Free The Terror Time Spies by David Clement-Davies

somewhere below, “that was close.  And that’s a Pimpernel first skill.”
    “Lying?” said Count Armande St Honoré rather doubtfully.
     “Making things up, Count,” corrected Henry, irritably,  “And improvising.  It just saved our blooming necks, didn’t it? It’s not lies.”
    Count Armande supposed that it wasn’t.
     “But this school, Bonespair,” he said,  “‘ow ever did you…?”
    Henry grinned.
    “Easy, Count.  Ma grew up in Dover.  She was always talking about it.”
    At that very moment, in a black coach much further along the Road, Juliette St Honoré was glaring at the horrible man sitting opposite her.   
    Of the two agents in the pay of the feared Committee of Public Security, one was driving, the other dozing fitfully opposite her, but snapping open a single, beady eye, every time that Juliette even stirred.
    The carriage was moving far too fast for the poor girl to jump out, unlike her brother, and Peurette, the bigger and uglier of the dreaded agents of France, had two loaded pistols in his big hands.   A white handkerchief was wrapped tightly around on of his palms, where Armande had bitten him. 
    Juliette was proud of how hard her brother had clenched his teeth, and of his sudden escape at a cross roads too, although she suddenly missed Armande terribly.  Juliette loved her younger brother a great deal and she worried constantly for the responsibility that had fallen on him so soon.  Her brother was very sensitive really.
    Juliette longed to be back at the big English house, in the free air and the horrid enclosed carriage was making her feel sick already.  She had gathered from the horrible men they were taking her back to France, for whatever reason she could not yet fathom.  But among the names they had talked of, including a ship called L’Esperance, one had kept reoccurring, with worrying reverence too – Charles Peperan Couchonet.
    Beyond that, what was happening to Juliette now was like some dreadful  nightmare.  She thought suddenly of what that strange Bonespair boy had said about “ Brave People” , thinking too of the size of Henry’s nose, and feeling sad that she had ever called the strange English boy a coward. 
    Juliette suddenly wished too that there really were such heroic Englishmen as this Scarlet Pimpernel, or at least someone to come to her rescue.  It was hopeless though.
    In hot pursuit of Juliette now, the stone mile stones seemed to pass achingly slowly for the bold little Pimpernel Club.   Darkness came in, but at last the boys reached a sign for the Night Watch Inn.   The low windows were filmed with fat and grime, while very unwelcoming black smoke billowed copiously from the old stone chimney.  Count Armande looked as if he wanted to be sick.
    Skipper insisted on stabling the horses, then sleeping in the barn with them as well, and the publican was too drunk to notice the strangeness of two boys, travelling alone to Dover. 
    Despite it’s fearful appearance The Night Watch was a friendly enough place though and soon most of the guests had retired to bed. 
    Upstairs, after a hot beer stew, that tasted delicious, two simple cots were made ready and there was a fire burning in the boy’s room.  Hal loved to look into fire light, just as he liked to gaze into water, in the sunlight, since it always did something to his thoughts and made him dream. 
    He gazed into it now, as Count Armande looked sceptically at the rather dirty cot, but placed his cloth valise on a chair and lay down on top of the sheet, fully dressed, finding it strange to be sharing a room with this funny English lad. 
    Henry Bonespairt was exhausted too and felt his eyes half closing, as he stood in front of the fire, fiddling with the dial on his marvellous watch, when something very bizarre happened.   
    The fire in the room seemed to leap up and like a red wave, the flames parted.  It was like a door opening in thin air, there in the middle of the Night