The Terror Time Spies (43 page)

That big, stupid looking English lad was on top, who had pretended to be Henry’s father back in Calais, wrapped in that woollen English scarf and big floppy hat, just sitting there dumbly, waiting. 

Alceste was a little surprised though, since it seemed so obvious a place to wait. 

Not half as surprised though as Foxwood and his men had been that morning when, just an hour earlier, they had gone to Madame Bonespair’s front door, but found no one answering the bell at all.

Alceste had not ordered his recruits to approach Skipper yet, because he wanted them
all
in his clutches;  especially Henry Bonespair and that wonderful Chronometer.  He would have his hands on them both soon enough. 

So imagine Alceste Couchonet’s utter delight when, crouching with four recruits by a brazier, he saw two little figures approaching the machine, playing a very unconvincing game of stick and hoop, who suddenly ducked beneath it, obviously thinking themselves invisible in the mêlée, to squat right by the storm drain.   

Alceste could tell from his nose that one was Henry Bonespair, and the other a short, French-looking lad, Alceste half fancied he had seen somewhere before.

Alceste might have advanced there and then, if his uncle had not given him the strictest instructions to do nothing without his say so, and because Alceste saw Hal’s simple shirt was open, but the wonderful Chronometer wasn’t there at all. 

He felt a sharp pain in his heart.  Nor were the boys opening the drain yet, but simply looking out at the noisy rabble.

“Patience, Alceste,” he whispered to himself though, “And subtlety.  All in good time!”

Alceste’s cunning plan was to rush the scaffold, just as the filthy Pamples tried to snatch the St Honoré girl away. 

Or, if they managed to get her down into the sewers, nab them when they came up at the far exit by the getaway coach, about fifteen minutes later. 

The drums started beating now, as the Fournees started to arrive with their wretched batches, and Sanson stepped out on stage again.   

Juliette St Honoré was clutching the rail of the second tumbril, as if she had on the deck of L’Esperance, trying to hold her head high.  Her heart was in her feet, as she caught sight of that terrible axe.     

Poor Juliette thought she might faint away, as she saw the skeletal executioner and the leering, hate-filled faces in the crowd:  Her own people.  

She was desperately glad to be outside in the open air at least, away from that foul prison cell, until poor Juliette caught sight of the truly enclosed space that she was facing now, in the form of the coffins beneath the scaffold.

They rattled closer still, as the first tumbril stopped in front of the terrible machine.

“She’s coming, Armande,” whispered Hal excitedly, beneath the shining machine, “We’ve only one chance now.  We had better take it.”

 Alceste had not heard, of course, but the boy knew that they had no chance at all, as he noticed that neither tried to open the storm drain at all. 

Other prisoners were already mounting the grim steps, their tread so heavy that their poor feet seemed made of lead. 

There were several “
shnaaaks
” above and wild cheers in the Square, and the red had started to drip onto Hal’s head, before Juliette’s own tumbril drew up. 

         The Black Spider himself was walking right beside it, glancing at Juliette, and it was mostly filled with children, between eight and fourteen. 

Charles Couchonet had been distracted from Juliette’s plight though by the only man on the back, who looked French, but who seemed to be talking in English:  “
It is a much stronger thing I do,”
he was saying, “
No, that’s not right.  It is a far, far better thing I do.   Yes, that’s it.”

Suddenly Alceste spotted the two missing Pamples walking straight towards the Guillotine, Francis and little Spike, also in their revolutionary caps and hateful disguises.

“The diversion,” he hissed, “Get ready, lads.  Here it comes.”

To Alceste’s surprise though, rather than do anything diversionary at all, Francis Simpkins and Spike just sat down by those foul knitting women, with those PCs on their shirts, as if they had come to enjoy the terrible spectacle too.  There seemed something bold in Francis’s look, as he forced himself to face the sight of blood.

“What are they playing at?” growled Alceste.

Just then Juliette St Honoré was trying not to shake, as a soldier ordered her down too, her lovely blue eyes filled with tears. 

Rather than spit anger though, or cry out like some of the others, Juliette St Honoré held herself like a Queen.  She was clasping the rosary her mother had given her, and her hand was trembling, wondering if she had the faith to face this. 

Juliette reached the fatal steps too, as Alceste thought she looked rather pretty, but the lad kept glancing across at his uncle, questioningly, for the Pamples were still doing nothing. 

Spike and Francis sat motionless, their arms crossed, and Henry and Armande still hadn’t opened the sewer.

Charles Peperan Couchonet was growing impatient too and he looked irritably at his nephew, who just shrugged, as Juliette took her first brave step to her death.   

It was over at last.  There was nothing that could help any of them now.

Then it
happened,
all at the same time.   Alceste Couchonet hardly saw where they came from, but from all around the Square, children were suddenly screaming and running about, jumping and shouting, darting towards the adults and the soldiers around the scaffold, kicking some in the shins or knocking off their Liberty caps.   

The soldiers started cursing, grabbing out, and the crowd swung left and right too, in bewilderment, as Couchonet looked on in sudden astonishment. 

This bizarre invasion was compounded by something even more remarkable.  At the far side of the square, near the Pimple’s escape point, and the coach, the crowd heard the most extraordinary bellowing, like a gigantic trumpet. 

Now Alceste caught sight of an enormous grey shape that had just entered the Square, like a giant, swinging its enormous brute head, and knocking Revolutionaries aside with a gigantic swinging nose. 

The escaped animal had come from the direction of the Paris theatre and a figure in the wildest garb was chasing after it desperately.

“Come back, Ethel,” cried the great Bouzardi, after his charging wild elephant.  “We’ve a show to put on, girl.  The theatre, Ethel.”

Utter mayhem might have broken out, in the face of a stampeding elephant, if the Black Spider’s men hadn’t lined up in adult order and, raising their muskets, advanced squarely on the poor animal, just released from her enclosure behind the theatre. 

They managed to drive her safely into a side street, but it took many of them out of the Square altogether.

Alceste glanced at Francis and Spike again, but they sat motionless still.   Then he looked across to Henry and Armande and cursed horribly, especially for a lad of his age, as he saw a band of ragged boys between him and their hiding place, blocking his view entirely. 

What Alceste
did
see was Juliette St Honoré bending quizzically on the wooden scaffold steps, and then four pairs of hands appearing from nowhere, to pull her down between. 

The St Honoré traitor had just vanished.

The Black Spider had seen it too, although something flickered in the corner of his eye and he looked up and saw a pigeon flying overhead. A blob of grey white suddenly landed on his immaculate black coat.

“Blast,” he cried furiously, as he started to run towards the Guillotine and saw a strange cat running past him too, which hissed at him.

“Quick,” cried his nephew to his young soldiers, “
NOW
, Citizens.”

The recruits raced forwards, as young Couchonet ran too, and his uncle as well and for a moment they were all caught up with each other.

“Get out of the way, idiots,” roared the Spider.

The way was clear again, but to Alceste’s horror the storm grating below the scaffold was open now, and Henry, Armande and Juliette St Honoré had vanished straight down it. 

Spike and Francis had gone too.

“Alceste,” cried Couchonet furiously, still trying to rub away the filthy pigeon droppings, “what in Reason’s name is going …”

Poor Alceste was at a complete loss.  It was far from too late though, because the Pampelles must take a good while to reach the escape hatch through the sewer and the waiting carriage beyond.   

Alceste swung in the direction of the far grating, still confident in the face of his uncle’s mounting fury.   To Alceste’s amazement though, at that exact moment, he saw Juliette, Henry and Count Armande climbing out of the far drain, near the old theatre. 

        It was completely impossible though.  They couldn’t have made it there
that
quickly.

“Magic,” he hissed, “that thing really
is
magic then.  Quickly,” added the boy in bewilderment, “that way, Citizens.  Fast.”

          People were blocking their way everywhere, all caught up in the day’s confusion, but they reached the other side of the square, and there Alceste’s stationed recruits  were looking about in confusion too, distracted by the elephant, to see Snareswood’s carriage rattling away fast down a side alley.

“Follow them, stupid,” cried Alceste, “Hurry, you little idiots.”

“Stop, boy,” snapped his uncle though. 

The Black Spider glowered and Alceste did stop.   Dead.

“Citizen Uncle?” he gulped, guiltily, going bright red.

“You’ll never catch up on foot, you little idiot,” said the Spider.  “Not in Paris.  But I’ve given orders all Paris’s gates be sealed today, except for one.  We’ll take my own carriage there immediately, and wait.  Subtlety, boy.”

“Oh,” said Alceste, touching his throat. “Yes, uncle, of course.”

Just thirty minutes later then, Alceste Couchonet and the Black Spider were stationed like black coated hawks at the great Paris gate, the only one open today, where the Pimples had first arrived in the mighty city themselves. 

A long line of vehicles were snaking towards it, waiting to get on the road, in their journeys to various parts of turbulent France.

Each one was being minutely searched though, as Alceste led his own recruits up and down the line, trying to make up for his total incompetence. 

Uncle and nephew were confident that the Pampelles had not escaped yet though, because only one carriage had left Paris that morning, with three large and drunken weavers on board, carrying a bundle of old clothes in the back. 

It was far from Paris right now, with Foxwood, Darney and Haywood on the back,  dressed in their clever disguises, and with very sober heads indeed, furiously guilty that they had somehow let the children slip from their grasp, but rushing to tell their leader the terrible news. 

The daring adult League had gathered at exactly nine am, in front of Madame Geraldine de Bonespair’s, only to find no one answering the door.  Then a little French boy had approached though, as ZooZoo, who had  managed to escape Alceste’s clutches the afternoon before, through a storm drain inside the Temple prison courtyard, had handed them this note, and run back to his leader Pelle:

Sorry, Foxy, something came up and we had to go.  Meet you at Calais.

                                                   Henry B

There had been an old rat’s tail wrapped inside.  As the adults sped on in confusion, back in Paris the coaches and carts in the line waiting at the gate where mostly barrel, hay and vegetable carts.   Yet, because the Club might have swapped transports, so they could be hidden anywhere now, troops were overturning sacking, or jabbing viciously among the hay with their bayonets.

“Keep
still
, Spike,” hissed Hal in the darkness, as they waited together in their cramped hiding place, and advanced too towards Paris’s only possible exit now.

“Don’t worry, ninnee,” hissed Spike, clutching William Wickham’s watch, like a sacred talisman, “the Nometer will get us all safely away.”

“Oh, Spike.”

With that there was an awful hissing too. 

“Keep still you,” said Spike angrily in the shadows.

Nearby the Black Spider was standing in the sunlight at the gate, watching his nephew and shaking his head bitterly. 

So far none of the searches had revealed anything at all. 

Alceste returned now, thinking he heard a faint chiming nearby and he was turning his attention to a cart with eight simple coffins on it, to be taken outside the City for burial, with a saddled horse tied nervously to the back.

“Open those,” he grunted suddenly, but his uncle stepped up, glancing for a moment at the scarred man sitting on the cart front, then countermanded the order immediately.

“No, boy.  We needn’t disturb the dead, Alceste.  Passé, passé.  Quickly.”

“But uncle.  They might be in…”

“Quiet, Alceste,” snapped Couchonet, waving a hand and the coffin cart on, and glancing significantly at Samuel Dugg. “But look
there
, boy!”