up two sharp Rumble lances. He put his catapult carefully into his back pocket and went slowly down the long slope of books. The Warrior Rumble with the sash stood by the Library door, waiting for his men to return with more lances, for even he was weaponless.
Bingo leant backwards, arcing his body, and threw one of his spears with all his might. His name would have been won there and then had the High Rumble not chosen that moment to step into the corridor to see if his men were returning.
The sticker plunged deep into the green baize of the Library door and it hung there—humming. Bingo swore and grasped his second lance securely, but did not throw it, for there are two ways of fighting with the Rumble-stick. The first is simply to throw it from a distance; the second is to wield it like a quarter-staff until the fighter finds a moment to use the point and slay his stunned or unconscious foe. Bingo moved nearer to the door and the Rumbles fell back. He glanced over his shoulder to see that Napoleon had followed him, his catapult eager to dissuade anyone who thought they could intervene in the fight between Bingo the Borrible and Bingo the Rumble.
The High Rumble leapt back into the room, saw the advance of the two Borribles and saw too the lance, still singing in the door. He pulled it free with both hands and moved towards Bingo. They said no word these two, and no Rumble attempted to interfere; they watched from the safety of their hiding places, their snouts and eyes only just visible through the red smoke.
Bingo held his lance with a hand at each end, using the long haft to ward off blows from his adversary who began the contest by working his weapon like a two-handed sword, hoping to stun the Borrible and then spear him. But Bingo had learned his Rumble-stick fighting well all that time ago in Rowena Gym and he protected his head and shoulders and was content to defend himself, while he measured the style of his enemy, conserving his strength.
It was treacherous underfoot; the books slipped and tripped and burnt the feet. Whoever fell first during this fight would be hard put to it to rise again. Suddenly the Rumble changed his tactics and began jabbing consistently and forcefully, making Bingo avoid the blows like a fencer. The Rumble was an expert, perhaps the best lancer of his tribe.
"Just my luck," thought Bingo, and redoubled his efforts, but backwards and backwards his opponent forced him. The other Rumbles emerged from their hiding-places and hurrahed and some climbed up onto the bookcases and, holding on with one arm, they waved the other and jeered at the two Borribles so lonely and outnumbered.
Sweat was pouring down Bingo's face and into his eyes, and his arms were aching and his hands were bruised and bleeding. He dodged, he weaved, he ducked. He tried to remember all he had ever learnt about fighting with the Rumble-stick, but it didn't seem to be enough. He had managed to ward off most swipes and stabs so far but he had not struck a blow yet and his antagonist looked fresh and powerful and was smiling grimly down his snout, his red eyes shining with triumph as he bore down on the Borrible from Lavender Hill.
The battle passed far beyond Napoleon but the Wendle kept his position, holding the spectators at bay with his catapult, though he realised that if the Rumble did for Bingo he himself would have little chance of escape. Bingo too was aware of that eventuality and he strove all the harder, and he thought of his other friends and their long quest and all they had been through together. He had a brief mental picture of them being torn and rent to death by the sharp teeth of the Rumbles and the notion angered him and he stopped retreating. He stooped suddenly and allowed the Rumble's sticker to whistle over his head. He jabbed at his foe and at last wounded him in the knee.
The Rumble staggered and it was his turn to go on the defensive. Bingo thrust and fenced and fought, holding the lance now one-handed, now two-handed. They circled and struggled and still the fight went on and still Bingo found it impossible to get through his adversary's guard. But Bingo had had time to think; only cunning would win him this battle. So, still on the attack, pressing his namesake slowly back down the hill of books, Bingo tried a strategem. He pretended to stumble. He slithered a step, and, keeping a wary eye all the time on his opponent, he fell backwards, crying in pain for an imagined twisted foot.
The watching Rumbles cheered anew and Napoleon cursed his luck and moved nearer the ladder. He only had one chance, to climb out of the Library as quickly as possible while the Rumbles celebrated their victory. But Napoleon was sure of one thing: if that Rumble did for Bingo, he wouldn't live long to brag about it. He, Napoleon Boot, would make certain that a stone was rattling round inside the warrior's skull before his brain registered the triumph.
Bingo lay on the books, groaning and writhing, but his eyes kept still, watching the Rumble who, in his excitement, had not noticed that the Borrible, in spite of all his pain, had not relinquished his grip on the lance.
The Rumble stepped forward, a smirk spreading over the whole length of his snout. Quickly he raised his spear, ready to pierce Bingo's breast. He plunged it down hard, leaning on it like a man pushing a shovel. At that moment Bingo rolled over with a thrust from legs and hands. He came to his knees and, as the point of the Rumble's weapon embedded itself in the closed pages of some solid volume, he swung the shaft of his sticker and clouted the Rumble behind the ear. The animal fell back, his legs buckling. He half turned, as if to run, but Bingo's lance, still twirling above his head, struck the Rumble again and he fell to his knees. Then Bingo, slipping his grasp along the haft of his spear so that he could hold it like a sword, leapt upon the swaying figure of his enemy and bore him to the ground, and the four inches of steel found the warrior's heart.
The fire crackled in the room and the Rumbles groaned, hope gone with their greatest Warrior slain. The smoke swirled redder and redder in the draught between the door and the open ventilation shaft. Napoleon twisted his head and saw that his comrade, who he had imagined dead, was in fact rising from the prostrate body of the Rumble. Bingo swayed, his face was grimy and his clothes were torn. Blood was pouring down his left arm and down the side of his face where the Rumble spear had grazed his head, taken off his hat and cut his pointed ear. He was a sorry sight, blackened by soot, smoke and sweat.
"Are you all right?" called the Wendle, not taking his eyes from the Rumbles who stood motionless and saddened.
"Yes," lied Bingo, "fine, but I think we've outstayed our welcome."
Napoleon did not reply but went over to the body of the Rumble, removed the sash and placed it over Bingo's shoulders.
"There, Bingo," he said with a smile, "when you get home you can hang it on the wall and write underneath, 'Souvenir of Happy Days in Rumbledom'."
Bingo looked down at the trophy. "Here," he said proudly, "I've got my name. I hope everyone else has. . ."
They backed slowly up the mountainous pile of books, and the Rumbles made no attempt to stop them; they were leaderless and weaponless for the time being. The danger would come when the two Borribles mounted the ladder and the Rumbles could charge forward and repossess the lances they had thrown earlier. They would be able to pick the Borribles off as they climbed, or, more likely, they would overturn the ladder and spike their falling enemies on the raised barbs of their spears.
At the bottom of the ladder Napoleon and Bingo considered their situation. "Best thing would be to have one of us at the top first," said Bingo, "then he can cover the other while he climbs."
The Battersea Borrible had been greatly weakened by his battle and Napoleon could see that he was in no condition to sustain another fight should the need arise, so he sent Bingo to the top of the ladder first.
Bingo climbed slowly, like an injured snail. His head ached and there was only a faint grip left in his hands.
The hole in the ceiling seemed to get no nearer but he went on, taking care all the way. A fall from that height would be fatal. Looking down on the Library he saw a scene of chaos. The great bookcases were cast down and the once carefully classified books were strewn across the floor or had been built into redoubts by the Rumbles. The smoke was dense and lay across the floor in dirty wraiths and had crept up the walls towards the ventilation shaft. Bingo could see, from his high vantage point, scores of Rumbles looking at him from their barricades and from under the tables in the little alcoves. Their snouts were pointed upwards, greedily twitching for his blood. All that held them in check was the steady gaze of Napoleon Boot.
When Bingo neared the opening in the ceiling he stopped climbing and shoved his left arm over and under a rung. He took his catapult from his back pocket with his right hand, loaded a stone and stretched the thick black rubber, ready to fire at any Rumble that moved.
"All right, Nap," he called and the Wendle, with a last threatening look around the room, began to climb, fast, his catapult between his teeth. He had climbed barely a dozen rungs when there was a commotion in the corridor leading to the Library. Rumble Warriors, sent on the errand by their Chief, were returning, their arms loaded with lances. Their companions in the Library aroused themselves and emerged from their hiding-places and surged towards the ladder, calling loudly for vengeance.
Bingo shot his catapult as rapidly as he could, but hanging by one arm made it tedious work, and he was becoming terribly feeble. Rumbles were near to Napoleon now and lances struck the ladder by the Wendle's hands, one took a chunk of flesh from his leg. He slipped and almost fell. The Rumbles shouted but Napoleon gritted his teeth and pulled his body upwards even faster, and Bingo fired his catapult past his friend's head and broke many a Rumble's skull with stones from the banks of the Bluegate Gravel Pit.
But at last Bingo was forced to retreat into the ventilation shaft in order to give Napoleon a clear run through the trap. No longer worried by missiles from above, the Rumbles swarmed forward and they seized the ladder and yanked at it. The ladder shook and trembled and began to tilt, and it seemed that Napoleon would soon fall onto the deadly spearheads below. Bingo seized the top rung and pulled against the dozen or so Rumbles who were tugging with might and main from the Library floor, but, as Napoleon had said earlier, gravity was a force to be reckoned with and now it was on the side of the Rumbles.
Inside the shaft Bingo struggled and swore, bumping his head and knocking his wounds till the blood ran. Napoleon scurried upwards, hand over hand, not looking at the shining spears beneath him.
When the Wendle was a few rungs only from safety, the exhausted Bingo was almost lugged out of the shaft by a violent heave on the part of the Rumbles. Bingo managed to hold fast but he was now protruding, half in and half out of the trap-door. He wrestled with the ladder which was gyrating resolutely in an effort to shake Napoleon into space. A great shout went up from the Rumbles and the Wendle only stuck to the ladder by clinging with legs and arms together, but he still found time to spit directly downwards.
"You cross-eyed bunch of weasels," he yelled. "You swivel-eyed moles."
The Rumbles only pulled the harder, determined to drag the wretched Bingo back into the Library. The top rung was torn from his bleeding hands and Napoleon seemed about to sway away from his friend for ever. But Bingo held his arms out to Napoleon and, as the Rumbles threw the ladder down with a fearsome roar, the Wendle thrust his feet into space, floated on air for a split second and then grabbed Bingo's right arm with both his hands. He swung there, lances falling about him, and he looked up into the pained and desperate face of his fellow Adventurer.
"Don't faint now, Bingo," he cried. "I'll be skewered up like a pork joint if you do."
Bingo slipped and slithered in the narrow space, lucky that it was so narrow. Had the shaft been any wider the weight of Napoleon, dangling and trying to work his way up to the lip of the trapdoor, would have pulled them both down. Bingo wedged himself across the opening and, although the pain pierced his shoulder terribly, he allowed Napoleon to climb up his arm. When the Wendle had one hand on the trap-door Bingo shifted his grip a fraction and hauled Napoleon up and in and they fell together in a heap.
It took a long while for them to recover. They gulped deep breaths, though each lungful had more smoke than air in it, and they coughed and retched in dreadful spasms. At last Napoleon got to his hands and knees and peered cautiously from the hole. A dozen or so of the Rumbles were grappling with the ladder, attempting to get it upright. Others raced from the fiercely burning Library, instructing their comrades to run from room to room and along the corridors to guard against the escape of the two Borribles.
Napoleon roused the flagging Bingo. "Come on," he said tenderly, the first time that Bingo, or anyone else, had heard him talk in such a manner. "We've got to get you out of here."
"You'd better leave me," said Bingo, raising his head with an effort. "I can knock them off the top of the ladder as they come up. Give you time to get away."
"I'm not leaving you anywhere," said Napoleon firmly, "and I don't like it here, the air's bad. All you've got to do is crawl."
Bingo got to his hands and knees. "All right, I'll have a go. Which way?"
That was a problem. The shaft stretched away darkly on either side of the trap-door. Which way lay safety, if at all, they could not guess.
"Let's go the way the smoke is going," suggested Napoleon, "it might lead us out. If it don't, we'll suffocate."
So, coughing and spitting, their eyes smarting and running with tears, they moved along the metal tunnel, banging their heads from side to side, like ping-pong balls in a drainpipe.
Torreycanyon leant back against the armoured car and felt pleased with himself. He had caused enough mayhem to account for three adventures. The engine of the armoured car lay smashed to smithereens by the blows of an iron bar he had found amongst the tools. He had emptied dozens of petrol cans all over the workshops, saturating the work-benches and the shelves where the tools and spare parts were kept. Into the petrol tank of the car he had lowered a long length of rag and the petrol had soaked its way up and out. All he needed was a match and the whole place would go up like a bonfire and retard the Rumble war effort by a dozen years. But a match he did not have, his box must have fallen from his pocket somewhere.
During his work he had been interrupted by the Rumbles many times. The Warriors had forced the door and chivvied him back along the workshop with their lances, but Torreycanyon had taken a lid from a dustbin and used it as a shield. Not one lance had hit him, though he was cut in several places from near misses. He had defended himself like a lion in the garage area, just in front of the armoured car, and had beaten off many attacks. Scores of unconscious Rumbles littered the battle ground, others had crawled away to lick their wounds. Torreycanyon was almost content, all he wanted was one match so that he could add to the smoke that had drifted to him from the fires in the kitchens and in the Library.
He leant against the car, liking the solidity of it behind him. He was tired. Twenty yards away stood the Rumble Warriors, waiting for help, and more spears. It was only a question of time before they wore him out and captured or killed him, but all he could think of was his match; he wanted to go out blazing, like a firework. One match to that rag in the car and a touch of it to the floor and fire would spurt down the workshops quicker than a Borrible could run. He wouldn't care what happened to him then; perhaps he would be able to get away through the garage door. There was a red button marked, "Push once", but there might be more Rumbles on the outside, waiting. It would be dawn over Rumbledom, he reckoned; time to be going.
"One of you Rumbles nip off and get a match, will you? I want to pick my teeth." He leant on his iron bar and shifted the grip on the dustbin lid. He laughed aloud at his own stupidity. He hoped the others were safe out of it by now and not wasting time by joking with the enemy.
A sudden noise above his head made him spring into action. So that was why the Rumbles had been so quiet, they'd found a way to outflank him through he roof. If they came at him from two directions at once he wouldn't last long. He clambered onto the car and looked closely at the ceiling. A square flap was being lifted away. Torreycanyon glanced at the group of Rumbles standing by the workshop entrance. They hadn't moved. He swung the iron bar over his shoulder; if any Rumble put so much as a snout through that trap-door, he would swipe it flatter than a dead cat on a motorway.
The trap-door lifted and a hand appeared and took a grip on the underside and pulled it open to reveal a black hole from which thick smoke drifted. There was a coughing and spitting from the shaft and somebody was taking in large gulps of air. Torreycanyon prepared to strike.
"I'll give you cough and spit, you myxomatosed rabbit," he said, "you snouty old stoat."
The hand came out again and Torreycanyon lowered the bar. It was a small human hand, not a paw at all. On the other end of that hand must be a Borrible.
A begrimed and bloody face appeared. Its red-rimmed eyes blinked and the mouth was open, taking in as much air as it could, and then, very nearly suffocated and lifeless, the small body of Bingo flopped out like a filleted fish, and fell into Torreycanyon's arms.
Torreycanyon placed his comrade on one of the seats of the car and looked at the enemy. They were sidling nearer, so with a mighty and blood-curdling bellow he threw his iron bar and it skeetered and bounced across the concrete, sweeping the Rumbles' legs from underneath them. They retreated; they had had enough of this mad Borrible, and they did not want to take him on again until he was dropping with fatigue.
Bingo fluttered his eyelids and looked up. "Oh, Torrey," he groaned, "I'm so glad it's you. I couldn't go a step further, my knees are worn raw and my lungs feel like two smoked haddocks." And poor Bingo started coughing again.
There was another scrabbling noise above Torreycanyon's head and he drew his catapult and seized a stone from Bingo's bandolier. But he saw another hand and the head of Napoleon Boot soon followed it. He was in no better state than Bingo. His eyes were streaming and cuts from a dozen lance wounds had covered him in blood which in turn was covered in grime and grease and soot. His clothes were torn all over and his scuffed knees stuck out through large holes in his trousers. Torreycanyon helped him down and rested him on a seat alongside Bingo.
"Looks like you done all the fighting yourselves," said Torreycanyon, "and you're going to have some more to do, soon as you get your breath back."
Napoleon said nothing but lay gasping. Bingo, breathing a little easier, raised himself to a sitting position and looked over the twenty yards of body-strewn no-man's land to where the Rumbles stood.
"What are they waiting for, Torrey?" he asked.
"More ammo and more friends," answered Torreycanyon. "They've gone right off me."
"Have you any kind of a plan?" asked Bingo, a little dazed.
"Not half," said Torreycanyon. "Get out!" And in answer to Bingo's puzzled shake of the head he said, "There's a garage door here but I don't know if it opens; I suppose so. The trouble is I don't know what's on the other side. More Rumbles most like. It must be daylight, you know—very dodgy."
"It's the only chance we've got," said Napoleon, coming to himself and standing up, although he staggered violently. "There's no point in going back into the shaft, that would be certain death."
"Well, in that case," said Torreycanyon, "watch the bunnies while I get down and try the door. If they move, let them have it with your catapults. You're lucky to have a stone or two left, I haven't."
He jumped down onto the floor of the garage near to the huge sliding door. He approached the red button, licked his lips and looked at it as if trying to cast a spell. As his hand hovered in the air he turned suddenly to look up at Bingo and Napoleon.
"Here," he said sharply, "either of you Borribles got a match?"
Knocker stumbled on down the Great Door corridor, the weight of the box of money boring deep into his back. His muscles ached, the sweat poured from underneath his Borrible hat and down into his eyes, and the pungent smoke chafed at his lungs. Orococco led the way, scouting round every bend and corner and beckoning the others on. Vulge limped and staggered behind, supported by Adolf when the German was not fighting a rearguard action against the Rumbles who followed along the tunnel. When the lights went out they could feel their enemies come nearer and strike at them in the dark with the sharp points of their lances. Furry bodies brushed past and tried to separate them and bring them down, but they kept together and counter-attacked with such ferocity that the Rumbles suffered many casualties.
Without warning, Orococco stopped at a sharp bend in the tunnel and beckoned to Knocker. What Knocker saw made him drop his precious box and bound forward. About twenty yards further along the tunnel Sydney and Chalotte stood ringed by enemy warriors. They were backed into a kind of alcove in the corridor and a circle of steel-pointed lances held them in check. Their bandoliers were empty and they were fighting with captured Rumble-sticks against ten of their enemies and were obviously on their last legs. Their hats were gone and their hair was grimy with soot, hanging in stiffened strands over their lined faces. Chalotte's lance was broken and she used it like a dagger, flailing it about with a desperate fury.
Orococco and Knocker arrived together on the scene and struck the Rumbles from behind with lances they had scooped from the floor. They yelled and they shouted and the Rumbles fled into a side tunnel, thinking that the whole Borrible nation was at their heels. Three of their number lay on the ground and would fight no more.
Chalotte and Sydney leant against the wall and wiped the sweat from their eyes.
"One minute later would have been one minute too late," said Chalotte, breathless and shaking.
"I thought I'd never see the sky again," said Sydney. "How many of us left?"
"Just us," said Knocker, "and we aren't in good shape. The others have probably had it."
"Let's get on," said Adolf. "There's as many Rumbles behind as in front."
Sydney took up the rearguard with the German,
Chalotte marched up front with Orococco and the little procession moved on, fighting its way slowly towards the Great Door. Rumbles came thick and fast from the side tunnels as soon as the Borribles had passed and crowded along behind, just waiting for a favourable moment to attack. What lay ahead the Borribles dared not imagine. Even if Stonks was still guarding the way out there would be hundreds of Rumbles, all well armed, lying in ambush for them in the cold green grass of Rumbledom.
At last they came to one of the brick barriers that Stonks had built just inside the Great Door when he had captured it. Nothing of the barrier could be seen now. Most of it had been trampled and beaten down in some great fight. What remained was covered with the bodies of fallen Rumbles, piled one upon the other and reaching halfway to the roof of the tunnel. It was strangely quiet too and the Borribles stopped a few yards from the battlefield. Nothing moved before them and they looked at each other with wonder.
"I wonder if Stonksie is under that lot?" said Chalotte.
"He couldn't possibly have survived," said Knocker, dropping his box again. "He must have seen off hundreds of Rumbles. What an artist!"
"Well they don't look exactly lively," said Orococco, "so perhaps there isn't one between here and the door."
At that moment an enormous Rumble bounded over the broken barricade and scrambled towards them. He had a spear in each hand and hallooed and shouted in a muffled way.
"Anyone got any stones?" asked Knocker urgently, drawing his useless catapult. There was no answer.
"Those with spears up front," said Knocker, throwing the lance he held at the oncoming monster. He grabbed another spear from the floor and formed a line with Orococco and Chalotte. The great shambling Rumble came on with a strange lolloping gait. He was the largest they had ever seen and probably the strongest. Perhaps, thought Knocker, Stonks had done for these Rumbles they saw about them, and then this powerful creature had taken him from behind as he fought in the tunnel. But whatever had happened the mighty shape still bore down on them, fearlessly, gleefully.
At some distance from the line of Borribles, the giant Rumble stopped and waved the spears in his hands and danced from one foot to the other, then he turned in a circle and shouted happily. The muffled voice became a little clearer.
"A Borrible, a Borrible," shouted the Rumble. "Don't worry, it's me, Stonks. Stonks, you fools, I've kept the Great Door, oh, come on."
"Careful," said Knocker, "it must be a trick."
"It's no trick, Knocker," said the shaggy figure. "Look." And the great Rumble threw down his two spears and lifting two hands—and they were hands—reached behind his neck and fiddled with something. Then the hands got hold of the snout and pulled hard and the whole furry cloak fell away to reveal none other than Stonks, the Borrible. "There," he cried, dancing some more, "it's only me."
Astonished, the Borribles lowered their weapons and crowded up to their friend, all of them asking questions at once.
"Take it easy," said Stonks, delighted by their amazement. "I'll explain."
And he told them how he had captured the door with the sapling trick and they liked that. And how Torreycanyon had gone off into the tunnels alone while he, Stonks, thought it a good idea to stay and guard the door to secure a line of retreat, but before he did, he'd gone to find the Rumble door-keeper to make sure that he didn't recover and come back again. When he'd gone about three hundred yards he'd found the remains of the door-keeper all right but all that he could discover was the Rumble's skin. "A big coat with nothing inside, can't imagine what happened to the rest of him," he said to the others. "Perhaps there isn't anything inside them, who knows?" Anyway it had seemed to Stonks that it might help his defence of the Great Door, at least for a while, if he pretended to be a Rumble, and so he had donned the skin and it had worked very well, as they could see by the numbers of Rumbles lying about.
"I got so used to wearing the skin," continued Stonks, "that I forgot I had it on when you lot appeared. It was only when Knocker threw his sticker at me that I remembered. Anyway the door's in our possession, but I should think there's twenty Rumble Brigades on the other side of it."
Weary as they were the Borribles congratulated Stonks and patted him on the back and laughed again and again at his tale. Though their position was hopeless, it certainly helped to be told a cheerful story. Even Vulge limped forward, leant against the wall, wagged his head till it nearly fell off, and said, "Take the skin home and use it as a mat. It will look like one of those tiger rugs they have in posh houses sometimes."
They marched on over the barricades that Stonks had defended so valiantly and with so much cunning and came at last to the Great Door. Here they rested for a while and took stock of their situation. Behind the nearest barricade were gathering the hordes of Rumbles who had snuffled along behind them in the tunnels. They did not attack for they did not have to. They knew that sooner or later the Borribles would have to open the door and the Rumbles also knew that on the other side were hundreds more of their Warriors from other Bunkers, fresh and eager to fight. The Borribles would be caught between two fires and one by one they would perish, or be captured. Then would the Rumbles take their revenge. Knocker looked at his sorry and exhausted band. All of them were wounded to some degree, most of them had dried blood mixed into the dirt of their faces. There was no ammunition left for their catapults, so there was no chance of them carving their way through the Rumbles with well-aimed stones. They had as many lances as they could carry, for lances covered the floor all around the Great Door where Stonks had fought. But a lance could be thrown but once, or used at close quarters, and at close quarters they would be swamped by the sheer weight of numbers and they would be captured alive. Knocker shuddered to think what would happen to them. Furthermore, they had no food and nothing to drink. The longer they stayed where they were the weaker they would become. Their plight was grim.
From beyond the barricade the red eyes of the Rumbles watched, glowing, burning into the Borribles, hating them and yearning for their deaths. They began a low chant which rose louder and louder and was taken up by hundreds more beyond them, pouring down the tunnels, united and organised now for the final battle.
"Bite up the Bowwibles," they chanted. "Bite up the Bowwibles." And then there came a beating on the door and it trembled in its frame and the same chant was taken up outside and the door was smashed regularly now with some kind of battering ram, probably an old tree trunk rolled in from the fields of Rumbledom.
"Rest until they batter down the door," said Knocker, "then we'll have to fight."
"Well," said Vulge who was a little more rested and whose wound had been bound up again by Adolf. "At least we did it. We've taken five of their names—probably the whole eight, if we could hear the others tell their stories."
"Torreycanyon, Bingo and Napoleon," said Stonks. "I hope they're all right."
"Well, man," said Orococco, "we never expected to get right through the Adventure without losing someone."
The thumping on the door continued.
"It looks like we're going to lose everyone," said Vulge, leaning against the wall and feeling his shoulder with stiff fingers.
"Isn't it funny," said Chalotte, she was sitting on the floor with her legs stretched out in front of her, "isn't it funny, only a little while ago, we were doing our best to get into this place. Now we're inside and they are bashing the door down to get at us. Things do change round, don't they?"
The Great Door was beginning to loosen on its massive hinges; it wouldn't be long now before the door fell open and Rumbles mustered around the entrance to throw in their lances. The Borribles would have to fight back to back until they fell.
It was decided that Stonks and Knocker and Chalotte would defend the door while Adolf, Sydney and Orococco would man the barricade. Vulge would keep them supplied with weapons, lances or bricks. They all decided not to be taken alive, to endure the ignominy of capture, to be beaten, tortured perhaps, and worked to death as slaves with their ears clipped.
At length, when the door could stand no more attacks, Stonks quickly slid the bolts and undid the lock. The next blow from the battering ram encountered no resistance and the door toppled to the ground and six Rumbles and a tree-trunk fell through the opening. Three Borribles sprang upon them with lances and dispatched them before they could rise. So far so good, but looking beyond the doorway they saw a sight to shrink the heart of the bravest Borrible.
Dawn, grey and bleak, had spread across the dark green wetness of Rumbledom. The trees were black and leafless and their branches stirred roughly in a gusty and damp wind. Rain fell heavily and swirled in the stormy air like shreds of cloud come down to earth, but it was not the weather that caught Knocker's eye as he looked out. As far as he could see, across the foul morning, stood rank upon serried rank of Rumbles, the steel of their lances reflecting the cold light. They stood there, compact and unmoving, their fur plastered to their bodies by the rain, their snouts raised to a warlike angle. They neither shouted nor shook their weapons. They waited patiently for the Borribles to emerge and meet their end.
The Rumble troops were formed into sections, and as the battering-ram detail was conquered, the first section detached itself from the mass of the army and moved forward to attack the Great Door. Beyond them every Rumble was ready to advance, determined to win this battle, however pluckily the Borribles fought, and however long it might take.
Knocker swallowed hard, the biggest lump he'd ever swallowed. "Swipe me," he said to Stonks. "Rumbles for ever, and all armed."
"Tonight's 'Goodnight,' all right," said Stonks. "They've brought all their aunts and uncles this time."
The first Rumble section was within range now and it threw its missiles and retired. Another section ran forward immediately and threw their stickers. Knocker, Stonks and Chalotte pressed their bodies up against the side of the door and waited until the lances fell, then they ran out and cast two spears each at the departing warriors. Many of them perished, but the Rumbles could ignore these reverses, the next platoon was already speeding forward, their lances poised. With their advantage in numbers, the Rumbles could fight in this fashion for days, if need be; eventually the spears would take their toll and the defenders would be wounded and weakened. Then would the Rumbles sweep over them.
The Borribles retreated and took cover. Behind him Knocker could hear Adolf and Orococco and Sydney fighting for their lives; he saw the injured Vulge hobbling backwards and forwards between the two groups, gathering up as many lances as he could. On and on the battle raged, and more and more exhausted the Borribles became and still the Rumbles attacked. Before long all the defenders had been wounded at least superficially and Stonks received a lance thrust full in his thigh, and could no longer run in and out of the door, but threw his spears from the shelter of the hallway.
"Oh, for some stones," he kept muttering. "Oh, for a pile of stones as big as a house. I'd soon have my catapult twanging away like a banjo."
The Rumbles were nearer now. Their Warriors did not even bother to charge section by section, but stood their ground, throwing lances until they were wounded. Then another Rumble would step forward to take his fallen comrade's place. They fought with a silent hatred, and they did not lack courage. Knocker's arm was weary; he knew at last that he could not lift another spear, let alone throw it with any force.
"Knives out, lads," he said, and he and Stonks and Chalotte retreated into the hallway and found themselves back to back with Adolf, Sydney and Orococco. Beyond them Knocker saw hundreds of Rumbles, pushed along the corridor from behind by their bloodthirsty mates.
Vulge wedged himself into a little corner and wiped the long blade of his knife across his sleeve. "I like close work," he said and winced as the pain surged through his shoulder.
Then the Rumbles were all amongst them and there was a dreadful scrimmage in the hallway, but the attackers were not used to the kind of frenzied resistance put up by the desperate Borribles and under the cut and thrust of the knives they fell back momentarily.
"Oh, ho," yelled Adolf at the top of his voice. "This is cold steel and too close for comfort, eh? Adolf Wolfgang Amadeus Winston will account for at least a hundred of you. Come on! Come on! And he shouted and hooted and the others shouted and hooted with him, although their muscles ached and their eyelids smarted and the blood ran down their arms and legs from a thousand cuts.
But the Rumbles did not come again. Outside, where there had been a calm and cool dedication, was now all panic and shouts for help. Simultaneously, from the corridors came a surging waft of heavy air, followed by the muffled crump of a great explosion deep in the Bunker. A sheet of flame licked out of the tunnel, killing all that stood in its way. It touched but did not burn the battle-weary Borribles, but the blast of a solid wave of gas raised them from their feet and tossed them violently to the floor. The Rumbles in the Bunker had been silenced and the smell of singed fur and flesh floated over everything.
Stonks recovered first and getting to his hands and knees he crawled to the door. The Rumbles were still outside but a mighty swathe had been cut right through their ranks and the thing that had cut that swathe was a horse and cart. Sam was charging right through the massed Rumbles, and their fear of horses, their loathing of being munched up like a succulent truss of hay, had overcome their hatred of the Borribles and they had fallen back in panic.
"It's Sam," shouted Stonks to the others. "It's good old Sam."
Who knows what goes through the mind of a horse when he is left alone and is not working? Sam had spent the night dozing between the shafts of his cart and, when he had woken in the morning, he had missed the company and affection of the Borribles who had befriended him. There had not been a great deal of love in his life, none at all with Dewdrop, and he did not want to lose his new friends. He had munched a little grass but had found it dull and boring after the delicate flavour of the Rumble he had eaten, so he had pulled his cart to the edge of the copse and there he had gazed wistfully over the dank fields and sniffed. He hadn't smelt Borrible or even adult human but he had smelt Rumble. Sam had been tempted and had set off over the grass, he couldn't resist it. The smell had been so strong that he had imagined a whole meadow full of Rumbles and his imagination had been right. He saw the Rumbles, thousands of them, and with a snort and a stamp he had charged; the cart behind him had felt as nothing and the Rumbles melted away on his right and left. Then he heard a voice he recognised calling his name, calling it with thankfulness and love. Then more voices called out, and looking before him he saw his friends, penned into some kind of a hole set in the hillside, and all that lay between him and those friends were a few hundred Rumbles, so he charged again.
Knocker and the others crawled and dragged themselves to the edge of the Great Door and they saw a great clear road leading to the horizon. Sam came galloping down the slope and swung the cart round so it skidded to a halt alongside the doorway in a cloud of rain-spray.
"Oh," cried Sydney, tears of relief standing in her eyes. She ran to the horse and kissed him. "Good old Sam, you've saved us, all of us. Oh, Sam."
As quickly as they could the Borribles clambered into the cart. Vulge was pushed from below and pulled from above because his wounds had stiffened so much that he could not climb the cart-wheels unaided. Everyone was eager to get Sam on the move and escape to the streets; everyone that was except Knocker, who, with unbelievable single-mindedness, returned through the Great Door to retrieve the Rumble treasure box.
It was a foolhardy move. Smoke poured from the opening and the huge door-jambs were wilting and twisting under the effect of the immense heat. Once inside, Knocker found that the hallway was an inferno of flaming and falling timber; scorched bricks expanded and exploded from the walls like cannon shot. The Bunker ceiling drooped more every second as the whole Rumble edifice began to collapse, but Knocker heeded none of that and ran on, risking his life to get at the money.
Adolf and Orococco, against their better judgement, followed, not for the treasure, but to help Knocker if they could, for, in spite of his faults, they loved the chief lookout and were willing to risk their lives to save him.
Knocker came to the box all right, but he found it almost buried in fiery rafters and white-hot bricks. When he had kicked the box clear of debris, he discovered that it was incandescent, defiantly red and burning with a dangerous light. The handles were hot to the touch and the box itself would burn the skin of whoever tried to carry it, but Knocker grasped it and hauled the dreadful burden to his shoulders. The handle seared deep into the flesh of his palms and the brass-bound corners of the box smouldered through his clothing and down into his back. He staggered and slipped and Adolf caught him up and shoved him on towards the doorway that Knocker could not see in his pain.
Orococco yelled, "Over here, Knocker, damn you!" Then, "Watch out, Adolf!"
The warning came too late. A dying Rumble had risen to his knees unnoticed, and with a sticker in his grasp he fell against Adolf and brought him down. The German scrambled to his feet immediately, though the spear had snapped off in his right thigh. "Verdammt," he cried in agony and he pulled the broken shaft from his leg, kicked the Rumble in the head and killed him once and for all.
Orococco hurled Knocker from his path and ran towards the German who, blinded by the billowing smoke, was limping away from the heart of the fire.
"Adolf," he shouted, his heart breaking, "this way."
It was then that the ceiling of the hallway of the Great Door collapsed. With a roar like an avalanche the great red-hot timbers fell, bringing with them a lethal barrage of blazing stone. A molten, glowing wall reared up between Orococco and Adolf and the brave Totter was forced out of the smoking Rumble halls, his clothes aflame, his hair burning like a torch. Adolf was gone; lost in the heart of a volcano.
Once outside Orococco threw himself down and rolled over and over. Sydney jumped to the ground and beat him about the head to extinguish the flames that might have killed him. She helped him to his feet and he saw that Knocker, with the strength of a madman, was pushing the box up and into the cart. Chalotte leant over him, bashing at his smoking shoulders with the flat of her hand. An angry shout went up from the Rumbles. They had seen the box, and a shower of lances came over, some wounding the horse and making him lurch in the traces. Sydney and Orococco ran forward and, catching hold of the pain-crazed Knocker, they propelled him angrily aboard. Then Stonks stretched out a hand and helped them as they climbed up the spokes of the wheel.
"Where's Adolf?" screamed Chalotte. "Where's Adolf?"
"He's had it," said Orococco, his face tight with anguish. "The roof came down. I couldn't get to him. There's nothing we can do; we'll have to go. Nothing could live in there, nothing."
"You mean Adolf's been killed all because of a bloody box?" said Stonks. "What the hell's in it, anyway?"
Knocker jumped to his feet. "It's the Rumble treasure," he shouted, his eyes shining strangely with pain and something else. "It's money."
The others looked at him in horror and they knew then that Knocker had had a mission all along and hadn't told them; that Spiff had sent him to steal this treasure and take it home—and that for Knocker nothing else mattered.
"It is a bad thing, that box," cried Chalotte, "it has killed Adolf and will kill more of us. It's bad luck; throw it overboard."
"Yes," said Orococco, "that is enough. The Rumbles might let us go easier if they see we leave the money. We've done what we came to do. Let's get off while we still have a chance."
"No," roared Knocker, his hand falling to the bloody knife at his belt. He looked wild, his hat was gone and his hair swung over his eyes. "You've all got your names, but I will get a second one if I can get the box back to Battersea. It's going with me, I tell you, and I'll kill anyone who tries to stop me." And to put an end to the argument he picked up a stone from the bottom of the cart and threw it hard at Sam's hind-quarters and, with no need for guidance, the brave horse bore the Adventurers away from the shattered remains of the Great Door.
The Rumbles had been terrified by the precipitate arrival of Sam and his cart and had retreated in panic, but when they saw the treasure carried from the Bunker they were roused to action and advanced en masse to prevent, even now, the escape of the Borribles.
They were wary of approaching the horse from the front but they did not scruple to run at the cart from the side and throw their lances with all the strength they could muster. The bravest of them ran alongside and tried desperately to climb on board, and some threw lances at Sam, hoping to wound him, to injure a leg or a hoof. But things had changed in favour of the Borribles. Inside the cart were the hundreds of stones they had loaded earlier, and this godsend was nearly as important as the arrival of Sam himself. Now the Borribles took out their catapults to fire broadsides of stones with telling effect and the Rumbles, though attacking constantly, were forced back to a respectful distance.
Sam pulled the cart along by the side of the hill that covered the Bunker. The ground pitched and rolled beneath his hooves, as explosions and fires continued to devastate the Rumble stronghold. A hundred plumes of yellow smoke were hanging foul against the sky, misshapen and forlorn, like the clouds of burning dust above a hundred London crematoria. The heart of the Rumbledom empire had been consumed by a mysterious detonation and it would be many years before it could be repaired and rebuilt.
Sam headed into the dense mass of Warriors and they brandished their spears in fury. One slip from the horse under the onslaught of those flying lances and the escape would be over.
"Keep going, Sam," prayed Knocker, "as fast as you can."
But Sam veered suddenly, so violently as almost to tip the Borribles overboard.
"Hey, what's going on?" shouted Stonks.
"I don't know," cried Knocker, "it's Sam . . ." He broke off and stood up in the driver's seat. "Look, look," he yelled, "over there."
Over there was back towards the hill they had just left with such difficulty and danger and Sam, for good reasons of his own, had decided to turn in that direction.
"Now, we're really in the cart," said Orococco.
There was a shout from the Rumbles and they too looked back towards the Bunker and then they ran to intercept the Borribles for they had seen a chance of victory. On the edge of the hillside, in the centre of an embattled gateway, at the very core of the explosions, three figures had appeared, silhouetted against high flames that leapt and danced behind them. Unless they were rescued within a minute or two, Torreycanyon, Bingo and Napoleon would be forced to retreat into the fire or die on the spears of the enraged Rumbles.
Knocker urged Sam to a gallop. "Oh, come on, Sam," he pleaded. "Oh, Sam, run, run, or we'll be too late. No more to die, not now, not now!"
The horse galloped on and the Borribles crowded to the front of the lurching cart, firing forwards and sideways to keep their enemies beyond lance range of the horse. Sam neighed as loudly as he could and the Rumbles fell back in dismay under his second onslaught, robbed yet again of the Borrible blood they had hoped to spill.
When Sam skidded and slid to a halt before the burning garage only Torreycanyon was able to get into the cart without help. Bingo and Napoleon, weakened by the wounds they had sustained in the Library, and their insides demolished by the near-suffocation of their trip along the ventilation shaft, had to be manhandled aboard. They fell into senseless heaps over the unconscious form of Vulge, and they knew nothing more until several hours later.
Knocker wheeled the fearless horse about once more to face the enemy troops, but courage was deserting the Rumbles. They knew now that their High Command had gone and there was no real cohesion in their ranks. Their principal Bunker had been completely ruined and was in flames about their ears. The workshops, the armoured car, the laboratories, the Library, the kitchens, the dormitories—the whole structure had been dismantled and their best warriors killed, slain in single combat or vanquished by stealth and cunning. They had tried everything and they had fought well but they had perished beneath wheels and hooves or they had been struck down by the unerring aim of the Borrible catapults. Demoralized, they fell back, and though they kept pace with the cart they kept well out of range and their numbers thinned as Sam cantered to the very confines of Rumbledom and to the main road that bounded it.
Sam halted. It was rush hour on a cold, wintry morning. The cars and buses zipped along the wet road, sending up a fine spray over the Borribles. Not one adult could be seen walking anywhere and no one seemed to have noticed the great battle. The Borribles gathered at the end of the cart and held on to the tailboard; even Knocker left his seat and came back to look. There in the falling mist and swirling rain stood several hundred Rumbles, leaning despondently on their spears. They could come no further; in the streets they would be recognised and caught. The Borribles had eluded them, sorely wounded it was true, but still they had escaped. Now the Rumbles would have to return to their shattered Bunker and salvage what they could.
The Borribles did not cheer, did not wave their catapults aloft, they simply watched as the Rumbles turned slowly and melted away between gorse bushes and trees, or went down into the hollows or up over the hillsides, until there was nothing to be seen but the blue-grey rain blurring the outlines of the black and green of Rumbledom. There might never have been a Rumble on the face of the earth and sadness filled the hearts of the victorious Borribles.
"Oh," sighed Chalotte, blinking, "I wish there'd been some other way."
"Maybe there was, maybe there wasn't," said Torreycanyon. "One thing is sure, once we got in there, we had to fight like the clappers to get out. They ain't so soft."
The moment of reflection was ended by Sam who saw a gap in the traffic and set off across Parkside and passed into Queensmere. The Borribles were heading into the broad calm of the residential area where Dewdrop had taken them stealing. They were safe from Rumbles now, but if the bodies of Dewdrop and his son had been found, the police would be looking hard for them, and of course, Sam.