The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing

by Mary Paulson-Ellis

  ‘Shut up, Walker,’ hissed Flint. ‘We’re here now, aren’t we.’

  Jackdaw joined in, his voice hoarse from the cold. ‘I knew we should have waited for Captain Farthing.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just stay away, then,’ said Flint. ‘You had your chance. Could have hidden in the chicken shed with Hawes.’

  ‘What, and get myself bloody shot?’

  ‘You’d know all about that,’ Flint sneered. ‘If you hadn’t shot the accountant the captain would never have left and we would never have been here.’

  ‘You fucking bastard, Flint. You’re the one always playing warm-up to the second.’

  ‘We’ll all get shot if we stay here.’

  Alec’s voice was low in the darkness. All the men were silent for a moment. Then Promise spoke, voice shaking, as though to make a joke.

  ‘I bet there aren’t even any Jerries over there.’

  Flint was suddenly aggressive. ‘Want to test it? I dare you.’

  ‘Shut up, you idiots.’ Stone crawled over. ‘Keep your bloody heads down and be quiet or you’ll wake the lieutenant.’

  Too late now.

  At the edge of the group, Ralph moved beneath his coat, raised his head an inch or so from where he’d laid it on his pack, blond curls in disarray.

  ‘What is it?’ he whispered. ‘Stone? Are they here?’

  Flint was dismissive. ‘Promise thinks the Jerries aren’t even over there.’

  Ralph rubbed at his face with the back of one hand, his fingers too numb to feel. ‘Maybe they aren’t.’

  Stone shot a quick glance at Svenson, saw the boy’s face bleary in the grey. ‘We could wait, sir, till we know.’

  But Jackdaw was too agitated to stay quiet. ‘What’s the point of this, then, sir? We should go back.’

  ‘Bloody faggots, bloody cowards.’

  Flint’s face was hard in the low light. Stone looked towards the married conscript, saw Ralph looking at him, too. Ralph blinked, touched his Webley, turned his gaze upon the two A4 boys, their faces drawn with cold.

  ‘Right, well, maybe we should go and find out.’

  ‘What! No, sir.’ Stone put out a hand, grabbed at Ralph’s tunic. ‘It’s too dark. We won’t find them before they find us.’

  Ralph shook him off. He slid his Webley from its holster, the grip cold against his palm.

  ‘Not me, you idiot.’

  He turned to where Promise was huddled in the grass behind Jackdaw and the new recruit, pointed his gun at the A4 boy as the A4 boy had once pointed a gun at him.

  ‘It’s Promise who wants to know.’

  He slid onto the ice like some sort of creature, edging on his belly towards the end of the world. The ice groaned and shifted with his weight, black darts appearing across the silver sheen every time he moved. Behind him, six men lay silent on the bank, the hairs on their arms, on their necks, standing to attention. They could all hear Promise sobbing as he crawled forward inch by inch.

  ‘I can’t swim. I can’t swim.’

  His voice the thin call of an animal crying softly in the night.

  ‘Shut up, Promise,’ hissed Flint. ‘Or they’ll hear you.’

  ‘Bloody bastard,’ cursed Jackdaw, spitting the words towards Ralph. ‘Let him come back.’

  Stone held Jackdaw by his arm. ‘Calm down, son. No room here for a fight or we’ll have them all shooting before you can say kingdom come.’

  ‘That’s enough now, isn’t it?’ Walker’s teeth were chitter chattering again. ‘We get the joke.’

  Ralph crouched at the lip of the riverbank, eyes wide. His heart was hammering again, but his head was suddenly clear.

  ‘You can do it, Promise,’ he said, excitement lighting his eyes. ‘Keep going.’

  The fair A4 boy, limbs spreadeagled, trying to grab at anything to help keep him safe. They all heard the ice as it creaked and shifted once more, the low groan of a beast woken from its slumber. Stone slithered on his belly through the frosted grass to Ralph.

  ‘That’s enough now, sir. Let him back.’

  ‘But he’s nearly there!’ Ralph’s voice was eager, the excited whisper of a child.

  ‘Call him back, sir,’ said George Stone, his voice serious now. ‘Or the other side will hear and start shooting.’

  Ralph turned his head to the old sweat, eyes huge and pale. ‘Are you frightened, Stone?’

  ‘It’s not a game, sir.’

  The two soldiers stared at each other in the dark, a young lad and a man old enough to be his father.

  ‘All right. All right, Stone. Just a bit of fun.’ Ralph began to call, a low voice thrown out across the skein of ice. ‘Promise! Promise! Come back now. That’s an order.’

  ‘He’s scared,’ Jackdaw hissed. ‘He won’t make it back on his own.’

  Flint spat into the grass. ‘Bloody coward.’

  Ralph lifted his head a little to take a look. Promise was nothing but a shadow now hunched in the dark. Ralph glanced back at Stone, the old sweat’s eyes upon him. Then he fumbled at his side to release his revolver, laid it on the frozen grass.

  ‘Look after this for me, will you.’

  Began the slow slide out onto the ice himself. But Jackdaw was ahead of him already, crawling into the darkness on his belly to rescue his friend. The ice heaved and creaked with the weight of them, tiny lines appearing hither and thither. Stone cursed, pushed himself forwards too, felt the surface crack beneath him.

  ‘Watch out, lads. It’s going!’

  Scrambled and slithered back to the bank. He only just made it when he heard the woomph. Great chunks of ice upending. The dark water suddenly revealed. The river was deep, flowing swift and strong beneath, closing over the heads of the A4 boys and their second lieutenant, the water a sudden maelstrom of ice and men.

  Promise rose to the surface, thrashing like a child tossed into the sea. ‘I can’t swim! I can’t swim!’

  Jackdaw gasping and splashing as he tried to grab his friend, reaching for Promise’s arms, his sleeve, his webbing, pulling the boy through the thick freezing water, clawing for the bank. Stone and Alec reached, too, grabbing for the fair A4 boy. Dragging and hauling him out of the water, Jackdaw following, retching and coughing, his whole body in a spasm with the cold. Promise was hardly able to open up his fingers when they finally got him clear, grip fixed like a chicken’s claw, Jackdaw shivering behind. Stone began rubbing and rubbing at Promise’s hands.

  ‘It’s all right, son. All right. We’ve got you.’

  Then the gunfire began.

  They lay together, faces buried in the frozen earth, six men with their hands over their heads, live fire falling on them like sudden April rain. Bullets bounced off the ground by their heads, off the ice, zipped through the water and stung the grass all around. It went on for three minutes. Then, just as suddenly, it stopped.

  The silence then was huge, nothing but blood rushing in their ears, their faces pushed into the muck. Stone’s heart pounded in his chest as he twisted his head, tried to do a reckoning. A Jackdaw. A Promise. Lying hip bone to hip bone, one arm around the other. Flint to his right. Alec to his left. Alfred Walker next to him. Then he gave the order.

  ‘Withdraw! Withdraw!’

  The men slid and crawled away, wriggling back through the grass to the safety of a willow tree not yet cut to a stump. It was only after a few minutes had passed, the black confusion in their heads clearing, the high-pitched ringing in their ears lessening to a low whine, that they heard the call.

  ‘Stone! Stone! Come and get me.’

  Second Lieutenant Ralph Svenson’s voice floating towards them from somewhere on the opposite bank.

  George Stone cursed, lifted his head a little to take a look, saw the shape of the second lieutenant crouched in the water on the far side of the great black stretch, nothing showing but the pale halo of his head.

  ‘Swim back,’ called Stone. ‘Swim back.’

  ‘I can’t,’ came the voice. ‘I’m injured.’r />
  George Stone peered over his shoulder at the other men, shuddering and trembling in their soaking uniforms.

  ‘Go and get him, Flint.’

  ‘You bloody go and get him, Stone. This is your shout.’

  ‘You let him out the sodding lean-to.’

  ‘Following orders, just like you were.’

  George Stone looked over at Walker. Alfred Walker looked away. There was another burst of gunfire, bullets pattering around their second lieutenant in the gloom. They all heard Ralph’s cry as one struck the bank right by his head, throwing up shrapnel and chunks of frozen mud.

  ‘Stone, Stone. Come and get me!’

  ‘Swim back, you fucker,’ Flint hissed beneath his breath.

  The two A4 boys, Jackdaw and Promise, huddled together, their faces like ghosts. Stone cursed again, dipped his face to the earth, the weight of four years pressing down.

  ‘Christ,’ he hissed. ‘I can’t swim either.’

  He looked again at Percy Flint. At the A4 boys. Then at Alfred Walker and the new recruit, all staring back at him.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘Do you want to bloody toss for it?’

  There was silence for a moment. Then Walker reached into the top pocket of his tunic, pulled something out. A farthing, glinting for a moment in the dark.

  The petty thief’s voice was so quiet they could barely hear him. ‘Heads we get him, tails we retreat, wait till morning.’

  ‘Walker . . .’ George Stone sounded a warning. ‘What about the orders?’

  ‘Sod the orders,’ said Walker. ‘They can wait another day. Waited long enough already and nothing’s gone wrong.’

  George Stone dropped his head to the cold ground for a moment.

  ‘We can’t leave a man behind,’ he said. ‘What if someone finds out?’

  ‘So what?’ said Walker. ‘It’s only his own rules.’

  ‘He’ll freeze to death in the sodding water.’

  The men were silent. Then Jackdaw spoke.

  ‘I’m with Walker.’

  Flint nodding too, Alec saying nothing. Stone closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again, looked at the other A4 boy where he shivered and trembled.

  ‘What about you, Promise?’ he said. ‘It’s on your say. We won’t do it if you don’t agree.’

  The fair A4 boy stared at the old sweat, his teeth rattling and rattling as Jackdaw put a hand to his arm.

  ‘You don’t owe him now.’

  Then Promise nodded – one quick dip of his head. Alfred Walker was looking at Stone as he flicked the farthing into the air. They all watched it turn, once, before the drop. The coin landed beside Walker on the grass, a black spot amongst the frost. Even in the dark they could see it.

  Tails.

  Three

  He came back as dawn approached. 11 November and Godfrey Farthing on the long march home at last, walking down a road that seemed to come from nowhere and go to nowhere, just as the war to end all wars did, too. He knew that somewhere he had failed. Let one man walk away. Left another to die beneath a hedge. But all in the hope that he might yet save the rest from slaughter, before it was too late. A slither through the marsh. Then a wade through that river. Squirming in the grass until they met the falling bullets, one, then the next. It would only be the same as every other day his men had spent on this patch of raw earth, going forwards, forwards, always forwards, doing their duty until the bullet that was meant for them arrived. But now that the end was almost upon them, Godfrey could not help but think of what should come next instead.

  He had left a knife with Methven, just in case it should be useful. A German souvenir acquired by his accountant from Fortune, in return for God knows what. The knife was sharp, its blade stocky. It would make a good weapon if it came to self-defence. Methven had insisted Godfrey keep it for himself. But Godfrey Farthing did not want something that he knew had been acquired by Bertie Fortune – every last souvenir, every last piece of notepaper, every last bet or promise his lucky man had ever made tainted now by his failure to return.

  Instead Godfrey had tucked the knife beneath Methven’s coat, buttoned the notebook and all it contained into his own. He had shaken Methven’s hand before he left, the accountant’s fingers just like Beach’s had been that time. Cold, as though he was dead already, nothing left to do but remove his red disc and leave the green, walk away once more.

  Godfrey had been cold, too, as he walked into the twilight, the country he had fought over for so long laid out before him like an uninviting bed. Empty fields. Scrub huddled along a ridge like a grey cloud. The rise and fall of the hedgerows, black and stumped in the gloom. Far in the distance he imagined he could see the silver ribbon of a river calling to him. Beyond that, a fold in the land. And beyond that again, a simple ring of trees.

  As darkness began to fall, Godfrey stopped to rest. He sat by the side of the road, on the edge of a ditch, his feet on the frozen remains of moss and dead leaves. He took a couple of walnuts from his pocket, cracked the shells against his knee, let the pieces fall to the ground. The nuts were bitter, the last of a good crop. He washed them down with a piece of ice taken from the ditch, smashed with the heel of his boot, sucked until his lips were numb. When he set off again it began to rain, soft prickles against his skin. It was then that he came upon him. The man who told Godfrey Farthing that the end had come at last.

  The man was a soldier just like him, walking towards Godfrey out of the gloom. Not Bertie Fortune returned with everything Godfrey had asked for, but someone carrying treasure nonetheless. The man slowed as he saw Godfrey approaching, just as Godfrey slowed, too. Unlike Captain Farthing’s khaki, this man was wearing grey.

  They stopped a few feet apart, staring at each other as though neither had ever seen such a man before. A Fritz, out of space and time, thought Godfrey. Just as he was out of space and time, too. Godfrey hesitated, the thought flickering in his brain of reaching for his pistol, safe in its holster beneath the wool of his coat. Then he saw that the man was walking closer, his empty hand held out.

  ‘Guten Abend,’ said the soldier when he came to stand with Godfrey. ‘Good evening.’

  His English careful, but precise.

  ‘Good evening,’ replied Godfrey.

  He took the man’s proffered hand and shook it once. The man slid his hand into his pocket, Godfrey’s heart giving a little stutter, before he saw that the soldier was offering him something else now. A piece of cheese cut close to the rind. Godfrey stared at the cheese, dipped a hand into his own pocket and brought out a walnut, offered that in return. Then the two men stood in silence and ate together until all that was left was a scattering of rind and broken shell on the road.

  When they were finished, the man held out his hand once again, pulling at the sleeve of his uniform. The man’s skin was yellow, like the cheese, the bones blue beneath. He was pointing at a wristwatch, second-hand, the strap worn.

  ‘Morgen,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow. Kaput.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Godfrey shook his head, confused.

  The man kept jabbing at his watch. ‘Morgen.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  The man began to nod, a grin splitting his face. He pointed again at his watch, at the eleven, let his sleeve fall. He was still grinning as he held out his hand again. They shook once more, the man reaching to pat Godfrey’s shoulder. Then gone. Walking away towards the enemy. Except by the time the man arrived, they would not be the enemy anymore.

  At the river, as dawn approached, the men slid away from their second lieutenant one, by one, by one. Jackdaw and Promise went first, the fairer A4 boy shivering uncontrollably, his pack all a-jingle, rifle rattling on his back.

  ‘Christ’s sake,’ Flint cursed from somewhere behind. ‘Can’t you keep him quiet. Have bloody Fritz at us again.’

  Alfred Walker hissed, his teeth chattering, too, ‘Shut your mouth, Flint. You’re the one who’ll bring them down on us, always complaining. Should have put a bullet in you when we got the
chance.’

  Four men slithering and crawling slowly through the frozen grass, soaked to the bone, their uniforms stained. Alfred Walker pushed from behind, sliding on his belly, trying to put as much distance between him and the river as he could without giving the enemy a sign. Behind them George Stone began with his check, as the rest retreated. One man. Two men. Three men. Four. Counting his men out, just as earlier he had counted them in. When they’d moved away, no more than shadows in the grass, retreating now, he turned back towards the riverbank, to where his second lieutenant lurked somewhere on the far side. He stared across that dark stretch, touched his forehead to the grass for a moment, before he began to slide away himself. He only made it a few yards before he heard a soft call ahead, Alfred Walker somewhere in the gloom.

  ‘We’re missing one, Stone. Is he with you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The boy, Alec. Is he with you?’

  George Stone looked back towards the river to see a shape moving low to the ground. Alec the new recruit looping his rifle over his head, laying it down on the frozen earth.

  ‘Christ.’ Stone began to slide back. ‘Alec, what are you doing?’

  Ahead of him on the lip of the river Alec had begun to unbutton his tunic, shrugging it from his shoulders until he was wearing nothing but a shirt. Stone moved forwards on his belly again, grasped for Alec’s wrist. From across the water there was a call once more, a disembodied voice floating across the ice.

  ‘Stone, Stone. Come and get me. I’ll make it worth your while.’

  George Stone gripped tight to the new recruit’s arm.

  ‘You don’t have to, lad,’ he said. ‘He’ll get back.’

  ‘No he won’t,’ said Alec.

  And they both knew that he was right about that. Suddenly Alfred Walker was at Stone’s side once more, all agitated now.

  ‘What the fuck’s he doing?’ he hissed.

  George Stone didn’t reply. He could feel his teeth chattering, cold in the very centre of his bones. Alec turned to them both, face pale in the grey light, hair a shock of white.