Monkey Wars

by Richard Kurti

  Tyrell was good at his job, but there was a personal price to pay. He was not a popular monkey, which explained why he now found himself alone in the shady waters of the pool. While Gospodar, Hani and General Pogo laughed and joked as they were served fruit by two pretty young monkeys, Tyrell sat silent and tense, watching.

  There was something disconcerting about the way Tyrell observed his fellow council members. He looked at them the way the street chess players looked at their pieces, assessing which could be sacrificed and which had to be protected, endlessly running through the permutations of power.

  It was an intellectual killer instinct that Tyrell had honed in his infancy. Because he had been born small, other youngsters spurned him—even his parents were disappointed in him. But scorn was fuel for the young Tyrell, powering a ruthless determination to prove everyone wrong. By skillfully wielding his sharp mind, he had been able to outmaneuver rivals, win the trust of those in power and make himself indispensable, until the day came when Gospodar promoted him to deputy.

  It had been a long, tricky climb to get a seat in this pool, and Tyrell was determined to hang on to it.

  Summoning one of the young females, he took a papaya from her and waded over to where Gospodar sat bathing in the sunshine.

  “Ripened to perfection, my lord,” he said as he offered Gospodar the fruit. The lord ruler smiled and started eating.

  “Mmmm. As always, your analysis is perfect.” Gospodar took a few more mouthfuls then turned his steady eye on Tyrell. “But you didn’t just want to talk about fruit, did you?”

  Tyrell smiled dutifully. “You know me too well, my lord.”

  “So what’s worrying you?”

  “We’ve gained so much as a troop—this fine, walled home, thriving numbers,” began Tyrell, frowning. “But only yesterday, I overheard two young monkeys talking as if langur life had always been like this, as if there was no time before the cemetery.”

  Gospodar chewed the papaya pensively. “Good,” he said. “What we went through should be forgotten. Today is all that matters.”

  Tyrell nodded, but his troubled expression belied his real feelings.

  Gospodar tried to put him at ease. “Tyrell, just because we suffered doesn’t mean the young must have it thrust down their throats. Let the new generation grow up as kings, not slum monkeys made good.”

  “But, my lord, if the young aren’t reminded of the past, how will they know what you’ve done for them? Your great achievements in lifting this troop will be forgotten.”

  Gospodar’s vanity was immediately tweaked. Tyrell knew each monkey’s weakness, and for Gospodar it was vanity. He wanted to be remembered after he was gone.

  “Discipline, courage and determination have achieved all this,” Tyrell declared as he waved his arm expansively around the Great Vault. “And it is you, my lord, who have taught us these virtues.”

  Gospodar smiled; he never tired of hearing his praises sung. “So what do you suggest?”

  “An education program for the cadets, my lord. History must be passed down, lest we forget. Young monkeys must understand why we are the chosen troop.”

  Gospodar looked over to General Pogo and Deputy Hani. “What do you two think about an education program?”

  Pogo’s and Hani’s first thought was that they didn’t want to get lumbered with the job. More responsibility would steal precious time that could be used for bathing and feasting. But, of course, neither would admit to this.

  “It’s a good idea,” Hani volunteered instead. “If we could find someone to take on the task.”

  “Not really a military matter, though, is it?” said General Pogo quickly.

  Gospodar nodded. No resistance, but not much enthusiasm either, he thought to himself.

  “Perhaps some retired instructor could be persuaded to take on the task,” Hani suggested. But Tyrell quickly short-circuited the discussion.

  “I would be honored to take on the whole burden, my lord. The task is too important to be left to any of the lower ranks.”

  Gospodar looked at Tyrell with genuine concern.

  “But you barely get time to rest as it is,” he said, putting a solicitous arm on Tyrell’s shoulder. “We don’t want you collapsing on us.”

  “I’m happy to work harder, my lord. The time spent bathing could be reallocated to the task.” And to underline the point, Tyrell clambered out of the pool and shook himself dry. “I was never much of a water monkey anyway.”

  Gospodar could see that Tyrell had already made up his mind.

  “Very well. You shall be in charge of this special education program.”

  Tyrell bowed his head appreciatively. “I am honored.” And with that he strode away from the pool.

  As soon as he was out of sight he stopped and just for a moment hid behind a doorway, straining his ears to listen. He heard Pogo and Hani chuckle, relieved that they had dodged the extra burden.

  “He’s such an obsessive,” he heard Hani mutter. “Work, work, work.”

  “That’s what happens when you’re small,” quipped General Pogo, and the two shared a laugh.

  Tyrell smiled to himself. Comments behind his back had long since failed to upset him. If anything, it was he who should be laughing, because he had realized what the others had failed to grasp, that the monkey who controls the past, controls the future.

  “Forget everything!” Drill Instructor Gu-Nah declared as he inspected the row of new cadets. “Whatever you’ve heard about basic training, however tough or strong you think you are, forget it!”

  Mico glanced along the line of new cadets. There were big ones from military families who just knew they were going to breeze through training, and aggressive ones with too much attitude and too little brain. Mico, sick with nerves, was convinced he was going to fail miserably because he was so small.

  But the drill instructor’s voice rang out again. “Today, you are all equal. Yes, sir. Equal,” Gu-Nah mused. “By the time training is done, some of you will be better warriors than others.” He paced along the line of new cadets. “Some will become footsoldiers. The really good ones will end up in the elites. All of you will be more than you are today. Much more. I will make monkeys of you. That’s my promise. But you’re going to have to work for it. Yes, sir. Day and night. Follow orders, face your fears, work until you drop. You do that for me and I won’t let you down. Every cadet has a chance to prove himself.” His eyes rested on Mico and he lowered his voice as if for that moment Gu-Nah was speaking just to him. “Everyone.”

  The instructor stood up and strode back down the line. “What would hurt more? This?” he picked up a melon that was lying on the floor. “Or this?” Gu-Nah opened his palm to reveal a small chickpea. One of the bigger cadets, Mudpaw, sniggered at the question.

  “Easy, eh?” smiled Gu-Nah. Then suddenly he hurled the melon at Mudpaw, who instinctively dodged, letting it splatter against the wall.

  “Good reactions,” said Gu-Nah, eliciting a proud smile. Then without warning he flicked the chickpea hard at Mudpaw, stinging him painfully in the face.

  “OWW!” howled the big cadet.

  Gu-Nah smiled. “Just not good enough.”

  The instructor pointed dramatically to the cemetery gates. “The dangers out there aren’t always obvious. The rock python can crush, but the baby cobra can poison. There are many different types of strength. I believe what makes the langur a great fighting force is not just the size of our muscles, but the fact that every monkey can contribute to the fight. No exceptions.”

  For Mico, it was an alluring promise; he longed to take his place in langur life, to understand what it really meant to be one of the “chosen,” and make sense of all the mysteries and deceptions that had worried him these past moons. Above all, he wanted to understand why you needed to kill to keep the peace.

  Hoping that all his doubts and questions would finally be resolved, Mico threw himself into cadet training with a vengeance.

  —


  Building stamina and strength were top priorities, so gruelling physical exercises started the moment the cadets woke up; lifting piles of watermelons, endless swinging through the tree canopy and relentess pull-ups became a way of life. Interspersed with these sessions were exercises in speed and agility, where the cadets had to scamper around the narrow perimeter wall. At first they moved slowly, fearful of the drop, but day by day, spurred on by Gu-Nah’s barrage of instructions, their speed improved.

  In the heat of the day the cadets often ventured out of the cemetery and clambered into the branches of a large mahogany tree. Here, with a panoramic view across the city, instructors would teach them about the weather, how to read clouds and predict storms.

  Even when darkness came the cadets couldn’t bank on having a quiet night, as Gu-Nah liked to organize “stealth exercises.” The cadets would be sent to the farthest corners of the cemetery to hunt for objects that had been hidden among the tombs, while being stalked by their instructors. The idea was to train the cadets to keep a steady nerve no matter what.

  Mico liked the throwing lessons best of all. They learned the art of the long throw—solid stance, arm pulled back, balancing arm out front, lock the target with your eyes, then let the power uncoil. To practice, the cadets would spend whole afternoons hurling oranges and kiwis against targets that had been daubed on the cemetery wall.

  Mico knew that once he could reliably hit a target, he would finally be able to take on Breri and his friends, which would be deeply satisfying.

  In fact, one of the surprises of cadet training was the way it improved his relationship with his brother. Whereas before Breri had always dismissed Mico, now they could talk about training and tactics, share jokes about the instructors. Most importantly, Mico could now defend himself. If his brother cuffed him or tried to steal something, Mico would retaliate and Breri relished the tussle that followed.

  The more cadet training progressed and the more they learned about fighting techniques, the more Mico realized that most langurs were like Breri—they loved to fight, and they lived for the rush of conflict. Aggression fulfilled them.

  It was a realization that worried Mico, because there was a part of him that was sickened by violence, horrified at the thought of actually killing another monkey. This wasn’t something he could talk about with anyone else, least of all his parents. Now that he was finally getting muscle and starting to prove himself, Trumble and Kima were showing real pride in him. Not wanting to disappoint, Mico kept his anxieties to himself.

  —

  As the monsoon approached, the cadets were due to start learning advanced hand-to-hand wrestling. But when Mico entered the special training mausoleum one day, he was surprised to see that instead of limbering up, the cadets were sitting in rows, ready to listen to a lecture.

  “What’s going on?” he whispered to Nappo, a wiry cadet with whom he’d become quite friendly.

  “It’s jaw-jaw, not war-war today,” sighed Nappo, who always found the more theoretical aspects of cadet training challenging, and he shuffled up to make room. A few moments later, when all the cadets had arrived, Gu-Nah swung down through a hole in the roof and landed dramatically in front of the class.

  “So, what have I been teaching you?” Gu-Nah boomed.

  “FIGHTING!” the cadets shouted back in their well-drilled chant.

  “Fighting. Yes, sir. Fighting. But, how do you know what you should be fighting for?”

  Silence. This was way beyond anything most cadets had ever thought about.

  “Exactly,” said Gu-Nah. “That is a trickier problem. Much trickier. Which is why the Ruling Council has put a new lesson into your training, to be taught by Deputy Tyrell himself.”

  With perfect timing, Tyrell strode into the room, setting off an excited murmur.

  “So pin your ears back,” Gu-Nah boomed, “put your tails down and listen up.”

  The cadets thumped the ground in appreciation as Tyrell took center stage. He looked out at the faces of the cadets, young and open, ready to receive his wisdom.

  “Don’t worry, this won’t be the boring recollections of an old soldier.” Tyrell smiled, earning a relieved chuckle from the cadets. “In fact, it’s old soldiers that are part of the problem, with their exaggerated stories of heroic battles,” he continued. “Their big talk makes it very hard for a young monkey to know why all this fighting is necessary. So today I’m going to tell you the truth, pure and simple.”

  Tyrell paused, cleared his throat, then nodded thoughtfully. “There was a time, many seasons ago, when the streets of this city belonged to rhesus monkeys. They occupied all the best rooftops and the greenest parks. They were insolent and thieving, but strangely, it was these very qualities that endeared them to the humans, who fed them, allowed them to breed.

  “These were dark times for us langur. We’ve always been a proud troop, unwilling to demean ourselves by sitting on the shoulders of human children, or performing tricks on a leash. The langur are fighters, and we needed to be strong just to survive. Because back then we lived a harsh existence in a derelict button factory by the railway shunting yards.

  “But our time was coming. As the city grew, the green spaces were swallowed up, and the rhesus were pushed off their lands. True to form, they turned nasty.

  “They started to attack humans. Marauding bands of rhesus monkeys would roam the streets, biting and scratching. Some specialized in attacking eating places—they would gather on the rooftops and swoop down on a café, overwhelming the humans with teeth and claws, defecating on the tables, stealing as much food as they could carry.

  “The humans started to live in fear of the rhesus. But they couldn’t lift a finger to stop them. Why? Because among the many gods the humans worship is a monkey god.”

  Tyrell could see the surprise on the cadets’ faces. He smiled indulgently. “I know, it seems incredible. To be honest this god is an abomination—half human, half monkey,” he laughed patronizingly. “It’s nonsense. But it’s nonsense that humans take very seriously. And because of this monkey god, they couldn’t strike back at the thugs.

  “So the rhesus grew even bolder, until one day a wild gang of them descended on the home of a human leader. Hordes of them streamed out of the trees and ransacked his house. Terrified, the man staggered onto his balcony to call for help, but the rhesus rampaged after him. They started biting, gouging their fingers into his eyes….”

  Tyrell paused for dramatic effect as he recalled the horror of the attack. “The poor human never stood a chance—blinded and mauled, he fell from the balcony…smashing down onto the street below.

  “The humans wanted revenge, but their holy men warned, ‘The great monkey god will get angry if humans harm the rhesus!’

  “So they turned to us, the langur, as there is nothing in their religion that forbids monkey from punishing monkey. The humans had always ignored us because we were warlike and aggressive, but now those very qualities were what they needed.

  “And so one morning the holy men arrived with their tribute—plates of the most delicious fruit. And when we’d eaten, they took us to the home of the human leader. It was overrun by the rhesus savages. The smell of them was everywhere, their raucous screeches filled the air, their vile little bodies scurried over the house like vermin. The holy men led us into the grounds and shut the gates. We were on our own, monkey against monkey. Langur against rhesus…”

  Tyrell paused, savoring the anticipation on the cadets’ faces. “The Battle of the Palace has passed into troop legend. Each hero has his own story, so you don’t need me to add another. But let me just say this: not only were we heavily outnumbered, but we occupied the inferior ground. The rhesus held the roof; we had to fight from the gardens, which put us at a grave disadvantage. But Lord Gospodar held his nerve, drew on langur discipline.

  “We deployed the troop’s best throwers to the front of the house, from where they mounted a bombardment with rocks. The rhesus replied with a barrage of obje
cts pilfered from the house, but we held our positions, refusing to retreat.

  “With the rhesus distracted by the missile attack, a squad of langur volunteers climbed a bank of trees and dropped onto the roof. Arming themselves with makeshift clubs, they started to fight their way down through the house.

  “Those heroes had to endure bitter fighting, but for every one of ours that fell, three of theirs were killed. With the rhesus now fighting on two fronts, Lord Gospodar himself drove the final, decisive move.

  “He led the elites across the gardens. Then, pretending to be wounded, we collapsed on the lawns. The rhesus were in such a murderous frenzy, they stormed out of the house to tear us apart with their teeth.

  “Imagine their surprise when we leaped up, clubs in hands, and started lashing out. Skulls were smashed, limbs broken, eyes gouged! The rhesus tried to retreat, but we had encircled them. While some of the elites finished them off, the rest of us surged through the open doors and drove our way up through the house.

  “By the time the sun set, the grounds were strewn with the bodies of dead monkeys. The langur had triumphed.”

  A spontaneous cheer went up from the cadets, who had clung to Tyrell’s words with rapt attention.

  “This was just the beginning!” the deputy boomed, silencing the cadets. “Rhesus scum were attacking humans right across the city, stealing from shops, biting children, terrorizing the elderly in their own homes. The humans had a whole city to clear, and they looked to us, the langur, to do it.

  “Battle after battle we fought, and gradually the rhesus savages were driven back. The more they lost, the more violent and desperate they became. In their bloodlust, they even turned to butchering their own kind—time and again we found evidence of cannibalism everywhere we cleared.