The men who were going to play gathered around a small area swept clean of grit and straw with the sweep of Flint’s sleeve.
‘Give us a light, Fortune,’ Flint instructed, sifting the cards between one hand, then the next.
Corporal Bertie Fortune had dug a paraffin lamp from an outbuilding during a foraging trip the day before. With his quick grin and easy wink, Fortune was the section’s fixer, could get anything anyone wanted, as long as a man was prepared to pay. He fiddled now with the lamp’s wick, crouching close and pulling at the ends of his neat moustache as he waited to see if the match would take. The flame puttered, then rose with its sudden glow, Fortune sitting back with a satisfied nod. The lamp was faulty, gave off a strong stink of fumes. But the barn was high roofed, its wooden skeleton far above. Outside the rain was falling again. Inside it was warm, everywhere the sweet scent of cut hay.
Percy Flint shuffled the cards, one hand slicing over another, before neatening the edges again and beginning the deal. He tossed the cards towards each man, one by one, letting them land where they would. The players scooped their share from the floor, each taking a quick look, before rummaging in their pockets for whatever they were prepared to bet first.
A matchstick.
A button.
A spool of pink cotton.
Trust Percy Flint to have the one thing that reminded them all of the French girls who used to serve vin blanc at the bars behind the line.
‘What did you swap that for, Flint?’ said Private Alfred Walker.
‘Don’t ask,’ Flint replied with a smirk.
The men laughed. Flint was older than the rest. One of the married conscripts who’d held out as long as possible before being driven to the recruiting officer’s door by shame.
‘Had to leave the wife at home to do it all alone,’ he’d whined when he first arrived, to anyone who might listen.
But Flint knew and they all knew that he should have come earlier. A quick return for a cheap pack of fags, humping around the back of an estaminet. That was Percy Flint’s main currency. War and its dirty consolations had turned out to be the perfect playground for a man like him.
‘Play on now, if you’re ready.’
Archibald Methven, the accountant, sat back from the inner circle, holding his notebook, keeping an eye on the score as the men began. One ace. One ten of spades. One five. Three to make fifteen. Back to the ace again. Methven was a quiet man, steady, old enough to be put in charge of the armoury or anything else that needed counting. How many bullets were spare. Who had a knobstick. What man had managed to acquire a knife. They all knew Archie Methven had a beauty himself, taken from an alley man one night when Fortune and Beach had visited them in their trench. Beach had come back with a ribbon the colour of an Irish summer, had tied it to his pack like a pennant on a lance. Whereas Bertie Fortune had bartered his stolen knife with Archie Methven, who knew what for. The men had been trying to persuade Methven to swap the knife ever since. But the accountant did not give up his prizes easily. Liked to keep them tucked into his gasbag, just in case.
The men played in silence for a while, nothing but the smoky gutter of the lamp and the spitter spatter of raindrops on the barn’s roof to accompany the scuffle of their cards. It was Bertie Fortune who started it, the section’s lucky man.
‘Any of you lot heard the rumour?’
Mention of the chitter chatter that had been going up and down the line for weeks now. That the end was coming, sooner rather than not.
‘I’ll believe that when the captain gets it in black and white.’ Flint spat into the shadow behind the circle, always the pessimist. ‘Until then it isn’t over. Why else did they send us here if it wasn’t to have another go?’
‘To eat the chickens before anyone else could,’ Alfred Walker replied, grinning.
Private Alfred Walker was the joker of the section, barely twenty-one and always after the main chance, a soldier by profession but a petty thief by inclination. And habit, too. Alfred Walker always whistled as he polished his rifle, wore his hair a bit longer than was regulation. He liked to duck his head beneath the pump each morning, shake silver droplets all across the yard, laughing in a way that made them all want to join in.
‘One chicken a week,’ said Archie Methven now, licking his pencil and making a mark in his notebook. ‘That’s what the captain’s ordered.’
‘Who says?’ said Walker.
‘Stone. He’s in charge of the rations.’
George Stone had taken to the kitchen as though he was born to it, plucking the apron from the washing line that first morning and folding it around himself like some sort of skirt. Stone was an old sweat, one of those who had been in the army before this latest war began, seen it all before.
‘Christ,’ said Alfred Walker now, throwing down his latest hand. ‘It’ll take us forever to get through them, then.’
‘I think that’s the point,’ said Archie Methven.
‘Need to petition for better rations.’
Bertie Fortune gestured to the two boys crouched together on the far side of the circle, Privates Jackson and Promise, knees almost touching, one dark, one fair.
‘You, Jackdaw,’ he said pointing towards the darker boy. ‘You could do with feeding up.’
Jackdaw grinned at that, tossed a black cowl of hair from his forehead, pretended to puff out his chest. ‘You calling me skinny?’
‘Like a tent pole.’
‘A bean stick.’
‘A chicken bone sucked dry.’
Jackdaw laughed at the banter, black eyes a-sparkle. ‘I will, then.’
‘He doesn’t need extra rations. He’s getting his fill in the hayloft.’
Flint’s voice was low, but they all heard him. Arthur Promise, the fairer of the two boys, blushed and looked away. There was a sour moment of silence. Jackdaw broke it with a jibe of his own.
‘You’re just frustrated, Flint. Not getting your usual.’
Everybody laughed then, even Hawes in his corner. Flint couldn’t help himself. Spent most of the last year avoiding any action via thirty-day stints in the military hospital for VD.
‘Now, now,’ said Bertie Fortune, ever the one to try and broker a deal. ‘Keep it clean, why don’t you.’
He glanced towards the two boys on the opposite side of the circle, watching as Arthur Promise put his hand on Jackdaw’s arm for a moment, before taking it away. Jackdaw and Promise were A4 conscripts – the last round to be drafted in. ‘A’ class, meaning fit to serve, but no longer allowed to wait until they were nineteen to see the inside of a front-line trench. The A4 boys had been sent over because all the rest were crippled or dead; two weeks’ training then into the big spring push, only eighteen and already up to their armpits in the battlefield, been inseparable ever since. It amazed Bertie Fortune that they were still alive.
Percy Flint scowled and gathered in the cards, shuffled and began to deal once more. The men played in silence for a while, nothing but the murmurs of satisfaction or dismay as the betting rose and fell. It was Alfred Walker who started the chat again, laying an eight of diamonds to win a trick, gathering in the small bets with a quick grin as the others threw in their hands.
‘I’m going to America,’ he said as they waited for Archie Methven to make his calculations. ‘When it’s all done.’
‘What d’you want to go there for?’ said Bertie Fortune. ‘Plenty of money in England if you know where to look.’
‘All right for you, Fortune. You can smell money before it’s even minted. What you going back to anyway?’
‘Rag-and-bone man,’ said Fortune as though it was the industry of kings. ‘I’m going to be rich.’
‘Don’t forget us when you make it,’ laughed Walker. ‘Every one a deserving cause.’
‘What about you, Promise?’ said Bertie Fortune, looking across the circle towards the fairer A4 boy. ‘What do you want to do?’
They all knew that Jackdaw and Promise had never even had a job b
efore they joined the army. Eighteen and barely minted, didn’t know any sort of life other than marching and shooting and doing what they were told.
‘I don’t know,’ said Promise, face rosy from the heat of the paraffin lamp. ‘Something with boys, perhaps. Maybe a teacher?’
Flint snorted. ‘You’ll fit right in, then.’
‘Well, we all know what you’ll do when you get home, Flint,’ Hawes growled from his corner. ‘No need to give us the sordid details.’
But this time Flint didn’t rise, tapped the cards on the floor to square the pack and said, ‘I’ll go back to work, won’t I. Go on the same as before.’
‘What did you do before?’ asked Bertie Fortune.
‘Delivery driver.’
Alfred Walker whistled. ‘What, one in each port?’
Flint flicked a bit of dirty straw in the petty thief’s direction.
‘You wish,’ he said. ‘At least I’ll be getting some. Whereas you’ll be wasting your dreams on a promised land that’ll probably never arrive.’
‘Got to dream.’ Alfred Walker grinned, tossing a penny he had won into the air, before slipping it into his pocket. ‘Otherwise what’s the point.’
‘The point is nothing’s going to be different when it’s done,’ said Percy Flint. ‘It’ll just be the same as always, won’t it. Some men’ll make all the money and the rest of us’ll starve.’
‘It’ll have to be different though, won’t it?’ Promise’s voice was clear as a schoolboy’s. ‘After everything that’s happened.’
‘Don’t be an idiot.’ Flint was frowning. ‘Some men were born to give instruction and others to take it. That’s just the way it is.’
‘What about you then, Hawes,’ said Bertie Fortune, looking over his shoulder towards the temporary sergeant sitting in the shadows. ‘Back to the meat?’
Hawes had worked in an abattoir before the war, his arms thick with the muscles of a man who used to saw meat for a living. But they all knew he couldn’t stand the sight of blood now.
‘Get through tomorrow with my feet dry.’ Hawes turned a page of his book. ‘No point dreaming about what might never come.’
It was then that Second Lieutenant Ralph Svenson stepped into the light.
‘I shall stay in the army,’ he said. ‘Become a brigadier.’
The men froze like rabbits caught by a poacher in the night, nothing to see but the glitter of their eyes. Officers did not normally join the ranks for their evening recreation. It was Bertie Fortune who spoke first.
‘Anything we can help you with, sir?’
Fortune always had known how to speak to a superior. Second Lieutenant Svenson might only be nineteen, but he wore the officer’s stripe.
Ralph gestured with his hand. ‘No need to get up.’
Though none of them had given any indication that they might. The young officer blushed slightly.
‘I thought I might play,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind.’
Captain Farthing had warned him against it when Ralph first arrived off the boat from England, dice in his hand. Best leave the men to their own games, that was what he had said. But Ralph didn’t see why the men should have all the fun while he sat alone in a parlour. That was not what he considered life.
‘I could take a hand now,’ he said coming closer. ‘Then tomorrow we could play for a chicken. I fancy the red.’
A fat thing. A feast on scaly legs. Strutting around the yard with her feathers plumped as though she owned the place. There was silence for a moment. The men knew they would soon be dreaming of chicken, didn’t want to wait a week each time when any moment they might be ordered out. They all looked to Archie Methven, the accountant who kept the bank. Gambling for matchsticks and buttons was one thing. Gambling for fresh breast meat a whole other game.
Methven looked at Ralph from across the small circle, then glanced towards Bertie Fortune. They all knew officers were dangerous territory. But officers often had the best treasure, too. For a moment there was nothing but the sound of the rain pitter pattering on the roof. Then Bertie Fortune coughed, leaned back and gave a slight nod of his head.
At once Ralph moved to sit amongst the men, didn’t even wait to be invited. Alfred Walker shifted to make space. Percy Flint grimaced, turned his body away. Jackdaw and Promise seemed to meld even closer together on the far side of the circle. Bertie Fortune was touching his moustache again as though uncertain as to whether he had done the right thing. Behind him Archie Methven wrote a new name in his little book, then looked up, pencil in hand, waiting for the game to begin once more. It was Ralph who broke the silence this time.
‘What do you want to do?’ he said to Methven. ‘When it’s all over.’
The accountant paused, pencil poised over the blank page of his notebook. Then he said it.
‘I want to see my son grow up.’
Three
Godfrey approached the trees just as the men should be cutting the throat of the chicken. One man to hold it down, one to chop with the knife, James Hawes turning away as the blood spurted out.
It had become a routine over the last ten days, the bets on which bird it would be this time. The black one. The red one. The one with the crooked beak. After that, the chase. As far as Godfrey could tell, they were down to the last five or six now. It had been foolishness on his part to let them eat the meat so soon. But Second Lieutenant Svenson had pled their case. And who could blame the men when they had no idea whether the feast would continue indefinitely or end tomorrow, the rest of the company marching towards them down the muddy lane, all the chickens slaughtered in a fifteen-minute frenzy of killing and blood.
The trees were tall, a walk away behind a fold in the land, discovered on the third day as Godfrey Farthing wriggled away from the river through the watery marsh. They had been planted in a ring, the patch of land within as still and silent as the inside of a church. The moment Godfrey had first stepped into the hidden circle, he’d known that this would be his place.
He made no attempt to conceal his approach now, walked swiftly across the ruts and dips of the empty fields towards the isolated grove. He had come several times and never seen anyone arrive or leave. No men out walking the hedgerows. No women collecting brambles or roots.
‘They went with the Germans,’ Ralph had said that very first evening, upstairs in the attic room they had requisitioned for themselves. ‘The farmer and his wife.’
‘How do you know?’ Godfrey had asked.
‘I met a man on the road. From the village.’
Ten miles back across the fields, a hamlet in the middle of what had been enemy territory until the last few weeks. Ralph had twisted his head away, not looking at Godfrey as he said it.
‘We could have some fun there until we join the rest of the company.’
‘We’re not going to join the company,’ Godfrey replied.
‘Why not?’
Godfrey had turned away himself then. ‘We’re to wait here for them to join us.’
Now, as he reached the ring of trees, Godfrey was glad that the rest had never arrived to spoil his sanctuary, a haven in amongst the muck. He imagined the land beneath the trees as it might be when spring finally came. Girls from the village fractured by sunlight. Boys saved from slaughter by the fact of their youth. Then later the other women arriving as the sun was going down, standing in amongst the shadows with the only men who were left. Old men. And men who were not able. Perhaps even the enemy if the price was good enough. Lying together within the hidden circle making something of all they had lost.
It seemed a shame that they had all gone now, disappeared from their land as the enemy had disappeared, too. The war had been reduced to a strange kind of absence now that it was nearly done, Godfrey thought. Something ephemeral that he found difficult to pin his thoughts on, as though it had all been some sort of dream. But Godfrey Farthing was still wary. War, he knew, had a way about it, like gas lying in the bottom of a trench. Just when one thought it was ove
r, it rose again to bite.
In the yard, Ralph laid down the rules for the latest game of chicken. No cross bets. No multiples. One mark only per man. All the section gathered around, eager to join the fun. Second Lieutenant Ralph Svenson had proved a valuable source of treasure over the last ten days. Shillings rather than pennies. Boot laces rather than string. Once even an Oxo cube, won by Flint who wouldn’t let anyone share.
Only James Hawes, the temporary sergeant, still refused to play.
‘Not my kind of game, sir.’
The second week of his resistance. Ralph was not amused. He stood before Hawes in the mud now, hair smoothed back, thumbs hooked on belt loops, frowning at the temporary sergeant.
‘It might have to be, Hawes. When we receive the orders.’
‘Hoping it won’t come to that, sir.’
‘We all have to do our duty.’
Hawes didn’t reply, big hands stuffed into his pockets, freckles bright amongst the grey. The temporary sergeant had fought several battles already. Duty would not be the reason he took part in any more. Ralph flicked his strange eyes away, then back again.
‘You’re not afraid, are you, Hawes?’ he pressed.
Hawes scowled, muttered something beneath his breath.
Ralph stepped closer. ‘What did you say?’
Hawes refused to raise his eyes from the ground. ‘Nothing – sir.’
‘Yes, you did.’
‘Nothing important.’
The younger man flushed, a sudden colour rising in his cheeks. ‘It’s important to me.’
The ex-abattoir man paused then, lifted his gaze to fix it on the Second. ‘I said, I’m not the coward around here.’
Ralph’s face shone hot in the damp. They all knew he had never fought in any battles, whatever the rank on his sleeve. It was Bertie Fortune who stepped between them, held out a helmet turned upside down to make a bowl.
‘Throw in your bets, gentlemen, or it’ll get too dark to play.’
A button.
A centime.
A stub from a candle.
The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing Page 4
