Read Online The Terror Time Spies by David Clement-Davies - Free Book Online
Authors: David Clement-Davies
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more tightly, wondering when he would be allowed to join the secret police.
“Or even like your own uncle,” added Couchonet quietly, as the Spider leant back modestly.
“But these individual agents and spies that threaten France,” he whispered, clenching a gloved fist, “these hateful foreign rodents may be an important link in the chain, but it is the whole human chain we seek to break, Alceste, and armies and Monarchies to defeat. THEN France shall truly rise, and we along with her, my boy.”
Charles Couchonet was thinking of La Patrie, the homeland, wondering if one day he would have his own special bathtub in Paris, just like Dr Marat. Perhaps Marat’s own, he thought wryly, although he would have to have it most carefully scrubbed.
“But of course you may frequent the port this week, Alceste,” added his uncle suddenly, “start first thing tomorrow morning, in fact, and I’ll be happy to discuss anything you might have noticed, each evening over dinner. Six O’clock sharp, now. Tomorrow we’re having mutton, boy. Fine French lamb.”
Alceste beamed, although not at the thought of mutton, which he loathed, and the lad turned eagerly to leave, and get to bed and dream of traps.
“But nephew,” added Couchonet, “when you listen for any travellers from England tomorrow, take special care to listen out for suspicious French voices.”
“French voices, Uncle?! said Alceste in surprise, “But Les Anglais, the English, I thought…”
“Of course, French, my boy. The English are no fools and if this great plot is real, their aristos and spies will disguise themselves, for sure. While there is nothing more dangerous to us now than our own people.”
FOUR - THE DOVER ROAD
‘In which the Pimpernels have several English misadventures, pick up Francis Simpkins and Henry has a vision, although learns to his relief that there is no magic at all…’
Huge Horace Holmwood was biting his lip, in his father’s big straw hat and screwing up his not-so-intelligent face, wrapped in his mother’s long scarf now, as he tried to keep control of the jolting carriage on its way to Dover: William Wickham’s second best.
A flame pink dawn broke around Skipper and the brand new Pimpernel Club, across an English sky filled with mountainous purple clouds, as it bumped along the heavy earth road, without an enemy adult in sight.
Skipper Holmwood was deep in thought, or as deep as he could possibly manage, and getting increasingly nervous too, for such a feisty lad, because big Skip realised that his pa would be furious if he ever knew and he feared his fists a very great deal.
Several things had swept this country boy up into their strange and sudden adventure. Firstly the fact of his brand new friendship with little Nellie Bonespair, forged last summer, when Spike had asked him about rabbit traps, because Skipper was a rather lonely boy. Yet what made the journey really irresistible was the thought of seeing the sea.
Yet poor Skipper looked furiously guilty too because not only would his pa be furious but they were committing a crime, by stealing Mr Wickham’s carriage, and his Ma had always taught him that at all costs you must be honest in life.
Inside the rattling coach, on its hard leather seats, sat Henry Bonespair and Armande St Honoré now, newly Ninth Count St Honoré, gazing out of the open windows rather nervously.
They had both been in a carriage before, of course, but never one that they were actually driving themselves, or controlling at least, but now Henry Bonespair’s mounting sense of freedom came like a growing wind.
Henry’s right eye had a nasty black ring around it, as he clutched his parent’s itinerary, but underneath it the special letters of transit from the Frenchie Embassy too, that he had snatched up by mistake. They were quite useless to them, of course, since they weren’t even going to France.
The
“Or even like your own uncle,” added Couchonet quietly, as the Spider leant back modestly.
“But these individual agents and spies that threaten France,” he whispered, clenching a gloved fist, “these hateful foreign rodents may be an important link in the chain, but it is the whole human chain we seek to break, Alceste, and armies and Monarchies to defeat. THEN France shall truly rise, and we along with her, my boy.”
Charles Couchonet was thinking of La Patrie, the homeland, wondering if one day he would have his own special bathtub in Paris, just like Dr Marat. Perhaps Marat’s own, he thought wryly, although he would have to have it most carefully scrubbed.
“But of course you may frequent the port this week, Alceste,” added his uncle suddenly, “start first thing tomorrow morning, in fact, and I’ll be happy to discuss anything you might have noticed, each evening over dinner. Six O’clock sharp, now. Tomorrow we’re having mutton, boy. Fine French lamb.”
Alceste beamed, although not at the thought of mutton, which he loathed, and the lad turned eagerly to leave, and get to bed and dream of traps.
“But nephew,” added Couchonet, “when you listen for any travellers from England tomorrow, take special care to listen out for suspicious French voices.”
“French voices, Uncle?! said Alceste in surprise, “But Les Anglais, the English, I thought…”
“Of course, French, my boy. The English are no fools and if this great plot is real, their aristos and spies will disguise themselves, for sure. While there is nothing more dangerous to us now than our own people.”
FOUR - THE DOVER ROAD
‘In which the Pimpernels have several English misadventures, pick up Francis Simpkins and Henry has a vision, although learns to his relief that there is no magic at all…’
Huge Horace Holmwood was biting his lip, in his father’s big straw hat and screwing up his not-so-intelligent face, wrapped in his mother’s long scarf now, as he tried to keep control of the jolting carriage on its way to Dover: William Wickham’s second best.
A flame pink dawn broke around Skipper and the brand new Pimpernel Club, across an English sky filled with mountainous purple clouds, as it bumped along the heavy earth road, without an enemy adult in sight.
Skipper Holmwood was deep in thought, or as deep as he could possibly manage, and getting increasingly nervous too, for such a feisty lad, because big Skip realised that his pa would be furious if he ever knew and he feared his fists a very great deal.
Several things had swept this country boy up into their strange and sudden adventure. Firstly the fact of his brand new friendship with little Nellie Bonespair, forged last summer, when Spike had asked him about rabbit traps, because Skipper was a rather lonely boy. Yet what made the journey really irresistible was the thought of seeing the sea.
Yet poor Skipper looked furiously guilty too because not only would his pa be furious but they were committing a crime, by stealing Mr Wickham’s carriage, and his Ma had always taught him that at all costs you must be honest in life.
Inside the rattling coach, on its hard leather seats, sat Henry Bonespair and Armande St Honoré now, newly Ninth Count St Honoré, gazing out of the open windows rather nervously.
They had both been in a carriage before, of course, but never one that they were actually driving themselves, or controlling at least, but now Henry Bonespair’s mounting sense of freedom came like a growing wind.
Henry’s right eye had a nasty black ring around it, as he clutched his parent’s itinerary, but underneath it the special letters of transit from the Frenchie Embassy too, that he had snatched up by mistake. They were quite useless to them, of course, since they weren’t even going to France.
The
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