WORRALS ON THE WAR-PATH

by Captain W. E. Johns

VI. SHOCKS (Pages 62 – 70)

The following morning, having received a signal that Bill will be coming at midnight that night, Worrals and Frecks make preparations whilst Lucien and Raoul go out to bathe. Louis arrives to tell them that the police are in the village. They have discovered Lucien and Raoul's bicycles and they know who they belong to. Lucien, Vicomte Delarose, has a price on his head of one hundred thousand francs. They also suspect his companion to be the Marquise de lur Saronceau. Both were photographed passing from occupied to unoccupied France and were later recognised. The police have since been on the lookout for the riders of those bicycles. The hunt will now come to the Cevennes. Louis goes to fetch the boys but returns only with Raoul. Lucien was not with Raoul having already returned to the village to fetch the picture he had painted of the causse in case it gives a clue to the police. A man arrives with a message. It is bad news. Lucien has been arrested by the police and is being taken to La Malene. Worrals says “Strictly speaking, we have no right to jeopardise the success of the whole operation for the sake of one man, but ….......... we can't abandon Lucien to his fate”. Worrals says she will go to La Malene and say she is the prisoner's sweetheart. When Raoul asks is this a romance Worrals replies “Don't be a fool, Raoul. If you start talking about romance in the hearing of my friend Bill Ashton you're liable to get hit on the nose – he's just a very simple Englishman”. Worrals asks for some clothes to make her look like a girl of the Cevennes. “Raoul sat down and buried his face in his hands. “Frecks nudged him not too gently in the ribs. “That's enough of that,” she chided. “Don't go all French”.