—
The last thing Gu-Nah was expecting in the middle of the night was a visit from the colonel.
“I’ve been thinking about your proposal,” Mico said as he entered Gu-Nah’s modest quarters.
“And?”
“And I want to know more.”
A relieved smile broke across Gu-Nah’s face and all thoughts of sleep vanished as the two monkeys made themselves comfortable around a mound of pine nuts.
By the time dawn broke, Gu-Nah had explained not just the details of his new fighting techniques, but the whole philosophy behind them. The more Mico heard, the more he was impressed.
The tricky thing would be convincing Tyrell.
—
“Discipline and courage are all that’s needed,” said Tyrell dismissively.
“I understand, my lord, but these new tactics the resistance are using force our hand,” countered Mico as diplomatically as he could. “If we have to fight them in dark alleys, we have to train in dark alleys, so the first thing we need to do is create a dedicated practice area.”
Tyrell nodded, reluctantly acknowledging the point.
“The resistance lie in wait for us. It’s as if they know the routes of our street patrols.” Guilt welled up inside Mico as he spoke, knowing that it was he who had passed this very information to the rhesus.
Steeling his will, Mico pressed on. “But if each patrol commander was allowed to alter his route, the enemy wouldn’t know when or where to ambush us.”
Tyrell shook his head. “You see, this is precisely what I don’t like. Orders come from Central Command. I don’t want street patrols making decisions. Give them power, you get chaos.”
“You wouldn’t be giving them power; you’d be giving them tools.” Mico was determined to get to the end of his speech. “The resistance fighters hide in the shadows, luring us into their traps, so we need to come at them from unexpected directions.”
He tossed a coil of vine on the floor.
“If each patrol was equipped with vines, they could attack from above, even when there are no trees.”
Tyrell picked up the vine rope and examined it. “This I like.”
“That’s just the start. Gu-Nah has found a stall in the city where we can acquire pots of fire.”
Tyrell instinctively drew back—no animal played with fire—but Mico had anticipated this. “Fire can do to the resistance what bees did to the bonnets.”
“Fire is death.”
“Not if we train with it. Learn from it.”
“Do you want the whole city to burn?!”
“We just need the smoke, my lord.”
Tyrell hesitated. “You can’t have one without the other.”
“But the pots that Gu-Nah has found hold the fire safely. If you feed the pot with green leaves, you get clouds of smoke. With smoke, we can flush our enemies from their hiding places.”
Mico could see Tyrell’s mind working, calculating the risks and weighing them against the glory that success would bring.
“Very well. I’ll allow Gu-Nah to start his new training regime. But”—a hardness flashed into his eyes—“I’m holding you to account. If you lose control of the fire, if you bring disaster to us…”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Mico understood perfectly—if things went wrong he would take the blame; but if they went right, Tyrell would take the credit.
Wasn’t that what it meant to serve a master?
—
Mico and Gu-Nah wasted no time putting their plans into action. A derelict street near the Eastern Province was found and the elites cleared it of all the rats and feral dogs. This would be the langur’s special training ground for street warfare. A few days later a fire pot was stolen and a special unit assigned to guard it and keep it fed with leaves.
The moment they started field trials, though, things became difficult.
Langurs lived and breathed battle, but it was combat of the massed army. Footsoldiers showed total obedience to their commanding officers, and in battle after battle this discipline had given them the crucial advantage. Now Mico and Gu-Nah were trying to get their soldiers to unlearn all this. Faced with an ambush, they needed individual soldiers to make their own judgments without waiting for orders.
Gu-Nah and Mico staged exercises, each one designed to teach the soldiers to think for themselves, assess a situation, react to it quickly. But time and again the soldiers—whose instinct to obey orders was deeply ingrained—were outwitted.
Hoping to expand the soldiers’ minds, Mico and Gu-Nah started working with the smoke pot. They positioned it in one of the dilapidated buildings and ordered the troops to creep in, overcome the enemy guards and steal the pot. Once the attack squad was inside the building, though, Mico added masses of damp, green palm shoots to the fire, making it belch out thick clouds of white smoke.
In no time a pungent fug filled the whole building, engulfing everything, including the attack squad.
Mico had hoped the troops would turn the poor visibility to their advantage, using it as extra cover. But instead, as soon as the soldiers lost visual contact with their commanding officer, they all froze. It was as if someone had just turned them off.
When the smoke cleared, Mico found the soldiers crouched silently on the floor, waiting for orders.
—
Strangely, Lord Tyrell seemed unconcerned at the slow progress of the new training. In secret, he took perverse pleasure from the fact that his monkeys were unable to think for themselves, but he was impressed by Mico’s initiative and hard work.
That they were both small monkeys who had used their brains to climb to power only strengthened the feeling of kinship. Tyrell now saw himself as a kind of father figure to Mico, protecting and guiding his protégé.
Trusting anyone was a strange experience for Tyrell. Whereas in the past he had always believed that his strength came from self-reliance, now he discovered a whole new sense of empowerment through trust in Mico. He started to feel that between them, they could conquer the world, and to show his appreciation, he heaped rewards on the colonel.
“As you can see, things have moved on a bit,” Tyrell said as he ushered Mico into the long room at the heart of the Great Vault to reveal an amazing transformation. All the tombs that lined the pool had been emptied to create a series of private booths. At the far end, masses of stones had been stacked into a platform like a dais, and around it sat four pretty young female monkeys arranging fruit.
“I thought you’d closed the Vault on security grounds,” said Mico, slowly taking it all in.
“In this magnificent room, I draw my inner circle close,” said Tyrell, ushering Mico deeper into the chamber. “There’s no greater virtue than loyalty.”
He looked at Mico with genuine appreciation. “Here I can reward my friends with the finest gifts…starting with you.”
“There’s really nothing I need,” said Mico, trying to sound nonchalant. “Thanks to you, I have the best quarters, the finest food—”
“But no mate,” said Tyrell.
Mico’s first reaction was inner panic. The very last thing he needed was a female living with him, watching his every move, asking endless questions. And, in his heart, he still longed to find a way of bridging the gulf that had opened up between him and Papina.
“There’s plenty of time for that,” Mico said, trying to brush the idea aside with an easy laugh. “Right now the important thing is to retrain our soldiers.”
But Tyrell pointed to the far end of the pool. “Look closely…then tell me you’re not interested.”
Mico’s gaze followed Tyrell’s outstretched arm.
“She’s a rare beauty,” said Tyrell invitingly. “Her name’s Hister.”
Hearing her name, one of the females looked up and smiled; she was the epitome of youth and beauty and it caught Mico totally off guard.
“You don’t have to be coy. I’ve been keeping her specially for you.” Tyrell beckoned to Hister, wh
o strolled over.
“With Hister as your mate, you will be the envy of the troop,” Tyrell said as he gently stroked the side of her face.
Confusion whipped up around Mico like a dust storm. He didn’t know anything about this female; he’d never even set eyes on her before. For all Mico knew, Tyrell was using Hister to spy on him. But how could he refuse? Everything about her was alluring; it was impossible to be close to her and not feel a surge of desire, and it would be impossible for Mico to reject her without arousing Tyrell’s suspicions.
“Enjoy,” Tyrell said with a salacious grin; then he turned and scampered away.
“I…er…perhaps…,” said Mico awkwardly.
“Shhh.” Hister smiled and took his hand.
She looked at him with such uncomplicated desire, it was like a drug dulling Mico’s senses to anything other than the here and now.
As she turned and walked to one of the booths that lined the pool, Mico felt his willpower crumble. He followed her, and found comfort for his confused mind in pure, sensual pleasure.
It was quite a shock for Mico to suddenly find himself with a mate. Being single had made his life of deception safer, but it also meant that every waking moment had become dominated by his Intelligence work.
Living with Hister started to change all that.
Her demands were simple, but she wasn’t prepared to give them up—she wanted to be the perfect mate, she wanted to run a well-ordered home and, most of all, she wanted to become a mother. Although this was the last thing on his mind, Mico found Hister’s beauty and easy compliance hard to resist.
He hadn’t seen Papina since their angry exchange at Temple Gardens, and lately he hadn’t even thought about passing on secret information. The flow of domestic ease had picked Mico up and was gently carrying him away from his idealistic purpose.
—
“We’ve got to take the training onto the streets,” pronounced Gu-Nah one morning, and Mico knew he was right. There were only so many times you could practice fighting an enemy; not until you faced real danger did the lessons hit home. It was agreed that Mico would go along as an observer to monitor how well the tactics were working.
As it turned out, the six-monkey patrol was under Breri’s command with an extra monkey, Nappo, detailed to carry and tend the smoke pot. If everything went well the plan was to make the pot part of standard equipment.
For Mico it was an uncomfortable eye opener to stride through the city as part of a feared langur patrol. The moment they entered a street, the animals living there scurried away fearfully because, although the official objective was to root out rhesus monkeys, in practice any animal that the patrol leader took a dislike to was at risk.
Stray dogs, rat colonies, wild pigs, even the odd donkey had found themselves surrounded by screeching langurs. Only the snakes were left alone, eyeing the monkeys with wary disdain from the unreachable shadows in the roof eaves.
As always, Breri was happy to toe the party line on this persecution. “Who knows what alliances the rhesus have made? You see a stray dog; I see an informer.”
“On what evidence?” challenged Mico.
Breri shrugged. “We’ve got a saying on the patrols: the animal that’s not at your feet is at your throat. And I know which I prefer.”
All attacks by the resistance were marked on the great map in Tyrell’s rooms, which showed a recent upsurge of violent activity in the area surrounding Park Circus railway station. As ever, there had been no actual sightings of rhesus fighters—they seemed to vanish into the shadows. Gu-Nah reasoned that they must have a well-concealed base in the heart of the area, and the railway station was a good candidate for closer investigation.
And so the patrol gathered in the street that ran opposite the target; it all looked quite normal, with a throng of human passengers coming and going. Some mobile food stands were dotted around the station selling honey-covered nuts and fried bananas…and yet there was not a monkey in sight.
This was the clue. The food should have attracted opportunists, waiting for a vendor’s turned back; but, despite the delicious smells wafting from the stalls, there were no monkeys lurking nearby.
Mico’s eyes scanned the buildings; then he noticed a small opening underneath the railway platform and scampered across the street to take a closer look. Poking his head cautiously into the doorway, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom…and knew he was on to something. The entire area under the platform was a honeycomb of small chambers—a perfect hiding place.
Mico hurried back to the patrol. “You need to see if the resistance are holed up in the undercroft.”
“You want us to attack?” Breri asked.
“Investigate? Attack? Capture? You decide.”
Mico could see the confusion on Breri’s face.
“What’s the mission objective?” he insisted, desperate for clarity.
“Gain a strategic advantage over the resistance,” Mico replied with equal stubbornness. He was not going to get sucked into giving orders—this was what it meant to pass power down the chain of command.
Breri’s discomfort was palpable, but he was damned if he was going to let his younger brother embarrass him with fancy talk.
“All right,” Breri said, drawing himself up. “Let’s assume the resistance are holed up under the platform. First thing is to identify all the exits and entrances.”
Breri dispatched his number two, Sweto, to do a reconnaissance, which quickly established that there was one other entrance at the far end of the platform.
Trying to get into the collaborative spirit, Breri turned to his troops. “Any thoughts on how to tackle this?”
A moment of uncomfortable silence, before one of them ventured, “Send for reinforcements. Storm the undercroft from both sides.”
It sounded like a sensible plan—overwhelm the enemy and win the day; the soldiers all nodded as if they’d thought of the idea first.
“What if you do that and nothing’s hiding in there?” asked Mico skeptically. “All those monkeys just to trap a few lizards. Then next time, when you really do need reinforcements, they’ll be reluctant to send any.”
Frowns and mumbled assent from the soldiers, now anxious to distance themselves from the foolish idea.
More awkward silence; no one wanted to risk saying the wrong thing. Until finally Nappo ventured, “Why don’t we use the pot to smoke them out?”
Sensing this was the sort of thing Mico wanted to hear, Breri pounced on the idea. “Very good. We’ll split into two groups. Sweto, you take Nappo and three others and get into the undercroft from the far end. Once they smell smoke, the resistance will come scurrying out this side,” he gave a malicious laugh, “where we’ll be waiting.”
A good plan.
Moments later, Sweto and Nappo were leading their group into the labyrinth under the station platform.
As the monkeys’ eyes adapted to the gloom they became aware of tiny pencils of light punching through the blackness, where bits of mortar in the platform above had worked loose. These became beacons for Sweto and his troop as they darted nervously from one beam of light to the next.
The first few chambers contained nothing but brick dust and a scattering of rubble left over from when the station had been built. But as they went deeper, Sweto started to notice evidence of monkey habitation—fruit stones piled in a corner, spaces neatly cleared where you could sit or sleep. He beckoned for Nappo to come to the front—if they were going to encounter the resistance, they wanted to strike quickly with the smoke.
Nappo started blowing into the pot to generate some dense billows, which wafted into the dark chambers ahead. But as they watched the smoke swirl, the monkeys were suddenly gripped by a ghastly sense of dread.
“Stand firm!” Sweto hissed, but he too could feel the ominous rumble in his guts—something was coming and it was going to overwhelm them.
The ground under their feet started to tremble, small showers of stone dust rained down o
n them. Moments later the rumble broke into a deafening metallic clatter, and suddenly Sweto started to laugh.
“Train!” he shouted over the roar. “It’s just a train!”
And as the squeal of the brakes tore through the undercroft, the soldiers realized that Sweto was right. They were underneath the platform, which meant that the thundering train was just on the other side of the brick wall. No matter what it sounded like, the train couldn’t actually harm them in here.
A few moments later it was gone. Silence returned to the undercroft, but just as they resumed their search, Nappo grabbed Sweto’s arm.
“Look!”
Sweto followed the direction of his gaze and saw a cloud of smoke from the pot waft through a hole in one of the foundation walls and disappear upward.
“If the smoke can escape, maybe there’s another way out, up there,” Nappo whispered.
Sweto studied the pattern of smoke; he wasn’t really sure what it meant. He didn’t really understand the pot, and the whole idea of working with fire unnerved him, but he wasn’t going to admit that to anyone, least of all Nappo.
“It’s just a crack. Like those,” Sweto said, pointing to the pinpricks of light all around them.
Nappo wasn’t convinced. Over the past days he’d spent a lot of time tending the smoke pot, studying the gentle pulse of the embers and the restless energy of the white billows. The smoke was like an old friend now, whose changing moods he instinctively understood, and he knew that it was being sucked out of the undercroft through something much bigger than a crack in the brickwork.
“Shouldn’t we investigate, sir?” he ventured.
“What you should do is shut up and follow orders!” Sweto snapped. “We’re to flush the enemy out through there.” He pointed to the far end of the undercroft. “Understood?”
Nappo hesitated. He was only trying to put the new training into practice. “But if there’s a third exit, sir—”
“What if we change the plan and it all goes wrong? What if one of us gets killed? Will you take responsibility?”
Monkey Wars Page 16
