The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing

by Mary Paulson-Ellis

  ‘Plenty of folks needing the pawn these days,’ she said, running a hand across her dress. ‘It’s a disgrace really, after what we’ve been through.’

  Godfrey touched his breast pocket then, thought of the small slip of blue paper tucked above his heart. He must return it, he thought, didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past.

  Before he left for the station, heading south once again, Godfrey stood next to Mabel Methven in the pretty churchyard and looked at the small stone nestled in the grass. The carving was bright, sharper than a blade at a chicken’s neck, despite being six months old. It had weathered its first winter, thought Godfrey, just like the boy in the ground.

  Thomas Archibald Methven

  1913–1918

  Taken by the influenza like so many others, never did get to see his father again. Godfrey put his hand to the stone, felt how warm it had grown in the morning sun, unlike Archie Methven who had grown so cold. It was then that he said it.

  ‘I know of a child that needs a mother.’

  That was all it took.

  Godfrey cancelled the advert at the local paper that afternoon, refused the 6d refund that was due, made all the necessary arrangements. A baby handed over on a village green because one girl was too young, and another had grown too old. Before he departed, he handed Mabel Methven the only inheritance her new child had. A pawn ticket, no.125. That small slip of blue. Also a notebook with its horizontals and its verticals, thick grey pencil lines cancelling out the debt.

  There was a story hidden amongst those pencil marks if only he wanted to tell. But Godfrey Farthing had sworn he would stay silent. As had all the men who were left. They had agreed on a different version of events as they stood beneath a ring of trees, ground crackling beneath their boots. The tale of a man who had led from the front and taken a bullet to spare the rest, given a hero’s burial beneath the walnut shells. That was how Godfrey had thought of it then. He wasn’t so sure now. But it was who told the story that mattered, not what really happened. Until a new page was turned.

  It was on the train back to England that Captain Godfrey Farthing turned the next page of his story, standing in the corridor to get a breath of air, a woman smiling at him as she attempted to pass. The train rocked them together as if they were soldiers caught in a truck. The woman wore a hat with a ribbon threaded round the crown, her skirt well above the ankles, blouse nipped in at the waist. Godfrey thought of the light in Mabel Methven’s eyes when he’d told her about Daisy Pringle’s child. Saw the same light in this woman’s eyes as he offered her a Capstan by way of apology, held the battered tin out. The woman smiled with amusement. Then she said it.

  Yes. Yes, please.

  And Captain Godfrey Farthing knew that he was about to taste another sort of love, at last.

  A coup de foudre.

  That was what he called it later, when he told the tale. A disaster waiting to happen, never should have taken the leap. But after the cigarette they had gone to the dining car to drink a cocktail. Champagne, with brandy at its heart.

  All their short time together Godfrey dreamed only of what might be coming next. One live boy to shift the cold of the dead. But even after his son arrived safe and well there were always two other men who walked with Godfrey Farthing, day in, day out. Waking beside him every morning. Lying down to sleep with him every night. The first was a young man who smiled as he foraged for berries in the hedgerow, small dog at his side. The second was a boy called Beach.

  PART SEVEN

  The Legacy

  2016

  It was November, leaves wet against the pavements, the haar rolling in. The vote had been taken, the decision had been made. Nothing to do but settle the terms and bury any differences, see what the future might hold.

  Solomon Farthing drove his aunt’s Mini south through the borderlands, dipping in and out of the autumn mist. He was headed towards a school for foundling boys: a place for children who had somehow lost their parents, or parents who had somehow lost their child. When he arrived, they gave him a bed in the sick bay, where he lay beneath a blanket with a blue trim listening to the singing as it rose and fell. In the morning, before all the boys were up, he wandered across the field towards the river and searched for him there.

  Edward (Jackdaw) Jackson

  1900–1978

  Lying hidden in the grass. Dead buttercups where his head must once have been, a forest of weeds at his feet.

  The Jackdaw’s stone was small amongst the remains of the summer hay, his name chiselled in letters that were clouded with lichen. As Solomon scraped them clear, he remembered a man standing on a riverbank with a boy in his arms, pulled from the dark water, choking and coughing, so that Solomon Farthing might not have to take the blame. He had thought the old man ancient then, a relic of the past appearing from out of the sky as though he was already a ghost.

  Ash on an old man’s sleeve . . .

  Burnt roses . . .

  Dust in the air . . .

  But he must have only been fifty-six or so, in line with the century. How young that seemed to Solomon now.

  He walked back to take breakfast with the other boys, through the long grass, wet seeds clinging to his trousers and his sleeves. The field was like the place where he had finally laid his grandfather to rest. Deep in the wilderness of that wide open cemetery, spread over a great area from a leafy Inverleith suburb to the dark covered walkways of the Water of Leith. Edinburgh’s ‘secret garden’ – that was what they called it. And Solomon Farthing’s family plot now.

  He had taken Godfrey Farthing in by the gate and left him there. Scattered right. Scattered left. Landing in amongst the nettles and the ivy, silvering the grass. When the box was empty but for a thin layer of dust, Solomon had lain amongst the ivy, too, started with his check. One leg. Two legs. Two arms. Five fingers . . . Counting them out and counting them in again; all the layers of bone and loam upon which his grandfather had finally come to rest.

  Second Lieutenant Ralph Svenson, shot as he attempted a raid across the river. A hero at the end.

  Alec Sutherland, vanished into the deep current, never reappeared. Left behind a pawn ticket just in case it should ever need redeeming. And a baby boy with sunny eyes.

  Lance Corporal Archibald Methven, died from his wounds on a lonely road in France, nothing left but a man standing in a photograph, dead son at his side.

  Private Percy Flint, came home to drive a lorry, lived a long life.

  James Hawes, temporary sergeant, roamed the world preaching about the Fall from his orange box, fell asleep beneath a lychgate one night, failed to rise again.

  Private Alfred Walker, emigrated to the promised land. Went out in 1937 according to the passenger lists, never came back.

  Private Arthur Promise, coughed his last in a transit camp while awaiting demob, Spanish influenza. Didn’t make it home.

  Private Edward Jackson, known as Jackdaw, with his swooping black cape. Cancer, of the oesophagus, spent his last days in the corner of a hospital where the visiting hours were two till four. No longer able to chitter chatter. No longer able to fight. No longer able to recite poetry as once Solomon Farthing had heard him do. Just lay on the pillow, his head as small as a bird’s skull, smiling as one boy after another came to sing him out.

  And Corporal Bertie Fortune, the section’s lucky man. Died in his bed, of course.

  Then there was Thomas Methven, the boy who started as one person and ended as another, served in a different war to all the rest. Came home and kept other people’s money safe, grew roses till his wife died, then he grew some more.

  ‘He was the best of them all.’

  That was what Pawel said.

  Or just the one who lived the longest, perhaps.

  Solomon returned from his walk by the river to sit in the chapel, waited for the service to begin. That annual commemoration of the boys who left for war and never did return. He sat at the back listening to the rustle of the pupils as they entered, the c
reak of wood joints easing as they pretended to close their eyes. Next to him sat Peter, the boy archivist, holding a tiny bird’s egg in one hand, something shiny in the other. A pound coin, fake gold glittering, ready for whatever adventure might come next. Behind Peter’s feet, hidden from all who might start a commotion, was a dog. Dodds’s faithful companion, loaned out for the day. The dog had yelped when it saw Solomon pull up at the garage in his aunt’s Mini, leapt on to the back seat and rested its nose on Solomon’s shoulder the whole drive south. Now, as a small procession of boys took their place amongst the choir stalls, ready to lift their mouths to the sky, Solomon could feel the warmth where the dog was leaning against his leg, felt contentment settle in his chest.

  As he waited for the service to begin, he thought of the name newly chipped onto the war memorial outside.

  Sutherland, Alec.

  The letters bright now compared to all those that had gone before. Old Mortality, Solomon had thought as he watched stone dust blown from the plinth by a man wielding a chisel. He had paid for the carving with the proceeds of his windfall, courtesy of an aunt who really was his aunt this time. But not until he had settled his other debts, of course.

  People loved to mark things, that was what he’d learned. A gravestone. A bench. An honours board in a school, boys’ names written up in gold alongside their cricketing scores. Solomon had never thought that it mattered before, leaving something behind that couldn’t just be washed away. But even men like Private William Beach had their memorials now.

  Solomon touched the pew in front, ran his fingers along its underside, could feel it still, even after sixty years. S. F. His own initials. I was here. The boys around him bowed their heads then and Solomon felt that familiar stillness take hold. He looked for a moment out of the stained-glass window, beyond the quad, beyond the field, beyond even the river, towards where those who had been lost lay now. There was always a before, he thought. And an after. But it was what you did at the time that mattered the most.

  Then the prayer finally began and he bowed his head too.

  Our Father who art in heaven,

  Hallowed be thy name.

  Thy kingdom come,

  Thy will be done,

  On earth as it is in heaven.

  Give us this day our daily bread

  And forgive us our trespasses,

  As we forgive those who trespass against us.

  Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil

  For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory

  For ever and ever . . .

  THE END

  It was summer. 1916 and the war was everywhere. Devastation after devastation. Death after death. Men were being slaughtered in the east and in the west, no room for boys such as Private William Beach who could not stand the noise of a bombardment and ran in the wrong direction the moment the whistle came. Six weeks of nothing but marching and being encouraged to stick the bayonet in. Six weeks of waiting for the orders to arrive. Six weeks of huddling at the bottom of a trench by his captain’s feet listening to the guns, until the moment came.

  Afterwards they said the captain didn’t have to do it, that he could have changed his mind. But he had just been following orders: Godfrey Farthing’s role in life. He argued for the boy, of course, refused to wield his weapon until all the appeals had been heard. Three months of waiting, only to be let down in the end, Beach blinking in the pale autumn light as Godfrey explained. Just the way it was at times like those when everything was out of kilter, a mess of gas and mud. No meaning to any of it other than kill or be killed.

  They did it in the yard of a farmhouse in which they had been billeted, waited till the last day before moving out. All the men were gathered on the road with their packs and their gasbags as Godfrey had everything prepared, legs strapped and boots laced, while over the hill the big guns were booming, just out of reach. Beach was shivering when he was brought out, his whole body rippling with it though it was a fair day, leaves still dancing on the trees. There was a single blackbird singing in a hedge as they marched him to stand in front of the outhouse they had used as a latrine, next to the sooty remnants of a slag heap where the farmer and his wife once tossed the embers from their fire. Opposite him six men fiddled with their rifles, hot fingers on cold metal, had drawn the wrong straw.

  They looped the rope round Beach’s wrists and round his ankles, pinned an envelope over his heart to secure the aim. The boy was wearing his second-best shirt, Godfrey noticed, chicken shit smeared on the hem from the shed they had locked him in. He came to stand by the boy for a moment, looked into his grey eyes.

  I’ll be seeing you then.

  That was what Beach said.

  Think of your mother.

  That was what Godfrey replied, before the hood went down.

  At least one of them shot wide, brick dust flying. Or didn’t shoot at all.

  Gun jammed, sir, nothing I could do about it.

  George Stone frowning at his rifle after as though there must have been something wrong.

  Bertie Fortune had the blank, they’d all made sure of that. Didn’t want the man who got them stuff to be put off his game. Besides, they’d known he’d take care of whatever was left after. The boy’s plum cake and his green ribbon. There was money to be made, even out of murder. Not that any of them called it that in those days. Only afterwards, perhaps.

  It was Hawes who never got over it. Shot true, like the marksman that he was. A single wound clean through Beach’s stomach, where it would hurt the most. The boy didn’t even shout, just grunted with the impact of it, lifting his head beneath the hood for a moment as the smoke rose from their rifles to mingle with the mist. When it cleared Godfrey Farthing was standing with his hand still raised as though he hadn’t already given the order, all eyes on him as he began his walk across. He leaned in to Beach as though to speak to him, four roses blooming, blood on the boy’s shirt. Godfrey listened for his breathing – in out in out – called for the medical officer to check, too. The young officer walked over to listen for himself. Then he nodded, before stepping back.

  After that Godfrey Farthing turned away for a moment and the other men thought it was all over, until their captain unhitched the leather clip on his belt. He drew the Webley from its holster, held it to his chest as though to check its safety, the rest of the men standing with their rifles waiting to be dismissed. Then Godfrey walked right up to Beach, just as they were encouraged to do when practising with the bayonet.

  Be swift, boys. Hold him like your sweetheart.

  Right arm held out straight, the pistol like an extension of his hand. He put the barrel close to the boy’s temple – a gun to behead a buttercup.

  Took aim.

  Fired.

  James Hawes always remembered the blood. George Stone the smell of cordite. Bertie Fortune the steadiness with which Captain Farthing carried out the deed. Not a single hesitation, or a turn to look. Nor any discussion with the other men who were there: the minister from the village; the medical officer by his side. Captain Godfrey Farthing had his opportunity and he took it. Walked straight up to the boy, then pulled the trigger.

  Afterwards he made Hawes and Stone do the burying, had them wait while he cut off Beach’s tags and rummaged in his pockets. He took the boy’s cap badge for himself. A small thing, silver, with a lion raising its paw. Also the motto of the London Scottish.

  Strike Sure.

  Acknowledgements

  The words of Harry Patch (the last of the British WWI veterans) in the epigraph were taken from an exchange with a BBC interviewer, as quoted in Aftershock by Matthew Green.

  The phrase, ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’ is taken from the music-hall song, ‘It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary’ by Henry James ‘Harry’ Williams and Jack Judge.

  The lines quoted on p. 232–33 are taken from the music-hall song, ‘Who Were You With Last Night’ by Fred Godfrey and Mark Sheridan.

  The line, ‘An endless pic
ture-show’ on p. 264 is taken from the poem, ‘Picture-Show’ by Siegfried Sassoon.

  The lines, ‘There is some corner of a foreign field’, ‘Dulce et decorum est’ and ‘A drawing-down of blinds’ on p. 278 are taken from ‘1914: The Soldier’ by Rupert Brooke, ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ by Wilfred Owen.

  The line, ‘the moment of the rose and the moment of the yew’ on p.349 and the lines, ‘Ash on an old man’s sleeve’, ‘Burnt roses’ and ‘Dust in the air.’ on p.494 are taken from ‘Little Gidding’ from Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot.

  Throughout the writing of this book I read many accounts of men’s experiences both during and after WWI. These ranged from the classic to the obscure, and I have no doubt that all of them, in some way, are reflected in the text. But I’d particularly like to acknowledge the inspiration and influence of Pat Barker and her novel, The Ghost Road.

  Thank you: Clare Alexander and all at Aitken Alexander Associates; Maria Rejt, Josie Humber and all at Mantle; Natalie Young, Ami Smithson, Rosie Wilson and all at Pan Macmillan, with particular thanks to Gillian Mackay; my fellow writers in Ink Inc, especially Pippa Goldschmidt and Theresa Muñoz; Shirley Obrzud of GenGenie Research for introducing me to the world of family finding and New Register House in Edinburgh; Daniel Curran and Emma Johannesson at Finders International for their essential assistance in understanding the world of probate research north and south of the border; PC Emily Noble of Police Scotland for lending me her name; the Imperial War Museum, London; Alnwick Castle and the Fusiliers Museum of Northumberland; Christina Paulson-Ellis and Peter Brunyate for the WWI letters; my family and friends for their ongoing faith and support; and Audrey Grant for her love, encouragement and companionship on this crazy journey we have embarked upon.