The Terror Time Spies (9 page)

“Highwaymen?” gulped Henry.

“Right, lad, and one’s been working this very route, for months. 
He’ll
hang when we catch up with him though.  I’ll string him up myself.”

“You’re looking for him now, Sir?” asked Henry nervously.

“No fear, boy, we’ve other quarry now,” said the Major shortly, “There’s word of Frenchie spies abroad too.  A farmer heard them talking and rode to raise the alarm.”

The two Pimpernels glanced sharply at each other and Count Armande seemed about to blurt something out, when Henry flashed the French lad a stern warning look.   His Frenchie accent would give them both away.   

Henry felt guilty though and wondered if he should not alert the adults immediately: 
The Authorities. 
What stopped him sharp was Juliette’s accusation of cowardice, what they were doing now, but above all their secret oath to the Club:   The sacred oath.

“And we’d better be riding on,” said the major suddenly, “Don’t dawdle for a moment, lads, and get that eye seen to soon.  We’ll wish you good day then, boys.  Go on there, Henrietta.”

The major tapped his horses flanks gently yet the horse gave a furious whinny and almost reared as, to the boys’ astonishment, the major went galloping off on Henrietta, with a loud ‘
Woaw there, girl
’. 

Something had struck her flanks and startled the horse into a frantic gallop, soon followed by the major’s men. 

“
Slow, Henrietta,
” he bellowed.  “
Slow there.”

“Phew,” gulped Henry, thinking he could hear a faint banging from somewhere below, “that was close.  And that’s a Pimpernel first skill.”

“Lying?” said Count Armande St Honoré rather doubtfully.

 “Making things up, Count,” corrected Henry, irritably,  “And improvising.  It just saved our blooming necks, didn’t it? It’s not lies.”

Count Armande supposed that it wasn’t.

 “But this school, Bonespair,” he said,  “‘ow ever did you…?”

Henry grinned.

“Easy, Count.  Ma grew up in Dover.  She was always talking about it.”

At that very moment, in a black coach much further along the Road, Juliette St Honoré was glaring at the horrible man sitting opposite her.   

Of the two agents in the pay of the feared Committee of Public Security, one was driving, the other dozing fitfully opposite her, but snapping open a single, beady eye, every time that Juliette even stirred.

The carriage was moving far too fast for the poor girl to jump out, unlike her brother, and Peurette, the bigger and uglier of the dreaded agents of France, had two loaded pistols in his big hands.   A white handkerchief was wrapped tightly around on of his palms, where Armande had bitten him. 

Juliette was proud of how hard her brother had clenched his teeth, and of his sudden escape at a cross roads too, although she suddenly missed Armande terribly.  Juliette loved her younger brother a great deal and she worried constantly for the responsibility that had fallen on him so soon.  Her brother was very sensitive really.

Juliette longed to be back at the big English house, in the free air and the horrid enclosed carriage was making her feel sick already.  She had gathered from the horrible men they were taking her back to France, for whatever reason she could not yet fathom.  But among the names they had talked of, including a ship called L’Esperance, one had kept reoccurring, with worrying reverence too –
Charles Peperan Couchonet.

Beyond that, what was happening to Juliette now was like some dreadful  nightmare.  She thought suddenly of what that strange Bonespair boy had said about “
Brave People”
, thinking too of the size of Henry’s nose, and feeling sad that she had ever called the strange English boy a coward. 

Juliette suddenly wished too that there really were such heroic Englishmen as this Scarlet Pimpernel, or at least
someone
to come to her rescue.  It was hopeless though.

In hot pursuit of Juliette now, the stone mile stones seemed to pass achingly slowly for the bold little Pimpernel Club.   Darkness came in, but at last the boys reached a sign for the Night Watch Inn.   The low windows were filmed with fat and grime, while very unwelcoming black smoke billowed copiously from the old stone chimney.  Count Armande looked as if he wanted to be sick.

Skipper insisted on stabling the horses, then sleeping in the barn with them as well, and the publican was too drunk to notice the strangeness of two boys, travelling alone to Dover. 

Despite it’s fearful appearance The Night Watch was a friendly enough place though and soon most of the guests had retired to bed. 

Upstairs, after a hot beer stew, that tasted delicious, two simple cots were made ready and there was a fire burning in the boy’s room.  Hal loved to look into fire light, just as he liked to gaze into water, in the sunlight, since it always did something to his thoughts and made him dream. 

He gazed into it now, as Count Armande looked sceptically at the rather dirty cot, but placed his cloth valise on a chair and lay down on top of the sheet, fully dressed, finding it strange to be sharing a room with this funny English lad. 

Henry Bonespairt was exhausted too and felt his eyes half closing, as he stood in front of the fire, fiddling with the dial on his marvellous watch, when something very bizarre happened.   

The fire in the room seemed to leap up and like a red wave, the flames parted.  It was like a door opening in thin air, there in the middle of the Night Watch Inn and as if a strange light was flooding into the room too.   In the firelight now Henry saw people though, and a clear scene, that made him blink in fear and absolute astonishment. 

There stood a high, wooden scaffold, in a wide city square, that he somehow knew immediately was in Paris and on it stood that infamous machine:  The Guillotine. 

A still beautiful if aging lady was standing right by it, shaking her head, in a simple white cap, bound with a sombre black ribbon.  There was something in her tragic look, in her poise and grace, that made Henry Bonespair think instantly of a Queen. 

An angry crowd was watching, booing and jeering silently and, as the woman was laid down below that terrible axe blade, Henry noticed three extraordinary figures standing to one side, watching intently too, one of whom rather reminded him of his own teacher back in their little school in Stockwell.  He had the same detached and almost scientific air, a bit like Hal’s friend Francis Simpkins.

Henry’s tired eyes were on stalks now and he shivered desperately, wondering if he was asleep and dreaming already, or if he had had too much beer in the stew. 

The fire flared though, the scene vanished and Henry jolted.  There was no one there at all:   They had vanished.

“’enry,” said a tired voice behind him, “Get some rest, Bonespair.  You were sleeping on your feet.”

Henry couldn’t sleep for ages, because of what he had imagined in the firelight, especially the strangeness of those watchers, and he was suddenly thinking about magic again, as he stared at the ceiling:  Spike’s magic. 

Dawn woke them though and when they looked out of the grimy window, Skipper was already harnessing the horses in the breezy morning. 

So they went down to breakfast and with a few careful questions to the publican, who was nursing a dreadful headache, Henry ascertained that another coach with a pretty blonde girl had passed by the evening before, although it had not stopped.

“We need to hurry, Holmwood,” the leader of the Pimpernels cried, as he and Armande climbed back on board and felt the wind getting up stiffly, “if we’re ever to catch her up.  She musn’t sail before the Club arrives.  But first we get Francis, as quickly as we can.”

The sign for Fule was only two miles on from The Night Watch and since Henry had visited once, they found the house easily enough.  There stood Henry’s friend Francis Simpkins too, in a thick woollen coat, standing next to his aunt, right outside the door.  They had been waiting half the morning.

Francis was a slight, lanky lad, with curly brown hair, big, watchful eyes and a nervous, owlish face, blooming with hundreds of freckles.  The Second Catcher was very good at sums, codes and maps, and dreamt of being a great scientist one day. 

Now Francis Simpkins looked desperately nervous though, especially as he saw the snorting horses at the front of the carriage.  He was frightened of animals and as he looked into those flaring nostrils, seeing the bright red veins inside, he wobbled slightly and stepped back.   

Henry jumped out though, as soon as Skipper pulled up, hiding in his big hat, and though they were a day late, Henry had been right about their waiting on changed plans.  Nothing was certain for travellers now.

“Hello Mam,” he said boldly, nodding to Francis’s aunt and grinning at his best friend too, who was a good head shorter than Henry.  “We have to hurry though, we’re late in our itinerary.”

“And Mr Bonespair?” said Francis’s aunt suspiciously, and Henry almost blushed.

“Er, my pa rode on ahead to stop the boat sailing, maam.”

Skipper grunted and nodded furiously, in his big hat, but Francis Simpkins had just noticed the strange, glittering look in Henry’s eyes, one of them with a nasty black ring around it. 

“Oh, dear,” said Francis’s aunt, looking at Henry Bonespair in surprise, “but you’ll all keep warm, won’t you now, dears, and hurry poor Francis back again?  We think you are very brave, Henry Bonespair, going to France like this.”

The aunt looked as uncertain as Constance had but Francis was frowing at the fact is aunt had described him as ‘poor’.

“Yes, maam,” said the leader of the Pimpernels, “Holmwood here will bring him back straight again, won’t you Holmwood, Man?”

Skipper nodded again, and gave a manly grunt too, trying not to show his blushing face.

“
Havagal,”
whispered Francis though, looking admiringly at the carriage, especially the clever luggage webbing beneath it, if not the horses.  He had just decided to study it, scientifically.  “
Wavagots gavago…”

“Er, lots to tell, F,” said Henry sharply, glaring at his friend to silence him.  “But we
must
get going now, F.  We’ll miss our boat.”

Francis’s aunt pecked her nephew on the cheek and, shaking her head, turned back inside, but when Francis Simpkins climbed into the coach he was very surprised to see not little Eleanor, or Mr Bonespair either, but a young French Count sitting there, in such very fine, clean cloths, looking as if he wanted to make the carriage fly. 

Francis Simpkins had seen Armande first when he had stopped in Peckham on the way to his aunt’s, but this was a shock, all right.

“Oh.  Hello,” he whispered awkwardly, as he sat down.

Armande St Honoré dipped his head rather warily at the fourteen year old newcomer but, as they rattled away again, in no time at all Henry had explained just what was really going on.    

Francis Simpkins went green, as Hal finished speaking.

“Rescue her from Frenchie spies?” he gulped.

“Yes, F.  Isn’t it amazing?”

“But a new Club?” said Francis, as doubtfully as Spike had, wrinkling up his freckly nose and wondering if this Skipper driving their carriage would lose control and crash.  “But what’s wrong with the Rat…”

“A new club, loyal to the last,” interrupted Henry, pulling out the Sacred Time Piece. “With me the leader.”

“The leader for now,” said Armande suddenly and Henry glared.

“And sworn on this,” he added quickly. 

Francis was deeply uncertain but the sight of the chronometer had an instant effect on the owlish newcomer though, because Francis Simpkins’ huge eyes bulged in delight. 

“Blimey, Hal, but it’s wonderful.”

“I know.  Mr Wickham gave it to me, Francis, for my birthday yesterday.  So it’s our new Rats Tail, if you like.  It was made by Isaac Harrison himself, F, the Cousin of…”

“John Harrison,” said the swotish boy, with an eager nod, completely forgetting to be frightened now, “Who invented the famous Marine Chronometer, and so solved the problem of Longitude at Sea, to help England Master the waves.  It must be good, if his Cousin made it.” 

“Yes, I suppose so.”

Count Armande looked a little sour, not to say jealous, but Hal was nodding and had just decided to appoint Francis Simpkins special science expert of their brand new Club.

“Can I look inside though, Hal?” asked Francis, “I so love clocks.  Especially a Harrison Time Piece.”

“Doesn’t seem to open, F,” answered Henry, with a shrug, “but you’re in aren’t you?  The Club.  You’ll take the oath, I mean?  Help us kidnap Juliette back again.”

Francis Simpkins frowned now, wondering if his Quaker parents would ever approve such a mad thing, but he was certainly a very dedicated Rat Catcher.  He was a very measured, thoughtful boy, who usually took his time deciding things, but once he had, it took heaven and earth to change his mind again.  It was another reason Henry liked him, because it made him so reliable.

“Yes.  I think so.  Yes.  I will.”

Henry held out the Time Piece and Francis put his hand on it, as Hal began to mouthe the great words that he had used in the barn.  “
I swear on the Sacred Time piece, and my life, to dedicate myself to the cause of the Pimpernel Club.”