The Terror Time Spies (13 page)

Fear. 
 
That’s what the brave
members of the Pimpernel Club sensed as soon as they reached the famous port of Dover, like some spreading darkness, as they stabled William Wickham’s coach with a busy little farriers on the edge of the port, at the cost of yet another two shillings.   

The intrepid Club set off on foot around the town, quite forgetting to dress up, looking for Juliette and her Frenchie abductors, their ears filled with the sounds of the waves and the mournful screeching of hungry gulls. 

Spike was walking at Skipper’s side, it made her feel much safer, and Henry had shouldered the dressing up bag, while Count Armande carried his little tapestry valise rather carefully, thinking Horace Holmwood should carry it for him instead. 

Everywhere they saw Redcoats at street corners, or going to and from the garrison barracks, as the Pimpernels tried to look as ordinary as possible.  But it wasn’t just soldiers, alert for invasion and foreign spies, who seemed to have such a wary and vigilant look, it was all the good Dover citizens too. 

Where once they had promenaded Dover’s happy water fronts and peaceful alleys, like cheerful picnickers taking the sea air, now they caste each other menaced and menacing glances.  Families bunched together like groups of mussels, clinging to their individual rocks and waiting for a wave to strike and wash them away. 

Shoppers darted in and out of the shop fronts, like energetic prawns, snapping up the morsels they needed and scooting back to their holes in the long reef of Dovers’ humble terraced houses, before some bigger, more toothsome fish appeared to gobble them up.

The good people of Dover were truly terrified of the looming Terror across the sea.  Children would wake in the night, hearing above the shifting water, the slicing snap of Madame Guillotine, seeing a phalanx of little heads roll into a shop display of a thousand blood red wicker baskets. 

Mothers would hold their frightened children, among their nightmares, women their men, lovers their sweethearts, and wonder what storm was about to break over them all. 

Not that they were no revolutionary voices in England too, but now every Englishman, and most Scots and Welshman too, knew that the Revolution over that thin stretch of water dividing two great countries was entering a new and implacable phase, and with it came the horrible realities of War.  It was time indeed to take sides and fight for home.

The little Club, talking sides to rescue Juliet St Honoré, had been walking around Dover for two weary hours.  Twilight was coming in, with no sign of Juliette or espion, at all, when Armande pulled up sharp. 

The Count was pointing across the street, at a black carriage, stabled in a dingy courtyard.

“La,” he cried angrily, putting down his valise, “Look, Bonespair.  The filthy coach that they took Juliette in.  I’m sure.”

Armande was suddenly looking rather strangely at the others, as if this first piece of excellent detective work gave him a sudden new standing in the Club.

Henry led the Pimpernels straight across the cobbles, towards a scrawny figure sitting on a stool, smoking a long Meerschaum pipe, talking to another rough looking man. 

The gang stopped nearby and when the pipe smoker glanced at them, Spike saw that his right eye was as milky as a poached egg.  He stank of tobacco and raw fish too, which they could smell even at this distance.

“Frenchies,” they heard him hiss to the other man, “But with proper papers.  A merchant, his driver and daughter.  Picked her up from London, they said, though she seemed none too pleased to be going ‘ome.  No wonder.  They say Old Nick’s let loose across the Channel now.”

“Av’ a care, Bob,” said the other, and for a second Spike thought he was talking Avagum,  “They’ve seen spies on the road.”

“’eer, leave it out,” cried the first man, his face crumpling like a rotten lemon, “Any rate, they’ll be gone with the turning tide.  Sailing on L’Esperance, down there.  I can still see her mast.  Know that damned Frenchie ship anywhere.”

The smoker was just wandering what the strange children wanted, but the Pimpernels were suddenly hurtling away again, down those cobbled streets, racing furiously after their quarry, and wondering if their perilous journey had all be in vain.

“Hurry up, all of you,” cried Hal bitterly.  “On the Club’s honour.”

Just fifteen minutes later the Pimpernel Club stood in the bracing sea wind, on the Dover harbour side, staring out open mouthed, as a two masted ship,
L’Esperance
, glided out across the flat English Channel.   It had sailed with the turning tide.

Francis was holding Skank’s telescope, blinking stupidly, because it seemed to him as if the boat was already a thousand miles away, and through the viewer was now just a tiny pinprick on the distant horizon.

“Wrong way round, you ninnee,” said Spike, almost kicking him.

Francis blushed, since he thought himself so scientific, and turned it, but Count Armande grabbed the thing and trained it to his own eye, the right way round, this time.

“L’Esperance,” he cried bitterly, “And my sister.  They’ve gone, ‘enri.”

As the Club passed the little scope between them, they could see two men on deck, dressed in black, and between them, peering back longingly towards Dover, over the gunnels of the ship, stood a terrified young French woman, her blonde hair ruffled mournfully in the wind.  Juliette St Honoré was already on her way to France.

“Smithereens,” cried Henry, clenching his watch, “We’ve failed already.”

The poor Pimpernel Club stood helplessly on the quayside, feeling terrible now, although the sight of the open sea suddenly gave them the most enormous sense of thwarted freedom and adventure.

“Now what, Hal?” shrugged Spike at last, rather hopefully too, “Home, to be the Catchers again?”

Count Armande shook his head, wondering what he would tell his mother, the old Countess, and Francis Simpkins thought of his parents, with some considerable relief too, when they heard a high pitched piping, like a whistle, and saw a group of English sailors marching straight towards them along the harbour side. 

As the sailors neared, they found themselves pushed backwards, because they were forming into lines now.  One of them was blowing on a whistle, making those strange high-pitched noises on the wind.

The Pimpernel Club felt as if they had been co-opted into a parade, because they spotted a fine, tall figure striding along the quay in a white wig, a blue Navy dress coat, britches and white stockings, marching boldly towards them, followed by two young Midshipmen, in hats just like Francis’s.

The tall man leading had a very special air about him and the faces around them, among the ordinary, dirty sailory, were beaming and nodding approvingly.

“Oi lads,” cried one, “Let’s ‘eer it loud for the cap’ain then.  Hip Hip...”

There was a great shout of ‘Hooray’ and many of the good citizens of Dover stopped to watch the spectacle too. 

“With a crew like you, lads,” cried the Captain, “and a ship like the Aggy, England has nothing to fear.  Nothin’ more thrillin’ and freein’ than a war, eh?  I don’t know what the Frenchies think of you, but you scare the wits out of me.  Hearts of oak, eh lads?””

The Captain was gazing out to sea and Henry, who had felt his heart swell at all this brave talk, realised he was looking at a ship that they hadn’t noticed before, sliding gracefully into the port, along the Channel, from the East. 

It was a British Man-O-War, as Francis Simpkins wanted to note in his little book, a real British warship, it’s great white sails billowing in the stiff breeze. 

Hal and Francis guessed it must be the Aggy, the HMS Agamemnon: 
His Majesty’s Ship
.

“We sail tomorrow, lads,” cried the Captain, smiling, especially at his young midshipmen, not much older than the leader of the Club, “the tide swell has slowed the boats, but we’ll be at the Frenchies soon enough.  I promise it.  And victory.”

Suddenly Henry Bonespair’s mind was launching out over the water and he wanted to stand on deck, serving his King, and turn the boat’s guns, 64 poking from the great gun holes along the Agamemnon’s sides, straight at the revolutionary L’Esperance. 

The Captain turned now, winked straight at little Spike, then strode on, as his loyal sailors swarmed after him, leaving the Pimples to themselves again.  Except for the sailor who had blown the whistle, staring at Eleanor Bonespair as if she had just been anointed.

“What are you looking at, ninnee?” said Eleanor crossly.  She hated being stared at.

“You, lad,” the ruffian grunted, taking a pinch of snuff from a battered old tin, “Touched by the gaze of Lucky Nell himsel’.  Nell winked at ye, ye little powder monkey.”

“Lucky Nell?” said Henry though, looking confused and glancing at his sister.

“But don’t ye know who that was?” cried the sailor, marching off too, “Cap’ain Horatio Nelson, himself.  Our best an’ bravest.  Luckiest too, Lucky Nelson.”

Nellie beamed, despite herself. 

They were left alone, but Captain Nelson’s appearance had cheered and thrilled Henry, and even Francis, who had heard of Nelson’s daring naval exploits in the newspapers. Henry thought of his own leadership of the Club and as he realised he had just failed in their first adventure, determined to be just like Nelson in future. 

Count Armande was still gazing bitterly after L’Esperance though.

“What now?” gulped Francis, noticing the strange, mad gleam in Henry’s Bonespair’s eyes, which made him feel strangely sick.  That voice was in Hal’s head again though, about knowing your limitations, Robert Penhaligon’s voice, but Henry suddenly swung round to face the others.

“The Club go straight to Revolutionary Paris, of course,” said Henry.

Count Armande St Honoré looked at Hal in as much amazement as the others, except perhaps silent Skipper, who was standing a little behind them.

“Qu’est que vous avez dites, Bonespair?” Armande whispered, “I mean, ‘enri.  What?”

“We go to Paris, Count,” answered Hal more quietly, feeling the salt wind fresh on his cheeks and his heart thundering again, but trying to stand as tall as Captain Nelson, although his legs were shaking, as he gazed at the open sea.

“Oh, you’ve  gone mad,” said little Spike, “that’s just daft, H.”

“Spike’s right, Hal,” whispered Francis, staring fearfully out across the threatening English Channel, “there’s a war starting, and you can’t just walk into enemy territory, Henry.  That just stands to reason.”

“Oh, I know that, ninnee,” said Hal, slipping his hand into his pockets and pulling out some rather crumpled papers, “So the Club need
these.”

“The letters of passage,” gulped Francis Simpkins, his heart plummeting.

“And the Itinerary, F,” said Henry, “It’s all mapped out, to Paris and back again.  We’ve a room here in Dover too, and passage on the
Spirit of Endeavour,
after that.  We’ve got money too, a little, and I’m not afraid of boats.”

“But en France, Monsieur?” asked Armande, a little sarcastically and  Hal frowned deeply.  Something inside him was fighting  himself now.

“Er, we go straight to my grandmother’s, Count,” he answered,  “Madame Geraldine De Bonespair, in the Rue Beaulieu.  It’s written on the itinerary too.”

Armande blinked at him.  Henry Bonespair was not joking at all.

“Rue Beaulieu?  By the old watchtower,” the French boy muttered, wondering what it was really like in Paris now, “just near the Temple prison.  I used to play there as a boy.”

Spike raised an eyebrow.  Armande was still a boy to Nellie Bonespair, and a very silly one too, with all his fear of dirt and his fancy ways.

“There then, Count,” said Hal, improvising wildly now, “We, er, tell Grandma what’s happened and ask for her help.  She’s summoned us to Paris anyhow, or Spike and me.”

“Oh don’t be so mad, H,” said Francis, but Henry’s face had hardened as resolutely as Horatio Nelson’s.

“I’m not mad, F.  Grandma is powerful, they say, and it’s the only thing we can do.  MUST DO, if we’re
real
Pimpernels, and not just silly children, playing games and dressing up.  This is war.”

Eleanor Bonespair was scratching her little nose.

“But we
are
just…”

“If we’re to do our duty too,” snapped Hal, “You all heard what Captain Nelson just said.  He was a Midshipman once, and a midshipman might have sailed half way round the world by now.  We swore an oath to save Juliet and uphold our ideals, and who’s going to stop them
now
?  Mr Wickham’s gone to Switzerland, and father’s in London.”

Henry looked a little shamefaced, since Simon Bonespair was rather an ineffectual man, but Nellie suddenly missed her parents terribly.  She wondered why a Land Agent could not defeat all these horrid French Secret Agents, all alone.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” said Francis though, pushing back his three cornered hat.  The sea looked wild and cruel and very deep indeed.

“But if we went back now, it would be
weeks
before anything could be done,” insisted Hal though, quite reasonably, “So it’s the only thing we can do.  Follow Juliette ourselves, on the Spirit of Endeavour.”