The Terror Time Spies (12 page)

Gradually Spike had made a hole for air though, with the catapult stick, perfect for firing the stones in her pocket through, that had so startled silly Major Bishop’s horse, then wicked Jack Skanks too. 

As she told it Skanks held up his thumb, which had started to bleed again and Armande noticed that the colour had suddenly drained from Francis’s cheeks.

Henry looked furiously at his little sister, then grew more understanding, as the cider made him dizzy and giggly. 

Hal was holding a raw steak to his eye now, that Skanks had given him.  It felt delicious, but as Francis turned his gaze on it, he suddenly went white and seemed to rock backwards.

“What’s wrong, F?” said Henry, with concern.

“Blood,” whispered Francis Simpkins, trying to sit up straight nd going red.  “I hate the sight of blood.”

“But the talking wood,” grunted Skanks suddenly, by the fire.  “That hanging voice?  I still don’t…”

Nellie Bonespair squatted forwards now, cupped her little hands and called through them, as loudly as she could, at an old elm tree.  The boys were amazed, and rather envious too, for the sound seemed to come from over there, somehow bouncing off the tree:  A voice - “HELLOOOOO.”

“I taught her ‘ow te throw her voice,” smiled Skipper Holmwood proudly, on the edge of the circle.

“Why you little devils,” grunted Skanks admiringly, “Clever as Old Nick himself.”

Henry Bonespair looked up sharply, thinking of what the tramp had said, but his frowning face cleared.  Of course! That voice in the well, and in the barn too.  It had only been his sister, clever little Eleanor Bonespair. 

Henry Bonespair was half furious, but half delighted too, certain again that magic did not exist, in this age of reason, and that his horrid vision in the fire had just been tiredness and strain.  Henry had imagined the whole thing. 

One thing was sure though, thought Henry now, this adventure was real enough and the Pimpernel Club needed to keep their wits and their courage about them.

“Bleedin’ miraculous, Spike,” grunted Jack Skanks though, “But yer all sure about this?” the adult added, as he helped himself to some more grog and belched loudly.  His thumb had stopped bleeding.

“Yes,” said Henry, for the others too, “But you’re not going to stop us, though, or give The Club away?”

Jack Skanks grinned and winked at them.

 “Not me, lad.  I swears it.  I know there’s a war on, and it does my heart good to hear of such a grand and brave adventure.  Reminds me of my yoof.”

“Were you always a Highwayman, Sir?” asked Francis Simpkins suddenly, plucking up the courage to speak, and not stuttering at all.  Francis sometimes tried to cure it by holding a pebble in his mouth and orating in the schoolyard, or under his breath, at least.

“Not a bit, matey,” answered Skanks, “Butcher’s boy turned cracksman, turned highwayman, and Master at reinventin’ myself too.  So old Nick don’t get me in his black clutches.   The Devil’s abroad again, all right, in the Frenchie lands, any rate.”

Francis was suddenly pleased that his best friend was not going to France at all.  This adventure was frightening enough, but something they could just manage together, if they kept their courage up and their wits about them in Dover. 

Besides, they would be back in a few days time, safe and sound again.

“Porquois?” asked Count Armande haughtily though.  “Why a common thief, monsieur?  Just like these hateful Revolutionaries.”

“Common?” answered Jack Skanks, frowning, although not much put out, “Well, survival, lad, and no denying.  They got me first for steelin’ an apple, and nearly transported me ta the Australias, so I turned to bigger pay.  But for the love of the chase too, and the life of the open road.”

Francis was suddenly looking up into the black night, with this talk of the Australias, at the millions tiny stars glittering above them in the darkness. 

His young mind was suddenly filled with dreams and wild adventures, despite his nervous disposition, and his mind was spinning like a globe.  It was wonderful. 

Francis Simpkins so loved to study that old wooden globe, back in their schoolroom in Stockwell, and he thought of a famous book that he had sworn to read one day called
Principia Methematica
.  It was by none other than the great Sir Isaac Newton himself, who had talked of the laws of Motion and Gravity, and how the whole world, the whole Universe, is just like a great clock, designed by God, to make everything move perfectly in the Heavens.

As they sat there, Henry Bonespair was feeling equally liberated to be on the road, dining with a real Highwayman in the firelight.  All that wild sense of freedom had returned now.

“You aren’t a real Lord, then, Monsieur Skank?” asked Armande rather scornfully, “I am a Count, Monsieur, the Ninth St Honoré.”

Count Armande had straightened but Skanks laughed and jumped up, looking down kindly at the funny faced French lad, with his heavy eyebrows.  He was sitting on his valise, to keep his britches clean.

“Nope Siree,” he cried.  “Except a Lord of the open road, Count Armande. 
Lord
J Skanks, that’s me, or Highway Jack.  The Green ‘anky, some call me, or The Swingin’ Lantern.  Up north though it’s Roadside Roger, the Nighthawk, or Botany Bay Jim.  Just a few of me aliases, lads.”

The brave Pimpernel Club wondered how many aliases and disguises funny Jack Skanks had, but they all thought it miraculous too, and that night they slept in a neat row under the stars, the newly formed Club, five of them now, wrapped in their blankets in the damp grass, by the fading embers and around them the Universe felt quite gigantic.   

A warm summer morning, twittering with birdsong, found them on the edge of the Dover road again, with a dry and rested Skipper, ready to get cracking again in pursuit of their vanishing quarry. 

Henry Bonespair’s eye looked much better too, now that it was turning a gentler purple, with the healing effects of the raw steak.

“Good luck to yer then, Pimples,” cried Skanks, chuckling as he sat on dappled Betsy, as Nellie sat in the back of the coach with the boys and Skipper perched up front again, dry as straw and clasping the reins intently.   

They all seemed closer now, with their first real adventure.   

“But one more thing, boys n girl,” said the cheerful highwayman.

Jack Skanks slipped his hand into his pocket and drew out a beautiful white lace handkerchief, with a little flourish, which he offered to Count Armande, very graciously. 

“For you, my dearest Count,” he said, in a funny voice, “courtesy of our finest English nobility too, by gad.  Sink me if it aint from an aristo of the Soul.”

Henry grinned, for he had often used grand words and phrases like
by gad
,
gadzooks
and
sink me
, to imitate who Henry thought was the famous, aristocratic Scarlet Pimpernel. 

Hal nudged Armande, who took it rather gracelessly, noticing it had some initials sown into the corner: 
PS. 
Gracelessly, until Armande suddenly realised that such a fine handkerchief might make him a worthy leader of the Pimpernels.

Skanks reached into his other pocket now and chucked something to Spike, who caught the bag of shillings that the highwayman had taken from Francis.   

Then Jack Skanks produced a long metal object, that he handed straight to Francis.

“Proper equipment, lad,” he cried,  “A little telescope, to ‘elp you keep your eye in, for stargazing, and watching for dangerous spies too, but avoiding the sight of blood.  Pinched it off a navy captain, just near Dover.  Well, his pretty wife really.”

Skanks winked and Francis was delighted with the thing, as Henry looked a little jealous, until Skanks slipped his hand into his belt, pulled out one of his own pistols and pointed it in Henry’s face.  At Hal’s look of utter horror, Jack Skanks laughed again.

“It aint loaded, lad.   Bullets can go off in all sorts of unlucky ways, so I only keeps one loaded,
as a last resort. 
The rest’s just show.  Like you’ll all need now.  Good disguises.”

Skanks flipped it over, and offered Henry the brass handle. 

Hal grinned foolishly, as he took it, but now Skanks looked admiringly up at Skipper, whose nose was still sore and red with cold, and streaming badly. 

“An’ you don’t need nothing, Skip,” said Skanks rather fondly, “’cept to show all that courage you’s got in bucket loads.”

Skipper Holmwood, feeling left out before, gave a delighted if toothless grin and felt like a Lord on top of the carriage.

“There,” said Jack Skanks, popping his hat on Francis Simpkins’s head too, although extracting the feather and sticking it behind his ear, “And remember this, no matter how you disguise yerselves, lads, never forget who you really are.  It’s what’s inside that really counts.”

The boys and Spike looked at each other sharply and Henry felt rather strange.  Who exactly was he, he suddenly wondered again.

“Wish me well then,” cried Skanks though, “and tomorrow’ll see my pockets bulging.  Or if they ever cathes me I’ll soon be…”

Spike pulled a finger across her throat, and with another huge laugh,  Skanks slapped his horse Betsy and galloped off.   

“The Open Road,” he roared, as the wind caught his hair.  “The sport of the open road.”

“Well,” whispered Hal, as they saw the strange adult vanishing into the sunny distance, “that must be the only thief in England who gives things back again.”

The Pimples all grinned, with a feeling of desperate relief too, yet rather sad to see the funny adult go, all except for Count Armande. 

            “Still a common thief though,” the Count grunted, “and a dangerous Revolutionary too.”

Henry touched the Patent Revolutionary Time Piece at his neck.

“But these aren’t ordinary times, Count,” suggested Francis, in his three cornered hat, and holding his new telescope proudly.  “And now we’ve got some real equipment.  Loads of it.  Just like magic.”

“Told you so,” said Spike, with a grin.

“Hand that over then, Spike,” said Henry though, holding out his hand for the bag of coin.

“Won’t,” answered Nell, “or only if you promise not to take me back again.”

Her brother frowned at her.

“We can’t go back now, you little idiot, it would only slow us up and then we’d miss Juliette for certain.”

Spike grinned delightedly and handed over the coins. 

“But H,” she said, looking longingly at his birthday gift, “Can’t I wear that now, please, as the Keeper of the Sacred Time…”

“No, Eleanor,” snapped her brother, “The Leader wears it.  And don’t ever try to trick me like that again.  Understand me?”

Away the Club rattled, but not as fast as they might have wished, for now they came on the strangest thing yet:  Toll gates - high walls built across the Dover Road - where rough armed men were stationed to collect money from ordinary travellers, to pay for the up keep of the road. 

The tolls were collected at each stop, especially closer to the port, but although there were a few raised eyebrows at the odd little party, especially fine Count Armande, all the toll men seemed really interested in was their money. 

There were so many gates that Henry Bonespair wondered if the bag would hold out, or if they would reach Dover at all.  They were racing against time now.

“Oh hurry up,” he cried, as they reached yet another one, sitting beside Skipper now, up on the pillion, but at last the gates dropped away too and, near afternoon, the horse’s ears pricked up and they began to strain in their harnesses and rush on.  They could smell the sea.

Wickham’s animals were filled with the adventure too, as excited as the rest of the Club, now poking their three young heads out of carriage, the two others sitting up front, their hair streaming wildly in the racing wind.

“Could almost make ‘em fly, ‘aitch,” cried Skipper, as Henry watched the way he handled the reins admiringly.

“We’ve got to be in time though, Skip,” cried Hal, clutching his watch, and making his very will urge them on, to prove himself to Juliette St Honoré, and wondering how large these agents were, or what Dr Marat looked like. 

Suddenly they all spotted it:  The wide blue green expanses of the sea, the great English Channel, and nestling in the lea of huge white cliffs, rising like a great whitewashed castle wall before them, the famous little port of Dover.

“Doveur,” gasped Count Armande,  “I pray we’re not too late.”

“Wot you doing, F?” asked Spike though, as they drew closer still. 

Francis Simpkins seemed lost in a dream, scribbling swottishly in his book, in his three cornered hat, but the boy blushed and looked a little embarrassed, although what he said almost made Spike yawn.

“In which the Club are too late, we meet a famous English hero to be, very possibly encounter the Scarlet Pimpernel himself, and go to a crowded Inn…”