The Terror Time Spies (2 page)

Inside the great house the spying adult’s eyes narrowed, yet he shifted nervously too, as he spotted two more children approaching his home. 

They were strolling calmly in the distance, with their aging mother, along an avenue of beautiful, shimmering silver birch trees, and they looked almost ghostly in the limpid sunlight. 

The boy and girl in the distance were far more smartly dressed than Henry Bonespair.   The delicate children, Armande and Juliette St Honoré, they were called, were real French aristocrats, and only recently refugees from murderous France. 

Their father, the old Count St Honoré, had died in Paris in an infamous prison called the Bastille, and now the finely dressed Armande, much taken by fancy tailoring, had inherited the title of Ninth Count of St Honoré, rather earlier than might have been expected. 

William Wickham’s own network of English secret agents had been the ones who had spirited them away from the Revolutionaries and helped his mother and the children flee to safety, as what are called émigrés.

Through the large Bay windows Henry Bonespair had not seen the other children though and, as the bucket reached him at last, he peered eagerly inside, looking for the frogspawn that he had left here last week, from the big pond, where he had gone swimming again that same morning.   

Nothing. The frogs eggs must have all hatched.  Henry Bonespair was too cheerful to mind much though, catching his rippling face smiling back at him from the bucket water, and wondering who he was.  The growing lad suddenly could not wait for his birthday to end. 

Henry loved birthdays, of course, as much as any boy, but tomorrow something
far
more exciting was happening, that might help Henry to find out just who he was.   

Tomorrow morning Henry Bonespair was leaving leafy Peckham, to travel to Dover and across the sea, then into the very heart of the wicked French Revolution itself. 

The boy swallowed hard, feeling some pond water still stuck in his right ear, from his early morning swim, as he pondered the journey and shook his head. 

After crossing the famous English Channel he, his little sister Eleanor and his father Simon would be in Paris then, for real, where daily now the English newspapers reported that the wooden tumbrils, the simple carts carrying their batches of condemned aristocrats, set out each morning to feed that infamous
Guil-teen
, as his sister called the Frenchie’s dreaded metal executioner. 

The Bonespair’s crazy journey back to France at such an evil time was in order to visit their ever sickly grandmother, the great Madame Geraldine de Bonespair. 

The poor old woman was on her deathbed now and had summoned them back to say a last, fond farewell, especially to her Grandchildren.   No one ever denied the wishes of Madame Geraldine de Bonespair.

As Henry Bonespair looked out across the open fields now, in the glorious English day, he suddenly felt the most wonderful sense of freedom and adventure; a gigantic sense of coming liberation.

“BOO,” snapped a little voice though and Henry nearly jumped out of his skin.  He felt like a frog. 

“Oh look out, you idiot,” the boy snapped, spinning round furiously, as the bucket dropped onto the gravel drive and soaked his brand new woollen britches, his birthday present from his parents. 

“Blast it, Spike.  Don’t ever creep up on me like that!”

Henry Bonespair’s little sister just grinned back at him. 

Little Eleanor’s chesnut hair looked rather crazy, while her Tomboy’s clothes were covered in dirt and straw.  She was wearing torn britches down to her scuffed knees, simple canvas shoes and a thick artisan’s smock. 

Spike had been climbing trees all morning, her favourite pastime, but the little tomboy was over the moon at having just caught her clever elder brother by surprise. 

“Just testing for the trip, scaredy cat,” she laughed, “Though the Scarley Pimple would never have let me sneak up like that.”  

Henry Bonespair glared down at his sister now, still panting heavily with her daring dash from the trees beyond.   

“Pimpernel, Spike,” he snapped, “The Scarlet Pimpernel.   You know that, stupid.”

Spike shrugged.  Brave little Eleanor Bonespair didn’t rally care, although mention of the celebrated Scarlet Pimpernel always made Henry Bonespair’s heart beat faster.   

The boys had first picked up the rumour of a mysterious English hero back in London, just a secret whisper in the play ground, but now the children were always imitating his daring exploits. 

The Scarlet Pimpernel was an aristo, some said, a brilliant and cunning nobleman, who pretended to be just a fop and a fool, yet travelled all the way to France, in cunning disguises, in order to snatch away poor innocents from the vicious jaws of the dreadful Frenchie
Guilteen
. 

Henry Bonespair had often pretended to be the brave and mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel himself, while here in the countryside poor Nellie had to serve as the Pimpernel’s entire band -
his loyal League
. 

Now Henry suddenly wondered what his hero really looked like, but Spike stiffened and saluted her brother, touching a little fist to her grubby forehead.  Spike had just thought of something far better than any stupid Pimple. 

“Keeper of the Sacred Rat’s Tail reporting with Nooos, Hal,” she announced proudly.   

Henry Bonespair straightened too, almost despite himself. 

As the leader of the Rat Catchers, their special gang in London, which he had started with his best friend Francis Simpkins, Hal was always the first person to report any significant news to, although he suddenly wished that he wasn’t.

There was something Gallic in Henry Bonespair’s long, intelligent features - which sort of means French – for, coming originally from a Huguenot family, on his father’s side, but settled in England a time ago, the Bonespair children were partly of French origin themselves, although naturalised English now.   

Spike and Henry Bonespair thought of themselves as thoroughly English, although both spoke the funny language a little, even if Henry Bonespair never admitted it at school.    Especially not now the Frenchies were the enemy again.

“Oh go on then, Spike,” said Henry, “Un Revelation!”

Spike raised a sharp little eyebrow and her green eyes glittered at him.

 “
New discovery,
Hal,” she said.  “Informant – Skipper Holmwood, second coachman’s son.  Skipper just showed me a special new Invisible ink, Hal.”

Henry Bonespair looked a little jealous, but raised a sceptical eyebrow too. 

“Lemon juice or soap water, Spike?” he asked, though he almost yawned.   

“Vinegar, ninnee!” cried Nellie irritably, furious at this smug dismissal.  “Vinegar don’t show up, unless you rub red cabbage water on it.  Some boy in Peckham village showed Skipper.”

Henry looked almost impressed now, as he picked up the bucket again and perched it carefully on the well.  Anyone could write vanishing messages with milk, lemon juice, or sugar water, all knowledgeable and adventurous boys know
that. 
But vinegar really was new. 

“Right, Spike,” he said softly, “vinegar and cabbage.  Thank you, Sacred Tail Keeper.”

Nellie Bonespair snapped her arm back to her side proudly, but she frowned too, at her brother’s clear disinterest in the vital work of the Rat Catchers. 

The boys had let Spike into their great gang just four months earlier, although reluctantly, since she was a girl, but now she was by far the keenest member.  Not to mention
The Sacred Tail Keeper
. 

The position had been Spike’s own idea; guarding the scrawny rat’s tail, that you held to take the most sacred Oath of Initiation:
“I swear to be a true Rat Catcher, to get into mischief, to cause trouble, to have fun at all costs, and never, ever to reveal the identity of the Rat Catchers to the enemy…Grown Ups.”

       A noble fire glowed in the little girl’s bright green eyes now, as she thought it much better than this silly Scarley Pimpernel  who Hal seemed to worship, but she noticed her brother seemed distracted again, as she fiddled with the rat’s tail in her pocket.  Henry Bonespair had cut it off a dead rat they had found in a stinking drain in London and they had pickled the sacred tail in rubbing rum, for a week.

        Her brother’s attitude made Spike furious though, because the very best thing about joining the Rat Catchers was really getting to spend so much time with her elder brother, and his friends - Boys. 

Eleanor admired Hal very much indeed.  She hero worshipped
him
, in fact.

 “And Skipper showed me something else, First Catcher,” Spike said rather accusingly, “Cut off a silly chicken’s head, right in front of me.”

The cheeky Tom-boy grinned again and made a strange gurgling sound, as she ran a little finger sharply across her throat.  Nellie Bonespair did it whenever the Catchers talked about that clever new ‘
Guilteen
’ machine, over the sea in France. 

“Instead of fallin’ down though,” she went on, “the stupid thing ran all about, with no head on at all.  Magic, H.”

 “Oh, magic’s for Ninnees, Spike,” said Henry Bonespair irritably, thinking of a guillotine, and trying to forgive her for sneaking up and surprising him, “but don’t joke about things like that, Spike.   Don’t you read the papers?” 

Now little Eleanor screwed up her face in absolute horror. 

“Noosepapers?” she cried, “Course I don’t, stupid, I’m only seven.  And there
is
magic, Hal, there is, just like Wickham’s smelly well is haunted.  I want to go back to London right now.”   

As Spike turned her head to look at the great building that she hated ever going near, Spike noticed a thin, scholarly man hurrying from the stables, towards the dovecot beyond. 

The ever strict tutor, Robert Penhaligon, had been appointed to teach those  Frenchie children, Juliette and Armande St Honory, who were always looking down their noses at Spike and her family, or so she thought.  Nellie didn’t like Armande Count-Thingamy especially.

As she saw the tutor reach the dove house she suddenly wished they could have a bird at home, a pretty little yellow canary, in a golden cage.   Or a rabbit, or a dog or cat.  But their house was too small in London and their mother did not like pets, especially in her condition now.

Nellie suddenly noticed a sharp metallic glint from inside her brother’s shirt though. 

“What’s that, Hal?”

Now Henry looked rather protective, but he reached inside his shirt slowly and pulled out a shiny round metal object, dangling on a fine silver chain.  Henry Bonespair held up a silver disc, with the purest of white faces, covered in glinting glass, and cupped it carefully in his palm.     

“WOW” gasped Spike, in wonder, “What’s THAT, Hal?”

Her brother was staring lovingly at the delicate porcelain face, with its two fine black hands and its expertly etched roman numerals.   
All my own
, he was thinking. 

He ran his thumb across the wrought guilt symbols, running around its edge, that looked like runes from some wizard’s spell book. 

There was a Sun and Moon, an old ship, a cloud, an anchor, an ear, a chest, a nose, a flame, a door, an eye and what looked like a glove too.  There were twelve beautifully etched symbols, in all.  It was very fine workmanship indeed.

“A Chronometer, Spike,” her brother answered, “Mr Wickham gave it to me this morning, for my birthday.  A very special present.”

The strange thing was rather large and quite thick too.   It felt oddly tingly and warm now, as Henry wondered if the sunlight had heated it up. 

His dark eyes fell on one symbol in particular though, at the right of the dial - the glove - and inside that great house the spying grown-up span the globe again. 

       The secret agent was thinking of his failed journey once more, and a dead French King too, as he stared at those innocent children, Henry Bonespair holding his very own watch, then thought of poor Queen Marie Antoinette, still held in prison in France, under the threat of execution too.

        William Wickham stepped back behind the curtain, as Spike turned her head sharply and his thoughts were suddenly burning, as he began to contemplate his ever pressing problem. 

 The English spy’s clever plans had all failed, and his master’s network of clever secret agents were constantly being harassed or arrested now, no matter what brilliant disguises they used, especially by that beady eyed Frenchman, Charles Couchonet, waiting and watching all the time in the all important French entry port of Calais.. 

       With Couchonet behind it, the cry on the borders was usually the same now though: 
“Stop there, Citizen! Show your papers, Citizen! Praise the French Republic, Citizen! Pity your English neck, Citizen Traitor!”

It was certain death to be caught on French soil now, especially as a spy, yet Wickham’s Master back in London had just issued special instructions for Wickham to get an agent to Paris urgently, and with a desperate purpose too. 

The spy frowned darkly, thinking with hatred of what his bitterest enemy in Calais had done, that day the poor French King had died.