Carbonel and Calidor

24. The Battle of Tucket Towers

‘WHY in the world doesn’t Calidor come?’ whispered Rosemary anxiously. ‘It’s after moonrise. But even if Carbonel won’t let us help, at least we can try to rescue Dumpsie from the Scrabbles. Come on.’

Together they hurried down to the gallery, pausing at the bottom of the spiral staircase just long enough to take in that Carbonel stood alone at the top of the stairs leading down to the hall, and that Grisana crouched a few steps below, staring up at him through half-closed eyes with bristling back and flattened ears. The hall below was a shifting, jostling mass of Broomhurst cats.

‘There’s only one door open on the landing,’ whispered John, peering cautiously out. ‘Dumpsie must have dashed in there. Come on, quickly, while they are all staring at Carbonel. Keep in the shadow.’

They slipped unnoticed out on to the gallery, and keeping close to the wall crept round to the open door. It led into a bedroom. By the light of the moon which flooded through the wide window, they saw the Scrabbles, massed in a semicircle at the foot of a four-post bed, gazing upwards. Peering down from the safety of the roof of the bed was a pair of shining green eyes.

‘Dumpsie?’ cried John. ‘Is that you?’

‘Are you all right?’ asked Rosemary anxiously.

‘Give or take a handful of fur, as good as ever I were,’ replied Dumpsie. ‘I told you as Scrabbles can’t climb. But I don’t think I’ll come down till you’ve got rid of ’em.’

‘That’s all very well, but how?’ asked John.

‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure,’ said Dumpsie, in an off-hand way. ‘I’ve done my share.’

‘And super bravely too!’ said Rosemary.

‘If I got a chair I could lift you down,’ said John.

The Scrabbles, twittering and squeaking among themselves, watched him suspiciously with their back eyes, while never ceasing to stare up at Dumpsie with their front eyes. As he turned to fetch a chair, with surprising speed a number of them detached themselves from the main body and quickly enclosed him in a circle, muttering angrily, and bouncing up and down on their bandy legs. When he tried to move, one of them nipped him sharply on his ankle.

‘Ow!’ said John. Not to be outdone, he tried to jump over the ring of Scrabbles. But even this did not work. Because they could see both ways, and move both ways with surprising speed, they had already judged exactly where he would land, and he came down in a circle of the creatures, already formed to receive him. They were squeaking now in a lighter key. Could it be with laughter, wondered Rosemary? But John was very far from laughing.

‘Now I suppose I’m as stuck here as Dumpsie is up there,’ he said. ‘You’re the only one left, Rosie. It was you tinkering about with magic that brought the things alive. Can’t you do something about them now?’ He knew this was unfair as he said it.

‘I might be able to,’ she replied thoughtfully. ‘Not with magic though.’ She turned to the creatures, who watched her with unwinking shining eyes. ‘Scrabbles, do you remember it was me who wished you out of your holes in the road?’ A chorus of squeaks greeted this. ‘Well, so far, the holes you came from are still empty, but tomorrow a man is coming to fill them up with new studs. If that happens, you will be homeless, with nowhere to go to when all this is over!’

At this the Scrabbles forgot both their prisoners, and joined together in one agitated twittering, squeaking crowd. Shriller and shriller they grew, then, as though they had come to some agreement, suddenly fell silent, and without a sound, save the pattering of their paws, turned, and streamed out of the room. When John and Rosemary reached the door to peer after them, they had already disappeared.

‘Down the back stairs, I suppose,’ said John. ‘Phew! I’m glad that’s over. I’m sorry if I was beastly.’

When they turned back into the bedroom, Dumpsie had already jumped down from the four-post bed.

‘Them Scrabbles!’ she said. ‘Useful it must be, having no backwards.’

‘Look out, Rosie!’ said John suddenly. A cloud had drifted over the moon, and in the momentary darkness she had nearly stepped backwards into a large bowl filled with water, carefully arranged on a towel in the middle of the floor.

‘What a dotty place to leave it!’ said John.

‘I believe it’s Gullion’s bath, it’s a silver bowl!’ said Rosemary. ‘Just look at all those scent bottles lined up behind! Lavender, Musk, Violet ...’ With a spurt of laughter she read the labels, picking up each bottle in turn.

‘What? No Toad of Cologne?’ said John, and they both began to giggle, but a blood-curdling ‘Miaowk!’ outside cut their giggling short. They dashed to the door again. Carbonel still stood at the top of the stairs, but Grisana, slinking low, had crept up another step.

‘My ancient enemy Carbonel!’ she hissed. ‘The Witch-Woman lied to me. She promised that when the moon rose, is she set you free, you would walk unsuspecting into my trap!’

‘It is no fault of hers I did not,’ said Carbonel, looking down at her disdainfully. ‘But we have changed places. She is now the prisoner, and I am free!’

‘Free?’ repeated Grisana, and she laughed an ugly, bubbling cat-laugh.

‘You are on enemy ground and alone, have you forgotten? With the fiercest of Broomhurst fighters surrounding Tucket Towers to cut off your escape.’

‘I challenge the fiercest fighter of them all to single combat!’ cried Carbonel. There was a stirring and a muttering among the cats below.

‘Splodger! Splodger!’ yowked Grisana. ‘Do your duty!’ And the animal with black and orange patches they had seen at the bookshop, came loping up the stairs. She drew back and he paused for a moment on the step below Carbonel, his powerful body wriggling low as he prepared to leap. Then he hurled himself on his enemy. Locked together, spitting and struggling, they rolled and tumbled about the gallery, fur flying everywhere; Grisana urging Splodger on, and the Broomhurst cats streaming up the stairs with wild cries of encouragement.

‘At him!’

‘Pull him down!’

‘Roll him over!’ they cried. The two fighting animals separated and closed again and again, but at last, with a swinging blow, Carbonel sent Splodger rolling, vanquished, down the stairs. There was a howl of fury from the Broomhurst cats.

‘Avenge your comrade!’ called Grisana. ‘Defend your Queen!’ And the crowd of cats, who needed no encouragement, surged up the stairs and hurled themselves on Carbonel. He disappeared under an avalanche of cats, who clawed and tore each other in their eagerness to get at their fallen enemy.

‘You cowards!’ yelled John. ‘He’s one against the lot of you! Carbonel won his single combat in fair fight!’

‘Oh, why doesn’t Calidor come?’ cried Rosemary desperately.

‘Hark!’ said Dumpsie, whose cat’s ears, so much sharper than those of humans, heard something in the distance.

‘Cease your fighting!’ yelled Grisana, who had heard it too. ‘Stop, I say!’

And stop fighting they did, one by one, until Carbonel flung off the remaining half-dozen cats and rose to his feet, battered and torn, but with his old dignity undimmed.

‘Be quiet when I command, and listen!’ called Grisana.

Complete silence fell on Tucket Towers, but far away, nearer and nearer, came the sound of what most humans would have thought nothing but the moonlight caterwauling of idle cats.

‘What is that?’ said Grisana uneasily.

Carbonel stood alone, shaking each paw in turn to see they were all still in working order. Then he said lightly: ‘That? It is the Marching Song of the Fallowhithe Alley Cats.’

‘With Calidor at their head!’ added Dumpsie. And this is the song they sang:

Who so quick with the unsheathed paw?

With a miew and miawk and a yowl!

With wits as sharp as each curving claw,

With a miew and a miawk and a yowl!

Who but the Alley Cats? Who but we?

Wandering far and scavenging free,

With a miew and a miawk and a yowl!

Who so silent on padded feet?

With a miew and a miawk and a yowl!

Who so invisible, who so fleet?

With a miew and miawk and a yowl!

Lords of the dustbin and messy back-yard,

A fig for the hearth-rug cat’s snooty regard!

With a miew and a miawk and a yowl!

And the last ‘yowl’ of the refrain of each verse was sung with a blood-curdling yell, that struck fear into the very whiskers of their enemies.

‘Fallowhithe animals?’ hissed Grisana. ‘My hand-picked warriors are a match for any common alley cats! Off with you, my brave Broomhurst Brigade, and fight them to the death!’

Without a sound, the swarming animals turned and streamed down the stairs and out into the moonlight, followed at a suitably safe distance by their Queen.

‘Are you hurt, Carbonel?’ cried Rosemary.

‘Not so badly that I cannot greet Calidor and my brave army, and lead them into battle!’ he said, as he limped down the stairs.

‘If only we could help!’ said Rosemary. John shook his head.

‘I know. I’d give anything to do something, but don’t forget what Carbonel said: “This must be my war. Cat against cat, and claw against claw.” We shall just have to watch what happens from the window here. You never know. There may be something we can still do.’

They were just in time to see the two armies join battle. They met with such force that they seemed to merge in one heaving, spitting mass.

‘However can they tell which cats are which?’ said Rosemary.

‘Easy. They smells different,’ explained Dumpsie shortly.

‘And now there’s such a blur of drifting fur that we can’t see anything properly,’ went on John.

When it cleared, the Alley Cats had disengaged, and were racing round and round the ring of Broomhurst animals who in turn encircled Tucket Towers. At a sudden word of command from Calidor, they charged once more. Over and over again they repeated this manoeuvre, with the Broomhurst cats growing more and more bemused as the attacking force raced round them faster and faster, giving no warning of where or when they would make their next assault. Gradually, one by one, the Broomhurst cats dropped out of the fight.

‘Look!’ whispered Rosemary suddenly. ‘Grisana has come inside again. What is she coming upstairs for?’

‘Melissa is following. Shut up and listen.’

‘Mama, where are you going?’ asked Melissa anxiously. ‘Surely you aren’t running away too?’

‘Running away? Never! But our army can’t hold out much longer. We shall be surrounded by our enemies and put to shame. There is only one chance, the Witch-Woman and the creature Gullion. So unfortunate that I have made it clear that I dislike toads, but perhaps they could be persuaded to do something to help by their magic arts ...’

She began to walk wearily towards the spiral staircase.

‘How on earth can we stop her?’ said John desperately, turning to Rosemary. But she was not there. ‘Rosie, where on earth are you?’

As he spoke she burst out of the bedroom behind him, staggering under the weight of the large silver bowl. Just as Grisana reached the bottom of the turret stairs, with all her force Rosemary flung the water over the hurrying cat.

For a moment the sodden animal stood looking up at her, water streaming from every hair and whisker; then with a screech, she turned and raced down the stairs, through the hall and out of the door, followed by Melissa.

John and Rosemary leapt down the stairs after them, two at a time, out into the moonlight, just as the ring of Broomhurst animals finally broke. Seeing their dripping queen streaking for home, with a forlorn wail, they streamed after her, followed by the mocking laughter of the Alley Cats.

‘Shall we go after them?’ asked Calidor.

‘No,’ said Carbonel. ‘Let them go. They fought well, and our quarrel is not with them, but their queen. She will give no more trouble after this.’