A Short Story...

This is the story which I had written for the Igenius competition and got selected.

The Journey of a Patriot

My name is Lingui Gusteau. I belong to France. My father’s name is Auguste Gusteau. We have a lodge as “La Gusteau “.

The year was 1767. I was 17 years old. It was Monday, when a terrible group of four people came to our lodge. They were tall, rough and strong. They were only in the lodge at the time of eating and sleeping. One day, I was passing their chamber when I have heard one of them saying, “Our Queen of England had assigned a job to us that we have to find out the people who are mixed with the French for many years, waiting for the signal which is going to be made by us”. Another person asked “Tell me clearly, I can’t understand”.  The first person said,” Defeating France in war is impossible, so our people had hidden weapons in a cave in Alps, to use it when we signal them”. I was astonished! They had come from Britain! It was a serious matter.  The another man asked "Why did our Queen assign this to us? We are pirates". The first person was their Captain. He said “My Grandfather was also assigned a task by the Queen’s Grandmother to steal the sceptre of France and damage it. My Grandpa stole it, but he thought it will be useful to us and he hid it in an island near India. We will signal our people and get the reward from the Queen. After that we can take the sceptre as I have the map”.

I ran to my house and started thinking. I said everything to my father. He said we should say this to uncle Aramis. Uncle Aramis was a childhood friend of my father. Now he is a general in the French army. But he was in Rome, visiting his sister. I said I will follow the pirates, while my father arranges a ship. I started following them the next morning. Inside the cave I saw lots and lots of weapons. I took a gun and shot three of them. I killed the other person in a sword duel. I returned back and boarded ship to Rome. The weather favoured us and we reached Rome quickly. We found uncle Aramis and told everything. He ushered his lieutenant and asked him to possess those weapons and imprisoned the Englishmen mixed with the people of France.

I, my father and Uncle Aramis started sailing to the island, where the sceptre was hidden, as I brought the map along with me while coming. We reached the place according to the map, we entered a big temple and at its basement, we found the sceptre. As we came back to the shore the tribal people of the island started to chase us. A tsunami was also approaching.  We boarded the ship and left the island. The tsunami drowned the island and we were shipwrecked on a small island. We saw a big island fifty metres away.  One of our crew men stayed here with the sceptre and the others swam to the other island. There we asked and found that we were in Lakshadweep. The cook of the ship said, “I know where the French officials are”, and he went. After sometime the British officers who we were and our captain said we were tourists. They didn’t believe us and started taking to their head office. The cook came with the French officials and rescued us. We told everything to the French officials who took us to their territory which was Pondicherry and gave us a new ship. We returned to the island, where one of our crew men was waiting with the sceptre. We picked him up and returned to France. We were highly rewarded for our work and all the weapons are now in French army’s control. I had a satisfaction that I had saved my country. Now we have a bigger Lodge and I am one of the generals of France.

SSV