The Terror Time Spies

Tell me, have you ever heard of the famous Scarlet Pimpernel?  A writer, a Baroness, in fact, told wonderful stories all about him and his great adventures.  A daring Englishman, he was, during terrible times in France, a Revolution there, who risked everything to help people.  In times not always so different from our own, in fact, somewhere in the wide world anyway.

She told that he was handsome, brave and cunning, and dressed in fabulous disguises, but pretended to be stupid and hopeless, to fool the Frenchies;  how he was an English aristocrat, in fact. 

Well some say that he is just a made-up story, but others that the daring Scarlet Pimpernel really existed.  That the writer had heard real stories herself, and so put them into her own books.  Who really knows?  What we do know about now though are the wonderful adventures, the almost unbelievable adventures, of the famous Pimpernel Club…

An Imprint of Phoenix Ark Press, London

Beginning the famous chronicles

of the Pimpernel Club

With kind permission from the Baroness Orczy estate

and AP Watt, London

These adventures appear as a series of factional novels, but true events have been reconstructed from the real records of the Club, recently discovered in a country barn, and signed in the careful hand of Francis Simpkins. 

They also seem to confirm that the novels by Baroness Orczy, written nearly a hundred years ago, about the daring exploits of a Scarlet Pimpernel during the French Revolution might have been based on a real rumour, even a real man…
                       

  
From an amused fan of the Scarlet Pimpernel stories,

      for FUTURE generations

        And for Marie P, and Christine.

Author’s note: Newspaper reports are taken from real clippings from the French Revolution, while William Wickham was a real diplomat and probably spy.  The story is threaded with true facts, like Jean Paul Marat’s murder and The Affair of Carnations.

“
Oh what a joy was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven
.”

Wordsworth on the French Revolution.

‘Where we learn of a Revolution, speak of the Scarlet Pimpernel and encounter a very dangerous birthday present…’

The lean secret agent
scowled
, as a polished wooden globe span on his great mahogany dining table, and he re-read the terrible facts.  The yellowing newspaper report he was holding was from a copy of
The London Times,
from six stormy months before, January 25
^th
, that strangely famous year of 1793:

“By an express which arrived yesterday morning from Messrs’  Fector and Co. at Dover, we learn the following particulars, of the King's
 
execution
...
’

The elegant English spy had not read it in a while, it was just too painful, but his dark and troubled memories were suddenly back there in Paris again, all those months before. 

There William Wickham had stood himself, disguised in worker’s clothes, with a bright red liberty cap on his head, as the angry French mob all around him snarled for a death. 

On a high wooden scaffold in Paris, a pale and trembling figure stood waiting by a very infamous machine: 
Madame Guillotine
, the new French State nicknamed their brand new mechanical killer  - a killer for a scientific age.

‘TYRANT’, came a screech, from a hate-filled face in the crowd, ‘Death to the tyrant traitor!’ 

A great cheer went up, as the lonely figure turned and lifted his powdered chin, then King Louis XVI himself tried to address his people.  “
I die innocent,”
the French King said quietly,
“I pardon my enemies
…”

“Innocent!” snarled a ragged crone though, holding up her filthy, balling baby, “Why, yoose lying Royal swine.  I’ll give yoose enemies.”

 Soldiers grabbed his Majesty now and thrust the King of France himself between the two tall wooden poles, suspending that glinting axe blade:
nearly Quarter past ten of the clock,
reported the London Times precisely. 

It was quite a time to turn a world upside down.

A sombre drum roll started now, as a gaunt, skull-faced man called Sanson reached out his bony fingers to pull a little lever on the guillotine. At the precise skill of the executioner, the terrible axe blade fell, straight towards that elegant Royal neck: 
Click.  Shnaaaak.  Plop. 

It was finished, mechanically, as three hundred ‘Liberty’ hats were hurled into the stinking Paris air. 

William Wickham shuddered rather guiltily, safely back home in the peaceful fortress of England now, as he touched his angular throat, in its high, white stock. 

The King of France himself was dead, but in a way that represented the ‘modern world’ entirely to the English spy – by means of a filthy French guillotine.  The English diplomat and secret agent suddenly remembered that old saying about never, ever living in ‘interesting times.’ 

William Wickham was dressed in an 18
^th
century frock coat, stiff tailored grey trousers and polished brown leather riding boots.  He seemed no spy at all, just the  model of a perfect English Gentleman. 

“
Doing
.”  

Wickham jumped sharply, as an old Grandfather clock chimed somewhere beyond, touching his throat nervously again. 

As the adult looked out now though, through his great drawing room windows, past his grand red velvet curtains, and remembered his failed mission to France, just then he noticed a young figure strolling happily outside and his eyes glittered savagely.

Coming towards Mr Wickham now, as that Globe came to a sudden stop, was a tall and handsome young lad; the son of William Wickham’ own Land Agent, Simon, who was currently staying in the Lodge House on his great estate. 

A mop of rich black hair tumbled about the lad’s handsome, open face and a bright grin shone on his flushed cheeks.  He had dark but piercing eyes, sparking with cleverness, fun and mischief.  There was only one thing wrong with the perfect picture.  Henry Bonespair’s nose was just a little too big.   

Henry’s parents, Simon and Charlotte Bonespair, had brought their little family to Mr Wickham’s great Peckham estate for the long English summer, once again, to help Mr Wickham with his papers and business affairs.  But so that his family could escape the terrible illness now raging in London too.  THE
CHOLERA. 
1793 was a very dangerous year to be alive. 

The Land Agent’s cheerful young son reached the old stone well now, in the big gravel yard in front of the house, and peered down inside, shivering as he started to crank the wooden wheel and raise the water bucket. 

Henry Bonespair’s little sister Spike was convinced that the old well was haunted, while there were stories everywhere about ghosts haunting the big country house and great English estate.

Henry Bonespair preferred the rumour of a series of old underground tunnels though, from the days of the English Civil War.  Tunnels that might hide buried treasure.

Although tall, Henry Bonespair was only just fourteen, that very same morning, in fact.  Now he was touching the slight rash that had come on his neck, wondering what the terrible cholera was really like, and, as the bucket rose, Henry noticed how damp and mossy the old stones were down there. 

Henry shivered again, at thoughts of a haunted house, and opened his mouth like a fish.   

“HELLOOOO THERrrrrre,” he called, delighted by the thin echo that came bouncing back at him – ‘
HELLOOOOOOOOO Thairrrrrrr, Henry B.’