The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing

by Mary Paulson-Ellis

  ‘He’ll never let the badge go,’ he said, his voice low.

  ‘He probably stole it from somewhere.’

  Jackdaw’s answer was bitter. Archie Methven glanced at Bertie Fortune then, their eyes meeting for a second before they both looked towards Hawes. But the temporary sergeant had his head bent over his book again, wasn’t going to get involved.

  ‘Bloody coward,’ muttered Flint, staring at Hawes, too. ‘Should have joined in from the start like all the rest. Or can’t you bear to play anymore?’

  ‘Shut up, Flint.’ There was a cold bite to Bertie Fortune’s reply. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘He wanted to know the orders.’

  The voice came from another corner of the barn. Alec, the new recruit, laying out the final touches to his billet – fleabag, gasbag, rifle and pack. The men all turned towards the new boy, the bright flax of his hair. There was silence for a moment, nothing but the sound of raindrops high on the roof.

  ‘What did you tell him, then?’ said Flint.

  Alec stopped with his sorting, stared at the married conscript for a second – Percy Flint with his hair slicked and his shirt buttoned to the collar – before looking away.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ Flint swore. ‘Why not, if he asked you?’

  Alec turned back to his fleabag then, with its cover and its makeshift pillow, a small dog curled at the foot.

  ‘Because he’s not the one in charge.’

  After supper, Godfrey asked Alec to join him in the parlour, a boy washed in from somewhere obscure and shifting, not even certain about which battalion he belonged to now that things were nearly done.

  ‘Northumberland Fusiliers,’ he said when Godfrey enquired. ‘Twenty-third to start with, sir. Not sure which now.’

  Godfrey wasn’t surprised. Ever since the summer when they had all begun to move so fast men had become displaced and lost and found again with amazing regularity, the whole territory full of wandering soldiers from disbanded regiments trying to catch up with the next. In this section alone Fortune and Flint were originally from London outfits, Hawes and Stone from Manchester or some other northern city. Jackdaw and Promise from God knows where. Ralph was from one of the Home Counties, no good for anything but taking tea on the lawn.

  ‘And have you seen much fighting?’ Godfrey asked.

  ‘Aye, sir, a bit.’

  ‘Been out long?’

  ‘Nine months, sir.’

  Since spring. Since Jerry pushed to within a few miles of Paris, plundering and looting all the way. No wonder it hadn’t lasted. Godfrey had seen the look of the men from the other side who’d been captured, shirts off as they were paraded through the streets. Could play their ribs like a piano. And their faces, too.

  ‘And what’s your patch of the north like?’ he said.

  Alec grinned, a quick flash of teeth. ‘All work and no play.’

  Godfrey smiled, too. ‘In the hayfields?’

  The new recruit nodded. A country boy, then, used to fields and hedgerows. Godfrey tried to remember being a boy himself. Days perched on hard wooden benches watching dust circle in the sunlight. A clock ticking in the parlour. The sound of his mother on the stair.

  ‘Your mother must be proud,’ he said.

  But Alec didn’t answer, a quick flush on his cheeks, looked away instead. Godfrey didn’t press it, glanced towards the wooden settle, thought of all those postcards he still wrote to a man and a woman who’d been long dead before he discovered the fact. Swept away by a motorcar on the parade at Hastings, over a year ago now. It had been an accident – death within the sound of the guns. Like drowning in a drainage ditch beneath a spatter of enemy bullets, nowhere near the main event. His father’s solicitor had written to tell him. But the letter had got lost, or diverted. Or Godfrey had got lost, or diverted. Each heading in opposite directions, just at the moment when they needed to meet up. When the letter finally reached him, his parents had been dead for a couple of months. Eight weeks in which he had sent at least a half-dozen postcards.

  Dear Mother and Father, we are all going on fine here . . .

  Godfrey had read the solicitor’s letter and put it in his pocket. He never said a word. Not to the Company Commander. Not to any of the other officers. And not to Ralph, either. Made no request for leave. What would he do at home but stand over yet another grave? After all, the worst had happened long before his mother and his father fell beneath the wheels of a charabanc, Godfrey marching away as a young man, returning twelve months later as something else. An old man, sitting opposite another old man, who had fiddled with his watch chain because he hadn’t known how to put it all to voice.

  ‘Sir?’

  Godfrey looked at his new recruit. The boy’s eyes reminded him of Beach, another young man assigned to his protection, dead in less than six weeks. He rose from his chair, came round to perch on the edge of the parlour table, felt the orders shift in his breast pocket, just above that ache beneath his skin.

  ‘Anything you’re particularly good at, son?’

  ‘I can sew a bit, sir, if that’s useful.’

  ‘Might be.’ Godfrey thought of the buttons loose on his greatcoat, Flint’s spool of pink thread. ‘Do you like to gamble?’

  Alec shook his head. ‘Not really, sir.’

  Godfrey slid from the table, stood close to the new recruit, as a father might to a son.

  ‘And did you read the orders?’

  Alec flicked his eyes to his new captain’s face, then away. ‘No, sir.’

  But Godfrey knew at once that he had.

  Two

  6 November, rain still threatening from the east, and Godfrey Farthing woke to the sound of men in the yard, talking and joking as though nothing untoward had happened, the grey light of morning seeping through the parlour window at the front. He rolled from the narrow settle with a groan, stared at his boots standing neat by the door. When was it in the night he had risen to remove them? He tried to remember the message he had received the day before – touched a hand to a paper in his tunic pocket – and what he had decided must happen next.

  In the kitchen, George Stone the old sweat was wearing the apron again. He stood over the stove dishing up a treat – two or three of the few remaining eggs scrambled in a smear of chicken fat, another remnant of the yellow slaughtered by Promise the day before.

  ‘Do you want some, sir?’

  It was Bertie Fortune who asked, holding out a battered mess tin to Godfrey – on breakfast duty for today.

  ‘Where’s Second Lieutenant Svenson?’ said Godfrey.

  ‘Chatting up the new recruit. He’s got the others with him.’

  Godfrey took the tin, went and stood in the porch doorway to see. The men were gathered in a tight circle in the middle of the yard, their backs to him, breath pluming above them in the air. All except James Hawes, who sat alone by the entrance to the barn shovelling egg into his mouth with a spoon that clitter clattered on the edges of his tin. Hawes looked sick, thought Godfrey, full of tics and jerks, wouldn’t last much longer before it all came down.

  In the centre of the circle of men sat Alec, the new recruit, scraping up mouthfuls of egg, too. And next to him, his dog.

  ‘I give him six months.’

  It was Percy Flint, the sexual adventurer, who was setting the odds, tossing down a matchstick burnt black at one end by way of a casual bet.

  ‘We won’t have six months.’

  Archie Methven, ever the realist. Knew that if the orders ever came, the chances were none of them would live to see spring.

  ‘It’ll be over by then anyway.’

  Alfred Walker with his prediction. And, perhaps, his dreams.

  ‘That’s what they said about Christmas the first year.’

  Promise’s fair skin had a bloom to it in the cold morning air.

  ‘What would you know about it, Promise?’

  Second Lieutenant Ralph Svenson appear
ed from the back of the circle, tunic unbuttoned, chewing on a matchstick of his own. The men all took a step to the side as though to widen the circle and allow Ralph through. Although to Godfrey’s eyes, it could have also been so that they could move away. Ralph’s cheeks were high-coloured, too. Like a baby, thought Godfrey, freshly woken for the day. The men hesitated, as though waiting to see what Ralph might do. But when he didn’t say anything more, it was Alfred Walker who took up the refrain again, the chancer of the company, always ready with a joke or a game. Walker dug into his pocket for a penny.

  ‘Six days,’ he said. ‘That’s how long it’ll last.’

  Flipped the coin with his thumb, caught it, pronounced ‘heads’.

  They all laughed at that. Alfred Walker with his fantasies. As though he could toss a coin and in less than a week it would all be done. Walker turned to Archie Methven, the accountant.

  ‘I’m serious, six days. Write it up, Methven. In your book.’

  But the accountant just shook his head, smiling. ‘Book’s for proper games, Walker. None of your on-the-fly stuff.’

  ‘Six minutes,’ called Flint, fag tight between his fingers, never a man to let a bet alone.

  All the men turned to look at Alec then, as though the matter was settled. For a moment Godfrey thought that it was the new recruit’s life they were betting on, a boy fresh to the field like Beach had once been, just waiting for one of the other men to reach for his bayonet and stick it into the boy’s belly for the pleasure of winning a bet. Godfrey felt a queer turn in his stomach at the thought. Then the dog rolled its head, let out a yowl and the men laughed, Godfrey realizing with relief that it wasn’t the new recruit whose life they had been betting on, but his dog’s.

  Alec ferreted in his tin for a blob of egg, held it out for the dog to take. The men all watched as the dog licked at the boy’s fingertips, then stood and stretched, sniffed about a bit before nosing its way to the edge of the circle, waiting for them to let it pass. They stared down at the creature as they parted, watching in silence as it sauntered towards the barn. Then Ralph spat the matchstick he’d been chewing from between his teeth and reached a hand to where his Webley sat against his hip.

  ‘How about six seconds,’ he said. ‘We could do it now. Save ourselves the trouble later.’

  Withdrew the gun from its holster and lifted the pistol as though sighting it at Promise, cocked the safety off.

  The men were suddenly still. No sound but the water running into the pond and out again, Godfrey Farthing’s blood so loud in his ears he thought everyone must hear. He looked towards Hawes to see if he might intervene, caught the flicker of panic in the temporary sergeant’s eyes. How quickly things changed, Godfrey thought, once a gun appeared.

  Ralph cast his pale eyes at the A4 boy. Promise’s face turned to chalk, shadows huge beneath his cheekbones. ‘What’s the matter, Promise? I thought you liked blood sports.’

  Then he laughed, pointed the revolver towards the retreating dog instead.

  ‘Lieutenant Svenson!’

  It wasn’t like Godfrey to shout. But when he did, everybody listened. The men scattered at once, leaving Alec spooning egg from a mess tin as though nothing untoward had happened, Ralph standing over him with his weapon still drawn. Godfrey looked at his feet in their khaki socks. He was not inclined to dirty them for a young officer who had learned nothing so far about war.

  ‘Lieutenant Svenson. A moment.’

  Ralph came over to stand in the doorway to the farmhouse, re-holstering his pistol as he did so, face eager. Second Lieutenant Svenson was wearing his boots this morning, as though he knew that something had changed.

  ‘Just a lark,’ he said, running a hand through his hair as though to smooth it.

  ‘It’s not a game, you know.’

  Godfrey’s reply was sharp, a warning for his second who had never known what it meant to walk towards the guns. Ralph blushed.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Then followed Godfrey inside.

  All the time they were in the parlour, Godfrey could feel the square of paper in his pocket burning into his chest, like the envelope they used to pin across the heart of a condemned man to ensure a clean shot. He had meant to lock the orders into his wooden box with all the rest, but when the moment came, he had not.

  Ralph sat at the parlour table without being asked, tipped back in the chair, excitement lighting his eyes.

  ‘They’ve come, then,’ he said. ‘The orders.’

  It wasn’t a question. Godfrey remained standing in his woollen socks.

  ‘What was that all about in the yard?’

  ‘I told you. A bit of fun.’

  ‘It isn’t fun to unsheathe your weapon when there hasn’t been a command.’

  ‘Just shining it.’

  Godfrey sat, began to pull on his boots. Once he was done, Ralph let the feet of the chair clatter to the floor, stood abruptly, heels together, saluted.

  ‘Sir, orders, sir.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake . . .’

  Ralph dropped his arm. ‘But he did bring some, didn’t he – the boy, I mean.’

  As though he was not a boy himself.

  Godfrey felt a great weariness inside then. War required precision in the matters of the soul, he had learned that at least, after everything that had passed. But he had become blunted by years of the need to go forwards, forwards, always forwards, whereas Ralph was fresh to the kill.

  ‘Sit down, Ralph, can’t you.’

  ‘But we are going to fight, sir?’

  The colour was high on the boy’s cheeks.

  ‘Why are you so keen to christen your weapon, Ralph?’

  ‘It’s our duty, isn’t it.’

  ‘Even when it will all be over in a week or two?’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Only yesterday it was you telling me that it would be soon.’

  ‘But it’s not over yet,’ said Ralph. ‘Is it? Unless that’s the news the boy brought.’

  But even Godfrey Farthing could not lie about that. He lifted his hand to his pocket, hooked a finger beneath the flap as though to draw the papers out. Then he thought of Beach with his grey eyes, dropped his hand to his side.

  ‘They were nothing,’ he said. ‘A request for a supply inventory, that’s all.’

  Ralph was silent for a moment. ‘May I see them, sir? The orders, I mean.’

  ‘They were addressed to me, Ralph.’

  ‘We’re both officers, aren’t we?’

  Godfrey looked up at that, the sudden stink of lemon oil in his nostrils.

  ‘Then why do you spend all your time gambling with the men?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Because. It occupies the time.’ Ralph slid his hands into his pockets. ‘Besides they enjoy it, don’t they. It helps to pass things around.’

  ‘And what things might that be?’

  Ralph shifted then, a flicker of doubt in his strange eyes. ‘I just thought they needed something to do. Can’t march forever to no end.’

  ‘You’d like that, though, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘What?’ Ralph was perplexed.

  ‘March them to the top of the hill,’ said Godfrey, a chilly edge to his voice. ‘And march down what’s left.’

  Ralph flushed then, bright-cheeked at the accusation. ‘It’s only what we’re here for.’

  And who was Godfrey Farthing to argue with that.

  Down in the cellar once breakfast was cleared, Godfrey and his lucky man, Fortune, checked through all that remained of the rations to see exactly how long they might last. The supplies were low, Godfrey sweating slightly beneath his tunic as he watched Bertie Fortune count them out and count them in again, realizing just how far he had let things go. Less than half a sack of bran. Three tins of M & V – the standard meat and vegetables. Two brown-paper packets of char. Two tins of Nestlé’s Condensed Milk. Some tackety biscuits and a jar of pozzie – plum and apple. A single tin of Lyle’s waiting for the moment when they all
needed something sweet. It wouldn’t keep them going much more than a few days, Godfrey thought, hands hot where he gripped his supply list, and only then if they were lucky, now that the chickens were diminished, too.

  Godfrey peered at the almost empty shelves in the gloom, wondered if Fortune would take the bait if he asked. Bertie Fortune had become Godfrey’s eyes and ears in the section, because he could not rely on Ralph. He watched as his lucky man scraped flour from the bottom of the sack. Four cupfuls. After, Fortune wiped his hands down the front of his tunic, leaving two white lungs. Best to know the enemy inside out, Godfrey thought then, if one wanted to survive.

  ‘So tell me,’ he said, voice casual. ‘What happened yesterday while I was gone?’

  Fortune rubbed his hands again, on the sides of his trousers this time, wouldn’t look at his captain.

  ‘What do you mean, sir?’

  ‘You know what I mean, Fortune. One more dead chicken and Promise can barely look at Lieutenant Svenson.’

  Fortune shifted, kept his eyes on the tins.

  ‘Ask the accountant,’ he said. ‘He holds the book.’

  ‘I’m asking you.’

  Fortune nudged at one of the Nestlés. ‘Promise won something from the lieutenant, sir. In a bet. Over a chicken.’

  ‘Christ,’ said Godfrey. ‘I warned him about too much gambling with the men.’

  ‘It was Hawes’s idea.’

  ‘Hawes . . .’ Godfrey frowned at the thought of his temporary sergeant getting involved in a bet with his second. ‘I thought he didn’t play anymore. Too busy reading that book.’

  ‘Old Mortality,’ said Fortune.

  ‘What! Where on earth did he get that from?’

  Bertie Fortune refused to look at his captain. ‘It belonged to Beach, I think. He liked adventure stories. Hawes has had it ever since.’

  Godfrey felt the tips of his fingers suddenly cold, a silence growing between them in the dim expanse of the cellar, before he tried again.

  ‘So what’s the problem, then?’

  Bertie Fortune sighed. ‘The lieutenant wouldn’t hand over the prize, sir. The men don’t like someone who doesn’t pay their debts.’

  Godfrey swore, a low curse. ‘Bloody hell. What did Hawes do about it?’