The Terror Time Spies (20 page)

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 change.  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.

“Fou,” snapped the soldier, shrugging, “’ees mad.  But French, for sure.”

This made Count Armande feel less terrified, since he couldn’t think of anything else to do, but remembering that poor boy outside the Eagle, who everyone had paid so little attention to in Dover, and little care for either.

“Where are you from though?” asked the other, “Calais? You climbed aboard?”

Armande had to think fast now, or pretend that the Count couldn’t think at all. 

He was thinking very hard indeed though and looking nervously over the side of the ship too, into the thick, sludgy waters at the harbour side, floating with flotsam and jetsom, like a nasty scum.

“Calais?” he cried, “Calais, la.  Oui.  C’est moi.  Ha, ha!”

 “Oh, leave him be,” called a French Captain, from the dock, “it’s just a local idiot lad, without papiers.  And we’ve got to get on.”

The soldier nodded, but turning back to Armande and irritated by the dancing lunatic, he swung his foohard t and gave the Count such a vicious boot in the backside, that Armande went flying straight overboard, straight towards the disgusting looking water.

Spike gasped, as the Count dropped like a stone, with a great splash too, right into the Channel itself, as the Pimpernels, the soldiers on the dock, and the crew of the English packet all burst out laughing, together, despite the imminent threat of war. 

Even Nell giggled, thinking of Armande’s hatred of dirt. 

Francis wondered if Count Armande might drown though, but at last, much further down the dock, Armande St Honoré’s face emerged, his poor head carrying a halo of slimey seaweed and he began pulling himself out by a rusting mooring chain, coughing and spluttering terribly. 

“Thank heavens,” said Francis, “He’s safe and another Pimpernel’s in France.”

“Shoosh, F,” snapped Henry. 

The checking of papers had resumed, while the boys found themselves moving again, and about to face their gravest challenge yet. 

A severe looking French Capitain, six foot two, stood inspecting the passbooks and letters of transit into Revolutionary France, flanked by ten or fifteen armed guards. 

“Papiers, Citizen,” he barked, “Purpose en France?”

“Business,” was the common response, as the three Frenchmen from the Eagle, Thomas Guttery and Samuel Dugg all passed through.  The man from Grub Street stepped up now. 

“Richard Foreman,” he said, “’ere to report on the great Revolutionary struggle, Citizens, and to tell the world the big news.  I’m officially protected though, as a non-combatant.”