Locals had dubbed it `Three Bears' Wood'. It was large and sprawling, somehow mysterious, in a fairytale kind of way. At one time, it had been a young and open wood, with walkers, hikers and picnickers enjoying its serene beauty.
That was over a century ago. No one went into the wood any more. It had become so overgrown over the years that even the bridle paths that once wended their way through had long since vanished beneath a dense growth of thistles and brambles. Stout bushes, hawthorn and gorse had sprung up and spread themselves out to discourage even the most determined of wanderers. The wood seemed dark, almost sinister up close, but viewed from the road, as it usually was, the variegated shades of green, mixed with the reds, golds and yellows of early autumn sang out loudly the astonishing beauty of nature allowed to spread its wings unhindered.
Mice, rats and voles scurried about their business, badgers and foxes slunk about in the half-light preying on the most unwary of the scurrying creatures whilst birds overhead sang out their joy in their peaceful haven.
An ear-splitting shriek shattered the peace of the wood, and two children, both pre-teen; at a guess, you would have put them down as ten or eleven years old came tearing through the undergrowth unheeding of the thorns and brambles that tore at their clothes, or of the tiny ground animals that fled at the sound of their pounding feet and laughter.
"You won't catch me in here!"
"Oh yes I will!"
Ground-nesting birds flew away squawking in rage as the kids continued their flight until finally pursuer and pursued slowed and came to a stop beside a babbling overgrown brook, panting noisily.
"I gotcha Kate!"
"Only coz' I ran out of breff! Look at you anyway, panting like a steam engine!"
The two children looked around them, as the darkness and silence of the wood suddenly impressed them.
"Hey, Jack, We never bin' this far before. D'ju know the way back out?"
Jack glanced around and shook his head.
"Can't remember."
"Are we lost? It's a bit dark, innit? Can't even see the sun!"
"S'right Kate, we can foller the stream. It'll come outta the wood somewhere and then we can find the road and get back 'ome."
"That might be miles and miles Jack. Dad'll clobber us if we're late 'ome again!"
Jack shrugged, unconcerned.
"It'll be an adventure, Kate. What adventures do dad and mum 'ave, stuck at 'ome washing dishes and weeding the garden?"
Kate considered this, and finally nodded her agreement. The risk was probably worth taking. If they got home early, they would only be put to work helping in the house or the garden in any case; and this was definitely more fun.
"C'mon then. Glad we got wellies on Jack. We can walk in the stream. Won't get so caught up in the bushes then."
"Good idea. C'mon then."
Plodding through the stream made their going slightly easier, even so the dashing water came perilously close to the tops of their wellies at times. When it seemed like they had been walking for ages, Jack, in the lead suddenly stopped.
"Oi, look, there's something 'ere!"
"What?"
Peering through the underbrush, they spied a clearing and what looked like a building of sorts, overgrown and half tumbling down. They looked at each other in surprise. Who would build in the middle of a thick wood like this? No roads or even paths to get here?
"Let's explore!"
The two children climbed out of the stream and forced their way through the bushes until they stood in a clearing.
It was obvious even to them that the place might once have been handsome and well-tended, but the building, a rambling, old looking place, at least two and in places three floors high, built of brick with wood paneling, doubtless once handsome but now green with moss and mold, with a rapidly thickening covering of vines, including the ever-present ivy.
As the two children wandered around the outside of the building, they found the ground beneath their feet, once concreted, has been broken up with dandelion plants, ferns, the plant mummy called rosebay willowherb, and nettles and thistles almost waist-high in places. They found a staircase leading down, into a cellar or something, and as they peered curiously, they both noticed the door was hanging from just one hinge.
"It's open!"
"Shall we go in?" Jack asked his sister. She pursed her lips.
"There'll be lots of spiders in there."
"So?"
"Well, ok let's look. But I'm gonna run out again if I walk into a cobweb."
"Scaredy-cat!" he taunted her. "I want to explore the house. Someone might have left some treasure behind!"
So, on tiptoe, they crept down the staircase and peeped into the room.
The room was an inch high in smelly, stagnant water, and mud. Cobwebs hung everywhere, and lurking in every corner, Kate could have sworn that she saw things creeping about and lurking, waiting to drop on the unwary. Keeping one hand on her brother's shoulder and her eyes warily upward, she crept on, determined to follow him further.
They were nervous about tackling the stairs, but by going slowly and testing each step before they put their weight on it, they made it upstairs intact, and then gasped.
The first room they saw in front of them was not empty. There were two figures lying on the floor, both strapped tightly in straight-jackets, their feet chained to ringbolts attached to the wall, so that they were partially hanging like a couple of sides of beef. Both figures were blindfolded and gagged. Neither were moving.
The two children stared at each other, aghast.
"Dju think they're dead?" Kate asked her brother in a stage whisper.
"Dunno, but what if they're not? They could die tied up here like that."
"What if they're dead already? That would be scary."
Jack agreed, but he knew they couldn't just run away without finding out. Neither of them wanted to go over to the two figures in case they were dead.
"Let's shout. If they're asleep we might wake them up."
"Good idea." Kate replied, slightly happier. "Hey, mister! Oi, are you awake?"
"Oi you two, are you alright? You ain't dead are ya?" Jack shouted out in unison. One of the two figures started to wriggle and was clearly trying to say something through the gag in his mouth. Kate looked at Jack in relief.
"That one's alive. Let's take that gag off so's we can understand 'im."
They ran across and crouched beside the wriggling figure and removed the gag from the blond man's mouth, and then the blindfold from his eyes. His look of relief was obvious to the two children, even through the gloom.
"I am very, very happy to see you." He said with a slight accent that they could not quite place.
"Are you all right, mister?" Kate asked at last. The blond man smiled at her.
"I am now. Are you strong enough to undo these knots?"
Kate tried, but could make nothing of them. Whilst Jack tried, Kate went to the other figure, who still had not moved.
"Is your friend alive?"
"I hope so. I think he is unconscious. The people who put us here gave him something to make him sleep before they tied us up."
Jack was having no luck with the knots either, then he had a thought.
"Mister, would my old penknife be strong enough d'ju think?"
"Try it, please. We must get out of here. How did you two kids find us?"
Jack sawed at the ties with his penknife, whilst Kate looked slightly uncomfortable.
"We were playing, chasing each other through the wood, but we came further than we knew and got lost. We thought we would follow the stream until it led us out of the wood."
The blond man looked impressed.
"Good thinking. What are your names, by the way?"
"I'm Kate, short for Katarina, and this is my brother Jack, not short for anything."
"I'm called Illya."
"That's a funny name, mister."
"Not where I come from. How are you doing with your penknife, Jack?"
"Nearly done Mister…er Illya. Kate is the other bloke waking up yet?"
"No, but I took his gag off."
"There y'are mister Illya. I done it. D'ju want to borrow it for your friend?"
Illya nodded.
"Yes, but first I need to get out of these chains. There's no key. Kate, are you wearing a hairgrip?"
"Yes, what d'ju want it for?"
Illya smiled and held out his hand.
"Watch."
She removed her hairgrip and handed it to the strange blond man with the accent and watched as he straightened it out and stuck one end of it into the keyhole. After a few moments of poking around, the padlock popped open and Illya removed his chains and massaged his feet, grimacing. He crawled to his friend's side and swiftly removed the chains that held his feet in the air, and removed the straight-jacket. The two children watched as Illya started to chafe the other man's wrists and tap his cheeks.
"Mark, Mark wake up! Mark, we're free now. Come on, wake up!"
After several long moments, the other man groaned and opened his eyes. When he spoke, the children recognized the accent as pure London.
"Ow! Cor, Guv, what were we drinking last night? Where are we?"
Illya helped him sit up and the two men started to massage some feeling back into their numbed feet and ankles.
"Some companion you were Mark. We've been here since midnight last night, and you slept like a baby all of that time."
Mark managed a grin.
"I slept like a log you mean, Guv. Not like a baby. Babies wake up every two hours."
"Very amusing. Can you get up yet? Try, because we have to get of here."
Mark nodded and scrambled to his feet.
"I reckon we owe you two kids big time for coming here and finding us."
"Are you crooks?"
Kate elbowed her brother.
"Silly, crooks don't look like that. Crooks have black beards and ugly faces."
Mark and Illya exchanged a look of amusement, and Mark grinned at them.
"Not all crooks are ugly, but no, we are the good guys. Did you say we're in the middle of a wood?"
"Yeah Mister, Three Bears' Wood we calls it. That's why Kate and I wanted to explore this house. We thought this might be where the three bears lived."
Mark looked around and shook his head, repressing a shudder.
"Well if they did, rather them than me. Guv, if they took our communicators, didn't they?"
Illya nodded.
"Yes, and we have a very short time left to get to a telephone and contact London to let them know about the drop."
Mark nodded, and looked at the two children, who were watching them curiously.
"Can you show us the way out of the wood?"
Illya shook his head.
"Don't need to, Mark. I have a compass inside the buckle of my belt."
"A compass in your buckle? Wow, how come I didn't get one of them. Guv?"
Illya looked amused.
"Because I only made the one so far. Come along. Where do you two live?"
Jack told them the name of their village and Illya looked enquiringly at Mark. Mark nodded.
"We drove through it remember? There was a bush on the village green clipped in the shape of a rabbit?"
"THRUSH took us north west for three miles before we were out of the van and coming on foot…" he chuckled at the memory. "They had problems with you Mark, coming through this wood, because they had to carry you. So, if we reverse our course…no…three miles…if we walk due south rather than south east we should come out pretty close to the village. We can deliver these two to their parents. Do they have a telephone we will be able to use?"
Jack shook his head.
"Can't afford a phone, mister. There's one in the village center though, and if it ain't working, the vicar will let you use his."
Resisting the impulse to roll his eyes, Illya removed his compass, examined it and pointed the way.
"We go thataway."
Three days later, Mark Slate and Illya sat together in the commissary, drinking hot tea. They had returned from their mission to England just two hours earlier, and were taking a well-earned breather before heading up to write out their report. Napoleon Solo came up and sat down on their table.
"So I hear you two were rescued by a couple of kids?"
Mark grinned cheerfully.
"Eleven and ten years old. Nice kids. Kinda remind me of my sister and me when we were their age. Plucky kids too. If they hadn't decided to explore that old place, no way would we have ever got out. A chance in a million them turning up out of the blue."
Napoleon raised an eyebrow.
"You two are more fortunate than you know. Mister Waverly has just had a call from section one in London. They went out to check on that old house in the wood, in case THRUSH left something behind. All they found was a pile of rubble, still smoking."
"Smoking rubble?" Illya repeated, staring at his partner. "Are you telling me that it blew up?"
Napoleon nodded.
"As far as they have been able to judge, it was set to blow up about midnight of the evening you escaped. They dumped you there, set a bomb and left it with a twelve-hour time-fuse. They were not about to take any chances of your being rescued."
"They had no way of knowing about two disobedient children playing in the woods against their parents' wishes." Mark said, stunned. "Those kids really did save our lives then Guv, even more than they knew!"
Napoleon nodded. Illya sat back in his chair.
"We told their parents that they found us and rescued us, but not that they saved our lives. If I had only known…if I had searched that house before we left…"
"Guv, it was getting dark and we had no lights or anything. We did the only thing we could. I wish we could give those kids a reward of some sort, though. Some way of showing our gratitude."
Illya glanced at Napoleon, who nodded. Napoleon got up and came around behind his two friends and put his arms around their shoulders.
"I think if we out our heads together, we might be able to come up with something…"