Agent Provocateur

by Christopher C Tubbs

  “And the guards carry the keys on their belts,” John chipped in.

  “How do you get the keys off the guards?” asked Ranjit.

  “Same way I just took your watch,” said John Smith, who had brushed past Ranjit on his way to the map to check a detail for his copy.

  “What?” said Ranjit, patting down his empty waistcoat. “It was attached through a buttonhole!”

  John dangled the watch by its chain and gave it back.

  “Nothin’ to it.”

  “I must say your men have some unusual skills,” Arthur noted a little nervously.

  “Specially chosen for their unique abilities,” Marty explained. “We cover all of the required skills for entering enemy premises and leaving with their secrets without leaving a trace.”

  “Fascinating,” said Arthur thoughtfully.

  “There was an incident in France a few years ago where a large consignment of gold went missing under mysterious circumstances,” the general recalled.

  “Yeah that were us,” John confirmed without looking up from his drawing.

  The three officers looked at each other and Marty could see the thought pass around them. What are we letting loose here?”

  An hour later, they had a plan. In the beginning, Wellesley had been dubious about the whole process. It simply wasn’t the way one commanded. But he had to admit that this special team had a unique way of coming up with solutions to problems and, amazingly, still deferred to Marty as the undisputed leader. He had noted how Marty let the men explore the options and deftly steered them to a conclusion. It gave him quite a lot to think about.

  Two days later, the alarm was sounded as an open cell was discovered and seven prisoners were missing. A lot of shouting and running around also found a postern gate in the North wall was unlocked and left open. Squads of men scoured the countryside around the Island and searched Mysore looking for the missing men. Then a fisherman reported his boat was stolen and the search shifted to the river.

  Marty and the boys rowed the rickety boat down the River Kaveri. They were looking for the branch to the south that would lead them into the tributary that came down from Katte Malalawadi. The boat only had a stern oar, so they had to scull it to make progress. That was fine while running downstream but wasn’t anywhere near as efficient when travelling against the flow of the tributary.

  Wilson was working hard when there was a loud crack and the oar broke in half. The boat didn’t have a spare, so they all had to grab whatever they could to get them to the shore.

  They had gotten about half way up the tributary when the oar broke and were now trudging along southwest skirting a large forest which took them further South. The land steadily rose as they swung back to the Southwest into a river valley which cut through the hills to the West. They could see a ridge of mountains ahead of them, but a track led North Northwest and they hoped it would lead them to a pass.

  They had seen villages but avoided them as they were foraging enough from the rich land to eat without having to steal from the locals. There were streams with the water in them that was fast flowing and fresh.

  “But the trouble with streams is that you didn’t know who’s been pissing in them,” Tom had pointed out.

  More worrying was once it got dark, they could hear the roar of, what they assumed were, tigers. So, they decided to keep a fire lit all night. Garai had come face to face with a king cobra when he went to relieve himself. His arrival in the camp with his trousers around his thighs caused a lot of amusement.

  The biggest surprise was coming across a heard of wild elephants that crossed the track in front of them. A big tusker had faced them as the others had crossed the road and then turned disdainfully away.

  The track led them around the end of the mountains and they turned back South west to where they hoped they would find the coast. The whole area was heavily forested, and they were on their guard all the time.

  They came to a village, and Marty went in and asked by sign language the direction to Mahé. The bemused local pointed to a trail that lead Southwest.

  They followed that for three hours and they came to a small town. They walked in and saw signs of French occupation. There was a sort of tavern with some blue coated soldiers lounging around outside it and in the town square a large building with a French flag flying above it.

  Marty led them straight to the large building. There were soldiers at the door who stopped them entering and asked their business.

  “We are privateers who were captured by the English. They took us to Seringapatam to hang us as an example, but we escaped. We walked here. I want to talk to the governor.”

  The soldier took in their appearance, the ragged clothes, dusty legs, British pistols.

  “Wait here. I will ask.”

  He left them in the care of the second guard and went into the building.

  Marty was concerned about Antton, who was sweating more than the rest of them and was a little grey under his tan.

  “Are you alright?” he asked him.

  “I have felt better, hot and cold at the same time,” he replied.

  The guard came back and asked them to go inside. The foyer was cool compared with outside and there was the expected clerk sat at his desk. Marty went through the story again. The clerk wrote a note and called an Indian servant to take it to the governor.

  The servant returned and passed a note back to the clerk.

  “The governor will see you now. Is he alright?” he said, pointing at Antton, who was leaning against a wall and shivering violently.

  “I think he has a fever,” Marty replied, concerned.

  “He had better stay there. I will call the doctor. The rest of you go in.”

  “Matai stay with him,” Marty ordered.

  The rest followed the servant into a large airy office with a punkah waiving lazily back and forth. A corpulent man sat at a desk looking over some papers. He waved for them to stand in front of his desk and then made them wait while he ‘read’ the papers.

  The door opened, and another man came in. This one was slim with a sharp face. His hair was tied back in a ponytail. He was dressed in Indian-style trousers, a silk shirt and a dark coat.

  Intelligence officer if I ever saw one, thought Marty.

  “I am told that you claim to have escaped from the Fort at Seringapatam and walked here from there. I must say I find that highly improbable.”

  “All the same, it’s true,” Marty asserted, “We were taken there from Madras to be tried and hung because we were privateers.”

  “How were you captured?” the second man asked.

  “We attacked a company ship called the Hindostan. We expected it be as incompetently defended as the other company ships, but they had some Navy men onboard and we got a real whipping.

  Our ship, the Tanya, didn’t stand a chance. They killed almost half the crew and the rest were taken prisoner.

  Then some man called Wellesley turned up with this great big Sikh, and we were picked to be taken to Seringapatam for trial as some kind of example.”

  “One of ours was a pick pocket in the past and stole a set of keys from a guard. He is an Englishman, but he is now a privateer.”

  “A traitor!”

  “No, a refugee. They were going to hang him.”

  The intelligence officer whispered something in the governor’s ear.

  “Please wait outside.” He asked and Marty led them out into the hall.

  Five minutes later, the ‘security’ man let them back in.

  “It appears your account agrees with information we have received from our sources.” He made some notes on a piece of paper.

  “You may stay in Mahé until we can arrange transport back to Réunion. We will allocate you a house to stay in in the meantime.” He reached into a drawer. “Here is some money for you to buy food.”

  He waved them out.

  Antton and Matai were not in the foyer when they got there, and Marty asked the clerk wher
e they had gone.

  “They are at the infirmary. Go left out of here, and it’s the last building on the right.”

  They followed the directions and found a small building next to a church. They went in to be greeted by a nun.

  “I am looking for my men’ they said they had been taken here.”

  The nun said nothing, just led them through to the back where there were a number of beds. Antton was in one and Matai was sat on a chair beside him.

  Antton looked terrible. He was grey, sweat beaded his face, and he was shivering. A studious man with pince nez glasses walked up and looked down at him.

  “Which one of you is Martin?” he asked.

  “I am.”

  “Your man has a bad fever. He needs Peruvian Bark, but that is very expensive. Do you have money?”

  Marty looked at Antton, took a knife, and slit the stitching on the hem of his coat. He took out two gold pieces and held them up.

  “Is this enough?”

  The doctor took one and nodded. The gold pieces were Spanish and were part of their emergency fund, but Marty figured this was just the kind of emergency that that was for.

  A voice behind them asked,

  “And how come the British didn’t find that?”

  Marty turned and saw the slim man from the governor’s office.

  “We meet again Mr… ” Marty replied.

  “Brieu. Please answer the question.”

  “They took our weapons but didn’t search our clothes. I always like to have an ‘emergency fund’ in case something goes wrong.”

  Brieu was obviously dubious about that but let it go for the time being.

  The doctor returned with a liquid that had a faint yellow tinge to it and gave it to the nun, who sat on the bed and, lifting Antton’s head onto her lap, gently fed him the liquor.

  “It is an infusion of Peruvian bark in water. It is very bitter but is the most effective treatment for the fever.” The doctor explained.

  They left Antton in the care of the nuns and Brieu showed them to an empty house that had been used by the army and they settled in.

  “We are being watched.” Garai observed. “One in the window of the house opposite. Another 2 doors down to the left on the roof.”

  He walked back into the room, sat on his bed, and pulled off his boots. He took out the knives hidden inside and checked the edges. Satisfied, he slid them back into the sheaths.

  Marty laid on his bed and thought about what they should do next. He knew that they needed to scout out the whole area, get an idea of the number of troops, and try and identify the agents that were travelling to the interior to advise the locals.

  Tom went for a walk. He strolled down the street and made his way down towards the sea. He stopped at the hospital to visit Antton and stayed there for a while. He continued down towards the beach.

  There was a fish market and he took some time to look at the catch and bought a large snapper. He walked back up the street to their house whistling a shanty he had learnt on the Hindostan as if he didn’t have a care on the world.

  “Two of them followed me all the way down and back. Took it in turns to lead and one even tried a front tail,” he reported.

  “Had some training then,” Marty commented.

  “But bloody useless all the same. I had them pegged as soon as I left.”

  “This fish is nice, but we need some rice and vegetables to go with it,” Garai complained. It was his turn to cook.

  “Well, go get some!” Marty responded and tossed him a couple of coins.

  The market for vegetables was more in the middle of the town, so Garai got to explore in the opposite direction to Tom. He too reported a tail when he returned but also that he had counted twenty-three soldiers and two officers. There was also a building on the West side of the market that looked like a base of some kind as there were a number of French coming and going, dressed in Indian versions of European clothes.

  They kept this up until Antton was released from the nun’s care. He had lost weight and had a pallor to his skin. So, they fed him on mutton, as they couldn’t get beef, and red wine, which they bought from the soldiers, to build up his blood.

  Marty was called to the governor’s office and questioned again. He gave them the same answers for the most part with slight variations so they didn’t sound as if he had learned them by rote. They also asked to look at his hands. He guessed they were checking he had sailors callouses. Luckily, he did as he often grabbed a rope to help a haul and climbed rigging to check a sighting.

  After three weeks, Tom came back from one of his regular walks and reported that there was no tail. The authorities had either decided they were harmless or had better things to do. They all took walks over the next two days and none of them could spot anyone following them.

  They started extending their forays around the town and into the surrounding countryside, building up their knowledge of the area. They identified the barracks, a quartermaster’s warehouse, stables and armoury. There was also a house where several of the tails that they had identified were living and another building where they seemed to congregate during the day.

  October was running out when a large merchant ship arrived. It moored about one hundred yards offshore and a small convoy of ox carts trundled passed their house.

  Marty and Antton took a walk down to the fish market, which coincidently, was very near the small dock that the ships boats were pulling in and unloading on.

  “Boxes, about five-feet long and eighteen inches square. We counted five hundred in all,” Marty reported to the rest of the team. “Look like the right size for muskets to me.”

  “Casks that looked mighty heavy could be full of shot,” Antton added, “And others they unloaded very carefully could be powder.”

  “I bet there were boxes of flints somewhere in there too,” Marty pondered.

  “That would be enough muskets to arm a small army assuming ten muskets per box that’s…” said Tom wrinkling his brow as he tried to work it out.

  “Five thousand muskets,” finished Marty for him. “Exactly enough for a small army.”

  Chapter 20: Every cloud . . .

  Marty was frustrated.

  The cargo from the ship had been taken straight to the quartermaster’s warehouse, and a guard was mounted with soldiers patrolling around it day and night. They even had sentries on the roof! In fact, security was so tight that they couldn’t see a way to get in at all.

  The garrison was so small that all the soldiers knew each other. So, they couldn’t impersonate them either. And just to complete his frustration their watchdogs were back.

  Marty paced up and down their kitchen while the rest of the team sat around the table. He was trying to think of a way to get in to the warehouse to blow up the arms before they were moved. But every plan he came up with ended at a dead end.

  Then there was a knock at the door, and Brieu walked in with half a dozen soldiers at his back.

  “Gentlemen, I have good news. You are leaving.” He smiled. “The ship, the one you carefully watched unload, will take you back to Réunion. I am sure that your fellow privateers will welcome you with open arms,” he said with a smile that belied the lie.

  He beckoned the soldiers in and commanded,

  “Search them and remove their weapons.”

  They were searched, and their knives removed. Even the ones in their boots.

  An hour later, they were climbing the side of the ship. She was a merchantman and they were shown to their berths which were in one of the empty holds. There were hammocks slung for them and a bucket for them to relieve themselves.

  Garai talked to the other two Basques then stood and raised his head to the grate above them.

  “Yip, Yip, Yey, Yey, Yey Aaaaahhhhh,” he called.

  Marty looked up, wondering what he was doing and then heard.

  “Yey, yey, yey Aaaaaahhhhh,” from the deck above.

  Garai looked down with a grin on his f
ace.

  “Help is on the way.”

  Marty, Tom, and John looked at each other, puzzled.

  “I recognized two fellow Basques in the crew as we boarded. I just asked them to come to me, and they said they would.”

  “Damn, you people can have a whole conversation with that yippin’ and hollerin’,” Tom observed wryly.

  The ship got underway soon after that and was plodding along at what felt like no more than five knots. It slowed down even more at nightfall.

  There was a sound from above and a hatch opened. A ladder was lowered, and two men climbed down. The hold was lit by the starlight coming through the hatch, and Marty could just make out that they were of similar height and build to Garai.

  The five men greeted each other with hugs and a lot of whispered chat in, what Marty assumed was, native Basque.

  Antton turned to Marty and switching to French said,

  “This is Martin. He is a Lieutenant in the British Navy and a Lord. He is our leader. We need to get back to Mahé and destroy the shipment that you brought in.”

  “By the time we get back, it would be too late. They will move the guns tomorrow,” replied one of the men.

  “What are your names?” Marty asked.

  “Christo’.”

  “Franco,” they replied.

  “Do you know where they are being taken?”

  “We heard the French saying that they would be taken to Kanchipuram to arm a new rebellion against the British.”

  Marty pictured the map of India he had memorized. If he had it right, Kanchipuram was in Tamul Nadu and was close to Madras. It was a religious centre for the Hindus and would be symbolic place to start a rebellion and could threaten Madras itself.

  “We need to get back and warn Wellesley and stop those guns from getting there.” He stated.

  “Christo, Franco, will you join us?”

  “This will hurt the French?” Christo asked.

  “Yes, a lot, you have my word on it,” Marty affirmed.

  “Then I am in!”

  “Me too!” Confirmed Christo and Frank in turn.

  “Then we need to get this ship to shore and get some horses.” Marty said.