‘No, sir.’
Percy Flint sorted all the men’s clothes. Washing every morning. Chat watch every night, smoking lice from the seams of their shirts with the flame of a candle. Flint knew all about who kept what where, including their sewing kits, often loaned out his pink thread to those who needed a repair.
Ralph glanced at the married conscript. ‘You still got your fancy soap, Flint?’
‘Not much of it, sir.’
‘Got to pay for something like that, eh?’
Flint fingered the rim of the bowl, the water inside dirty now. ‘Do you think we’ll get a chance to play again, sir?’
Ralph lifted his tunic from a peg, shrugged it on, but didn’t button it. ‘I don’t know, Flint. Doesn’t seem likely after your stunt this morning.’
‘What about the pop ticket, sir? I’d like to have a go at that.’
Pawn ticket no.125, that small square of blue.
‘Me too, Flint. Me too,’ Ralph replied. ‘But I’m not sure the boy will play it again even if we could.’
‘You could offer the cap badge, sir. That might work. All the men are waiting for it.’
Ralph shifted. ‘Doesn’t belong to me, Flint. Hadn’t you heard.’
‘Finders keepers, though.’
The second lieutenant blinked, took his hands from his pockets, looked at Flint with those strange eyes. ‘That’s right.’
From the entrance hall below there was the sound of boots on the step, Fortune and his captain murmuring together. The men in the attic were silent for a moment. Then Ralph bent to peer into a small triangle of mirror propped on a shelf, fiddled with his hair.
‘I thought you’d be more interested in Fortune’s eau de cologne than a cap badge, Flint.’
‘Fortune won’t bet that, sir,’ said Flint. ‘Keeps it for other things. He likes to barter.’
‘You like to barter, too, don’t you?’
‘Depends what’s on offer, sir.’
‘This might be going begging.’
Ralph turned from the mirror and held a small tin towards Flint – a gentleman’s pomade. Flint stared at the thing.
‘And what might that be worth, sir?’
Ralph smiled, laid the container back on the shelf and began to button his tunic. ‘I’m wondering about your idea, Flint. Another little game. Unofficial.’
‘Sir?’
‘One round, winner takes all. Do you think there’d be any takers? I could put in the cap badge to sweeten the pot, see if we can’t tempt the new recruit.’
Flint grinned, teeth brown at their roots. ‘Walker would, sir. Stone, too. Hawes definitely won’t, might try to stop it.’
‘Hawes is a coward, Flint,’ said Ralph. ‘He won’t interfere.’
‘Not sure Methven will want to be involved, sir, if the captain hasn’t sanctioned it. But Jackdaw might if he thinks there’s a chance of the badge. No idea about the boy, but worth a punt. He was keen enough last night, couldn’t wait to take it all for himself.’
Flint and Ralph looked at each other for a moment, then Ralph brushed his hands down his tunic, tugged it straight at the bottom.
‘In the grain store then, in an hour. You spread the word.’
‘What about Fortune?’ said Flint.
Ralph ran his hand across his hair. ‘Leave the lucky man to me.’
An hour later, Bertie Fortune and his commanding officer walked out together, fording the overspill from the pond and climbing the field opposite as though they were two friends going for an afternoon stroll. They walked for a while as Godfrey explained what he wanted, Fortune nodding, a small pack slung across his back, his hands in his pockets, no attempt to make a note. Bertie Fortune never needed to write anything down. He was a man who didn’t like to leave a trail.
At the fold in the land, when Godfrey could see the grove of walnut trees small in the distance, they stopped and stood side by side, staring across the bare fields. The rain had softened, nothing more than smirr cloaking their faces and their tunics. In the distance a cloud of starlings whirled and wheeled. Godfrey noticed for the first time that his lucky man had not brought his rifle with him, as though he knew he would not be needing it anymore.
‘What will you do while I’m gone, sir?’ Fortune asked.
‘We shall wait, Bertie. As we have done every other day of this bloody war.’
Twelve hours there. Twelve back. Until his lucky man returned. By nightfall tomorrow, that was what they had agreed, Bertie Fortune marching back to his section with the answer his captain wanted in his hand. Fortune pulled at the corner of his moustache for a moment.
‘Will you let them play again, sir? While you’re waiting.’
‘I don’t think so, Fortune,’ Godfrey replied. ‘Tried that once. Onto something else now.’
‘The lieutenant won’t like it.’
‘Better return quick, then, hadn’t you.’
Bertie Fortune didn’t reply, stared out across the open fields. Then he turned towards his captain.
‘But if you do decide to play, sir, you should let the lieutenant win.’
‘And why’s that, Fortune?’ said Godfrey.
‘So that he doesn’t try another way.’
Godfrey sighed, unbuckled the new-fangled watch from his wrist, slid it into Bertie Fortune’s palm.
‘Keep it safe, Fortune,’ he said. ‘That’s all that matters now. And make sure you get what I asked in return. The men are depending on it.’
‘Sir.’
Fortune closed his fingers around the small disc of glass, slid his fist into his own pocket, brought it out empty as though nothing had gone on. They shook hands before he left, Godfrey holding on for a little more time than was proper, as though passing some secret between them. Then his lucky man was gone, walking away across the fields, Bertie Fortune in search of treasure, everybody’s fate in his hands.
Three
This time the game was played in the grain store, six men hidden amongst the washing sagging on the line, door pulled shut bar a crack for light.
Flint.
Walker.
Stone.
Alec.
Jackdaw.
And Promise.
Their captain gone to wander the fields with his lucky man – Second Lieutenant Ralph Svenson finally in charge.
One round. Sudden death. The chance to win back everything the men had lost the day before. Or all that had never been paid. Their playing area was a small green cloth, thrown across the chiff chaff by George Stone. One side of the cloth was plain, the other patterned with the symbols for Crown and Anchor. But Ralph Svenson preferred aces and kings to dice for this game, the opportunity for calculation rather than random chance. Stakes high. Insubordination of a different kind.
Ralph dealt the cards himself, tossing a round to each of the men, then called bets in. It was the section’s petty thief who led them off this time. Alfred Walker opened his hand and slid something onto the rough playing area. A piece of green ribbon, a snake of perfection in amongst the muck. The men all stared.
‘Where’d that come from?’ said Percy Flint. ‘Some lady’s knickers?’
‘You bloody wish, Flint.’ Walker grinned. ‘Came from a Jerry, that’s what I was told.’
Beach’s ribbon, the colour of an Irish summer, last seen attached to his pack like a pennant on a lance.
‘Bloody miser,’ muttered Flint, crossing his arms now. ‘Why didn’t you play it yesterday? Always keeping the best stuff for yourself.’
‘I’m betting it now, aren’t I?’ said Walker. ‘When I win, I’m gonna give it to my sweetheart, along with all the rest.’
‘You don’t have a bloody sweetheart.’
‘I will have when all this is over.’
‘What’s she going to do with a bit of ribbon from a dead Jerry?’ said Flint. ‘Trim her knickers with it?’
For once Walker ignored the married conscript. ‘She’ll hang my picture from it. Or tie it in her hair.’
> ‘What if she wants a different colour?’
‘Then I’ll trade it,’ said the petty thief. ‘Buy her a fox stole.’
‘What?’ Flint laughed, a mocking sound. ‘Something dead to drape about her neck.’
‘Now, now, boys,’ murmured George Stone. ‘Let’s play on, or the captain will be back. My turn next.’
Percy Flint subsided, two spots of colour on his cheeks as they waited to see what the old sweat had kept for best. George Stone reached into his pocket and pulled out something the men had not seen for several months now. An orange, its skin a little wrinkled. Alfred Walker whistled.
‘You bugger. Kept that quiet.’
Stone smiled, placed the orange in the centre of the playing area, leaned back with his arms crossed. They all knew that the orange was proper treasure, something every soldier would want.
Percy Flint went next, sliding his offering forwards – a gentleman’s pomade, faint scent of lemon lingering around the edges of the small circular tin. The men shifted, uneasy. They all knew where the pomade had come from, wondered what might have been offered in return. Second Lieutenant Ralph Svenson smiled, then fixed his gaze upon Promise across the opposite side of the circle.
‘What about you, Promise?’ he said. ‘Last chance to win.’
Promise blushed. ‘I’m not playing this time.’
Ralph smiled his slow smile. ‘What, gone the way of Hawes?’
Promise flushed, a raw colour at the base of his throat at the idea he might be a coward. Jackdaw couldn’t help himself.
‘Let’s see yours then, sir,’ he said, voice defiant. ‘That’s what we’re here for.’
‘Now, now, Jackdaw,’ replied Ralph. ‘No need to go off half-cocked. You first.’
The dark A4 boy scowled. Then he rummaged in his pocket, tossed Hawes’s tanner into the middle of the playing field, where it spun for a moment before settling. A cheap thing won on a bet over a chicken, expecting silver in return.
Ralph Svenson touched a finger to the scar on his forehead, glanced towards the fair A4 boy. ‘Can’t keep your treasure to yourself, eh, Promise.’
‘You bloody—’
It was George Stone who held Jackdaw back. ‘Keep calm, boy. Keep calm.’
But the second lieutenant had already turned towards Alec, anticipation lighting his strange eyes.
‘Now you,’ he said.
Alec reached forwards, dropped something on to the green cloth, sat back. The men all stared at the offering. A beech nut, safe inside its prickled shell.
Ralph swore. ‘What the hell is that?’
‘Nature’s bounty,’ said Alec.
Jackdaw laughed and Flint gave him a sour look.
‘Bloody rabbit food,’ he said. ‘Where’s the pop ticket?’
But Alec just shrugged, waited to see if the second lieutenant would take the bait or not.
In the bottom of a drainage ditch, a mile or so away, Captain Godfrey Farthing lay on his belly watching the river a few hundred yards ahead. The day was still damp, dew clinging to every leaf and grass stem, his uniform drenched, from collar to cuff.
As he studied the open ground on the far side of the water Godfrey could feel the one two beat of his heart at the thought of the afternoon sun catching on the buttons of his tunic, drawing the enemy fire. He had been lying in the ditch for an hour, now, maybe more, nothing to see but a spider running across its sodden web. But that didn’t mean the enemy were not in front of him, across that dark rope of water, a slow continuous flow.
As the sun began to fall towards the horizon, Godfrey rolled onto his back and let his gaze wander into the sky. A single crow flew steadily across his vision, grey clouds beginning to move above him, too. He closed his eyes, felt it seep through his body from beneath. Not cold, or damp, water oozing from every pore of the ground. But a strange peace coursing through every one of his veins; that terrible calm that comes when a man knows the end is coming, but not in the way he had imagined when he began.
It reminded Godfrey of that time when Beach was still alive, crouching beside his captain in the bottom of a trench, Godfrey stood on the fire-step staring at a newfangled watch strapped to his wrist as he counted down the minutes and the seconds, whistle cold against his lip. Next to him James Hawes had shifted in the mud, a nervous, twitching energy. Godfrey had reached out a hand and laid it for a moment on his sergeant’s sleeve.
‘You all right, Hawes?’ he had whispered, eyes still on the glass face of his wristwatch.
Hawes’s reply had been nothing more than a grunt. ‘Sir.’
But Godfrey had smelled the fear rising from the ex-meat man, then, like the smell that rose from a carcass that had waited too long to be cleaved.
After Beach was gone and Godfrey had received that letter from his father’s solicitor telling him his parents were gone, too, he’d stood on the fire-step once again and stared at the dark clouds shifting above him, thought how beautiful they were. The same stillness he felt now had settled on him then, as he gazed across No Man’s Land towards the hidden enemy, knew what he would do. He’d waited five minutes, ten perhaps, to see if anyone might stir. But there had been nothing more than the quiet chat of men further along the line, the rasp of an illicit match struck against the sole of a boot, the clink and jink of a rifle as Hawes shifted in his sleep once more.
Godfrey had reached out, touched the ex-meat man’s sleeve.
‘Goodbye, Hawes. I’ll be seeing you.’
Put a foot to the ladder, a hand to the top.
Then there’d been the wet slick of mud between his fingers as he scrambled over. One foot on the lip of the trench, then the other, until he was out. How marvellous it had been to stand untethered on open ground, body wide to the enemy, Webley still holstered, nothing between him and a sniper’s bullet but the glint of a watch strapped to his wrist.
Now that’s really something.
Waiting with his arms stretched wide for the men in grey to finally bring him down. Like Beach had been brought down, roses blooming across his second-best shirt, nothing left of the boy but those flat eyes staring at an empty sky.
Godfrey could still remember the smell of Hawes beneath him as his sergeant pulled him down. The stink, almost animal, like the mud that caked them all from skull to toe. Also the hammering of the ex-meat man’s heart as above them a thousand bullets suddenly traced the sky. Then the cold shock at realizing he was hit, blood seeping through Godfrey’s vest, through his shirt and his tunic, straight into Hawes’s eye. Yet still Hawes had clung on, holding his captain like a mother might hold her child. Godfrey Farthing still had the shrapnel beneath his skin to remind him of what his temporary sergeant had saved him from. Punishable by death in the worst-case scenario. A self-inflicted wound.
In the grain store, Second Lieutenant Ralph Svenson tossed it down. Not a silver cap badge, small lion raising its paw. But a dirty thing. An ordinary thing. All stuffed with needles and pins. Promise’s Housewife won on the turn of a knave the day before, but in the hands of their second lieutenant now.
‘Bloody thief!’ Jackdaw cried, jerking towards Ralph where he sat across the field of play.
‘Leave it, son.’ George Stone held on to the A4 boy by the collar as he scuffled and twisted, tried to get loose. ‘Not worth the trouble.’
Ralph laughed. ‘I think you’ll find it’s Walker who’s got the sticky fingers. Specially when there’s something in return.’
A ribbon, green as an Irish summer.
Alfred Walker blushed as Promise turned towards him, face shocked. But Jackdaw cared only about the second lieutenant.
‘You bastard, Svenson!’ he shouted. ‘Where’s the bloody cap badge? Flint said you’d play it. Why else d’you think we’re here?’
‘What badge?’ shrugged Ralph. ‘I don’t have it. Frisk me if you like.’
He stretched his arms wide then, as though offering Jackdaw a target. The A4 boy swore again.
‘I’ll kill you for this.�
��
‘Caw, caw, caw,’ cried Flint.
But Second Lieutenant Svenson just laughed at the spectacle he had created. ‘You can try, Jackdaw. But then you might end up in front of a six-man squad. We can get Hawes to do it. I’ve heard he’s good with the rifle.’
He turned his gaze to the crack in the grain-store door where James Hawes stood watching from the other side. Ralph stared at the temporary sergeant for a moment before turning back to scuff at Promise’s Housewife with his boot.
‘This is your chance, boys. Retrieve the evidence. Or shall I call Hawes in, have you locked in the shed?’
‘You fucking bastard –’
Ralph glanced once more towards the door, nothing to see now but a pale slit of light falling across the stone. Then he turned back to the A4 boy, his face a sneer now.
‘Well, Jackdaw. Do you want to play, or not?’
An hour later, the land on both sides of the river was quiet as Godfrey Farthing wriggled away, crawling through the drainage ditches and the water meadows until he was back where he began. He stood on the brow of the fold in the land watching the spot where his lucky man had left, Bertie Fortune getting smaller and smaller until he was swallowed by the afternoon mist, nothing but emptiness stretching out on all sides. The land here was beautiful, Godfrey thought, hardly a sign that only a few miles back the world had been devastated beyond repair. Nothing left but a landscape like the surface of the walnut he turned now in his pocket, all its tunnels and grooves.
Godfrey stared across the bare fields, imagining Bertie Fortune returning tomorrow with treasure in his hand. One more night to keep his men safe, until the end came. Then he turned to walk away himself. Back towards the farmhouse with its grain store and its two remaining chickens. Back towards the basket of walnuts in the kitchen. Back towards the water running in and out of the pond. He made it halfway home before the rain began.
Then he heard the shot.
1957
Jackdaw
The day dawned brighter than the last, buttercups sprinkled along the riverbank, two kinds of clover blooming in the field. Jackdaw watched from the windows of his turret, east, west, north, south, staring over the hayfield, bright in spring sunshine, towards where a river was hidden in a fold of the land. In his pocket his fingers searched for the prick of a tiny silver cap badge, time passing across his skin like water across shingle, all its little runnels and rills.
The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing Page 19