Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson Page B

into, afore thee be seen by Devils.’
    The Mammoth turned and shuffled off towards an open culvert in the bank. Silver couldn’t contain her curiosity. She stood up and looked down on to the muddy stretch where the river lapped, and the second she looked down, the boy looked up. He was the oddest-looking boy you ever saw.
    ‘Do you laugh at me?’ he said.
    ‘No,’ said Silver, ‘course not.’
    But before either of them could say anything else, they heard a shrill whistle, like at the start of a football match, and then the sound of running feet.
    ‘Dive!’ shouted the boy, disappearing. ‘Devils!’
    Silver looked round, and saw that Abel Darkwater was behind her, with Sniveller dressed in a policeman’s uniform, but a very old-fashioned policeman’s uniform. His feet were still bare and he was carrying a cage with a blanket in it.
    ‘Put the child in the cage,’ commanded Darkwater, and before Silver could run or fight, she found herself upended by Sniveller’s wiry arms and thrust inside the metal bars.
    ‘Got her this time, Master, snug as a bug in a rug.’
    ‘Let me go!’
    Abel Darkwater laughed and put his face near the bars. His eyes were like two deep wells with faint lights at the bottom. Silver felt herself going dizzy.
    ‘I knew you would come here, to this very river, to this very spot. You can’t help yourself finding the way.’
    ‘I don’t know where I am,’ said Silver, weakly now.
    ‘Oh yes, Silver, yes you do, though you do not. The Thames is an old river, a dirty river, centuries have been pumped into it. The ancient Britons lived by its waters, and fought the Roman armies as they drew slowly up the river from Gravesend. Elizabeth the First sailed down this river to greet your ancestor Roger Rover at Deptford.
    ‘Now it is your turn, Silver. We are going on a boat journey together, and whether or not you ever return will depend on what you tell me about the Timekeeper.’
    ‘I haven’t got it!’ Silver jumped back to life, shaking the bars. ‘I keep telling you I haven’t got it. I don’t know where I am and I don’t know where it is.’
    ‘But you will lead me to it. I am certain, oh yes, very certain. Sniveller, pick up the cage and carry it down to the water, and signal for the boat.’
    ‘Help!’ shouted Silver. ‘Help!’
    ‘There is no one to hear you,’ said Abel Darkwater.
    But there was someone to hear her. Out of the darkness flew a figure of fury followed by half a dozen yapping dogs who set on Darkwater and Sniveller, biting and snapping, while the feet-flying, furious odd boy wrenched open the cage door and pulled Silver out.
    He grabbed her hand and together they ran over the rough ground until they came to a manhole with its cover half off.
    ‘Down!’ said the boy. ‘Fast as a flea.’
    Silver did as she was told and the boy followed her, pulling the lid over them.
    ‘My dogs will come down the Swan Hole,’ he said.
    ‘I can’t see anything,’ said Silver. ‘What swan hole? ‘Where are you? Where are we?’
    There was a groping noise, then a flaring sound, and suddenly Silver could see everything by the light of a makeshift torch that seemed to be rags wrapped round a pole and soaked in paraffin. They had plenty of paraffin heaters at Tanglewreck, so she knew the smell.
    There was the boy; about four and a half feet tall, heavily built, wearing a dirty blue coat fastened here and there by brass buttons, over a collarless shirt. His legs were in knee breeches, like the ones Sniveller wore, and he had no socks under his big heavy laced-up boots. His hands were like the front feet of a mole; spade-square with thick fingers. He had black hair, a very pale face, big moony eyes, and,
this was it, this was the thing
, he had the biggest ears on either side of his head that Silver had ever seen on a human being.
    If he was a human being …
    The boy watched her looking him up and down, and then he said again, ‘Do you laugh at me?’
    ‘No,’ said