The Terror Time Spies (8 page)

The words sounded wonderful, as Alceste snapped the metal jaws on his little mousetrap, with a long, thin sixteen year old finger.

“Indeed,” answered the Black Spider, suddenly feeling a little frightened of the boy himself, “but if you’ve ambitions to serve in the Secret police one day, as I
know
you do, Alceste, and to serve France too, perhaps you might learn a little …subtlety.”

Alceste Couchonet looked rather taken aback.

 “Subtlety, uncle?” said the boy, blushing hotly.  The Black Spider smiled indulgently at his nephew.

“Reason’s our ‘God’ now, Alceste, and ours is a scientific age, that has created the very greatest machine, the Guillotine.  There are enemies of the Republic everywhere, it is true, and at home and abroad, friends of that so called
Royal Family
too.”

Couchonet spat out the word ‘
Royal’
as if he had just bitten into a rotten chestnut.  He had held the Royal head himself, when he had plucked it from a basket in Paris, that very January, to show to the hungry mob.

“But in executing that
beast
Louis Capet, Alceste, we have defied them all.  We’ve raised the banner of Liberty, abolished slavery, given Frenchmen the vote and must NEVER falter, or men shall continue to be slaves.”

Couchonet’s eyes were glittering  at the thought of Citizen Capet- they had called the King
Capet
, meaning head - and Alceste noticed the huge moon through the window, then a small portrait on the wall behind his uncle, of a man in an austere powdered wig and a stiff tailored coat.   Once a portrait of the King had hung there.

“France has allies,” Couchonet went on softly, “especially in the Americas.  But now we must do
anything
to defend our Revolution.  We must never look back.  As Robespierre himself says, “
Ideas are everything, men nothing.”

His nephew realised just who the man in the portrait was now; the first among the famous three in murderous Paris - Maximillian Robespierre himself. 

“And our method now, Alceste, must be TERROR,” cried the Black Spider, with a snarl, “As Citizen Robespierre also says, ‘
Terror is nothing but justice, prompt, severe and inflexible, indeed, an emanation of virtue
.’”

The lad stood straighter and shivered excitedly, feeling profoundly virtuous, as Charles Peperan Couchonet said the words like a prayer. 

“But ask yourself
THIS,
Alceste.  Is it better to expose an enemy on your borders, an Englishman or an Austrian, a Spaniard or Prussian spy, and send him home humiliated, or rightly execute him…”

His nephew wanted to say YES, snapping the mousetrap again.

“Or better to draw him, like a trembling little mouse, into the very heart of the maze, then snap your jaws tightly around not only him, but a whole network of breeding rodents?”

The Black Spider closed a fist on thin air and Alceste Couchonet’s mouth opened in admiration. 

“The second, Uncle.  Of course.”

“Exactly,  Alceste,” cried Couchonet, snuffing out one of the candles between his gloved fingers,  “And
that’s
subtlety, boy.  That’s
politics
.  You must act with a view to the BIGGER PICTURE.  Act like Citizen Robespierre, or Dr Marat himself.  With ruthless and inflexible vision.”

Alceste nodded eagerly and clutched his hand-made mouse trap even more tightly, wondering when he would be allowed to join the secret police. 

“Or even like your own uncle,” added Couchonet quietly, as the Spider leant back modestly.

“But these individual agents and spies that threaten France,” he whispered, clenching a gloved fist, “these hateful foreign rodents may be an important link in the chain, but it is the whole human chain we seek to break, Alceste, and armies and Monarchies to defeat.  THEN France shall truly rise, and we along with her, my boy.”

Charles Couchonet was thinking of La Patrie, the homeland, wondering if one day he would have his own special bathtub in Paris, just like Dr Marat.  Perhaps Marat’s own, he thought wryly, although he would have to have it most carefully scrubbed. 

“But of course you may frequent the port this week, Alceste,” added  his uncle suddenly, “start first thing tomorrow morning, in fact, and I’ll be happy to discuss anything you might have noticed, each evening over dinner.  Six O’clock sharp, now.  Tomorrow we’re having mutton, boy.  Fine French lamb.”

Alceste beamed, although not at the thought of mutton, which he loathed, and the lad turned eagerly to leave, and get to bed and dream of traps. 

“But nephew,” added Couchonet, “when you listen for any travellers from England tomorrow, take special care to listen out for suspicious
French
voices.”

“French voices, Uncle?! said Alceste in surprise, “But Les Anglais, the English, I thought…”

‘In which the Pimpernels have several English misadventures, pick up Francis Simpkins and Henry has a vision, although learns to his relief that there is no magic at all…’

Huge Horace Holmwood
was biting his lip, in his father’s big straw hat and screwing up his not-so-intelligent face, wrapped in his mother’s long scarf now, as he tried to keep control of the jolting carriage on its way to Dover:   William Wickham’s second best. 

A flame pink dawn broke around Skipper and the brand new Pimpernel Club, across an English sky filled with mountainous purple clouds, as it bumped along the heavy earth road, without an enemy adult in sight. 

Skipper Holmwood was deep in thought, or as deep as he could possibly manage, and getting increasingly nervous too, for such a feisty lad, because big Skip realised that his pa would be furious if he ever knew and he feared his fists a very great deal.   

Several things had swept this country boy up into their strange and sudden adventure.  Firstly the fact of his brand new friendship with little Nellie Bonespair, forged last summer, when Spike had asked him about rabbit traps, because Skipper was a rather lonely boy.   Yet what made the journey really irresistible was the thought of seeing the sea. 

Yet poor Skipper looked furiously guilty too because not only would his pa be furious but they were committing a crime, by stealing Mr Wickham’s carriage, and his Ma had always taught him that at all costs you must be honest in life.

Inside the rattling coach, on its hard leather seats, sat Henry Bonespair and Armande St Honoré now, newly Ninth Count St Honoré, gazing out of the open windows rather nervously. 

They had both been in a carriage before, of course, but never one that they were actually driving themselves, or controlling at least, but now Henry Bonespair’s mounting sense of freedom came like a growing wind.

Henry’s right eye had a nasty black ring around it, as he clutched his parent’s itinerary, but underneath it the special letters of transit from the Frenchie Embassy too, that he had snatched up by mistake.  They were quite useless to them, of course, since they weren’t even going to France.   

        The half English and the elegant French boy had managed to steel the coach past the lodge that night without waking Charlotte, but it had been far harder to persuade little Spike to stay behind, and tell their mother that the boys would be back in just a few days time.  Henry was deeply glad that they had.  He always felt responsible for reckless little Spike, although guilty Hal did not give more time to his sister. 

      Before getting aboard Armande St Honoré had gone up to the big house to change into simpler clothes, although dandified enough still, and to fetch his fine cloth valise too, which sat beside him now, while Constance had long retired to bed and to her smelling salts, in Mr Wickham’s great home.

After a quick dash back to the barn to help Holmwood carry an extra wheel to their carriage, the three boys had finally got on the road, in the very early hours. 

A big cloth bag sat in the back too, which Henry had taken with the express purpose of confronting the problem of brilliant disguises in Dover.  It was the family dressing up bag.

        A little purse of silver coin sat on the seat next to Henry too, with a draw string to tie it shut, which Simon’s son kept looking at nervously.  Henry felt as terrible as Skipper about stealing the thing, but this was no time for doubts now.   An innocent young life was at stake.

The young Count was staring at Henry though and Armande suddenly realised that he did not really know this boy at all, feeling nervous and rather uncomfortable.  It was like starting at some new school, although in France Armande St Honoré had had private tutors, of course. 

Armande was very happy though that he had had a chance to clean himself up before they had left and wash off most of that dirt.

“Bonespair,” he whispered suddenly, raising a thick eyebrow, “Tis a strange name, non?”

Henry looked up and frowned.  He was often teased at school for it, just like his nose.  He hated being teased and he hated being bullied too, parhaps that is why he stood up for Francis Simpkins.

“Yes, Count.  I suppose it is.  Er, it’s Huguenot though.  Frenchie, like you.  Grandpa settled in London for a time.  We were lace makers once.”

Henry looked at Armande’s fine shirt, wondering if the two of them really had anything in common and the Count frowned distastefully.

“Huguenot,” he nodded though, “You’re Protestants then, Monsieur, not French Catholics, like the great St Honorés?”

It was a rather grown up question and the two comparative strangers, of such different ranks too, felt very awkward indeed to be in the carriage together. 

Armande was scrutinising Hal’s rather plain clothes and the fifteen year older suddenly wondered if he should bring up the question of a leader again.  Armande St Honoré thought better of it, for the moment at least.

“Yes, Count,” said Henry cheerfully, “although Ma and pa don’t worry about it too much.  Pa says we should just try to fit in in England.”

“Well, Robespierre does not care either,” said Armande coldly, “Because they believe in nothing at all in France now, Mamman says.  Not God, nor anything else.  What now though, ‘enri?  A plan.  If you are really to be our leader.”

Henry Bonespair suddenly didn’t like this talk of France and he was glad to get back down to practical matters now.  He held his nose thoughtfully again.

“First off, I reckon we make for the Night Watch Inn, Count,” he answered.  “We’ve got rooms already paid, on the itinerary.  Then we pick up Francis Simpkins, if we can, and drive to the King’s Head and on to Dover, if we have to, that is.  From there we can spread around the port and search too.  Then we come straight back again.  With Juliette, safe and sound.”

It seemed a very scientific plan indeed, if a little too easy, and Hal felt rather important, as the coach hit a bump, and the two boys were lifted from their seats and dashed down again. 

The boys went on, rattled and buffeted about, and after a time they felt the carriage slowing, so Henry leant out of the window.  They had come to a wide cross roads, with a moss covered mile stone that said:

DOVER 123

It seemed like travelling to the moon to the untraveled Club. 

“How fast do you think we’re going, Count?” asked Henry, pulling back inside again and suddenly wishing Francis Simpkins was there instead of Armande.  “At
this
rate we won’t even be at the Night Watch til the early hours.  At least no one knows about us.”

They went on again, wondering if they would catch up with Juliette, as the three Pimpernels passed fields and little hamlets, villages, pleasant streams and a countryside mostly at peace with itself in the sticky summer heat, untroubled by the bloody Revolution raging for four years across the sea in France, although with many signs that England too was mobilizing for war now.    

It was not until mid-morning when Skipper Holmwood suddenly cried out though - “Look out, yoose.” 

The boys both looked out, and to their horror, along the road to the West, came five men on horseback, travelling fast.  Henry recognised their bright red coats: They were soldiers.   

Were they following the Pimpernel Club though, wondered Hal, and if so, how did they ever know?

Skipper slowed the coach and a major, by the pips on his bright red jacket, came alongside the window at a trot, surprised to see two young lads inside, and looking as if butter would not melt in their young mouths.

“Mornin’, boys,” he grunted, “I’m Major Bishop of the 3
^rd
Dover Regiment.  What are you lads doing travelling out here, on your own?”

“Going back to school, Sir,” answered Hal immediately, blushing slightly, “With this illness in London, Sir, er, our parents thought it safer to study by the sea.”

Armande frowned, when Henry added quickly:  “St Hilyards.  My little sister’s got the cholera, Sir, so they sent us on ahead.  Just to be safe.”

“And I’m sorry indeed to hear it,” cried Major Bishop, noticing Armande’s over fine attire and Hal’s black eye and sitting back a little in his saddle, since the cholera was so feared.  “But the road’s not safe, lads.  Soldiers can’t be spared to patrol it, with the Devil loose in France, so travellers are easy game now, for Highwaymen.”