The Terror Time Spies (19 page)

The three men, following its course, noticed the boys listening now and Guttery glared, so Hal and the others passed on hurriedly down the deck.

“A Plot,” said Francis though, slipping his book safely away, “that’s just what Snareswood said too.  What plot though, Hal?”

“Mabye there’s really Frenchie spies on board then, ‘aitch,” said Skipper, making a large fist.  “Or Frenchie Double Agents.  English ones too.”

“Then keep your ears open, and your eyes peeled,” said Hal,  “If one of them’s a spy, we should spot him easy enough.  It’s our job now, as Terror Spies too.”

The terrified spies began to look around at the other passengers, although the lads really had no idea how to spot a spy at all.

All of the other nervous travellers, whether spies or mere innocents,  adults at least, soon had something else to worry about though; the storm that came raging from the South, turning the calm English Channel to a growling sea, with waves as big as little cliffs. 

The Spirit was thrown about on it like a cork and around the ship, an hour later, the quickly sickening younger travellers were trying to shelter from the tempest.

“I want to die, H,” groaned Francis, as he finished being sick over the side again.  Francis ducked back from the soaking deck, towards a little makeshift cabin, only big enough for three.

Henry and Skipper were huddled there together, shivering miserably.  The storm was raging now, as Hal fancied he heard the occasional hooting around them.  Hal had no desire to look for Armande though, because he was feeling dreadful too, although, as leader, he was trying his hardest not to show it. 

Skipper Holmwood was as silent as a tomb, under his huge dripping hat.

“How long’s the crossing, F?” groaned Hal, thinking that the scientifically minded Francis would surely know.  “How long til we’re safe in France?”

Francis scrunched up his freckled face, doubting it was safety that awaited them there, and thinking of death too, but it was too wet to try and do some sums now.

“Depends on the wind, tides, and currents,” he answered, “things like that.”

“Yes, F, and the sails…Ooooooohhh.”

Henry lurched up and went outside to throw up as well. 

As he did so, Count Armande St Honoré, who had indeed safely navigated the thick anchor rope the night before, shinning up it like a Powder Monkey, was huddled miserably under a canvas tarpaulin himself, among a pile of sliding crates, feeling nothing like the Ninth Count of St Honoré at all. 

His curl of black hair was dripping down his forehead and his thick, wolfish eyebrows were streaming.  Armande had been hooting, but now the French lad had stopped and he felt truly desperate. 

Not just because of the dreadful storm either, but because Armande realised that every gut-churning lurch of this English boat was taking the Count closer to France, and the greatest peril he had ever faced in his young life.

Armande had felt some considerable courage among the others, but now, isolated and all alone, that had evaporated, despite his desperate desire to prove his leadership.   He had no papers and if this boat didn’t sink and drown them all, no idea how he would ever get ashore in Calais.  Besides, poor Armande was the very thing those murderers had started a Revolution against:  An aristo.

Meanwhile Henry B had not thrown up on deck, but now he stood at the rail, facing out to sea,  feeling so seasick that he felt dizzier than he had trying Skank’s cider. 

The skies had grown so dark it felt like night, as the ship bucked and tossed in the storm and the wind scoured the sails.  Lightening flashed on the horizon, forking and cutting the sky in half, as Henry wondered if they would ever make it to France at all. 

Under his dripping shirt, Hal found himself twiddling the dial nervously though, on his Patent Revolutionary Time Piece, flicking that little catch, that did nothing at all.   It rather irritated him and Henry  could not see that he had just moved the symbol of a Cloud to Twelve,  thinking of France and whether the Devil was really abroad there.

Suddenly there was a deep orange glow all around him and the most shattering crash, as giant lightening bolts tore the skies, and the black rain clouds in the heavens seemed to billow before him, like tidal ways. 

As Henry watched in horror, just like the fire in the Eagle, the very sky seemed to rip apart. 

“What the..?”

Henry gasped, seeming to see stars through the storm itself, except that they were in the clouds.  Henry felt like he often had, lying on his back in the soft grass by the little lodge and looking up at the immense night skies, although they seemed before him now, in the middle of the day.

Yet this stormy sky was filled not only with stars, but strange coloured lights; blues and reds, greens and shimmering yellows.  Among them the water seemed to lift from the ocean in reverse lightening bolts and spiral straight upwards. 

Henry Bonespair’s eyes were boggling, as water lashed his face.

“How the…” he cried, with a shudder, “What’s going on?”

Strange stings of water and light seemed to be weaving in and out of each other now, spiralling up into the blackness of outer space beyond and suddenly Henry Bonespair thought he heard a ticking too, very loudly in his ears, just like some enormous heavenly clock:  A gigantic, celestial clock.

Hal jolted violently.  Now he fancied that he could
see
a clock, there in the distance of the stars, the most gigantic clock face.  As Hal watched it, the numerals themselves seemed to come to life, and there were the Pimpernels themselves, looking like little black mice, running around its face, to escape its huge moving hands. 

Time itself seemed to be chasing the Pimpernel Club right around the dial.

Henry Bonespair slapped his own face in the rain and shook his head furiously, feeling as if the entire world was spinning around him, as the boat jumped, bucked and ploughed forward, but now the watch itself seemed to melt before his eyes and then it turned into a huge face:  A human face, hanging there in the skies.   It was impossible.

Henry Bonespair sprang back from the rail, remembering what that gypsy had said of his being marked, and The Evil Eye being on him.  There in the raging black heavens, was a man in a Lord’s wig, or a Judge’s, except that it was black too, and he was peering down from Heaven, instead of that clock face. 

Henry looked back and nearly screamed, as the skin on that cruel face seemed to drip off it, and it suddenly turned into a laughing skull, the laughter like that horrible laughter in his dream. 

Henry’s hands were trembling with shock and he happened to have moved the dial again, and dropping the Chronometer, he clutched for dear life onto the boat rail. 

Like a wave crashing in on itself, the clouds closed once more and the terrible face was gone, as the freezing rain lashed down.  Before Henry Bonespair was nothing now but the English Channel and the terrible prospect of Revolutionary France.

“Sickness,” groaned Henry, feeling dizzier than ever, and turning back desperately to the others now. “It must be sea sickness, I reckon.  Or I’m going mad.”

Poor Hal suddenly wished he was safe back home, but he had decided to say nothing of his strange visions to the others.  Perhaps it was just the strain.

As the Leader of the Club went, Armande St Honoré had just crawled forwards and lifted the edge of the sodden tarpaulin, but as the howling, soaking wind rushed in, something wet clamped itself onto his soaking face. 

Armande sat back in his hiding place and peeled the nasty soggy thing away distastefully, surprised to see that he was holding a bit of soaking newspaper, carried out of the hands of that Anglais journalist by the wind.

As runny black ink bled across his fingers Count Armande saw some news headlines in English, but one torn section in particular  caught his eye:

     
ISAAC HARRISON SENT TO BED_

Isaac Harrison, cousin of the celebrated Master of Longitude at sea, has this day been incarcerated within Bedlam Mental Hospital, in Kennington, London, for his own safety.   Late on Saturday he was found raving in his laboratorium, speaking of strange visitors, dimensions, and was even heard to say “Time? It does not really exist, Sir.  Tis just an invention, like anything else.” It is understood the poor fellow is not only now completely insane, but almost totally blind too, after long, lonely years working with the minute intestines of his cousin’s famous clocks.

Armande St Honoré of course understood very little of this, but he thought of Hal’s Patent Revolutionary Time Piece and managed the words
‘Longitude’
and ‘
Mental
’.   The Count wished now that he knew what the right time was, and when the horrible lurching would ever stop.

The storm seemed to go on for half the day and it was clear that it had delayed the progress of the brave Endeavour, but at last the clouds broke and the sea, whipped into its angry tumult by the vagaries of the wind, settled.

It must have been close to mid afternoon when the leader of the Pimpernel Club, still wondering what on earth he had really seen in the clouds and the heavens, snatched Francis’s telescope, the right way round, stood on the deck more firmly and pointed straight ahead. 

“Look,” he cried, aiming his forefinger at the very jagged coastline, nearing them rapidly, “Revolutionary France.  We’re here.”

Henry Bonespair had just sighted land and now the Club felt sick again.  The true terror was at hand.

“In which our real rivals meet at last, a spy reveals himself and the plans of the Gloved Hand, as the Pimpernels lunch on bitter secrets…”

In the Revoultionary Frenchie port
of Calais, Alceste Couchonet was staring hungrily at the little English ship, The Spirit of Endeavour, through the open window of his uncle’s office, as he held something in the palm of his left hand. 

It was a little cabbage white butterfly and since he had pinned one of its fragile wings to his palm with a forefinger, its other wing fluttered helplessly.  Alceste, thinking of his search for spies, clasped the other wing between a forefinger and thumb.   

He felt as if some outside force was influencing him now, but the red headed boy suddenly tore the butterfly in two, like a scrap of worthless paper.  Alceste frowned, because it didn’t make any satisfying noise, like the rats that he captured around the harbour in his traps. 

Alceste Couchonet was suddenly wondering if the Captain of the Guard would be rude to him again and what he could do about it, when his uncle walked in.  The Black Spider was carrying several documents, looking tired and very annoyed indeed.

“Citizen,” said Alceste softly, dropping the bits of insect on the floor, “Can I go down…”

“Yes, yes, Alceste,” snapped Couchonet, sitting down at his desk, “Do whatever you please.  I’ve important work today.  Man’s work, boy.  Haven’t you got any friends?”

Alceste blushed, almost missing his sister, but he went off to hunt for spies again, along the harbour front, as there was a sharp knocking on Charles Couchonet’s door.

“Enter.”

A man stepped smartly into the room and closed the door quietly;  a man in a black frock coat, and  a spy, with his hand wrapped in a handkercheif.

“You’re back sooner than I expected, Peurette,” said the Black Spider.  “A good trip?”

“Indeed, Citizen,” answered Peurette, “We landed last night.  I came straight to report, but you’ve been busy all….”

“You have the children?” interrupted the Black Spider sharply, angry he had not come sooner , but noticing the handkerchief, as Peurette blanched.

“One, Citizen,” answered the Spy nervously,  “Juliette St Honoré.  She’s downstairs now.  Count Armande escaped us.”

The agent clutched his hand and half expected his master to explode like a powder keg, little knowing that Armande was just coming into port too. 

Instead of anger, Charles Couchonet’s face remained immovable, although his cunning little eyes were dancing in his head.

“You know, Peurette,” he said coldly, “that the Republic executes its generals, if they fail to win a battle?  As
traitors
.”

The secret agent gulped and went as white as that dead butterfly at his feet.

“Yes, Citizen., of course”

“But let us not say you’ve lost a battle, Citizen, but won a small victory,” added Couchonet, just as coldly, and Peurette gasped with relief, “The girl’s enough for a public trial, at least.  Fetch her to me, now.”

Peurette left, as Charles Couchonet got up and placed a chair facing his own desk, then walked around the fine mahogany furniture, and sat down again.  He was glowing at the thought of how Dr Marat would take the news, and what reward he might earn:  Gold perhaps, or maybe he would even be recalled to Paris, to serve Dr Marat in person. 

It was murderously dangerous in the French capital now, with the coming Terror, but the spy adhered to one very important rule in life –
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer
.   How else could you keep an eye on them, and stop them plotting something really nasty?  Dr Marat could become his enemy, as quickly as anyone now.