Thursday, June the 8th, 2006

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Fort Hoity

Came the day the fanatical adherents of Trebizondo Culpeper smashed their way by main force through the huge iron gates of Fort Hoity. They were both astonished and disappointed to find the fort deserted, save for a tethered goat in the courtyard. The goat's tether extended far enough for it to be able to reach a flowerbed by one fort wall, so it was a well-nourished goat as well as a tethered goat.

“That goat,” said the fanatical Trebizondo Culpeper adherent they called Bim, “Has eaten half the flowers in that flowerbed, and has not even begun on the weeds.”

His companions jotted this observation down in their logbooks, under “B For Bim”. They each used the spidery handwriting they had learned at the feet of Trebizondo Culpeper's pencilling master, the nameless gravel-voiced Peruvian laundry basket man who had inadvertently sent them to Fort Hoity in the first place. Replacing their logbooks in their pockets, the adherents gathered about Bim, who was now lolling by a brazier in which hot coals burned still. Clearly, the fort had not long been abandoned.

“This fort has not long been abandoned,” said Bim, “For the coals in this brazier burn still. But how did the fort people flee? If they had left by the huge iron gates, we would have seen them when we were standing on the hill as dawn broke and we ate our breakfasts. The plans of the fort which we have studied so conscientiously show no other exits. This, then, is a highly perplexing circumstance. I wonder if that goat, in addition to being tethered and well-fed, is also a talking goat?”

The fanatical adherent known as Bam slapped his forehead. “For crying out loud, Bim!” he shouted, “Have you taken leave of your senses? There is no such thing under the heavens as a goat that speaks human languages. That is the stuff of fairy tales.”

The other fanatical adherents mumbled together as a group. Both Bim and Bam had them confused now, for they had expected to enter Fort Hoity through main force and to be chopping and slashing and unleashing madcap havoc. Instead they were standing around mumbling and pondering the connection, if there was one, between fairies, elves, sprites and goats. The fanatical adherent named Diocletian, much mustachioed, raised the topic of tethering. If one could tether a goat, as the Fort Hoity goat had been tethered, could one tether a fairy? Would a fairy not be nimble enough to slip its bonds? To this, Pembroket suggested that a fairy could surely be tethered by using gossamer thin magical thread. The mumbling grew louder. Time was passing. Bim made an announcement.

“Not many leagues yonder is Fort Toity. I know in my bones that that is where the Fort Hoity people have gone. I know not how they got there, but that is where they must be. We shall leave a team here to secure the place, and the rest of us will march like the clappers to Fort Toity. And we shall untether the goat and take it with us.”

And so Bim and his bedraggled gang of fanatical Trebizondo Culpeper adherents set out to traipse across the plain, whistling as they marched. Those who had not undergone whistling training parped hooters instead, or imitated crows, corncrakes, and loons. Every so often they would stop and sit, and eat from their bags of confectionery, and Bim or Bam would make pronouncements and the band of fanatical adherents would jot down their aperçus. All sorts of subjects related to the teachings of Trebizondo Culpeper were covered, from dishwater and clanging noises to oil slicks and the bossa nova, from freckles and optometry to cuddy and tack. They tied a colourful and perfumed rag to one ear of the untethered goat, and let it lead the way across the plain towards Fort Toity.

So who were they, the people they pursued, who had fled from Fort Hoity to Fort Toity and who were now being borne down upon, slowly but surely, by the fanatical adherents of Trebizondo Culpeper and an untethered goat? First, they were the people who made miniature cardboard hens and placed them on the sides of paths. Second, they execrated the very name of Trebizondo Culpeper, regularly, every night in fact, as they sat around their brazier of hot coals, staring at the moon, if it was visible through the clouds. If the moon was not visible they shut their eyes. They would sit quite still for so long that birds would nest in their hair and moss grow upon their feet. There were more than a hundred of them, and they worshipped nothing, not even the tethered goat they had so cruelly abandoned back at Fort Hoity.

Why did they not take the goat with them, as they fled? This is the kind of question the out of print pamphleteer Dobson would have addressed, had he been alive at the time of which I write. But he was yet to be born. It is hard for us to imagine a world without Dobson, a world where inexplicable things could happen—did happen!—and there was no hastily-scribbled pamphlet issued, within days or weeks, to make sense of events. How one would have longed for even a few precious pages entitled Why Those Who Fled Fort Hoity For Fort Toity To Escape The Fanatical Adherents Of Trebizondo Culpeper Cruelly Abandoned Their Tethered Goat, With Footnotes And A Map!

A map would certainly have been of use to the pursuers, who became utterly lost on that barren plain. Try as they might, they could not find Fort Toity. They wandered for months, led by the goat, until their confectionery bags were empty, and the batteries on Bim's portable metal tapping machine were dead. They were far from home, exhausted and hungry and increasingly rancorous. Pembroket in particular was thoroughly frazzled, and took to poking his fellows with a pointy stick, until they took it away from him and stamped on his toes until he promised to desist. And desist he did, for he fell victim to an ague, sweating and shaking and babbling incoherent gibberish. Bam accused him of having a spurious ague, to elicit sympathy.

Diocletian said “This is not the first time you have made an accusation of spurious ague, Bam. Do you have an idée fixée?”

Bam replied: “Yes I do. Is that so wrong?”

But Pembroket's ague was all too real, and it was on the Thursday morning he expired out on that plain that the fanatical adherents of Trebizondo Culpeper were plunged into despair. One by one they perished, and with them perished the cult of Trebizondo Culpeper.