Just then Henry Bonespair thought he heard a voice, just like at the well, but this time coming from an old dresser, abandoned in the barn. It was muffled, annoyed and just as foreign.
“Bureaux’s a coming through,” it seemed to say.
Henry wondered if the whole estate was really haunted, as again there seemed to be a strange glow all around them, but the others had obviously heard nothing at all again.
Hal shook his head and felt that water still lodged in his right ear. That must be it, he thought.
“What about trouble though?” asked Nell gloomily, picking up the precious rat’s tail and putting it safely in her little pocket. “Getting into trouble, H?”
“And we swear to obey it’s leader,” snapped Henry Bonespair. “Without question.”
“Er. Pardon, Henri,” said Count Armande suddenly, standing straighter, and fingering his torn cuff, “but as Ninth Count of St Honoré, and true French Aristocracy, do you not think it is I who should be the…”
“No,” snapped Hal, “I’m the leader. I thought of it first.”
Armande scowled, but the boys really were so impressed with Henry Bonespair, in the eerie moonlight, and besides he had been the leader of the Rat Catchers, that they all swore.
At last Spike added her little oath to the group too.
“Will there be lots of disguises though?” she asked hopefully.
“Course, silly. Trouble too. And we never betray each other. Right?”
“Then we’re all in it togever,” said Spike, determined never to be excluded from anything again, “The Pimple Club.”
The boys blinked at Nellie in surprise, but smiled indulgently too. She was only seven.
It was done then, as the brand new members of the one day hugely famous Pimpernel Club, stood in silence in the moonlit English barn.
“It’ll be very dangerous,” Hal said rather guiltily. “Against these agents.”
“Like Pa,” said Spike.
“No, stupid. Pa’s just a Land Agent. These are professionals, Spike. Spies. But we must pick up Francis on the way too. He’s expecting us. We’ll be a day late, but they must be making allowances.”
“And we’ve got that,” said Spike, looking longingly at the Silver Chronometer. “It’s magic, Hal, I know it is. It’ll help save us all, one day.”
William Wickham’s Chronometer was glowing rather strangely, and for a moment those mysterious symbols around the dial seemed almost to flicker like fire, right in front of their eyes.
“Oh, that’s just the light,” said Henry, snatching the thing out of the moon. “And we’ve got to be realistic now, Spike. Adult and scientific. Modern and grown up. That’s what Francis always says.”
“You’ll see,” said Spike firmly.
“But let’s get moving,” said Henry, “Skipper and Armande, go up to the stables and harness the horses right away.”
The boys both stiffened, side by side, and Armande St Honoré couldn’t help but look disapprovingly at the huge country ruffian, who a noble Count was supposed to work with now.
Armande wondered if he would have to touch anything grubby and he blushed as he saw his shirt was torn.
“I’ll get the itinerary,” said Hal, “some food and some things to wear. Disguises. We all have to be as silent as the…”
“Grave,” said Spike, “But what’ll I do, H? Can I sit on top with…”
“You? You’re going straight to bed, Nellie Bonespair.”
“Bed?” cried the horrified little girl, looking desperately at Skipper and Count Armande, “But I’m coming to Dover too.”
“Rubbish, Spike. If you think we’re taking a little English girl to Dover, to confront murderous Frenchie Terrorists, then you’ve got another thing coming.”
THREE –THE BLACK SPIDER
‘Where we meet our first villain, are not sure whether it’s a boy or his uncle, and learn of the French Revolution, and the REASON behind everything…’
Under that very same fat full moon, a tall and wiry Frenchman, with an especially straight Roman nose, was gazing out to sea in the French darkness, in the distant Port of Calais, just across the English Channel, or ‘La Manche’ as the Frenchies liked to call it.
The very suspicious looking adult was wearing shiny black leather gloves and peering keenly through a long brass telescope on a stand, at a boat just drawing into the great harbour, lit by swinging lanterns.
The evil faced watcher was dressed very sombrely indeed, in a stiff black coat, with the Tricolour tied neatly at his belt; a sash with the French revolutionary colours of Red, White and Blue.
The man was in his forties, and had slick, greased black hair, greying now, and something of the look of an angry priest, or what might have looked like that, if he hadn’t dedicated his entire life to the destruction of the Church. Just like the great Maximillian Robespierre himself, the Jacobin’s leader in Paris now, who had always attacked the superstitions that held up Kings and Queens, and devoted his not inconsiderable talents to the great new Cult of Reason.
The spindly Frenchman at the telescope worshipped Reason too and his name was Charles Peperan Couchonet. The same name written on those secret instructions to agents Peurette and Deforlage, from Dr Jean Paul Marat.
Charles Peperan Couchonet was pondering the dark arts of his favourite profession – spying - as low burning candles sent ghostly shadows looming around his study, and thinking especially of how one fine day he would himself become one of the most powerful men in all of France.
Not power in the sense that the incorruptible Maximillian Robespierre, or Robespierre’s chief ally, the supremely eloquent Danton, wielded it in Paris now. Power as Dr Marat used it so secretly, on the Paris Commune’s new Committee of Public Security: John Paul Marat, the third in that holy or unholy Trinity taking control in France.
A hidden and all invasive power, binding together France’s Secret Police network too, like a spreading spider’s web, to catch a swarm of busy flies. Which is exactly why the secret code name that the spidery Couchonet had awarded himself so recently was ‘The Black Spider’.
The Black Spider, French Policeman, spy and loyal agent of the new French Republic, stood back from the telescope, looked at the great moon hanging over the lilting water, and smiled coldly, as he thought of his master, the fanatical Dr Marat.
He thought of Marat sitting in his cooling bath tub, in his office in Paris, to ease a terrible skin complaint that had afflicted Marat for so very long. From there dispensing his orders, his proclamations and edicts, and hatching his clever spy plots.
The thought of Dr Marat’s illness, and those horrible scabs and boils all over hiss body too, so foul smelling when Couchonet had last visited, made the Black Spider think of the fragility of everything - even the French Revolution.
He touched his hand to his shirt, where his own boil was starting to hurt, nestled in the left bone by his neck.
Where was the cause leading now though, wondered the Black Spider, darkly?
The three clever leaders were trying to justify the need for a temporary dictatorship in the Paris Convention, to defend it at all costs, so they said. Charles Couchonet had been in the Convention himself when the great boss Maximillian Robespierre had first publically laid down the new duties of the individual: "To detest bad faith and despotism,” and, “to behave with justice towards all men.”
A smile flickered on the Spider’s thin lips, as he stepped back and span the telescope in the shadows.
Things were changing very fast indeed in France now. A growing violence was spreading from the blood soaked heart of the new Republic, as the three wrestled for central control, promising at every level to extend the power of the State, and so of the Secret Police too. Thus the power of the Black Spider himself.
A temporary dictatorship? The truth was that the revolutionaries had opened a Pandora’s box, in order to topple France’s ancient, despotic monarchy, and now they were finding it impossible to shut it again. Charles Couchonet won
dered if the coming dictatorship would be so temporary after all, and what lovely evils would be released into the dangerous world.
He turned to his desk, where the two candles were starting to burn low and picked up a list of victims destined for execution, that very month in Paris, in one of his gloved hands. Madame Guillotine’s Children, he called them; the coming victims of that fatal device.
The Black Spider recognised many of the names in the flickering candlelight, not only ‘Aristocrats’, ‘Gentlemen’, or ‘Priests’, so known or suspected Royalists, but common criminals too. Even ‘Sans Coulots’, those ragged, barefooted foot soldiers of the Revolution, peasants with their torn trousers to their knees, and above all now the Jacobin’s hated enemies – the newly toppled Girondins.
One after the other those names appeared, because the Jacobin’s star was on the rise and now they were poised to purge the blood of the new Republic, like a doctor applying healing leaches to the body politic, to let out Dr Marat’s infection. Dr Marat was not a doctor of medicine, that was for sure, although the medicine he was applying in France was very strong indeed.
Charles Peperan Couchonet put the list aside, thinking that he should be back in the fearful Capital soon, if only to watch his own back, and picked up a different document.
It was a manifest of the boats due to dock officially in the French port over the next five days and of foreign travellers who would be passing through Calais herself.
Charles Couchonet’s hard little black eyes scanned the names carefully. Some he recognised as spies in his own secret police force, his agents and operatives abroad, travelling back with the invaluable information that they were gathering about England’s coming war effort.
Others were just ordinary travellers, or pretending to be, thought Couchonet, with a mean little smile. He trusted nothing and no one now.
One name caught his eye in particular, under heading Spirit of Endeavour. Bonespair, S.
It registered immediately as a French Huguenot name. This Bonespair had papers from their London Embassy. Next to that, and the two other initials, H and E, one of his operatives had scribbled in French; Children – Minimal Threat.
The Black Spider was wondering why a man was fool hardy enough to take his own children to bloodthirsty Paris, when he heard a sharp young voice.
“Citizen.”
The secret policeman swivelled around to see a thin, awkward young lad with dark red hair standing in the doorway. The sixteen year old was dressed almost exactly like Charles Couchonet himself, in a black frock coat and plain cravat, but holding something in his hand - a little homemade Mouse Trap.
“Alceste,” said Couchonet immediately, his lips pursing into a very unattractive smile, and his boil hurting him again, “you’re up late, Alceste.”
“Yes, Citizen,” answered the newcomer stiffly, stepping more boldly into the shadowy room and blushing, “I couldn’t sleep, Citizen.”
A seagull screamed outside and in the dancing candle light Couchonet noticed the livid pink spot flourishing right next to his nephew’s little hooked nose - the beginnings of a pimple.
He suddenly wondered if the lad’s beard had started to come, but he had no real time for children.
“In private I think you might call me uncle, Alceste,” he said softly though, yet feeling little affection for the boy, as the lad looked at Couchonet quizzically and blinked.
“Yes, Citizen Uncle, but I’ve a special request.”
“Request, Alceste?”
Alceste Couchonet stepped closer and his eyes were flickering keenly, as he clutched his mousetrap. Being clever with his hands, Alceste had made it himself.
“May I go down to the port tomorrow, with the soldiers?”
“To play?” asked the Black Spider, standing up.
“Play,” snorted the lad, in disgust, “No, Citizen, of course not. To inspect the new arrivals this week, Citizen Uncle. I think I’ve a good eye.”
Charles Couchonet tilted his head.
“Eye, Alceste?”
“For spotting traitors,” said Alceste, stiffening proudly, “and for sniffing out Counter Revolutionaries. For nosing them out, Citizen. For uncovering the Enemies of France, Uncle.”
A keen, cold light woke in the young man’s eager eyes and Couchonet suddenly thought of his misguided brother. Alceste had denounced his own father, Pierre, to the Committee of Public Safety, as a traitor to the new Republic. He was Couchonet’s charge now, while his sister had lodged with a cousin in the provinces.
The Black Spider knew the boy had hated and feared his bullying, drunken father, not to mention a man who had held very unsound beliefs indeed.
Couchonet himself had had little time for his own hard childhood, but he wondered too how a child could denounce his own parent so very willingly. Perhaps it was just the fervour of the Revolution now, and a necessary one, but it suggested great and terrible things for the lad.
“Yes, Alceste,” answered the secret policeman softly, sitting down again, “Of course. You’re very keen tonight.”
“We must be more vigilant than ever, musn’t we, Citizen?” said Alceste immediately, “I mean Uncle. To defend Freedom, by arresting and killing them all. The enemies of France.”
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…”
“Of course, French, my boy. The English are no fools and if this great plot is real, their aristos and spies will disguise themselves, for sure. While there is nothing more dangerous to us now than our own people.”
The Terror Time Spies Page 5