by Anna Fargher
‘Jeez Louise, ma’am,’ GI Joe cooed. ‘You gave us a scare.’
‘And myself also,’ Madame Fourcade said, standing tall with her prickles trembling slightly. ‘Come. Let’s return to the hollow,’ she said, turning to clamber back on to the eagle’s back.
Pip and Hans mounted Lucia and GI Joe and the pigeons took the umbrella in their talons once more.
‘Tonight we must be as courageous as butterflies in a hurricane,’ the hedgehog said.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
OPERATION POPEYE
When the party arrived back at the hollow, the stag, squirrels and rabbits bounded over to them.
‘How did it go?’ two young rabbits and a squirrel said in unison, hopping up to Pip with twitching noses.
‘I think we did all right,’ she said, jumping off Lucia’s back. Hans gave her a little wink in agreement as he dismounted GI Joe and, smiling, she scampered to the umbrella. Gently running her paws along its carved silver handle and black tarpaulin and finding it unscathed, she sighed contentedly.
‘Pip did very well,’ Madame Fourcade said, climbing down from Léon’s speckled wing and tenderly placing a paw across her shoulders.
‘She sure did,’ GI Joe cooed, giving Hans a nudge with his beak. ‘And this fella too.’
‘We are proud to have you both among us,’ the hedgehog continued. ‘With two telephone lines now sabotaged, the enemy will struggle to alert one another when the train falls tonight. Let us thank our new friends, and Pip’s umbrella.’
As Noah’s Ark clapped their paws or feathers together or stamped their hooves, a rosy glow appeared beneath both Pip and Hans’s whiskers.
‘Hans,’ Madame Fourcade said, leading the rat to one side and beckoning Léon and GI Joe to follow her. Pip and Lucia joined them, standing beside Henri the stag at the edge of the hollow. ‘Tonight, the train will cross the river through the forest behind the monastery of Bec. It is quiet there – the only humans are monks praying at their beds, so we will go unnoticed.
‘GI Joe and Léon, you will drop Hans and myself on the bridge, then retreat to separate trees. The further away from each other the better, we must avoid multiple captures, but keep sight of us while we meet the beavers.’ A grave expression crossed the hedgehog’s face. ‘Remember, Hans, if the worst happens and you are captured by the enemy, every life in Noah’s Ark depends on your silence. No matter how badly they torture you, you must never, ever speak of us or you will be killing us all.’
‘You have my word,’ the rat said earnestly.
‘What can I do?’ Pip said, stepping forward. ‘Please, I want to come with you.’
‘Absolutely not, ma petite chérie,’ Madame Fourcade said firmly. ‘Plan Violet was unexpectedly perilous today and I will not endanger your life like that again. You have already risked too much for one so young.’ The hedgehog paused, gently taking Pip’s face in her paws. ‘You remind me of my hoglets, who I sent to live out the war in a secret place where they could be safe. My heart weeps for them every day but my duty to them, my country and my comrades is inescapable. I must fight for a better world for you to grow up in. War is not a place for kittens. It is time for you to rest now.’
‘But I can help,’ Pip said, but to her fury, Hans and GI Joe shook their heads.
‘It’s all right,’ Lucia cooed. ‘You can stay with me, they’ll be back before you know it.’
Pip frowned, feeling her hackles rise.
‘Don’t worry,’ Henri said, noticing the nervous expression on Hans and GI Joe’s faces, ‘I’ll keep an eye on her too.’
‘We all must rest,’ the hedgehog said firmly, seeing Pip open her mouth to protest. ‘Especially before tonight – even you, chérie. Now, let’s eat!’
The group nodded in agreement and walked together to the far end of the hollow where Noah’s Ark’s mice, rabbits and squirrels were preparing nuts, berries and seeds in a large pile. As GI Joe and Hans fondly bantered between mouthfuls, Lucia fluttered to Pip, who was eating hungrily beside Henri the stag.
‘How did you become a member of Churchill’s Secret Animal Army?’ she cooed. ‘I’ve never known it to have a mouse kitten in its ranks.’
‘That’s because you’re not a member of Churchill’s Secret Animal Army, sweetie.’ GI Joe said, gazing fondly at his mate before turning to Pip. ‘Liddle lady, Lucia is the most curious creature you’ll ever meet. If I had a berry for every question she’s asked me, I’d be the fattest pigeon in the world. Remember, A secret is only a secret if it remains unspoken.’ Giving her a wink, Pip remembered Bernard Booth telling her Churchill’s Secret Animal Army’s motto, and she vowed to herself she would not speak of them.
‘But we’re among friends!’ Lucia smiled at GI Joe. ‘I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t meant to pry, I was only trying to make our newest member and her umbrella feel welcome. You’ve got to admit they’re not your everyday spies.’
‘The place where I lived in London was bombed,’ Pip said, suddenly losing her appetite. She put the nut she was eating on the ground and felt her whiskers droop on her cheeks. ‘I lost my whole family that day. The umbrella is all I have left of them. We have lived inside it together like all the other Hanway mice before us for over a hundred years.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ the white pigeon cooed, eyeing its silver handle, wrapped in carved fig leaves and inlaid with gold.
‘Yes, it’s very rare,’ Pip said after a pause, feeling her chest grow heavy with grief. She could still hear Papa’s voice telling her their umbrella’s history. ‘It’s one of the first to be used in England and I’m taking it to the only umbrella museum in the world, where we will be safe. My family always dreamed of going there one day.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘It’s in Northern Italy.’
Nearby, ears pricked and gradually the rest of Noah’s Ark’s looked up from their food to listen.
‘Northern Italy?’ Lucia said, cocking her head in surprise. ‘But that’s enemy territory. Why would you want to be there?’
‘I’m going there to live with my mother’s family.’
‘So if you’re an Italian, you can’t be here as a member of Churchill’s Secret Animal Army then?’
‘She is as far as you are concerned,’ Hans interrupted, staring sternly at the white pigeon. Not a whisker on his face moved and the pigeon blinked self-consciously before looking away. ‘Aren’t you, Pip?’
He looked over to her and immediately his scarred face softened. The little mouse smiled. She didn’t mind Lucia asking about her, and she wasn’t sure why Hans did.
‘You bet she is,’ GI Joe cooed. ‘She’s the youngest member we’ve ever recruited. She’s damn brave too. She sailed down the River Thames alone.’
‘That’s impressive,’ Lucia said, smiling at Pip. ‘And hey, I’m sorry I asked. We’ve all got our little secrets and don’t worry, honey –’ she gave her a little wink – ‘I won’t tell anybody. I’m just so excited to have another girl in Noah’s Ark! I hope you and me can be like sisters. Us girls need to stick together.’
Pip enjoyed the thought of having a sibling, especially a daring and pretty one like Lucia. Hans and GI Joe behaved as brothers and the rest of Noah’s Ark seemed as close as a family. It made sense for her to have a sister too.
‘I’d like that.’ Pip nodded and smiled at her new friend, feeling close to her already.
‘I am so pleased!’ Lucia said, fondly embracing her in her white wings. ‘You can share my coop and we’ll have fun tonight without the boys. You’ll see.’
‘But don’t you want to go as well?’ Pip asked with surprise. She thought Lucia was as adventurous as she was. She was a messenger pigeon, after all.
‘Missions are always taken by small groups. It’s safer that way. If we were to fail, more of us would die or get captured. Besides, are you sure you’d want to go? You couldn’t take your umbrella with you.’
Pip looked at the umbrella and thought of Mama and Papa. It was tru
e; she would never risk the umbrella on tonight’s mission. But if she left it in the hollow and sneaked out to watch the mission while the rest of Noah’s Ark was sleeping, no one would ever know.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE TRAIN
Pip woke with a start. Lucia was breathing softly and evenly beside her as she slept with her head tucked under her wing. Blearily lifting her head from her bed of leaves, Pip found all was dark and quiet in the hollow under the fallen tree. But as she drowsily rested her head once more, her ears pricked, hearing the sound of wings clattering nearby. Sitting bolt upright, she stared through the leafy roof of the hollow and into the cool moonlight, shimmering silver through the treetops.
Catching a glimpse of Léon’s strong, speckled wings flapping in the dark, Pip hastily leaped to her paws and crept out of the hollow as quickly and quietly as she could. Hesitating for one last look at the umbrella wedged safely beside Lucia, she raced forward and chased the birds carrying Madame Fourcade and Hans on their backs through the forest.
She had not travelled far before a galloping thud charged through the trees behind her. An enormous dark shape vaulted over her, blocking her path on all sides. Standing before her, pointing his great head of antlers down at her, was Henri, flaring his nostrils and stamping the ground.
‘No, Pip,’ he said, his large mahogany eyes glistening in the moonlight. ‘I cannot let you pass.’
‘I’m going!’ she said firmly, trying to dart out of his way.
‘No!’ he said, swiftly blocking her path once more. ‘It’s forbidden.’
Pip dashed forward, effortlessly weaving around him as if he was not there at all. He galloped after her, hopping and twisting across the ground, trying not to crush her under his hooves. As Pip zigzagged through Henri’s long legs, the stag stumbled. He fell to the ground with a crash, and Pip skidded to a halt and collided into his flank with a small thump.
‘All right! Stop it!’ Henri said, panting heavily. ‘If I cannot convince you to turn back to the hollow, then I will take you to watch the mission myself. It is not safe for you to go on your own.’
‘Fine,’ Pip said breathlessly, secretly relieved he would carry her the rest of the way.
‘Then climb up and keep quiet. If Madame Fourcade sees or hears us, we will both be in a world of trouble.’
Clutching his velvety fur in her paws, she clambered up his body, scaling the length of his back and up his long neck to the top of his head. Climbing up an antler, Pip smiled with excitement and wrapped her tail tightly around it. Pushing up from his knees and standing tall, Henri cantered through the ground ferns, effortlessly weaving through the trees in great strides that hardly touched the ground.
‘We’re close,’ Henri whispered after a time, as church bells struck twelve o’clock nearby. He slowed, his breath puffing in and out of his nose. ‘Those bells are coming from the monastery.’
Pip craned her neck for a better view, but she saw nothing except tall tree trunks creaking gently in the shadows. Looking about, a cold feeling of dread crept over her fur.
‘I feel like we’re being watched,’ Pip squeaked, nervously searching the gloom. As the bells ceased their toll, only the eerie sound of their breath and the breeze gently sighing through the leaves remained.
‘These trees have seen more than we will ever know,’ Henri murmured, looking into the treetops and quickening his pace, his hackles betraying a shudder of unease.
Hearing water trickle nearby, Henri moved cautiously forward. The forest cleared up ahead in a barren belt through the trees. As Henri and Pip reached it, Léon and GI Joe reappeared above and swiftly beat their wings, quickly swerving to the right. Henri tucked himself behind the cover of the thicket, his ears twitching warily on his head. A wide river glittered in the gloom before them and Pip’s heart was in her mouth, watching her friends fly through the shadows towards a timber bridge, eerily silhouetted against the moonlit sky.
‘I feel like something terrible is going to happen,’ she whispered with a shiver.
‘Shhh, it is only our nerves,’ Henri hushed, shifting on his hooves.
‘But what if it isn’t?’
‘Ma petite amie,’ he said softly, looking up at the young mouse wrapped around his antler. ‘You must not move or say another word now, no matter how much you want to. If we are seen or heard it could ruin everything for us all.’
Pip nodded, promising herself she would watch in silence, but she could not ignore the fear pulsing under her fur and she bit her lip, hoping the horrible drumming in her ears would soon go away.
The birds reached the bridge and swooped steeply upwards. GI Joe briefly hesitated above it and Hans leaped off his back, hitting the tracks on four paws. Instantly, the pigeon flew sharply to the left and disappeared into the treetops on the far side of the river while Léon swooped low, dropping Madame Fourcade on the tracks in a prickly somersault. The eagle burst upwards to the right and vanished into the forest, not knowing Pip and Henri were watching silently from the nearby thicket.
Hans and Madame Fourcade were racing across the tracks when suddenly Léon squawked from the trees. A moment later, a whistle screeched and Pip felt the quake of the approaching train increase with every breath she made.
‘What are they doing?’ Pip whispered, fear fluttering in her stomach as she watched Hans and Madame Fourcade frantically dip their heads over the far side of the bridge over and over again. Below, its timber columns had narrowed where they had been gnawed around the water’s edge.
‘They’re searching for the beavers,’ Henri said, flicking his tail nervously. ‘They should have finished chewing the wooden poles into points by now, so the bridge collapses under the weight of the train.’
‘Where are they?’ she said.
The whistle shrieked again, making all the animals flinch in alarm. Tearing through the trees beside Pip and Henri’s hiding place, the train approached the bridge with its front lamp brightening the darkness like a furious all-seeing eye. Hans stopped abruptly, and looking over to Madame Fourcade, his desperate expression mirrored hers across the bridge. The beavers were nowhere to be seen.
‘Émile!’ Henri whispered, puffing angrily through his nose. ‘Where the hell are you?’
Suddenly a small furry head popped up through the surface of the water beneath the rat and the hedgehog. It was André, Émile’s son, speaking animatedly and pointing to the sky with his broad, waxy tail slapping against the river in warning.
‘What’s he saying?’ Pip said, hearing only her heart thumping in her ears.
‘Something’s happened,’ Henri said. ‘They have to get out of there!’
The insistent chug of the approaching train drowned out his voice, and the stag quickly shied into the gloom, avoiding its front lamps as they illuminated the trees where they had just stood. A moment later, the bridge shuddered under the weight of the train, carrying eight carriages into the night.
‘Run!’ Pip cried, watching Hans and Madame Fourcade scramble fearfully across the tracks.
‘Run, dammit!’ Henri said, stamping his hooves.
Pip could barely watch as Hans and Madame Fourcade frantically sprinted across the bridge. As the train grazed their heels, they hurled themselves from the tracks and crash-landed on the grassy bank.
‘They made it!’ Pip squeaked, jumping for joy on the stag’s antler. But at once she and Henri gasped with alarm. Unknown to Madame Fourcade, Hans and André, four dark shapes with enormous wings and horn-like tufts of feathers on their heads now hovered malevolently in the moonlight above their heads.
‘Axis sentry owls!’ Henri whispered, shivering with fear.
‘Watch out!’ Pip yelled at the top of her lungs.
At that moment, the train whistle gave one last high-pitched scream. Shivering with terror, Pip watched helplessly as the eagle owls plunged to earth with their deadly talons glinting in the gloom. In one brief, savage moment, two owls snatched Hans and Madame Fourcade off the ground.
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Instantly André dived underwater with a final smack of his tail, but the other owls were already plummeting from the sky. Fishing him out of the water, they flapped their powerful wings and swooped upwards, joining the two other birds. Carrying their struggling prisoners above the speeding train, they swiftly disappeared into the shadows.
‘We have to save them,’ Pip said, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes.
‘Hold on tight, Pip,’ Henri said, galloping back into the trees. ‘First we must warn the others. Every one of us is in danger now.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
FEAR AND FURY
Blissfully unaware of the peril Hans and Madame Fourcade faced, the Noah’s Ark animals slept curled up together in the hollow. The rabbits woke first, hearing Henri’s fast approach through the trees. Thumping the ground in alarm with their hind legs, the rest of Noah’s Ark rose nervously to find the stag and Pip breathlessly push the veil of leaves aside.
‘Pip!’ Lucia cried in surprise, flying to her on Henri’s head and drawing her into her chest with her wings. Pip felt grateful for her comfort and as they embraced, she craned her neck over the pigeon’s shoulder to check the umbrella was as she left it, tucked inside Lucia’s coop. ‘Honey, where have you been?’
‘Not now, Lucia,’ Henri said gravely. ‘There are more important things to discuss. Is everybody here?’
‘Yes, except for those conducting Operation Popeye, of course.’
‘The plan has failed,’ the stag said. ‘Madame Fourcade, Hans and André have been captured.’
All the ears and whiskers in Noah’s Ark drooped with dismay.
‘Where are GI Joe and Léon?’ Lucia cooed, her feathers ruffling with concern.
‘They will return soon.’
‘What happened?’
‘The beavers must have been interrupted by the enemy when they were damaging the bridge. André gave Madame Fourcade and Hans a warning before the enemy seized them all. Have Émile and his wife returned?’