Agent Provocateur

by Christopher C Tubbs

  An hour later, several bodies were to be seen lying on the deck neatly tied. Below decks, the off duty crew were similarly incapacitated. Marty and his men were, once again, fully armed with their choice of edged weapons and pistols. They had found a couple of boxes of muskets which the captain had stashed away for later sale and helped themselves to powder and shot as well.

  Marty steered for the coast hoping they could find a suitable landing place. As the sun came up, they could see a village so they took a boat and rowed ashore. They had left one or two of the crew fairly loosely tied so they could eventually work their way free.

  Once ashore, they set off inland heading towards the hills to the east. Like before, they found a trail leading in the general direction they wanted to go so followed it and after a few hours walk they entered a pass through the hills which were heavily forested.

  They set up camp on the road, made a fire and gathered enough dry wood to keep it going all night. Then it started to rain, and the road turned into a muddy river. They had no choice but to move under the trees.

  At dawn, it was still raining so they set out trudging west until around midday when the clouds broke and the sun came out. Now, instead of being cold and wet, they were hot and wet as the temperature soared and the humidity with it.

  The only good thing about this, Marty thought, is that the heavily laden ox carts will be having an even harder time of it.

  By the next morning, they hit a track which had obviously had a large number of heavy carts on it. There were fresh ruts and the hoofprints of oxen. On the margins were the spoor of shod horses.

  They knew when they were getting close to the rear of the column when they found fresh, still steaming dung.

  Marty quickly outlined a plan to try and get them some horses and when the passed through some trees sent Matai ahead as the fastest and then set up a trap.

  They waited and heard a shot and a minute later.

  “Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye, Ayeeee!”

  They readied themselves and a few seconds later saw Matai running down the road as if the devil himself were chasing him. About forty yards behind him, a squad of cavalry were hot on his heels.

  For a moment, Marty thought Matai had misjudged his run and would get caught but he put on an extra spurt and ran past them no more than ten yards ahead of his pursuers.

  As soon he passed they hauled up a vine, they had strung across the road, to chest height of a mounted man. The three leading riders ran right into it and were lifted out of their saddles and crashed to the ground. The riders behind them pulled their horses up and milled about in confusion as they suddenly bunched right up. A volley of musket fire brought another three off their steeds. Before the remaining four could react, they were hauled from their saddles by main strength and dispatched with knife thrusts or hatchet blows.

  Marty quickly assessed the result. Eleven horses stood bunched together and were being collected by the men. One horse was on the ground its leg broken. Marty put it out of its misery with a shot behind the ear with his pistol.

  They were lucky. They had the nine horses they needed. Plus the cavalry men’s carbines and swords. They mounted and set off cutting away from the road into the country to observe the column of carts and escorts from a safe distance.

  Marty considered his options. He could:

  Report back to Wellesley and return with a larger force. That would risk losing the column or if the column split, they would never know.

  Stay with the column, try and whittle it down using hit and run tactics, and send one of the men back to Wellesley.

  Try and destroy the column himself.

  He didn’t particularly like the first or the last. The second was probably the best option. It gave him the chance to harass the column and slow it up and for Wellesley to send him some reinforcements. If he got an opportunity to do the third, he would take it.

  Having made his decision, he detailed Wilson to ride back to Seringapatam and bring what help they would offer. He was the least mobile and the worst shot, so that decision was easy. Then he set out with the rest of the men to do a detailed reconnaissance of the column and the route ahead.

  By the following morning, they had a good idea of how the French were forming up. They had around thirty mounted troops plus a soldier on each of the wagons riding shotgun. Brieu was at the head of the column with another man that Matai identified as one of his tails.

  When you added the cavalrymen they had ambushed, that made two platoons of twenty. All the French soldiers were dressed in civilian clothes and when they had quickly searched the bodies of those they ambushed they found no identification.

  The road ahead passed through mainly flat, open country, but they had found a couple of gullies that they could use to get within musket range. Further on the track went up into a low range of hills, which would provide more opportunities. Especially with the mountain fighting skills of the Basques.

  He estimated it would take three of four days for Wilson to get to Seringapatam and for Arthur to organize a mobile force and catch him up. So, he got to work.

  He sent Garai and Antton out as skirmishers. They would ride ahead and get into position to fire a couple of shots at the front of column. Hopefully killing or wounding one or two people. They would then fade back into the countryside and the rest would hit the rear of the column while they were distracted.

  They would try and kill the oxen or shoot the drivers. Marty hoped that if the drivers realized that they were the target they would run away when they got the chance.

  The first ambush went well. Shots rang out and a cavalry man fell from his horse. A detail was dispatched to find the shooters and as soon as they were on their way Marty and the other men hit the rear of the column on horseback. They killed two troopers and one of the Oxen before retreating.

  This caused the officer in charge to redeploy his troops. He mounted a rearguard of ten horse and had another eight riding out on the flanks. The rest he split between the center and the front of the column. The horse from the fallen trooper was harnessed in place of the dead ox. They found out fairly soon that wasn’t a good idea. The ox didn’t like the horse, and the horse wanted to move faster than the plodding pace of the ox. The driver had his hands full.

  They fired shots at random intervals from any cover they could find to keep the soldiers on edge. Then left them to make camp without being disturbed.

  The French formed the carts into a defensive circle for the night. Interestingly, they put the ones carrying powder in the middle. They lit several fires for cooking, and Marty could see that the drivers were separate from the French and, not only that, the officers were separate from the men. They had erected tents and their horses were picketed all in one place. The oxen were corralled and hobbled to stop them wandering. They had five men on sentry duty.

  Marty sent Christo up the road a way and Garai off out to the left. He and Mattai crept as close to the perimeter as the could from behind and Antton and Franco were doing the same off to the right.

  An eerie wail split the night.

  “AYEEEEEE, AYA, AYE, AYE,”

  It was answered by a shriek from out in the dark to the left. The guards all looked that way and men rushed out of their tents grabbing their weapons.

  A scream of agony.

  A shot.

  Panicked soldiers started shooting randomly into the dark. The officers stood, shouting conflicting orders and then one dropped down dead with a bloody hole in his chest. The drivers were panicked and had to be herded together. The other officer and Brieu finally got the men to douse the fires.

  Marty started his own. He and Mattai had crawled up to one of the carriages and set fire to it. By the time the soldiers realized it was burning, they were back in the brush and waiting for someone to silhouette themselves against the flames.

  Marty took careful aim and dropped the first man that did. Mattai accounted for another.

  They fell back and left the French to spend a ner
vous night waiting for another attack, which never came. Marty let his men rest.

  The next morning, the French found the sentry that Antton and Franco had killed. He was lying spread eagled with his guts spilled out on the ground, his throat cut as well.

  A driver died. Shot by Christo from a clump of trees thirty yards from the camp. He had waited there since before dawn and made his escape up a gully to where his horse was picketed.

  The column nervously moved out. They now had four horsemen riding around the column one hundred yards out looking for, well anything.

  Christo rejoined Marty and the rest as they moved ahead of the column in a large arc to avoid being spotted. They rejoined the road about two miles ahead.

  It took the about fifteen minutes to drag brush and rocks across the road as a barrier. Then they moved back down the road in the direction the column was coming from and took positions one hundred and fifty yards out to either side of it.

  As soon as the lead troops saw the barricade, they stopped, and the column pulled to a halt just behind them. The four out riders trotted their designated circuit.

  One at the back of the group suddenly jerked upright in his saddle, wobbled, then fell to the ground. A knife stuck out of his back. His horse stopped and looked at him in surprise then wandered off to eat some dry grass. His colleagues didn’t notice he was missing until one looked back.

  They stopped and called to him. Three figures rose out of the brush, twenty feet away to the side, with leveled musket. Shots rang out and all three tumbled from their saddles. The figures disappeared back into the brush.

  Nothing else happened until the afternoon as they were moving up a pass into the hills. A single figure was seen stood atop a ridge to the left of the pass. It raised a musket horizontally above its head and shrieked a war cry. Another appeared on the top of a hill to the right and answered with his own. A third and then a fourth joined them.

  It was too much for the native drivers. Half of them jumped from their wagons and ran back down the road from where they had come. The French guards riding shotgun on the wagons tried to stop them.

  The echoes of the war cries spooked the horses, who bucked and fought the bit.

  The four added to the confusion by shooting their muskets down into the pass sending ricochets whining around the men.

  Then there was the mother of all explosions as one of the carts full of powder exploded. John smith had crept up to it in the confusion had opened one of the barrels and inserted a short fuse he had made earlier by taking a piece of cord, loosening the threads and gently rubbing gun powder into them. He had said at the time, when asked why he was making it, that ‘if there were an hopertunity to get at one o’ them wagons he wanted to be away from it before it bursted.’

  The next morning, Wilson, Arthur Wellesley, and Ranjit rode up the road with sixty horse at their back towards the column of smoke they could see ahead of them. They passed small groups of natives heading back towards the coast and let them go. Any Europeans on horseback were chased down and captured.

  The sight that greeted them in the pass was one they would talk about over dinner for quite a while. They passed a couple of carts loaded with musket boxes that were at odd angles to the road, the shafts broken and the oxen missing. Some of their cargo spilled.

  Just past them was a cart that looked like someone had picked it up and tossed it in the air oxen and all. What was left of it, and them, was piled up in the middle of the road surrounded by its cargo.

  In front of that was a scorched area that was quite empty and sat to the side of that, eating roast ox steaks, were Marty and his men. Brieu sat miserably beside them, hands tied, and tethered to a tree.

  Epilogue

  Admiral Lord Hood sat in front of a fire in the drawing room of his home with his friend and colleague William Wickham. They were each reading a report that was three months old and had arrived by fast packet. Wickham chuckled and turned a page. Hood glanced at him and smiled as he carried on reading the page he was on.

  When they both finished reading, Hood called his servant and ordered coffee and brandy. They both watched the flames as they sipped, for a long moment.

  “Ranjit said in his letter that the fellows they picked up were gabbling about demons and spirits,” Hood observed.

  “Probably those damn Basques,” Wickham replied. “Have you ever heard that shriek they use to talk to each other across the mountain passes? Bloody horrifying.”

  “Shock and awe with a dose of terrorism. Typical Martin if I may say so,” Hood added.

  “That French agent provided a lot of information,” Wickham added, “Probably persuaded to be forthcoming.” He grinned.

  “Martin has made a firm friend of Wellesley mind,” Wickham commented with a smile, “Two of a kind. Downright ruthless and smart with it.”

  “Wellesley wants us to leave Martin there,” Hood said with a frown.

  “Well, he can stay there until Bonaparte gets tired of peace. Armand is running the S.O.F but at some point we will want him back undercover. Campbell and Thompson are working out alright.” Wickham stated.

  “Yes, when the war starts again we will face a France with Napoleon in sole charge. Damn fellow is going to pronounce himself Emperor soon enough,” Hood replied grimly.

  “Well we will bring him back and put him in command when that happens. He will be, what, twenty one or two by then?”

  Wickham just nodded.

  “More brandy?”

  Author’s Note

  I hope you enjoy Marty’s adventures and the way he is growing as a person and a warrior. As usual, all the settings are real, and I try to keep the main background events in an accurate time frame. But, as the story comes first, I do bend history a bit here and there to make it more interesting.

  For example, in the first book. Marty gets given his famous bowie knife about 30 years before it was officially developed. I wanted the readers to have a picture in mind of that knife without having to repeatedly give a description and we all know what a bowie knife looks like. (Bowie died at the Alamo, in his Thirties, in 1836.)

  One thing that is misunderstood is his early promotion to lieutenant, with so few sea years under his belt. Marty is a peasant, gifted, brilliant, and cunning, but still a peasant. His masters use him to do what an officer from a higher-class background wouldn’t do. He is dispensable, even after he gets his title because in the eyes of the hierarchy, he is still a peasant. Promoting him was their way to give him authority and the veneer of gentlemanliness so he could do what they needed.

  The other social comment is that neither he nor Caroline are of Aristocratic blood so, even though they are titled, they are treated as ‘new blood,’ which was as bad or even worse than being ‘in trade’ in the eyes of the nobility.

  I hope you enjoy the books in the spirit that they were written.

  And now……

  An Excerpt from Book 4: The East India Company

  Chapter 1

  Marty and Caroline walked through the market in Madras enjoying the exotic and somewhat alien sights and sounds. The air was rich with the scent of exotic spices; Cumin, Coriander, Aniseed, Pepper and more, all of which would cost a king’s ransom back in England. Caroline was looking at using Marty’s status as a shareholder in the company to import spices to England. She would distribute them through the same network she used for the wine and brandy from the Deal boys.

  Marty carried their child Bethany in his arms as proud a young father as could be pointing things out to her as they passed each stall in turn. Bethany in turn gurgled, giggled and sometimes gawped as things caught her eye.

  An observant watcher would note that the couple were escorted at a discrete distance behind them by two dangerous looking men. A really expert one would also spot another two that walked thirty feet in front of them.

  Caroline stopped at a silk merchants stall and looked at a delicate blue bolt of silk.

  “Oh that would be just perfect for a g
own for the Governor’s ball next week.” She exclaimed.

  “What does this cost?” Marty asked the merchant in Hindi. He had been studying the local language and had learnt quite a few key phrases.

  “Oh Sahib this is the very best silk, perfect for making saris and only one anglina a yard.” The merchant boasted. An anglina was a silver coin and was worth around a shilling.

  “Don’t think I am a fool and you can rob me.” Marty replied. “I think it is worth no more than twenty cupperoon a yard.” A cupperoon was a copper coin and fifty cupperoon made an anglina.

  “Oh Sahib is very wise, is blessed with a beautiful wife and a beauteous baby and surely knows that this wonderful silk is worth at least forty cupperoon a yard.”

  Marty was enjoying himself but a sharp nudge from Caroline’s elbow brought him up short.

  “I will pay thirty and no more.” He offered splitting the difference, knowing he could have gone lower. The merchant agreed and Caroline asked for ten yards. Marty beckoned to a young Indian boy who was standing nearby watching them hopefully.

  “Do you want to earn a cupperoon?”

  The boy nodded vigorously and Marty handed him the roll of silk.

  They bought a number of other items and ended up with a small group of children following them carrying packages. They were led by the strutting boy who was first and had made himself the leader of their baggage train.

  Back at their bungalow Caroline sent for her dressmaker. A talented Indian lady who was able to make western style clothes from silk, which was a notoriously difficult fabric to work with. They ensconced themselves in her bedroom to create the ball gown that Caroline had in her mind.

  Marty in the meantime was in his study entertaining an officer of the Company Marine.

  Edward Cooper Esq. was the thirty year old captain of the company frigate Endeavour.