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.
EIGHT - BINEGAR AND GABBAGE
“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.
The secret policeman was lost in these dark thoughts, when there was another sharp knock at the door.
“Entrée.”
Peurette and Deforlage appeared together now, and between them came Juliette St Honoré, like a lamb to the slaughter. She was dressed as she had been in Peckham, although tired and very frightened, having been rather ill crossing La Manche. Couchonet coldly indicated the chair he had prepared.
“Sit down, girl.”
Juliette sat and crossed her hands neatly on her lap, as if she was at tea with the Bonespair’s, wondering how quickly fortunes can chan
ge. It had been no more than four days ago that she had stood behind her mother, outside the little lodge, and warned the Bonespairs not to come to France.
“Leave us,” snapped Couchonet and the Black Spider turned his dark eyes on the St Honoré child.
“Welcome back, my dear,” he whispered, thinking Juliette’s face rather pleasant, for an aristo, “you must be glad to be on French soil again. La Patrie.”
Juliette lifted her lovely blue green eyes, but said nothing.
“Then again, perhaps not, since you’re accused and now must stand trial.”
“Trial?” said Juliette, as bravely as she could, although her head was suddenly spinning, “but I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Charles Peperan Couchonet put his gloved hands flat on the desk and smiled tolerantly.
“Nothing wrong? I see you suffer from the world’s eternal failing of believing in innocence and naivety, child,” he sneered, “You, your mother and brother abandoned your country as émigrés and so have betrayed the great Revolution. Your very actions mark you out as a Counter-Revolutionary.”
“But I’m only sixteen,” said Juliette, keeping her blue eyes steady, “with plans to be a Governess, to help Mamman. Thanks to the kindness of Mr William Wickham and the English. I’ve never plotted against your stupid Revolution.”
Couchonet’s eyes glittered now.
“Ah yes, Wickham. An English ‘Gentleman’, no, and so-called diplomat? But now you can hardly deny your sympathies are not…not pro-France. Or that you’re the daughter of the hated Royalist, Pierre St Honoré, a notorious traitor.”
Juliette sat up angrily at this.
“I’d never deny I’m my father’s daughter,” she cried, tears stinging in her frank eyes, “The best father in the whole world, and a man murdered by his own countrymen. No one hated him.”
“Murdered?” snapped Couchonet, and his boil throbbed, “You mistake your terms, child. Be careful. He died in prison, at the hands of the State, as a known criminal.”
“Papa never did anything criminal in his life,” said Juliette, just as angrily, “He was always good to his people. He worked hard and cared for everyone, as best he could.”
The poor girl wanted to burst into tears but she held herself straight.
“His people, Citizeness? You condemn him from your own mouth then. An aristocrat, if only a minor one, who upheld the Feudal System, against liberté, brotherhood and egalité. Do you deny these are the very highest human ideals?”
Juliette St Honoré sensed that Couchonet was leading her into some sort of trap and was wise enough to hold her tongue.
“Sixteen is not too young to judge, I think,” Couchonet continued “As we must all judge, and take sides now. Besides, your father was given a fair trial. As you shall be, arraigned in Paris, for Treason. You know the certain penalty, child? Death.”
Juliette St Honoré felt faint.
“But you’ve kidnapped me and broken the laws of England.”
“Laws?” spat the Spider, “Did not my predecessors, working for that man they called King, kidnap and murder our people? Did not England too? If you are truly innocent, girl, you will of course be allowed to go free. We honour Justice in France. We are on French soil now, with French laws.”
“But you’ve already said I’m guilty,” said Juliette furiously, “by the very fact of being an émigré aristocrat. If only a minor one,” Juliette added, a little bitterly.
Charles Couchonet almost blushed, rather impressed with the bold young woman’s keen intelligence.
“Your situation is not hopeful, I admit,” he said softly. “Perhaps you think me the very devil, but it is not for me to pre-empt the wisdom of the Court. I am just a humble servant of our great Republic, and of the swift hand of French Justice. A servant of Revolution, Citizeness, and so of the glorious future. All our futures now.”
“There’s no justice in France, Mamman says” said Juliette, feeling bitterly ashamed of her own countrymen, “You’re murdering Justice.”
“Because your class do not recognise the truth of revolutionary ideals,” cried Couchonet, slamming a fist furiously on the desk and jolting Juliette upright, “and made the People sweat in servitude, or imprisoned them for nothing but an impertinent look at a sainted aristocrat?”
Juliette frowned. This was well beyond her, but she suddenly wondered.
“It has nothing to do with me, does it?” she said though. “It’s about my uncle Charles, who’s too powerful and popular for you. Who loves the people, but opposed the murder of a King too.”
Couchonet’s clever eyes glittered and he felt even more admiration, but he almost shuddered too as he wondered how the opinionated, fiesty child would ever fare in the terrible prisons of Paris.
“Some things are necessary,” he whispered simply, getting up and crossing around his desk, “For the Greater Good, girl.”
“You’ve stopped Uncle Charles leaving Paris, haven’t you?” said Juliette suddenly.
Charles Couchonet stopped near the door and turned smartly.
“We had stopped him, yes. But then he slipped from our grasp, like a slithery eel, so now is hiding somewhere in the regions. But enough of this from a child,” added the Black Spider, “Peurette.’”
Couchonet had grasped the handle and opened the door suddenly and both his men tumbled straight into the room. The two agents had been listening outside, just like little Adam Snareswood.
“Idiots,” cried Couchonet scornfully, “But I’m satisfied as to the traitor’s identity. Take her to Paris then, without delay, or you shall hear from me. I’ll be on your trail today too.”
As Charles Couchonet watched the child go, the Black Spider was not thinking of her at all now, but what was awaiting him on board that boat, newly arrived from England: The Spirit of Endeavour.
Just then a pair of glittering stowaway eyes peered from their hiding place, on the Spirit itself, docked safely in the enemy port, watching as Henry Bonespair, Skipper Holmwood and Francis Simpkins trailed the other passengers down the gang plank, and stepped at last onto French soil.
It felt just as hard as English soil, but different somehow too. It almost smelt different. The other travellers were moving towards the waiting French soldiers at a simple checkpoint, as the stowaway on board wondered if the horrible, sick feeling would ever go away -The terror.
Suddenly there was a gruff shout though and angry, raised voices. Among them was an English voice, then a French one, but onshore, as two soldiers on the harbour broke away and came running half way up the Spirit’s gang plank. It was their job to investigate any goings on in Calais.
“Quesque-qui ce passe?” snarled one, waving his musket.
“Eeer,” cried an English sailor, as they almost reached the top, “you damned Frenchies can’t come aboard, them’s the rules.”
The French soldiers in their floppy red Phrygian caps, or ‘Liberty’ caps, hesitated. France was officially at war, but the real hostilities had not started yet, and the meagre traffic between the two countries needed rules to keep it open still, rules that both hostile Nations were forced to accept, diplomatically.
“And you can take this damned imp back down again,” said the English Captain suddenly, appearing too, as a shape came lunging towards the soldiers and a ragged figure fell at their feet, at the top of the gang plank.
Those stowaway eyes narrowed, seeing Count Armande glaring at the Spirit’s sailors, who had just dragged him from his hiding place and alerted the soldiers on shore to something going on.
“He’s one of yours, some Frenchie fisher boy, by the sounds. Must have just climbed aboard. Get ‘im off my ship.”
Count Armande was trying to pick himself up, as the second stowaway, Nellie Bonespair, realised just how vulnerable she was too. Little Spike knew that Count Armande had been hiding in the crates, but she hadn’t expected him to be caught so easily.
Spike had seen him stash himself there, after she had pretended to fall asleep
next to Hal, then followed Armande from the Eagle in the dead of night and shinned up that rope to board the Endeavour too. There was no way that Nellie Bonespair was being left out, behind or going home all alone and she was very good indeed at climbing things.
Spike thought guiltily of how she had broken her promise to Henry though, not to mention the Magic Time Piece, TWICE, leaving a bolster in her bed, but at least the seven year old’s spikey hairs had been crossed, so it wan’t really a lie.
Something else was ringing in Nellie’s little mind too: The Oath.
Not the Oath of the Pimple Club, that Spike could hardly remember anyway now, except for something about innocence and ideeels, but of the great Rat Catchers themselves: “I swear to be a true Rat Catcher. To get into Mischief, To Cause Trouble, to Have Fun...”
As Nellie Bonespair crouched there, watching Armande’s troubles, the tom-boy was having anything but fun though and she suddenly wanted to be anywhere but here too. Tears started to smart in her little green eyes.
Near the gangplank Count Armande had got up though and one of the French soldiers pointing a glinting bayonet at his chest looked as if he was about to use it on him.
“Qui est vous?” he grunted, “Who are you?!”
On shore Francis had grasped Hal’s arm. The three Pimplernel’s hearts stood still, as they wondered if Armande would open his mouth proudly and so give the game away. Rather than answer normally though Count St Honoré suddenly stood on one leg and cocked his head oddly.
“J’ai faim,” he cried, with a pitiful groan, “Oooooooh. J’ai soif.”
“Name?” asked the soldier sharply, looking very taken aback, “Papers.”
There was a horrible pause.
“Aaaaalfonse,” answered Armande suddenly, in a strange whooping cry, his eyes goggling and starting to dribble too, “Alfonse Defense. La defence d’Alfonse.”
The Count grinned idiotically, and started waving his head wildly as he stuck out his tongue.
The Terror Time Spies Page 14