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

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  ‘Gosh, what an awful time for him,’ Margaret lamented once they had reached December 1914. She sighed and tried to stifle a yawn. ‘Sorry!’

  ‘No, it’s getting a bit tiring now,’ Morton said, stretching out. ‘Shall we have a break?’

  ‘We could do and I could put the kettle on. Or, a better idea: why don’t you just read what he was doing exactly one hundred years ago today, then maybe read the next entry tomorrow?’

  Morton smiled. It wasn't exactly his usual style of genealogical investigation, but he could see how delighted Margaret was with her suggestion. ‘Yeah, that’s a lovely idea. Hang on then.’ He returned his focus to the laptop screen. ‘22nd December 1914. We relieved the Seaforths commencing at 7.30am but did not actually finish the relief until 3.20pm. The chief cause of which was the appalling state of the communication trench. During the time we were relieving, the enemy collected in large numbers behind the houses in the orchard and attacked the Lancs, succeeding in bombing them out of their trenches. This line had to be dug during the night 22nd/23rd. Some of the Germans got into the left of our fire trench and the left of our support trench. We constructed barriers and bombed each other vigorously. The fire trench on the right of our line was exceedingly wet, one half of the company had to stand waist deep in water until we were relieved on the 23rd by the Grenadier Guards. Lieutenant Williams and one rank and file killed.’

  Morton exhaled slowly as he considered the words he had just read. Just like all the other entries which detailed what must have been awful circumstances for the men involved, it was written in such a blasé, detached way as to render him speechless.

  ‘Makes you wonder how on earth anyone survived…’ Margaret uttered. ‘I mean, you can’t imagine just standing in a wet, muddy trench all night having previously been bombed and seeing your comrades killed day after day.’

  ‘Awful,’ Morton said. ‘Just awful.’

  ‘I’m kind of glad we’re not reading anymore tonight.’

  ‘Me too,’ Morton agreed.

  ‘Shall we have a cuppa?’ Margaret suggested.

  ‘Or we could go down the pub and join Uncle Jim and Juliette for a quick nightcap?’ Morton said with a grin.

  Margaret nodded. ‘Let’s go.’

  Chapter Five

  22nd December 1914, Le Touret, France

  The company sang, without conviction, banal repetitive songs that spoke of home and of victory, as they marched wearily like a long column of ants. Charles Farrier was not singing. The greatcoat on his back seemed to be getting heavier with every new drop of rain. It felt as though for every mile he had marched, another concrete block had been added to his load. They had marched roadside from their comfortable billets in Le Touret, heading to the front, passing medical facilities, gun lines, storage depots and shelled deserted homes, whose occupants had long since fled. During the last mile, war traffic in both directions had increased substantially, with motorbuses and horse-drawn carriages busy parcelling soldiers to and from the front.

  Charles raised his nose into the air; there was a definite smell lingering, which was particular to an entrenched war zone: it was the smell of mud, death and decay.

  Glancing at a row of shattered wagons and horses in various states of decomposition, Charles failed to hear the large motorbus roaring behind him. A sudden wave of grey water sprayed over Charles’s puttees and boots. He looked up angrily and went to shout out, but then he saw those being transported in the bus: men in shredded khaki with various parts of their bodies and souls left behind in the trenches. Men who stared out, unblinking into the abyss, unable to articulate their individual horror.

  Charles returned his focus to watching the footfall of the man in front, trying to dismiss every other thought from his mind; but it was impossible. In just four months, he had witnessed and endured so much.

  After being shelled heavily outside Ypres, the Battalion had been ordered to move on and help restore the line at Zandvoorde. However, disaster had struck when their Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Roland, had taken a short cut across open countryside, causing the horse upon which he rode to bolt towards the heavy fire. The Commanding Officer had been killed instantly. The Battalion had forged ahead, soon occupying frontline trenches, directly battling against heavy German artillery and gunfire.

  Charles recalled with consternation what had happened next and how he was lucky to have survived. When Battalion scouts had discovered that German troops, armed with heavy machine guns, had occupied a section of nearby trench and part of Château Wood, the Battalion had been divided to attack the enemy. Charles and the rest of ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ companies had been ordered to advance across open country towards the German positions in the wood, whilst ‘D’ company attacked the trenches. Part way across the field, the Germans had opened fire and Charles had watched with renewed horror, as his friends and comrades had been cut down in front of him. The cries, the pleas for help and the anguished yelling of men realising that their life was about to come to an abrupt end had risen into the trees, merging with gunfire, explosions and German voices: a cacophony of violent death and despair. The Battalion had been ordered into yet another retreat. Charles had survived. Fifty-six men from the Battalion had not.

  The singing began to fade and the men in front of Charles seemed to react to something. He looked up and realised that they had reached the opening of the first sinuous communication trench.

  Charles drew in a sharp breath and felt his chest tighten. ‘Here we go, then,’ he muttered.

  ‘Let’s do it!’ Len remarked, sharing in the jaunty joie de vivre that was oft rehearsed at the front, but increasingly rarely believed.

  The mouth of the communication trench drew them inside, one by one. Their songs were over. Their voices were silenced. Their pace slowed.

  Narrow and curved, the trench had suffered badly from the inclement weather. The floor was one thick, solid carpet of mud that reached out for each soldier’s feet, sucking them down, unwilling to release its grip.

  ‘Come on, we haven’t got all day,’ shouted Buggler at the entrance of the trench.

  In front of him, soldiers bit their tongues as they physically picked up their feet from the consuming trench base, their progress to the front being made one slow step at a time.

  Charles turned to speak to Jones, his friend from ‘B’ Company, who was directly behind him, but the mud refused to allow his foot to swivel, sending Charles sliding forwards. ‘Damn this bloody place,’ he cursed under his breath, as he corrected himself and rubbed his hands down the sides of his greatcoat.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Farrier?’ Buggler barked. ‘Is there a problem here?’

  ‘No, nothing, sir,’ Charles replied.

  Slowly and painfully across eight long hours, the Seaforth Highlanders dragged themselves out of the front line and the Second Battalion dragged themselves in, with the various companies being distributed throughout the trench system.

  With a deep satisfaction evident on his lopsided grin, Buggler directed Charles and the rest of ‘A’ Company to the right-hand side of the fire trench; the part which was severely flooded.

  The men silently obeyed their orders, shuffling themselves ever deeper into the foetid water, their rifles raised, surrender-like, high above their heads.

  Charles felt each layer of clothing progressively and quickly yielding to the invading, freezing water; he wore no garment capable of holding it back.

  The company were ordered to stand, rifles bayoneted and ready at the fire trench until they could be relieved. A day of pumping and shovelling around the clock had done little to improve the situation.

  Darkness seemed to descend rapidly, as if it had fallen with the pervasive rain that continually fed the stagnant water in the trench.

  Charles Farrier stood shivering. The water had reached his groin and was continuing to rise. Unable and unwilling to talk to his unseen comrades in the fire bay, he simply stared ahead and prayed that relief would
come soon.

  Suddenly, from somewhere over to his left, a barrage of rifle fire and muted shouts filled the night sky. The men in Charles’s bay looked out in the direction of the noise, but could see nothing.

  Some time later, the men were roused from whatever state of cocooned silence they had managed to get themselves into when a loud explosion ripped open the trench less than a hundred yards away.

  Charles listened as rifle fire erupted, almost masking the blood-curdling screams of injured men, which rose violently into the sky.

  Within minutes, the unmistakable crack of return artillery fire from the Allied trenches resounded in the air, exploding seconds later, ripping callously through mud, wood, wire and flesh.

  ‘Sounds like Fritz is in for a pummelling tonight,’ Leonard said with a feeble laugh.

  Agreement came from several half-hearted laughs in the fire bay.

  ‘Yes, but it sounded like we took a pummelling, too,’ Charles said solemnly.

  If any replies were forthcoming, then they were drowned out by the deafening roar of multiple rounds of artillery fire from both sides.

  A waft of cordite drifted across the trench, an odious echo from the relentless pounding that each trench was receiving.

  ‘There’ll be more casualties tonight, yet,’ Charles muttered to himself, suddenly grateful to be standing waist-deep in freezing, muddy water.

  Chapter Six

  23rd December 2014, Cadgwith, Cornwall, England

  Morton couldn’t sleep. It was the vicious combination of too much alcohol the night before and his mind being besieged jointly by thoughts of his birth and thoughts of his great grandfather’s untimely death in the First World War. He leant across to his mobile and checked the time: Five forty-eight. Despite being desperate for sleep, he knew that it wouldn’t come now. He also knew that his Aunty Margaret would right now be downstairs baking some cake or other. It seemed to be a Farrier trait to get up at the crack of dawn come hell or high water; a trait he desperately hoped wouldn’t be locked away in his genes, dormant and waiting to be ignited.

  Morton swung his legs out of bed and, in the near-blackness of the bedroom, fumbled about for his slippers and dressing gown. He deftly stole from the room, gently closing the door behind him.

  Downstairs, as expected, he found Margaret with a smudge of flour across her face, and up to her arms in cake mixture.

  ‘Morning—a bit early for you, isn’t it?’ Margaret greeted.

  ‘Morning, Aunty Margaret,’ he replied, waiting for his tired brain to wake up before more conversation could happen. ‘Too early.’

  ‘Nonsense. Best part of the day.’

  Morton took a seat at the kitchen table and flaked dramatically onto his arms. ‘That’s what Dad would say,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Come on, now, Morton. Fix yourself a coffee and get on with some research!’ Margaret said playfully.

  Morton groaned, although the idea appealed to him. It’s a good time to take advantage of Juliette being asleep, he reasoned.

  ‘I’ve dug out my old box of family papers and what-have-you—thought you might find it of interest. There’s also a photo of Grandad Len in his uniform.’

  Morton sat up, his interest piqued.

  ‘It’s in the lounge. Probably nothing much in there to help you with Grandad Farrier’s war service, but worth having a rummage.’

  Morton made himself a strong coffee and wandered into the lounge. Margaret had lit a fire some time ago, but it had yet to take the edge off the chilliness. He pulled his dressing gown tightly around him and sat down on the floor beside the plastic storage box. On the top of the box rested an image of a First World War soldier. Morton picked it up and studied it carefully. It was a sepia studio portrait, printed onto a standard postcard—a common practice amongst men about to leave for the front.

  The man in the photo, proud and handsome, had brown hair and a neat pencil moustache, which sat over a straight, serious mouth. There was a warm familiarity to his dark young eyes. He wore a standard khaki serge tunic with knee-length khaki puttees. Around his waist and over his shoulders was the 1908 pattern Mills Webbing equipment supporting two sets of five pouches.

  Morton flipped the postcard over. On the back was handwritten, ‘August 1914.’ In front of it, a word or series of words had been entirely obliterated by heavy black scrawl. He held the picture up for a closer inspection and briefly considered scanning it in high resolution to try and determine the words that somebody had deemed it necessary to remove, but the thickness of the censoring was such as to make its revelation impossible.

  Turning over the image in his hand, Morton stared at the face. So naïve and ignorant of what the next four years would bring him. He was very lucky to survive unscathed for the entire duration of the war, Morton considered.

  ‘Did you say that Len was a prisoner of war?’ Morton called into the kitchen.

  ‘That’s right. Don’t know much more than that,’ Margaret answered with a chuckle.

  Morton considered that being a prisoner of war was probably what had saved him.

  ‘There’s a couple of postcards from him in that box,’ Margaret added.

  Morton set the photo down and carefully lifted the lid of the storage box. Inside, he was greeted with a random assortment of papers, and family detritus, whose discolouration testified to their age.

  ‘Do you mind if I take photos of some of the documents?’ Morton called.

  ‘Oh, no, go ahead. No worries. I’m glad someone’s taking an interest in it all—Danielle and Jess aren’t really bothered.’

  ‘Great.’ With a flurry of anticipation, Morton began to work his way through the box, which ranged in content from serviettes emblazoned with Margaret and Jim’s silver wedding date, to original certificates. Among the collection were Margaret’s birth and marriage certificates, his grandparents and Alfred and Anna’s marriage and their death certificates. He studied and photographed each item, adding relevant details to his growing Farrier family tree as he progressed. From a batch of well-preserved burial board records and notices from the Poor Law Guardians in Lambeth, Morton deduced that Charles Ernest Farrier’s early life in London had been blighted by extreme poverty, his parents having been taken to a pauper’s grave in their early forties.

  ‘This is a real treasure trove, Aunty Margaret,’ Morton called. ‘Most genealogists would kill to have these records.’

  ‘I’m not sure why or how I ended up with them after Dad died, but there you have it.’

  Morton next found an original marriage certificate for Charles Ernest Farrier and Nellie Ellingham. It was dated 14th June 1912 and took place in the Eastbourne Wesleyan Chapel. Morton wondered if Charles had ended up in Eastbourne in search of a better life outside of London. Certainly he had remained in the town, as Alfred’s birth certificate confirmed it to have been his place of birth. He noted with interest that one of the witnesses to the ceremony was Leonard Sageman, who would later marry Nellie following Charles’s death.

  Finally, he reached the only items pertaining to the First World War: two postcards from Len to Nellie. The first was of a vignetted, beautiful woman gazing sidewards with a happy, smiling face. The postcard had been crudely hand-tinted to enliven the drab sepia. ‘January 1915,’ Morton began quietly, ‘My Dearest Nell, Just to let you know that I am A1 & still smiling. I am in a POW camp - Garrison Lazarette - in Münster. I’ve been receiving treatment following a minor skirmish—nothing to worry about. Still receiving parcels & letters here. I hope you have been able to sort out the insurances and that Charlie’s will that I sent you has been officially recognised. Please write with your new address as soon as you have moved. With fond regards, Len.’

  Morton set the postcard down and picked up the next. On the front was an embroidered basket of violets with the words ‘To Nell’ sewn in neat purple letters at the bottom of the card. Morton flipped it over and read aloud. ‘18th March 1915. My Dearest Nell, Thank you for your lovely long letter and p
arcel. I am happy that you have settled into your new home near Canterbury. No doubt you will be missing Gwen and Dorothy, but you will soon make new friends. I’m sure it’s for the best. I am still A1 and fighting fit. I have moved to another camp - Reserve Lazarette, Bergkaserne. Good doctors. Dreadful food. Will close now. Love, Len.’

  Now fully awake, Morton jotted down the salient points from the postcards on his notepad. He was particularly intrigued by Nellie’s moving near to Canterbury in 1915. He suspected that, as a widow with a young son, she was unable to continue living at her previous residence in Eastbourne. He looked at the burgeoning Farrier family tree, with the new additions of birth, marriage and death dates taken from the various certificates in his Aunty Margaret’s collection. One certificate notably missing was Nellie’s marriage to Leonard Sageman. He carefully double-checked the bundle of certificates, but it was definitely not there.

  After carefully placing the documents back inside the box and reattaching the lid, Morton took his notepad and pen to the table and opened up his laptop to confirm Nellie and Len’s date of marriage. After a quick few taps on the keyboard, the Findmypast website told him that the marriage had taken place in the March quarter of 1919 in the district of Canterbury. Luckily for him records for St Peter’s Church, in which the marriage had taken place, had been scanned and entered onto the website as part of their Canterbury Collection. Seconds later a scan of the whole page, containing four original marriage entries was presented onscreen. Morton zoomed in and read the entry. They were married, by licence, on the 14th January 1919, both of them residing in the village of Westbere. Leonard’s occupation was noted as ‘Painter & decorator’ and both the bride’s and groom’s fathers were listed as deceased. The ceremony was witnessed by one George Clarke and one Maisie Worboise.