The Orange Lilies: A Morton Farrier novella (The Forensic Genealogist series)

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  ‘Thanks, Aunty Margaret,’ Morton said, gently squeezing her arm.

  ‘She’s so lovely,’ Juliette enthused when the creaking stairs told her that Margaret was out of earshot. ‘And this place. And this village. Why have you never brought me here before?’

  Morton pulled a you know why face.

  ‘I meant before your dad told you.’

  Morton shrugged, biting his fingernails. ‘Come on, let’s get downstairs.’

  Juliette wrestled his fingers out of his mouth again. ‘Relax. It’s supposed to be a mini-holiday, not an ordeal. Here, help me unpack first.’

  Half an hour later, Morton and Juliette were sitting on a battered green sofa in front of the open fire sipping tea and eating homemade scones. Margaret had brought Morton up to date with news about her two daughters and their latest exploits. Much to his disappointment, neither would be coming home for Christmas, although Morton wasn’t sure if Margaret had requested that they stay away. He had no idea if they knew that he was in fact their half-brother and not their first cousin, as they had always believed.

  As Morton and Juliette tucked into their food and drink, the lull in the conversation grew to a period of near-silence. Only the crackling fire contributed to the sound in the lounge.

  Morton swallowed down a mouthful of coffee, wondering how best to address the elephant in the room. As always seemed to happen to him at such moments, his brain refused to find a way to navigate the dangerous and uncharted territory into which he was about to sail. As he sipped at his drink, he selected then discarded words with which to open his sentence. Nothing sounded right. Maybe there are no words, Morton wondered. He took a fleeting glance at his Aunty Margaret. She was slumped comfortably back in the armchair, hands knitted together over her apron with a smile on her face, staring into the fire. She was a lovely, simple woman. Not simple in her intelligence, just simple in her life. There had never been any complications or arguments or problems with Margaret. Her life was just enviously simple. He marvelled at her perpetual sunniness. But was she really not feeling the same thing—struggling to verbalise her forty-year secret, which she must have hoped would go with her to the grave? An awful feeling washed over him. What if she had no intention of discussing his past with him? If she were anything like Morton’s father—her brother—then difficult situations would be swiftly dealt with by brushing them under the carpet and pretending that they didn’t exist.

  Margaret turned to face him. ‘I think I just heard your Uncle Jim’s car. Thought he was taking his time. Expect he got side-tracked at the pub, knowing him,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Here he is, now.’

  Morton and Juliette stood and followed Margaret towards the door as it swung open.

  ‘Ahoy, me old Sussex hearties!’ Jim exclaimed in his thick Cornish accent, stepping heavy boots into the lounge. He was a giant bear of a man—red ruddy complexion and tanned leathery skin, revealing a lifetime spent on fishing boats. He threw a large meaty hand in Morton’s direction. ‘Nephew!’

  Morton grinned. ‘Hi, Uncle Jim. This is Juliette.’

  Jim offered his hand to her. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, young lady.’ He turned to face Morton. ‘You kept this little treasure hidden nicely, didn’t you? She don’t look like a copper, does she?’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ Juliette said with a laugh.

  ‘Well, just you keep on your best behaviour, James Daynes, and you’ll be alright.’

  Jim peeled off a thick wax jacket. ‘Seriously, though, it’s lovely to have you both here. We’ve been looking forward to it, haven’t we, Margaret?’

  ‘Absolutely. Well, all this sitting down won’t do. I’d best get the dinner on. You two make yourselves at home. Stick the television on if you fancy.’

  ‘Do you need a hand at all?’ Morton asked hopefully, wondering if she needed it to be just the two of them in order to talk candidly.

  ‘I can manage fine, thanks. You just relax.’

  Morton was disappointed, but sat back down and entered into conversation with his Uncle Jim, accepting that the matter was not about to be discussed.

  After a full roast dinner had been devoured and cleaned up, Morton and Juliette sat back in front of the fire with Margaret and Jim. The dinner table conversation had danced and skirted neatly around the topic that Morton had most wanted to speak about, raising his fretfulness all the more.

  Jim pressed the television remote control exaggeratedly. ‘Christ, there’s nothing on. Christmas television used to be cracking, now it’s all a load of drivel and repeats. Two documentaries on at the same time about the bloody Christmas Truce of 1914. Two! Bit heavy for my liking—not very Christmassy. Anyone want to watch either of them?’

  ‘I don’t mind what we watch,’ Juliette answered diplomatically.

  Margaret looked indifferent. ‘Might see Grandad Farrier or Grandad Len on there—they were both fighting in 1914. God only knows if they had a truce or not. Probably not if Grandad Farrier was like the other stubborn men in the family!’

  Morton looked up as a wave of guilt flashed through his mind. How could a forensic genealogist know so little—nothing in fact—of his own family history? Since discovering his bone fide connection to the Farrier family he had intended to begin research but other paid cases kept taking precedence. He determined there and then to set aside some time next year to research his own family tree. Morton zoned back into the room. Juliette and Jim were in a conversation about Christmas television, so Morton turned to his Aunty Margaret. ‘Do you not know what happened to your grandfather in the war, then?’

  Aunty Margaret turned her nose up. ‘Not much. It’s a bit of a mystery, really—no photos of him or information about him; it’s like he never existed. I mean, I do understand why he’s been forgotten: he died fairly early on in the war and my dad never knew him—he was born around the same time his father was killed. My granny remarried after the war—a chap called Len who was a friend of Grandad Farrier’s. Lovely man, Len was, too. I’ve got a photo somewhere of him in his uniform and some old postcards and letters he sent back from a prisoner-of-war camp, but nothing from Grandad Farrier. Funnily enough, I’ve been thinking about him recently, what with all this hundred-year anniversary stuff going on. Surely you can find out what happened to him?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Morton said, running his fingers through his hair. ‘The problem is that about sixty percent of service records for soldiers who served in World War One were destroyed in a bombing raid in World War Two when the War Office was hit.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a pity,’ Aunty Margaret lamented. ‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me a bit more about them.’

  Morton shot a look at Juliette.

  ‘Go and get it,’ she said with a sigh.

  Morton grinned. He had promised her that, despite bringing his laptop with him, he wouldn’t be working. This isn’t really work, though, he reasoned, it’s my family. Besides which, it might be just the hook that he needed to get his Aunty Margaret talking. ‘I’ll just fetch my laptop and see what I can find.’

  ‘Jolly good,’ Margaret said, rubbing her hands with excitement.

  Moments later, Morton returned carrying his Mac. He sat down beside Margaret and opened up a web browser.

  ‘All at the click of a button,’ Margaret mused, as she watched Morton tapping at the keyboard.

  ‘Not everything—but a lot,’ he replied. ‘I realise this question is a little ironic coming from me, but what was your grandfather’s name?’

  ‘Charles Ernest Farrier,’ came the reply.

  Charles Ernest Farrier. His great grandfather. He suddenly felt callous and somehow stupid for not even knowing his own great grandfather’s name.

  With Margaret looking keenly over his shoulder, Morton started with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, which listed all casualties of the First and Second World Wars. A moment later, his great grandfather’s name, in bold capital letters headed the top of the screen. Below
it, were the details pertaining to his death.

  Rank: Private

  Date of death: 26/12/14

  Regiment/Service: Royal Sussex Regiment, 2nd Bn.

  Awards: None

  Panel Reference: Panel 20 and 21

  Memorial: Le Touret Memorial

  ‘Gosh, he didn’t last long, did he? Poor chap,’ Margaret said. ‘Where’s Le Touret?’

  ‘Pas de Calais,’ Morton answered, trying to assimilate the information in front of him. It was a strange haunting feeling for him to be looking at records for his own family. He had used the CWGC website countless times to help his clients find their lost ancestors, but here he was, looking at the death date of his own great grandfather. As he clicked to view the details of the cemetery in Le Touret, which commemorated more than 13,400 soldiers, he made his mind up to pay a visit to the cemetery at some point in the future.

  Morton pulled out his trusty notepad and pen from his laptop bag and jotted down the information onscreen. On the next page he began to construct a basic tree for the Farrier family. ‘Do you know Charles’s wife’s name?’ he asked Margaret.

  ‘Nellie,’ she answered. ‘I can’t recall her maiden name, though.’

  ‘I can find that easily enough,’ Morton responded, scribbling her name beside Charles’s. ‘And their son, Alfred, was your father?’

  ‘That’s right—your grandad. He was only born in June 1914, so he definitely wouldn’t have known his dad—poor soul. No wonder he never spoke of him.’

  ‘Charles can’t have been very old when he died,’ Morton said.

  ‘No, in his twenties—older than a lot of those poor soldiers, though.’

  ‘Right,’ Morton said, adding the details to his notepad. ‘With a bit of luck we can find Charles’s MIC,’ Morton said, opening up a new browser and heading to the Ancestry website.

  ‘His what?’ Margaret said with a chuckle.

  ‘Medal Index Card—a good starting point for World War One records.’

  ‘Off you go, then!’

  Morton located the online records for World War One and entered Charles’s name into the search box. Of the two available records listed, Morton clicked to view Charles’s Medal Index Card. Seconds later, a salmon-coloured scan with blue handwritten ink appeared onscreen.

  ‘More code!’ Margaret lamented, when she saw the baffling array of letters and numbers presented. She flung her hands up. ‘You’ll have to decipher it for me, Morton.’

  Morton smiled. ‘I’ll give it my best shot. Right. Obviously his name, Charles Ernest Farrier, you can read. He was in the second battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment, number 7512. He was a private. He was awarded the Victory Medal, British War Medal and 1914 Star.’

  ‘What are all those letters and numbers for, then?’

  ‘They tell you where his name is entered on the medal roll.’

  ‘Can we look that up?’ she asked hopefully.

  Morton shook his head. ‘It’s only available at The National Archives in Kew. I’ve searched it before but most of the time it doesn’t give any more information than the Medal Index Card. I’ll take a look, though, next time I’m up there.’

  Morton ran his finger down the card. The section marked ‘Theatre of War first served in’ had been left blank. Below it, however, the part marked Date of entry therein had been entered as ‘12-8-14’.

  ‘Look, he went out on the 12th August 1914, which means that he was a regular soldier—not volunteered or conscripted.’

  ‘K in A 26th December 1914?’ she asked.

  ‘Killed in action.’

  ‘Course it is!’ Margaret said.

  Morton scribbled down the new information then reverted back to the list of records available for Charles. He next clicked on ‘UK Soldiers Died In The Great War, 1914-1919’.

  Name: Charles Farrier

  Birth Place: Lambeth, London

  Birth Date: 2 Feb 1890

  Death Date: 26 Dec 1914

  Death Place: British Expeditionary Force

  Enlistment Place: Chichester

  Rank: Private

  Regiment: Royal Sussex Regiment

  Battalion: 2nd Battalion

  Regimental Number: L/7512

  Type of Casualty: Killed in Action

  Theatre of War: Western European Theatre

  ‘Place of death, British Expeditionary Force?’ Margaret said incredulously. ‘Is that a mistake?’

  ‘No, that’s a blanket, cover-all term the military used since so many casualties were never found.’

  Aunty Margaret shook her head. ‘So was Charles not found, then?’

  ‘Er…hang on,’ Morton answered, switching back to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. ‘No. Panel 20 and 21 means he was one of God knows how many men whose bodies were never found.’

  Both Morton and Margaret paused whilst they digested this information.

  ‘Poor Granny. Imagine being told your husband’s been killed in action but there’s no body to bury, no funeral service, no grave to mourn at.’ She took a deep, reflective breath. ‘We don’t know we’re born.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Morton agreed. ‘That’s all Ancestry seem to have on his military career. Let me just check Findmypast.’ With a few quick clicks, Morton was presented with three records for Charles. Two were identical to those already searched. He clicked the third—‘British Army Service Records 1760-1915’ and waited as a four-page document loaded: Army Form E.504. ‘It’s Charles’s militia attestation form.’

  ‘And what’s that then, when it’s at home? Looks like there’s a lot on there.’

  ‘It’s basically his enlistment papers. Usual questions, like name, age, address,’ Morton said, scanning down the page for additional information pertaining to his great grandfather’s military career. ‘So, it says he was a painter and decorator prior to joining up. He was married, with one child under fourteen. He’d never been in prison…’

  ‘I should hope not!’ Margaret interrupted with a laugh.

  ‘He signed up for six years in 1910…poor bloke can’t have had a clue what would happen four years down the line.’ Morton clicked onto the next page. ‘This is his personal information—I always find this helps me to better imagine what they looked like.’

  Margaret leant forward and squinted at the screen.

  Apparent age: 20 years 3 months

  Height: 5 feet 10 inches

  Weight: 10 stone 6 lbs

  Chest measurement minimum: 29 inches

  Chest measurement maximum: 32 inches

  Complexion: Fresh

  Eyes: Brown

  Hair: Light brown

  Religious denomination: Wesleyan

  Distinctive marks, and marks indicating congenital peculiarities or previous disease: scar on right forearm

  From the physical description in front of him, Morton could have been looking at his own details at the age of twenty-four.

  ‘Gosh, we’ve found a lot already. Is there more to be unearthed?’

  ‘Possibly. There’s a lot being digitised right now. Some unit war diaries are already online but they don’t usually mention individual soldiers by name.’

  ‘Still, worth a look,’ Margaret said. ‘I’d love to know more.’

  The credits of the programme which Juliette and Jim had been watching rolled, spurring a flurry of yawns and stretches.

  ‘Anyone want the TV on?’ Jim asked.

  ‘Not for me, thanks,’ Juliette answered. ‘Think I’m about ready for bed. How are you two getting on?’ she asked, wandering over towards Morton and Margaret.

  ‘It’s just amazing what’s out there,’ Margaret replied, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘You wouldn’t credit what he’s found about my grandfather this evening. So interesting!’

  ‘Oh, believe me, I know what he’s like with his research,’ Juliette said with a grin. ‘On that note, I’m off to bed. You coming up?’

  ‘Yes, I think we’ll call it a day, don’t you, Aunty Margaret?’


  ‘Only if we can carry on tomorrow.’

  ‘Fine by me,’ Morton answered, shutting the lid on his laptop. Morton said goodnight and headed up to the bedroom.

  ‘Sounded like you two were getting on pretty well,’ Juliette whispered, having pushed the bedroom door shut.

  Morton smiled and sat down on the edge of the bed and began to undress. ‘Yeah, it’s nice—just like old times, really. It’s been lovely finding out about my own family history for once, but I have this awful feeling that she doesn’t want to talk about what I’ve come here to talk about. I can just see the two of us researching her grandfather’s military career for all of Christmas, then we’ll head home having missed our opportunity.’

  ‘I’m sure she’s just waiting for the right time,’ Juliette said quietly. ‘She might just be showing you that nothing’s changed. For all you know, she might be thinking that you’re worried that she’ll jump into your mum’s place. She’s probably just letting you know that she’s still the same Aunty Margaret that she always has been.’

  Morton sighed. ‘Let’s hope so. I don’t want things to change between us, but I do want to discuss it.’

  ‘Let’s see what tomorrow brings, shall we?’ Juliette said, gently stroking his hair. ‘Come on, let’s get some sleep.’

  Morton put his night t-shirt and boxer shorts on and slipped into bed beside Juliette. He switched off the light, kissed her goodnight and began to replay all the information that he had just learnt about his great grandfather. In just a few short hours, Morton had learned a great deal about Charles. Having seen and read so much about the Great War, Morton wondered at what horrors Charles had seen and, ultimately, what had taken his life on the 26th December 1914.

  Chapter Two

  21st December 1914, Hazebrouck, Northern France

  Just a few months ago, seven am in Hazebrouck, Central Square would have contained only a handful of French men and women innocuously going about their daily lives, all unaware of the destructive war clouds looming in the distance. The heady aromas of fresh coffee and hot breads would have seeped into the air over the cobbled square, enticing passers-by on their way to work. Today, however, with most of the buildings overlooking the square solemn and all but closed down, the lack of locals was compensated for by the full complement of the Second Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment. They were standing, like a neatly sewn khaki blanket, in ordered rows waiting to board a fleet of motorbuses which had been requisitioned from England. The buses, with their hastily boarded-up windows and matching khaki paint, had been sent in order to move troops quickly and efficiently to the frontline. It was the second time that the Battalion had been in Hazebrouck. On the first occasion, they had marched there in a blizzard, arriving on the 19th November. They had stayed there for the remainder of the month, whilst reinforcements were brought in. Such were the losses experienced by the Battalion in the opening weeks of the war, that Charles now barely recognised the Battalion of old.