Boys love forts. Give them a few planks and a barrel and, voila, they make a fort and proceed to declare war on the world. Bush must have been big on forts but this story is about a hedge and not a bush.
The hedge across the back of our backyard was a … I don’t know, but it was large, untamed and had reddish flowers. We never had any use for it except Dad. If he got really angry with us he would whip off his belt and hit us. If our punishment was not related to an immediate anger, such as when Mom told him how naughty we had been during the day, he would sometimes go to the hedge and cut himself a nice whippy branch. He did not discriminate so Cheryl got her fair share too. He didn’t do it much hence it held no special terrors for us. It was just an untamed blot on the gardenscape throughout our lives there.
One day the Miller kids and I were playing in the Stirk’s Tree That Dare Not Speak Its Name when someone got the bright idea to throw a large plank on top. When we jumped up and down on it, it sank to a satisfying 2 or 3 feet below the top hereby making an ideal parapet wall in front for a fort. Possibilities opened up and we got hold of garden clippers and cut out a vertical hole in the middle of the hedge. Next a ‘clubhouse’ was cut out at the bottom and a rudimentary ladder fitted. We were Secure in Comfort. We declared it an ideal fort as it was impregnable, private and really secret. As kids are wont to do, we soon tired of our fort because there no one to battle with and there were no intrigues that we could plot.
A year went by and a particularly slow day found the Millers and me climbing the tree. Andrew and Keith were there and even Duncan, the youngest. We decided to play in the fort again. Andrew and I climbed inside and cleared away the cobwebs and made ourselves comfortable. Keith came in too and Duncan kept skei on top. We were chit chatting away when flies started buzzing us and for a while we just swatted them away. We didn’t worry until we realised that they were bees and quite angry too by now. They formed up in squadrons and made aerial strafing runs at us. We were overwhelmed by superior forces and sounded a hasty and ignomious retreat from our stronghold. We rapidly squeezed out of there. Being last out, the bees were really swarming by then so I just jumped straight over the parapet and crashed 8 to 10 feet below and cravenly ran into the house swatting at my head and clothing. We were all stung and, being last out, I counted six bee stings on myself. Eina!
That was Fort B. Our impregnable fort had succumbed to the invader from within and was never used again.