Leo stepped out and requested that they move the whole meeting back to the hunting ground where the first meeting took place. This time, the place was filled to capacity, as many more animals attended and wanted to know the story firsthand, not secondhand through the animal grapevine. Funky Monkey had arrived weak and weary, but somehow, the excitement gave him a second wind. As requested by his king, he stepped onto the mound that served as center stage and began to relate his journey, plus the information he had gathered.

After relating his trip back into captivity, he started with what they were all waiting for. “Dear friends, not-so-dear friends, and other animals, soon after my arrival back at the house, Colin, my jailer, called a special meeting of some of his most trusted friends to discuss something important. I snuck into the trophy room where they were going to meet. One of Colin’s friends tried to have me removed, but Colin, being in a more jovial frame of mind, spoke out, ‘Leave him, he’s only a stupid animal, sorry, monkey; he understands nothing.’ Well, I thought to myself, soon I will be making a monkey out of you. No disrespect to us monkeys. Man descended from us, and truly they did descend, but we remained true to our ‘race,’ thereby remaining superior. I’m glad I attended that meeting in my unofficial state because of the info I was able to gather from it.

“Firstly, mention was made that their hunting season would open soon and that they needed to prepare, as this would be ‘The Mother of all hunting trips.’ One of Colin’s friends, Clumsy Pete, who was always inebriated, stated that they needed to stock up on their ‘courage juices,'” Before he could continue, he was asked to explain this “courage juice,” as acquiring some of it could be beneficial to them as well.

“King Leo,” Funky Monkey began, “remember how angry you get with us and some of the other animals when we get drunk from the overripe Marula fruit? The alcohol, ‘courage juice,’ is similar. Man has built places where they produce this alcohol, as they call it, put it in containers called bottles, and sell it to them through outlets called bottle stores and places where they buy their food.”

Joey the elephant wanted to know how they, as animals, could acquire a stock of these bottled special juices. He well remembered how many in their herd also spent a lot of time partaking of the “jungle juice” as they knew it. He enjoyed it very much. Sadly, for them, it was an annual event, only happening when the Marula fruit season was in full swing.

Funky Monkey explained that when his owner Ruth took him along when she went grocery shopping, she would also go into the section where they kept bottles upon bottles of this alcohol of various shapes and colours. She would choose, as she said, a couple of bottles of Colin’s favourites, called Scotch Whiskey. “We could go into town at night when these shops are closed, and with a raiding party, break in and steal as many bottles as we can before they are alerted to our presence. Our raiding party should consist of me as leader, as I know the lay of the land, or town in this case, plus the items we need to steal. About twenty monkeys to help steal. I will teach them through the principle of ‘monkey see, monkey do.’ Plus another forty to carry the items out to the jungle edge, where they will hand them over to others and return for more bottles. To transfer the bottles in large quantities,” Funky Monkey (now Spy Thirteen) had told them about the boxes and carry bags they had to use to carry the large number of bottles they planned to take. In the animal kingdom, stealing was not recognized as a crime; taking was just accepted as part of the jungle law.

“We will need two elephants to smash through the front door. The second elephant is a spare if a backup is needed. We also need a pack of wild dogs to tackle and prevent the domesticated dogs who would want to blow the whistle on our escapade by alerting the town folks. We can also have a couple of lions along to address any issues raised by the townsfolk.” A couple of hyenas wanted to know if they could tag along but were told they laughed too much, and this raid would be no laughing matter. “We go in hard and fast and can do the raid in under two hours.

Let’s move on to the next thing I have to share. Colin and his friends also spoke about the need for stealth in their hunting so as to get close to their prey for maximum advantage plus success. Thus, we as animals can negate by having watch guards placed at all their entry points. They need to alert us to the danger approaching, giving us time to either turn the tables on them or to go into hiding until the safety call is sounded. How we turn the tables on them, so to speak, we make it a case of the hunted becoming the hunter. If they approach on foot, the lions, leopards, and hyenas can lay in wait for them and attack them before they can get into hunting mode. After all, in a one-on-one, hand-to-hand or hand-to-paw situation, they are no match for us. Should they approach in their vehicles, the elephants and rhinos, with their tremendous strength, can rush and overturn their vehicles as we have witnessed on some occasions. When they approach by boat, the hippos can flip those boats, and the crocodiles can sort them out.”

King Leo stepped onto the mound and said, “Thanks, Funky Monkey, you have done well. Not only did you spy out the land, but you also devised schemes to help us in our fight for survival. Henceforth, you will be knighted and known as Spy Thirteen. I have chosen the number thirteen, as you are truly becoming unlucky for the humans.”

A week later, with the approach of the full moon, the raiding party set out on their “Voyage of Recovery.” “We plan to recover our freedom to live in our jungle, grasslands, and mountains as we have done for centuries. We don’t mind killing each other for meals—a necessity. But killing us for sport and trophies is unacceptable.”

All went as planned with one slight hiccup: a drunk, for reasons only known to him, chose the night of the raid to make the step outside the shopping center’s main entrance his “bedroom” for the night. He was fast asleep when they arrived. With minimal noise and disturbance, they got him slightly awake and walked/carried him down the road to another spot. In that highly comatose condition, he would, in all probability, wake up with some recollection of the proceedings and just think of it as having been a dream.

As planned, everything went like clockwork, and by the first light of morning dawn, they had managed to remove approximately 639 bottles of various alcoholic beverages from the shop premises and carried them into the jungle. Funky Monkey wanted to stay behind, out of curiosity, to see how the townsfolk would respond to the break-in at the center and the theft of the alcohol but was strongly advised against such a course of action. Rather, let the theft remain a mystery, as no one would ever think that such a raid was executed by a group of animals, and wild, untrained animals at that. To date, various gangs were blamed, but as there were no human trails, tracks, or even trace of the items, through the animal communication network, they heard that the story making the rounds was that some aliens, whilst passing Earth, decided to steal the alcohol for a space party they had planned. It was a big joke to the animals and became the subject of numerous animal get-togethers. Part “B” of the plan, to set spies on the known routes, was a lot easier, as everyone wanted to get in on the action.

The first successful act of what was now termed “Operation Retaliation,” not quite so original, happened about a month after the raid when a group of hunters entered the jungle from the southeast in their motor vehicles. Using the thick underbrush as camouflage, five bull elephants rushed at the three cars and overturned them before the human occupants could even fire one gun. Ten hunters and their six trackers were seen fleeing out of the jungle at what can only be described as breakneck speed, fearing for life and limb. Two guns were dropped in the commotion, and one of the bull elephants stepped on them to render them useless for any further hunting.

In the meantime, the animals discovered that this alcohol did not render them strong and fearless; in fact, the opposite dawned on them: it made them stupid and silly. They were just a bunch of drunks with no cognitive abilities to behave or act responsibly. King Leo had a law passed immediately: the drinking of alcohol was banned, and the remaining quantities emptied into the river. Some of the animals, the carnivores, felt that this draconian law was unnecessary. To them, the drunk animals were easy prey, making their search for food easier.

The second incident of “Operation Retaliation” was even better, as it ended in an accident that brought much laughter in the jungle. A second group of hunters also entered the jungle but from a northerly direction. Their group was also in motorized vehicles. Not expecting anything, they ventured further into the jungle, following directions given by their trackers. Once again, the jungle spy network gave the information to a welcoming party consisting of four huge rhinoceros. The planned attack was to hit the last vehicle, thereby cutting off any trying to escape via the route they arrived. David, the lead rhino, ran into it and, catching it with his three-foot-six-inch horn, started to overturn it. Just at the moment of impact, one hunter in the vehicle, Luke, also known as Cold Hand Luke, was just starting to load his revolver, lost his concentration, and as the gun went off accidentally, he shot himself in the foot. While he was yelling blue murder in the overturned vehicle, the rest of the rhinos made short work of the remaining three vehicles bar none, which somehow managed to avoid being caught in the cross-horned, three-pronged attack. More due to luck than to ability, the hunting party escaped. Some were inside the vehicle, while others were merely hanging on by whatever handhold and foothold was available. All the hunters were allowed to escape, including the injured. A stool pigeon, who just happened to have been at the hospital when the hunting party arrived with their injured, relayed the following story.

Most of the injured had superficial wounds, but Cold Hand Luke’s injury needed immediate attention, as he was screaming and cursing in pain. The doctor asked them, “What is his problem, and what happened to him?” and received the following reply: “Doctor, he’s got foot and mouth disease—a big foot, which he shot accidentally, and a big mouth. Please help him.” The doctor replied with a smile passing across his face, “I can attend to his foot, but we have no medication for that mouth of his. For his foul mouth, he needs a priest to render spiritual medication.” On hearing this, the animals had a good laugh, and it became one of those stories that were repeated at various get-togethers. Word got around, and the result of these two failed hunting trips resulted in all hunting trips being suspended. The hunters felt that something was afoot—besides Cold Hand Luke’s foot—and for now, wanted to avoid any further embarrassment from the general public.

For a short while, the hunting parties’ activities seemed to cease. Hunters, human being hunters, are not very strong on the term, “once bitten, twice shy.” For them to learn a lesson and to learn it well, there must be a continual lesson taught. The first two skirmishes were an ineffective deterrent. Colin and his friends felt that they could never ever allow the animals to gain the upper hand. Thus, a third hunting party was assembled. They would put an end to this rebellion. After all, “we are the superior creation.”

A third Hunting Party was assembled with Colin James heading the team. He had gathered ten of the top hunters, and they met as per arrangement at Colin’s home. This time, there was no monkey in attendance, and the meeting got underway. Colin said, “We need to strategize our foray into the jungle and not apply our usual drive-in using guides.” The guides were suspected of colluding with the animals, and therefore the hunters present felt they could not be trusted or used. Some of the hunters said that they were quite familiar with the jungle routes and could easily act as guides. They would use two vehicles up to a point, arranged as a campsite, parking them off and leaving two hunters to stay with the vehicles. The rest of the party, the eight top guns, would continue on foot. Hoping and praying that this strategy would be successful, they set off four days after the discussion.

All went well until they had marched for about half a day from the campsite, when, as one of the party members who managed to escape put it, “all hell broke loose.” Their cloak-and-dagger approach had been detected by a group of monkeys swinging by the moment they had camped, and the jungle treetop message relay system was activated. The animals were not surprised; the hunters were. Acting as a form of distraction, a large contingent of monkeys suddenly made the treetops look alive with their branch-to-branch maneuvers and their shrill monkey cries—a cacophony of deep basses, high altos, and even higher sopranos. That monkey choir was enjoying themselves, though the audience remained unimpressed.

This time, it was the lions leading the charge at the hunters, closely followed by the leopards and the hyenas. Their attack on the hunters was ferocious and swift, as they were fighting on familiar territory. King Leo had singled out Colin for his special attention, but just as he was about to strike his killer blow with that huge left front paw (he was left-pawed, sorry!), Funky Monkey jumped in between King Leo and Colin, waving his arms in a “don’t do it” fashion. With that action of Funky Monkey, the whole skirmish was brought to a halt.

At that instant, a number of things took place simultaneously. One, the hunters realized that they were outnumbered, outclassed, and out-maneuvered; they could not possibly win. King Leo, angrily demanding why this sudden insolence by Funky Monkey, received this reply, or rather request: “Spare him; his wife was very kind to me, and I do not want to see her mourning.” King Leo granted him his request. Thirdly, and most importantly, Colin recognized Jack and also saw how he prevented his departure from the land of the living. The animals allowed him and his three remaining friends to escape. Sadly, four hunters paid the price for their folly with their lives. A group of monkeys watched from the treetops as the hunting party got back to base and, with the two sentries, got in their vehicles and belted as fast as they could back to human civilization.

King Leo’s domain returned to its original mode of Operandi, as it was now accepted that, for the present, hunting animals was back to its natural status. Meat eaters—lions, leopards, cheetahs, and such—hunted the meat suppliers—antelope, wildebeest, monkeys, bar none. Funky Monkey still had the King’s protective declaration. Monkey business is definitely good business.