“Hot one today,” mumbled Soames as he chewed.
“Blistering,” replied Morton.
“Maybe it’ll be cooler tomorrow.”
“Maybe.”
Not the thrusting talk of dynamic leaders, but Morton and Soames didn’t need to be. They were really only guardians of tradition.
Many generations ago the bonnets had stumbled into the city as refugees and battled their way up the pecking order. Being courageous fighters, it wasn’t long before they controlled a very desirable patch—the old Ambassador’s Palace, which had fallen into dilapidation.
“Fancy a stroll after Berries?” suggested Soames.
“Why not?” agreed Morton. “Be nice to have a shufti of the old spread.”
They said that every afternoon, but they never actually got round to doing it—too much effort in the heat. Which was a pity, because it was a lovely area—the bonnets had free run of the gardens from the Hooghly River in the west to Market Junction in the east, encircled by a wall that added an air of exclusivity. At the center of the gardens was the old residence, which had been the bonnets’ main dwelling until a series of harsh monsoons brought the roof down and the monkeys decamped to the summer house in the middle of the Great Lawn.
The name summer house implied an unassuming building, but there was nothing modest about it. Two long wooden halls were laid out in a large V; where they met, a tower rose up, affording the bonnets grand views of Kolkata. Punched into the walls were a set of openings that allowed a steady draft through the building; each one had a shutter that could be swung down for security if necessary.
But it never was necessary. No one had challenged the bonnets’ control of this part of the city for a long, long time.
Of course, the troop still sent out patrols to make sure that everyone respected their borders, but deep down, none of the bonnets ever expected to have to fight to keep what was theirs.
It was this invulnerability that was celebrated every afternoon in the sharing of juniper berries.
Morton and Soames chewed in silence while they thought of what to say next…when suddenly they heard a voice shouting across the lawns.
“Give us a berry, mate!”
The bonnets turned and peered at the far wall, on top of which was perched a single langur monkey, grinning at them.
“Bugger off!” bellowed Soames, expecting the langur to scamper away.
But he didn’t.
“There’s always one, isn’t there?” Morton sighed. Soames, however, was feeling irritated that some urchin had defied his authority. “Where’s the patrol? The rascal needs to be taught a lesson.”
“Patrol’s not due back till sunset,” replied Morton, scratching his buttock thoughtfully.
He didn’t know that the patrol was lying dead in a ditch, having been ambushed by a langur kill squad.
“Ignore the blighter,” counseled Morton. “He’ll soon get bored.”
But the langur monkey didn’t get bored. Instead he crouched on his hind legs and started to defecate down the garden wall.
“Good grief!” exclaimed Morton in disgust.
Soames stood up, trying to impose his authority, aware that everyone was watching. “Now look here,” he boomed, “this is bonnet land! I suggest you get your ragged, flea-infested hide off it before I come over there and give you a good thrashing!”
But the langur just grinned back. “You and whose army?”
“That’s it!” growled Soames. “Let’s break him in two!”
“Pleasure,” said Morton, cracking his knuckles.
But just as the bonnet leaders started striding across the lawn, they heard a strange massed scurrying sound.
The bonnets hesitated. “What was that?”
Then suddenly a whole army of langur monkeys appeared, a menacing presence perched along the entire length of the garden wall like birds of prey.
Apprehension gripped the bonnets.
“Stall them,” Morton whispered. “Play for time.”
But there was no time left. A couple of terse commands were shouted down the langur line, and the entire army dropped from the wall and started to advance across the lawns in a single, unbroken line.
Panic tore through the bonnets—females started smacking their lips in their distinctive alarm call; males ran in circles, trying to grab their young; Morton and Soames started thumping their chests furiously, hoping to intimidate the attacking army.
But still the langur line approached, unstoppable, unswerving. It caught up with an elderly monkey and engulfed him—there was a flurry of fists and stones, then a painful, howling scream as the bonnet fell and the langurs swarmed over him, biting off his fingers, tearing out his eyeballs.
The horror jolted Soames into action. Deep down, buried under years of an easy life, he had a military training, and faced with these brutal killers, the old disciplines clawed their way to the surface.
“SIEGE!!!” he roared.
The word boomed across the lawns. “SIEGE! Siege! Siege…”
It echoed off the walls and drilled into the bonnets’ minds—as one they turned and bolted for the summer house.
Immediately a roar went up from the langurs and they surged forward, determined to catch their prey before they reached cover.
Some of the bonnets stumbled in the panic and were quickly set upon and consumed in a frenzy; others were just too slow and made pitifully easy targets for the elites, who leaped onto their backs and dragged them to the ground, sinking teeth into their necks.
Soames reached the summer house and spun round, desperately looking for Morton, only to see his old comrade encircled by a group of screeching langurs.
“MORTON!” He wanted to run back and help his friend, but so many langurs were now streaming across the lawns it would have been suicidal. All Soames could do was watch in horror as they started beating Morton with their clubs, spearing his flesh with fighting sticks.
Morton roared his defiance, spun this way and that, flailing with his fists…but it was no use. The flurry of blows rained down on him mercilessly, until he crumpled to the ground.
Soames felt physically sick.
“Get up! Get up!” he urged, waiting for the moment when Morton would rise onto his legs, flinging his assailants aside…but the moment didn’t come.
His oldest friend would never get up again.
That was when the fear gripped Soames like a claw in the back of his throat.
“IN! IN! IN!” he started thundering at his troop as they reached the porch of the summer house. “Shutters down! Siege positions!”
It was all starting to come back to him now—the bonnets had a plan for this sort of thing; he’d show those upstart langurs that they were still a force to be reckoned with.
As the last bonnet tumbled into the summer house Soames ran inside, heaved the door shut and slid a large beam of wood across the hooks, sealing it. He stormed down the length of the halls helping the others release the catches on the shutters, which slammed down to block the open windows. As Soames glanced out across the lawns he saw groups of langurs gathered round the bodies of fallen bonnets, beating the last signs of life from them.
What made the savagery more terrifying was the langur discipline—after each kill, soldiers would rejoin the line which was now starting to encircle the summer house. They were preparing for a mass attack and Soames knew it would come soon.
Slamming the last shutter down, he turned to face the throng of frightened bonnet eyes that stared at him expectantly. Concentrate. He had to push his own grief to one side; he could deal with that later—when this was all over.
“These barbarians will never steal our lands!” Soames boomed. “Look around! Look at the walls that protect us, the tower that commands the landscape. This is our fortress now! If we have the will to defend this, no one can take it from us!”
A wave of relief swept through the bonnets as they realized their leader knew what he was doing.
“They wan
ted a lightning strike and a quick victory. We’ll give them a long and bloody siege!”
A chorus of defiant roars erupted from the bonnet macaques. Shock was behind them now, thoughts of defeat driven from every mind. They were ready for war.
Soames pulled up the trapdoor in the floor, revealing secret supplies that had lain undisturbed for generations. Many seasons ago, as a young officer, he had been taught about the emergency plans for surviving a siege and now his training was paying off. No matter that the nuts and leaves had all rotted and crumbled, food was the last thing on the bonnets’ minds. What mattered was weaponry: there were piles of sharp throwing stones, rows of long sticks with lethal points, coils of thornbush bristling with barbs, all stacked in the cellar, ready and waiting.
This was an arsenal for warriors. Faded warriors maybe, but Soames knew he could draw on heritage and breeding to win this battle.
—
“The perimeter is secure, the grounds are in our possession, sir,” panted Commander Leaf as he delivered his report to General Pogo. “The enemy defenses have been wiped out; elite squads have surrounded the summer house ready to finish them off. Congratulations on another victory, sir.”
General Pogo didn’t even bother to turn his solitary eye in the commander’s direction; he just wiped the sweat from his brow and stared across the battlefield. All around him he saw the cocky swagger of his troops enjoying their apparent victory; Pogo was alone in discerning the truth; they had failed.
The general had wanted to fight the whole battle on the large open lawns, where superior langur discipline would prove decisive; that was why he had given orders that the bonnets should be cut off from any retreat. But frenzied with bloodlust, the elites had become distracted by the easy pickings, and half the enemy troop had escaped into the summer house.
Pogo couldn’t complain too much; it was precisely this aggression that made his forces so dangerous, but today it had cost them the strategic advantage. Now they had to deal with a siege, and that was always tricky.
Adding to the general’s unease was his suspicion that Lord Gospodar had underestimated the bonnet macaques. Certainly they were out of condition, but the bonnets had been a formidable force in the city for as long as Pogo could remember and he knew they would never surrender; they would have to be defeated one monkey at a time. It was going to be an ugly battle of attrition.
“Is everything all right, sir?” asked Leaf.
Pogo ignored the question and let his mind run through the battle options. He could storm the two wings of the summer house with a mass attack—there would be bloody hand-to-hand fighting, which favored the langur, but some of the bonnets would hole up in the tower and this would give the langur real problems. From the tower the bonnets would be able to see every attack being prepared, know exactly when and where the next strike was coming.
“Give me a squad with six of our best climbers,” Pogo ordered. “We’re starting at the top.”
—
Breri had been in the second wave over the wall and, having missed the main action, had to content himself with some minor skirmishes. He was desperate to make his first kill, as he knew blood was the best way to glory. When the call for volunteers went out, he was the first to step forward.
He was assigned to the diversion troop; their job was to move into open ground in front of the summer house, find any moveable objects they could (fallen branches, bits of roof timber) and build barricades which would act as a shelter for the main attack force.
It was a tricky mission, as working without cover made them vulnerable to attack, but that was the whole point. Because while all bonnet eyes were on Breri’s squad, a group of langur climbers was stealthily making its way up the tower.
Once on the roof, they examined the wooden tiles—they were laid in neat rows but the weather had taken its toll and the climbers silently started lifting them off.
It wasn’t long before all the tiles were stripped and the monkeys were standing on the woven laths. Gently the lead climber bounced up and down, testing the laths with his weight. By the way they flexed he knew they had no strength; a few good smashes and his soldiers would be through.
The climbers exchanged glances, making sure that everyone was ready, when suddenly they heard a shuffling movement beneath their feet. They froze, their eyes swiveled down trying to peer through the gaps in the laths.
Something stirred in the shadows…then it was gone.
The lead climber crouched down and pressed his face to the slats. By the time he saw what was coming, it was too late. A sharp, spear-like branch thrust up through the laths, drove clean into the langur’s eye and smashed through his skull. He didn’t even have time to scream; he just lay there on the roof, twitching.
The other climbers staggered backward, stunned by the speed and lethal force of the attack, but their shock quickly turned to fear as more spears thrust up through the slats—four, five, six moving spikes driving up blindly, impaling whatever they could.
Two of the climbers tried to scramble back down the tower, but before they had gone any distance at all the spears starting driving out through the tower walls—one monkey was impaled and died splayed out, defying gravity; another lost his grip and tumbled through the air, plunging to his death on the granite patio stones below.
Watching from his command post, General Pogo thumped the ground in disgust. “By my beating heart!” he shouted, furious with frustration; the bonnets had anticipated his play and lured his forces into a trap. Pogo needed a counterattack fast.
—
Breri’s heart leaped as the orders came through: his squad was no longer just a diversion; they were going in.
Troops from all across the gardens were marshaled and armed with sticks. The plan was simple: smash through the base of the tower and establish a beachhead. Because of its limited size, only a small number of bonnets would be able to defend the tower base, but the langur could attack from three sides with overwhelming force. Once they had seized the tower, they could surge out into both wings of the summer house.
That was the theory. On the ground it felt more like a frenzied ruck, and Breri was right in the thick of it.
He and the huge mass of langurs charged the summer house and started beating their clubs against the walls, sending a menacing noise reverberating through the whole building.
The pounding grew louder and louder, planks started to splinter, Breri screeched with excitement, swirling his club above his head, battering the wooden walls with violent, intoxicated glee.
And then he heard a strange, eerie whistling sound.
He thought it was a battlefield command, but quickly realized that the sound was coming from above. He looked up and saw a strange black swarm descending. A swarm of stones, lethal sharp flints.
No one had a chance to run. Moments later the flints tore through the elites, slashing flesh and embedding in skulls.
Breri covered his face with his hands and by some miracle avoided the first cloud, but through the cracks in his fingers he saw the shutters at the top of the tower swing open as another swarm of flints was unleashed.
This time Breri wasn’t so lucky.
Instinctively he curled up into a ball, trying to make himself as small as possible. The whistling crescendoed then turned into a deadly pitter-patter as the flints struck home. Breri felt a warm jab in the side of his head—there was no pain, it was more of a jolt.
Then he realized his hands were sticky. He looked at his fur—it was dark. He lifted his hand to his mouth and licked it. Blood. He was wounded.
Breri had got his wish; he’d tasted blood. But it wasn’t the enemy’s blood, it was his own.
Perched on top of the signal box, Mico had been watching the supply lines all afternoon, but as yet no word had come back from the battlefield.
With no requests for reinforcements or more weapons, the cadets were starting to think that General Pogo must have won a lightning victory, and anticipation was running high
as they talked excitedly about the rewards that would flow from being part of a successful campaign.
Which made the sight of bloodstained monkeys staggering back twice as bitter.
Scouts immediately rushed out to help them, messengers were sent scampering back to the cemetery to raise the alarm, and Mico was assigned the task of preparing the medical supplies. Urgently he laid out various herbs and plants—aloe vera to aid the healing of bruises, dried palm leaves to wrap around gashes, a collection of barbed thorns for scraping wounds clean.
But when he picked up the hemlock root, Mico hesitated. Although no one liked to talk about it, every medical kit contained hemlock, a desperate medicine for use when a soldier was in agony from wounds that would never heal. Swallowing a single dose didn’t just relieve the pain; it put the victim into a deep sleep from which he’d never wake.
No, not this time. Mico put the hemlock down, refusing to accept that any of the injuries would be that grave.
As the wounded fighters were brought in, the well-organized supply post quickly descended into a chaos of injured monkeys sprawled wherever they could find a space. Most of the victims had deep lacerations where the sharp flints had rained down on them, and the top priority was to stop the bleeding. But as Mico dashed around the signal box ferrying medicine, he discovered that there was something far more serious than the physical wounds: shock.
Knitted into the fabric of langur life was the expectation of victory, the assumption of dominance; now faced with defeat, the monkeys couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Mico saw this most clearly of all in Breri when he limped into the signal box and slumped down on the floor.
“Breri!” Mico cried out as he ran over. “You’re safe!”
Breri clasped Mico tightly; it had been a long time since he’d shown any affection to his little brother and there was something desperate about his grip, as if he was clinging to the only thing that he understood.
“What happened?” Mico asked. “What went wrong?” But when he looked into his brother’s eyes he saw an expression of utter bewilderment.
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