After Ralph had read them aloud there was absolute stillness in the yard, the men staring at the mud frozen now beneath their boots, all around the hard glitter of the frost. Ralph returned the orders to his pocket, buttoned them down, came to stand in front of George Stone, the old sweat, eyes lit with a strange, translucent glow.
‘We go now, Stone. Do a recce, get ourselves in a good position. Wait the night then attack at dawn. We’ll have their machine gun and a few more souvenirs in time for breakfast tomorrow.’
George Stone stared at his second lieutenant, gave a slow shake of his head. Ralph stared back. Then he turned towards the rest of the section.
‘Any man who doesn’t want to play can stay in the lean-to. Wait for the battalion to arrive.’
The men shifted inside their heavy boots. They all knew what the battalion meant. Court martial. Every single one. It was Percy Flint who made the first move, shuffling out of the line towards the second lieutenant, leaving a gap between him and the rest. Alfred Walker followed next, a quick step to stand beside Flint. Then Arthur Promise darted across, eyes down.
‘Don’t—’
Jackdaw’s cry was sharp in the cold air. Stone looked at the A4 boy with his cowl of black hair.
‘It’s all right, son. You can go, too.’
Watched as Jackdaw hesitated, then moved to stand by Promise again, hip bone to hip bone, cheeks stained the colour of wine. The second lieutenant had covered for the A4 boys once. They all knew he wouldn’t do it again.
Ralph turned to Alec.
‘What about you? Coming to join us? Or going to wander the fields with the rabbits?’
The new recruit didn’t say a thing, just stayed where he was, feet firm on the frozen ground, as though he had been planted there long before. Ralph laughed, a single high note.
‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘We’ll play for it. First to pull an ace gets to stay behind. I think you can help with that, Flint.’
The married conscript slid a pack of cards from his trouser pocket, handed it to Ralph. The cards were decorated with black-browed ladies, pink roses in their hair. Ralph grinned.
‘Nice pack, Flint.’
Flint flushed. ‘What’s mine is yours, sir.’
‘Thank you, Flint. If the accountant was here, I’m sure he’d agree.’
Stone spat into the manure heap to the side of the barn door. ‘What’s going on, Hawes? Thought you were meant to be in charge here.’
Hawes didn’t reply, fixed his eyes on the tips of his boots instead, fingers twitching as though they would never stop. Ralph ignored the old sweat, sifted Flint’s cards from one hand to the next. A soldier’s pack – the Almanac and Bible. A ten for the Ten Commandments. A four for the four evangelists. Two for testaments Old and New. And the ace of course, the one true saviour, God in all his glory handing down the luck. When he was done, he fanned the cards out before Alec.
‘You first,’ he said.
Alec shook his head. ‘No thanks.’
‘I insist.’
‘Not bloody likely.’
There was a sudden burst of cards in the air, so quick none of them realized Alec had done it, knocked aside Ralph’s offer and set the pack a-sail. Tens and sevens. Fours and aces. Queens. Knaves. Hearts. Clubs. Diamonds scattering amongst the frozen muck. Ralph stood for a moment staring at the cards about his feet, a boy again, anger in his eyes. Then he blinked, two patches of colour high on his cheeks, reached for his gun.
The dog began to bark. A sharp yip yip sound bouncing off the stone buildings of the yard, over and over. Ralph turned the Webley once in his hand, then lifted it and pointed it at the new recruit.
‘Keep that dog quiet, can’t you.’
A casual kind of gesture, as though he was about to shoot a chicken. All the other men froze, Percy Flint slipping on the icy ground as he twisted his body from the second lieutenant as though to avoid a blow. But Alec stayed standing, hands at his sides, chest open to the barrel of the gun. The barking of the dog crescendoed, a loud yap yap puncturing the air like a gun of its own. Ralph scowled, pale eyes fixed on the new recruit.
‘Shut that bloody thing up, I said.’
But still Alec didn’t move. So Ralph turned and lifted the revolver, shot the dog instead.
The dog tumbled on its back, yelping and squealing, squirming like a rabbit caught in a trap. Promise squealed, too, turned away. Hawes cried out, flitter flutter hands upon his ears. Alfred Walker laughed, a high, nervous pitch. George Stone went white as a dead man. Alec made for the dog.
‘You bastard!’
But Ralph pointed the gun at him again, arm straight out as he’d been taught.
‘Why don’t you lead,’ he said. ‘They like fresh blood, the Jerries. That’s what I’ve been told.’
Methven’s skin was like ice when Godfrey said goodbye. Like the sweat across Godfrey’s back as he imagined Second Lieutenant Ralph Svenson’s fingers in and out of all his precious things. Picking through his captain’s stuff like some sort of pocket thief, searching for treasure. Because he was bored. Because war was not what he had imagined it might be. Because he liked to play. Nothing more than another boy soldier. Like Alec. Like Beach.
Now that’s really something.
Lying dead in the filth, just as Archie Methven was lying on the empty road now.
‘I still think it would be better to get help, Archie,’ Godfrey had insisted, as his accountant leaned more and more to the side. ‘Hawes will keep the second lieutenant at bay until I’ve returned. Then you’ll see your boy again. And the rest of us will wait it out till the end arrives. It must be near now.’
But Methven had lain back then as though the whole world was lying on him.
‘Hawes won’t stop him, sir,’ he said. ‘If it comes to it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They did a deal, sir. Him and the lieutenant.’
‘What deal?’
‘Safe passage,’ the accountant replied. ‘For when the moment comes.’
Archie Methven was still breathing as Godfrey walked away, his cheeks and his lips furred as though frost had already set in. It was only from the small puffs of vapour escaping from the accountant’s mouth that Godfrey could tell his man was still alive. He watched for a few seconds as he stood in the middle of the road, waiting for one, then another, no more than a heartbeat in between. Then he looked down the road towards where they had been going. Set off back the way they had come.
Two
It began with confusion and ended in disaster. The crawl through a swamp to a river they could not breach. Water too deep to wade through. Nothing on the other side but a bare field of stubble to cover their approach. Some of them had seen worse. Men drowning in mud while their friends walked by. Others left to hang upon the wire. But Ralph could not be persuaded. He had never seen anything like that.
In the end it was George Stone, the old sweat, who went first, squirrelling along at the head of the section, crawling through the frosted grass with his second lieutenant close behind. Stone did not trust any of the younger men to do a reckoning that was worth the name, wanted to make sure that whatever happened they had the best advantage in the end. It took them half an hour of walking, and half an hour of sliding and squirming, soaked from the belly down within ten minutes of setting out. By the time they got to a reconnaissance position, heads down in the grass as they tried to catch their breath, their helmets were like ice, fingertips sticking to the rim. But their bodies were slick to the skin with the sweat of it. An assault on the river at last.
‘You are fucking joking.’
Despite what he had seen and done, even George Stone could not believe what lay ahead once he surveyed the task. Less than a mile from the target, the low land in front, the slow incline on the other side. There were bushes and clusters of grass at the top of the hill opposite offering plenty of cover – but only for the enemy. And between them the river, slow and deep, a skein of silver grown on top now.
Stone hawked into the cold ground.
‘They’ll have us like the chickens.’
‘Not if we surprise them.’ Ralph’s voice had taken on a breathless air.
‘With what, sir? A wishbone to keep the bullets off? Or a white bloody flag.’
George Stone had made sure they had both. Wouldn’t let Ralph leave until they’d at least got in some supplies.
‘We can’t fight a sortie without them,’ he’d said. ‘We’ll be blasted.’
Organized the makings, such as they were. Biscuits and tobacco. Ripped sheets for field dressings. Knives sharpened against the handle of the pump.
‘And grease your bloody Enfields,’ he’d instructed the men. ‘No room for jamming.’
If they were going to walk into battle, Stone had thought, they might as well be prepared.
In the yard, the men had packed and repacked, laid out weapons on the straw. Lee Enfields and knobsticks. What ammunition remained. There was even a knife, glimmering in the afternoon light. Officially they still used bayonets, eight daggers gleaming in the dawn as they stabbed and gouged. But most of the men preferred German souvenirs if they could get them. Short-bladed things, nicked and pitted, bought from behind the lines or scavenged on a trench raid, like the one Fortune bartered with Methven, long ago.
Once it was all laid out, George Stone had surveyed the weaponry spread on the ground. A ragged collection of arms, he’d thought, just as they were a ragged collection of men. An assortment of young boys and an old sweat held together by clothes borrowed from dead men, knew that it was a disaster just waiting to unfold.
While the men organized themselves outside, Ralph sat in the captain’s parlour, Webley at his hip. His heart pulsed in his throat as he began counting down the hours until twilight, as he counted out his treasure, too.
A wishbone.
A tanner.
A reel of pink cotton.
Laid along the edge of the parlour table, next to the water stain.
The heel of Ralph’s boot tap tap tapped on the stone floor as he rubbed one finger across the cut on his forehead, the wound a little swollen. Then he began stuffing his pockets with the little treasures, all his own now.
Ralph had made Hawes do the job, lined the men at the pump after the dog had been shot, got them to empty their pockets so that he could see who still had what. In the background the dog had writhed and whined as the temporary sergeant frisked each one, produced the usual medley of matches and pennies, a small screw of tobacco here and there. He got the green ribbon from Alfred Walker. A handful of walnuts from George Stone. Jackdaw had tossed in a shiny brass button, Promise a couple of hips from a hedgerow. Percy Flint offered his gentleman’s pomade. Ralph had watched as it all came out, then made the men stand by as he picked everything through. Until he came to Alec Sutherland’s contribution. A beech nut in its prickled shell.
Ralph had leaned towards the temporary sergeant then, whispered, Hawes right in Alec’s face as he demanded to know:
‘Where’s the bloody pop ticket?’
Percy Flint shouting, ‘Walker, you thieving bastard. Let’s see it.’
Alfred Walker pulling his empty trouser pockets inside out for all to see, nothing but a tiny piece of stiffened orange peel dropping to the ground. Beside him Jackdaw had jittered, his black cowl of hair dark against his pale skin. Next to him Promise looked as though he was dead already, his eye sockets huge, his jawbone pressing through. He had a greenish tinge to his face as though he had been sick once that day, wouldn’t take that much for him to spew again. But Alec just stood impassive, refused even to flinch.
Hawes had gone to it then, without even being asked. Thick fingers into every pocket and fold of the new recruit’s clothes, pulling Alec’s shirt from his waistband, forcing his tunic off. As though the boy was the enemy, rather than a man on their own side. When the temporary sergeant was finished, he’d turned to Ralph and unfurled his fist to reveal a pawn ticket, no.125. That small splash of blue.
Ralph took the ticket from Hawes’s palm, grinned as he held it to the sun, two tiny eyes shining back. Then he wrapped it carefully in a piece of waxed cotton to keep it dry, slid the slip into his top pocket, next to the orders, buttoned them down above his heart.
It was George Stone who held on to Alec as the boy struggled and slid on the frozen mud, trying to get his property back, the only thing he had left of his mother. They could all hear him crying as the old sweat held tight, Stone’s grip strong enough to leave a crescent of finger marks along Alec’s wrist, should the boy live long enough for them to bloom.
‘Don’t do it, son,’ Stone hissed. ‘Or he’ll shoot you here and now.’
The dog, crying too, had already dragged itself halfway across the yard towards the barn as though to safety when Ralph turned on his heel. Returned to the parlour with its wooden lockbox and its table with the water stain, to lay out the treasure for himself.
Later, when the men were packed and loaded, Alec tending to the dog’s wound as best he could while the rest waited until the sun went down, Hawes came to see Ralph in the parlour to let him know they were ready. The second’s face was hollow, cloaked in the grey of twilight, strange eyes flicking here and there. Hawes stood at the parlour door as though he didn’t want to enter.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ he said.
‘Of course.’
Ralph didn’t look at his temporary sergeant.
‘We can wait if you want to,’ Hawes said. ‘See what happens tomorrow. When the captain returns.’
‘Why would we do that?’
Ralph’s voice was sharp. Hawes looked away.
‘The men are ready, then, sir. When you are.’
Ralph nodded. Then he shoved his chair back, an abrupt push, went out in the yard.
All the men were watching as Ralph took Hawes by the arm, escorted him to the chicken shed, pushed the temporary sergeant inside, dropped the bar across the door. Second Lieutenant Svenson did not want a man who was afraid of blood causing trouble on his foray. But more than that, he had learned one thing on this whole adventure.
Pay one’s debts.
James Hawes had sold Ralph the captain’s orders. In return for safe passage when the moment came.
Now, with darkness drawn around them like a cloak, Ralph Svenson lay on the bank next to Stone staring across to where the enemy were staring back at him. He could feel it still, fear hammering against his breastbone as he fumbled for the dice in his pocket, turned them over and over again.
‘Are they even there, do you think?’ he whispered to Stone.
‘Let’s bloody hope not,’ Stone replied. ‘Cos if they are, we’re buggered.’
Ralph shivered, a sudden ripple up and down his body. ‘Why don’t we stay until midnight, take them then.’
‘And see with what?’ said Stone. ‘No fireworks here, sir. End up shooting each other.’
‘So we wait,’ said Ralph. ‘Cross just before dawn.’
‘We might be dead by then, sir,’ said Stone. He wasn’t joking. There was ice all across the river, everything stiff with the cold.
Ralph was silent for a moment, considered the relief of retreat, whispering the order to the men. Pull back. Pull back. Returning to the farmhouse, the kitchen still warm with the last of the embers, the barn waiting with its soft mounds of hay. Nobody would know, he thought, except the men here. And they would do whatever he wanted now. He squeezed his eyes closed, opened them again to grass grey on the ground in front, frost on his tunic sleeve. All around the darkness pressed against him, while above the sky soared like the roof of a great cathedral open to it all. Ralph shivered again, blood frozen in his fingertips.
If this was not living, what was?
‘Dawn it is,’ he said. ‘The beginning of a new day.’
They waited. And they waited. As though they were in the trenches again. Six men and their commanding officer, huddled together trying to keep warm.
Flint.
And Walker.
Stone.
And Jackdaw.
Promise.
And the new recruit.
Enough for a firing squad, should a firing squad be required.
They attempted to sleep top to tail, like rabbits in a burrow. Hands tucked into armpits. Feet curled beneath their coats. Their breath clouded above their heads as the single stars came out above them, pricking at the sky. Near midnight George Stone handed round a ration and they nibbled on the edge of hard biscuits, took a tot of water mixed with brandy from a flask passed between them before they bedded down again. Soon enough their lips were frosted, their ears and their fingers numb, rifle triggers slippery beneath their fumbled hands.
Stone lay at the edge of the group, listening to the slip and sigh of the men’s breath coming over and over as they sat out the hours. He counted in his head. One tin of M&V. One of Nestlé. One pack of tea. Thought of the eggs Promise used to bring him, warm and speckled, held in the flap of the A4 boy’s shirt. Next to him he could feel Percy Flint twitching and shifting beneath his coat, praying for the bugle no doubt, that long cool note that would signal all was well. Beside Flint, Walker would be dreaming of the promised land, traversing its golden pavements with a girl on each arm. And Alec, the new recruit, walking in the clover, rabbit trap in his hand.
Stone rubbed his frozen hands against his thighs, blew onto his fingers and thought of Hawes shivering in the chicken shed. That fucking coward. Worse than a pervert or a thief, wasn’t even here to see what he had done. What would it take, Stone wondered, to stop the young lieutenant making a martyr of them all? A slow withdrawal, one man after another sliding back through the swamp to the safety of the farm before Svenson woke. But Stone had seen the price for desertion close up, smelt it in his nostrils every day since. Whatever happened next, he didn’t want that to be his legacy once the thing was done.
In the end it was Alfred Walker who started it, the men awake again, restless and shifting in amongst the frozen grass as the clocks ticked down to dawn.
‘I vote we go back,’ he said, his teeth an unstoppable chitter chatter, still an hour to go. ‘No way we can stay out any longer. Come back once the sun is up and take them then.’
The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing Page 31