Ambush

A quick escape route from The Boulders was over the back wall into the Mullen’s garden by their enormous greenhouse.  There was an intricate technique which involved swinging on a tree and scrambling up the protruding rocks over the top of the wall. This came in quite handy one day when I needed to get out of our garden in a hurry. I must have been about six and had taken proud possession of a blue catapult. Much practice rendered me deadly, and it became a trusted friend which found a permanent home sticking out of my back pocket.

One day, a car crashed into the lamppost on the road outside our house cutting our electricity off. It had to be repaired and a gang was dispatched to re-erect the large wooden pole. This involved digging a large hole and pulling the post upright. Whilst observing the operation from behind the hedge, a classic target presented itself. One of the men was bending over taking soil from another worker who was in the bottom of the hole. His builder’s bum was just too much.

I loaded my catapult with a hard knobbly seed from the juniper tree that grew in our front garden, drew the elastic back as far as I could, waited for the man to bend over and let fly. The missile flew straight and true but on a lower trajectory than planned.  It went through the man’s legs and ricocheted off his mate in the hole.  It hit him square in the small hairless gap between his two eyebrows.

He roared as if he had been shot and fell over backwards.  The pole shifted as the entire gang tried to work out what had happened. I was halfway to the escape route by the time they cottoned on. I didn’t stop running until I had reached Stoney Road and was safely hidden behind a bush. The gang filled in the hole and the pole still leans at an angle as a tribute to the small boy who inadvertently led The Ambush of Sydenham Road.