The Archers: to the victor the spoils

164 Pages·1988·5.09 MB·English

by  Jock Gallagher

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THE ARCHERS
TO THE VICTOR THE SPOILS

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(§T0 THE VICTOR THE SPOILS )
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Jock Gallagher
BBC BOOKS
Other titles in
the Archers series
RETURN TO AMBRIDGE
BORCHESTER ECHOES
Published by BBC Books
A division of BBC Enterprises Ltd
Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane, London W12 OTT
First published 1988
© Jock Gallagher 1988
ISBN 0 563 20599 7
Set in 10/11 Times Roman by Opus, Oxford
and printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk
CHAPTER ONE
The sun shone through the open window at Brookfield
Farm and Phoebe Archer hummed carelessly to herself as
she washed the red clay off her hands. She smiled at the
cheerful birdsong and watched with idle fascination as the
rivulets of water from the pump attacked the grime.
It was still only eight o’clock but she had been up for
more than a couple of hours already . . . not that she
minded, especially on a beautiful summer morning like
this, when the clean country air wafted through the house
in a gentle breeze.
Earlier, she had helped to milk the cows and then she’d
collected the eggs from the hen-coops. Now she had just
finished bringing in fresh vegetables for the mid-day
family meal, which had to be on the table by noon. A
hand-picked selection of carrots, parsnips and swedes lay
in the sink waiting to be scraped. That would be her next
job.
Phoebe Archer was born to be a farmer’s wife and she
enjoyed the hard work that went with it. She had married
a good man-John Archer was the best in Ambridge, she
believed - and had cheerfully become his unpaid labourer
and helpmate when he was lucky enough to get the
tenancy of the hundred-acre farm twenty years earlier
when he was only twenty-five. She had been very proud
the day they had moved into the big, oak-beamed
farmhouse.
For years they had tended the stock and tilled the rich
Borsetshire soil on their own. In those early days, cheap
as labour was, they couldn’t afford to take on any other
help. That meant working all the hours that God sent. . .
and a few they kept up their sleeves for emergencies!
Many was the day they had tumbled into bed after twelve
hours in the fields, too exhausted to even speak to each
other.
Now it was getting easier all the time and it wouldn’t be
long before young Daniel and Ben were back from the
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war and could join their father on the farm. Then she
wouldn’t know what to do with all her spare time,
Phoebe thought.
The water on her hands was icy cold but that wasn’t
what sent a shiver down her spine. It was the sudden
reminder of the war. It was nearly two years since
young Daniel had proudly announced that he had taken
the King’s Shilling and joined the Dorsetshire Regi­
ment. She could still remember vividly the shock and
despair she had felt when she learnt that he was going
off to fight the Germans.
Of course, she knew it was his duty, and she also
knew that she should be pleased and proud that he had
grown into such a fine young man that he hadn’t given a
thought for his own safety. Out loud, she had said all
the right things. She had told everyone she was pleased
and proud because that’s what everyone expected to
hear . , . but later that night, she had quietly cried
herself to sleep.
How she had managed to prevent herself crying in
public when the time came for him to leave, she would
never know. It had taken all her willpower to hold back
the tears for fear of embarrassing her son.
All the anguish had been repeated twelve months
later when Ben reached his nineteenth birthday and did
exactly the same thing. Both lads were now on active
service . . . somewhere in France, she presumed, but
she hadn’t heard from either of them in months and
couldn’t be sure of anything. The last thing she’d had
was one of those awful printed field-postcards from
Ben, with a tick against the line that said: “I am quite
well.” The cards were probably for poor lads who
couldn’t write. Phoebe couldn’t understand why her
Ben, who was perfectly capable of doing so, hadn’t
written a letter.
The sharp crack of a flare pistol somewhere over to the
left was followed by a brilliant light tearing a great hole
in the black night sky. Another crack, and away to the
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right a second very light shot into the air and hung
there, exposing the most forward position of the British
troops defending the Ypres Salient, in what some
people called the Great War.
Stranded in the narrow stretch of no-man’s-land
between the lines, young Ben Archer grovelled deeper
into the stinking mud and prayed that the enemy
wouldn’t be able to see him among the grim debris of
the war.
Forever, it seemed, he had suffered gut-wrenching
pangs of hunger and cold and tiredness and pain. From
the moment he and the battalion had first set foot in
this god-forsaken spot - was it France or Belgium? -
the reality of war had hit him. He knew it was still high
summer, but this was like no summer he had ever
experienced. No birds sang in this summer, and the
landscape had been swept clean of its lushness. Trees
and bushes and every blade of grass had disappeared.
Even when the sun did shine, it was upon a scene of
numbing desolation.
Back home in Ambridge - was it really only a year
ago? - he had accepted the picture of brave lads
fighting for their King and country. Fancying himself in
khaki, he hadn’t hesitated to follow his elder brother
Daniel into the Colours - a posting to the Front with
the Borsetshire Regiment had then represented the
opportunity for heroism, a chance to show the Ger­
mans that nothing could subdue the courage of the
fighting Tommy.
Now, in this hell-hole of waste that the officers called
the Ypres Salient and said must be held at all costs, Ben
Archer no longer felt hunger or cold, tiredness or pain.
He felt nothing but blind fear.
With mud in his mouth and his nostrils, he crawled
frantically towards the only cover there was - the body
of a dead comrade. The single pip on a torn epaulette
identified the corpse - newly-dead, Ben could tell,
because blood was still seeping from a terrible chest
wound - as a young officer. Ben had little concern for
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which of them it was and even less shame about hiding
behind the dead man.
Heavy machine-gun fire raked the battlefield. Ben felt
himself convulse in panic as bullets thudded into the
body. He pressed himself even harder into the mud. To
his horror the lifeless hulk - partially-lifted by the force
of the shells - twisted around and then slumped over on
top of him. He lay there staring dumbly into two
wide-open but unseeing eyes only inches away.
A scream formed somewhere deep inside him but was
immediately strangled by the greater strength of self-
preservation. Any noise from him would attract another
salvo of bullets.
There was nothing he could do to end the nightmare.
To push away the dead officer would be to leave himself
exposed to the flesh-tearing heavy shells and almost
certain death. But how long could he lie there in this
macabre embrace? Would his own death, after all, be
preferable? Wasn’t that the only way the war could end
for him anyway?
Just as suddenly as they had changed night into day,
the flares disappeared and darkness returned to the stark
battlefield. With it came an eerie silence. Ben couldn’t
be sure what held the greatest terror for him, the
crashing noise of gun fire or this deathly stillness. One
day, he vowed, he would be heroic . . . but not this time.
This time he would be satisfied to live to fight the hero’s
war another day.
Now came the agony of wondering if he was the only
one left alive on his side. With the moon hidden by
heavy rainclouds, he couldn’t see anything . . . nor
could he hear anything. Had everyone been killed?
Almost immediately, he knew that they hadn’t.
“Ben!”
His name was whispered from somewhere up in front
of him.
“Can you help me? I’ve been hit.”
At first he didn’t recognise the hoarse voice. Was it a
German trick to lure him out of his hiding place?
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