Instrument of Slaughter

The meeting was held in secret. Though they had similar views and shared objectives, they did not want to discuss them in a pub where they were likely to be mocked and vilified. In a time of war, pacifism was a stigma for able-bodied young men. Each one of them had his own collection of white feathers, contemptuous glances and harsh reproaches. Pressure to enlist grew more intense by the day.

‘Where’s Gordon?’ asked Cyril Ablatt, impatiently.

‘He swore that he’d be here,’ said Mansel Price.

‘Then why isn’t he?’

‘God knows!’

‘He can’t have forgotten,’ said Fred Hambridge. ‘It’s not like Gordon to be late. Shall I go and look for him?’

‘No,’ said Ablatt, firmly. ‘We’ll wait.’

Ablatt was the leader of the group and they’d arranged to meet that evening in the shed at the bottom of his garden. Small and cluttered, it was used as a workshop by Ablatt’s father in his spare time. Hambridge,
a carpenter by trade, was interested in the various tools on display, not that he could see them all by the light of the candles that provided the only illumination. There was no source of heat and it was bitterly cold. All three of them wore coats, hats, scarves and gloves. They’d been close friends at school and – though they’d gone off in different directions – war had brought them back together again. Ablatt was a tall, slim individual with striking good looks and a confident manner. He worked in the local library where he regularly fielded hostile questions about why he’d so far failed to join the army to fight for King and Country. He always defended his position in a polite but robust manner.

Hambridge was a big, ugly, misshapen, red-haired young man with freckled features and a look of permanent bewilderment. Alone of them, he came from a family of Quakers. Price, by contrast, was shorter, slighter, darker and of middle height. Proud of his Welsh roots, he was at once the most genial and combative member of the group. He worked as a cook for the Great Western Railway, travelling, for the most part, between Paddington and his native country.

‘They tried to put me on a military bloody train,’ he complained. ‘I told my boss it was against my principles to help the war effort in any way. He said that people like me couldn’t afford principles. I hate to say it but he had a point. I earn a pittance.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Ablatt, ‘you must stick to your guns.’

Price grinned. ‘I don’t believe in guns, Cyril.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I do and I don’t. We’re different, you and me. While you can get up on your hind legs and spout about pacifism for hours on end, I’m against conscription for a different reason. It’s a breach of my liberty, see? That’s what I resent. It’s the state, taking over my life, telling me what to do, what to wear, when to eat, drink and sleep and who to shoot at. I’m not having that. I’ve got rights and nobody is going to steal them
from me. I don’t hold with killing people,’ said Price, warming to his theme, ‘and never have – simple as that. No government on this earth is going to make me take up arms. In fact—’

He broke off as they heard footsteps approaching along the lane at the back of the house. The garden door creaked open and the steps got closer. Gordon Leach had arrived at last. Ablatt got up to confront him, flinging open the door as his breathless friend was conjured out of the darkness.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ he asked, accusingly.

Leach raised both hands. ‘Sorry – I got held up.’

‘This is an important meeting.’

‘I know that, Cyril.’

‘Then why did you keep us waiting?’

‘Let him in and close that bloody door,’ said Price. ‘It’s freezing in here.’

Ablatt stepped back so that the newcomer could enter the shed. Price was sitting on a wooden box and Hambridge was perched on the edge of the workbench. Closing the door, Ablatt took the only chair. Leach had to settle for an upturned bucket. He was a thin, pallid, fair-headed young man with a nervous habit of looking to left and right as he spoke, as if addressing a large and restive audience. After apologising profusely to his friends, he lapsed into silence.

‘Right,’ said Ablatt, taking charge. ‘You all know why we’re here. Until this year, recruitment was done on a voluntary basis. The Military Service Act changed all that. Conscription will come in to effect on March 2nd. Any man between the ages of eighteen and forty-one is likely to be called up unless he’s married, widowed with children or working in one of the reserved occupations. In other words, all four of us are liable.’

‘We simply tell them to bugger off,’ asserted Price.

‘It’s not as simple as that, Mansel,’ said Leach, worriedly. ‘We’d be breaking the law.’

‘There’s no law that can make me join the army.’

‘There is now.’

‘Then we bloody well defy it.’

‘That’s the point at issue,’ resumed Ablatt. ‘Are we all prepared to act together as conscientious objectors? Are we all ready to take the consequences?’

‘Yes,’ said Price, thrusting out his jaw.

‘Fred?’

‘I’ve been racking my brains to find a way out,’ said Hambridge, seriously. ‘I know this may sound daft but why don’t we make a run for it? We could head for Scotland and camp out until the war ends.’

‘You’re right,’ said Ablatt with a sneer. ‘It sounds daft because it
is
daft.’

‘We’d be escaping conscription, Cyril.’

‘You won’t get me freezing my balls off in the Highlands,’ said Price, angrily. ‘What are we supposed to live on? Where does the money come from?’

‘We have to do
something
,’ insisted Hambridge, turning to Leach for support. ‘What do you think, Gordon?’

‘Running away is not the answer, Fred,’ said Leach, clearly appalled by the notion. ‘I’ve got Ruby to think of, remember. We’re getting married this year. I can’t just run off and leave her.’

‘Ruby would understand. It’d only be for a short while.’

‘You should try reading the papers,’ suggested Ablatt, irritably. ‘They all say the same. This war will drag on and on. Why are they bringing in conscription if they think it’s all going to be over by Easter? Forget about Scotland.’

‘All right,’ conceded Hambridge. ‘Let’s make it Ireland, then.’

‘We’re not turning tail like frightened rabbits. We’re going to stay here and demand our rights as conscientious objectors.’

‘Then there could be trouble ahead, Cyril.’

‘That’s my worry,’ admitted Leach. ‘How far do we go?’

‘All the way,’ said Price, pugnaciously.

‘We lead by example,’ said Ablatt with passion. ‘We refuse to fight our fellow men on the grounds of conscience. It’s what any good Christian would do. We march under the banner of peace. Let them bring in their tribunals and whatever else they devise to coerce us. We must stand shoulder to shoulder against them.’ He rose to his feet and wagged a finger. ‘I’m a human being. I will not be turned into an instrument of slaughter wearing a khaki uniform. I will not kill, I will not inflict hideous wounds. I will not turn my back on the teachings of the Bible.’ He looked around the faces of his friends. ‘I know that Mansel won’t let anyone push him around. What about you, Fred? Are you ready to face the music?’

‘Yes,’ said Hambridge, stirred by his words. ‘I think I am.’

‘What do you believe in?’

‘Peace and universal friendship.’

‘Tell that to the tribunal when they haul you up in front of one.’ Ablatt’s eyes flicked to Leach. ‘That leaves you, Gordon.’

Leach licked dry lips. ‘I have to consider Ruby,’ he said, uneasily.

‘The only thing you have to consider is your conscience.’

‘But this will affect her, Cyril.’

‘No woman wants to marry a coward,’ said Price, ‘and that’s what you’ll look like if you don’t do what the rest of us are going to do. Ruby won’t thank you if you go off to war and finish up dead in some
rat-infested
trench like my poor dab of a cousin. That’s not bravery – it’s plain bloody stupidity. Are you going to let someone
dictate
what you’ve got to do? Well, I’m not – neither is Cyril and neither is Fred.’

‘We’ll take this to the bitter end,’ said Ablatt. ‘Join us, Gordon.’

Leach shivered as a blast of cold air blew in under the door. He turned up the collar of his overcoat and pulled his cap down over his forehead. It was easy for the others. They didn’t have his responsibilities. Ablatt
was a clever young man who’d educated himself and who knew how to put thoughts into words. Price could be bloody-minded whenever he felt that someone was giving him too many orders. Though he belonged to the Society of Friends, Hambridge did not follow Quaker doctrine slavishly but he was nevertheless a born pacifist. He was also strongly influenced by Ablatt and would always fall in behind him. None of the three was prepared to comply with the demands of conscription.

Wishing that he had their unshakable conviction, Leach tried to imagine what would happen in the event of refusal. While he hated the idea of bearing arms as much as any of them, he wondered if they should accept a compromise and help the war effort in a way that did not involve combat. About to suggest it, he saw the warning look in their eyes and realised that it was a waste of time. He was either with them or against them. Since he was too weak-willed to resist the general feeling, he had to accept it and did so with a defeatist nod.

‘That’s settled then,’ said Ablatt, reaching into his pocket to take out a leaflet. ‘I’ve been in touch with the No-Conscription Fellowship. It’s full of people who have the same beliefs as us. Take a look at this,’ he went on, handing the leaflet to Price. ‘The NCF is having a mass meeting here in London early in March and I think all four of us should be there.’

‘You can count on me, Cyril,’ said Price.

‘The same goes for me,’ added Hambridge.

‘I thought you’d be huddled in a tent up in Scotland.’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic, Mansel.’

‘It was your idea.’ Price read the leaflet. ‘This looks good. I like what I’ve heard about the NCF.’

‘It’s already got thousands of members,’ said Ablatt, ‘and many more will swell the ranks. We’ll be among them. Is that agreed, Gordon?’

Once again, Leach was the last to pledge himself. He’d already made one momentous decision that evening and it had left him in a state of
suspended fear. In the long term, there could be unimaginable horrors. In the short term, there was the problem of explaining to Ruby Cosgrove exactly what he’d agreed to do with his friends. And since they had limited leisure time together, she would not be happy to be told that he preferred to attend a public meeting instead of seeing her. He sought desperately for a way of escaping the commitment but none came to mind. Leach eventually capitulated.

‘I’ll
try
to come, Cyril,’ he bleated.

‘You’ll be there,’ said Ablatt, peremptorily, ‘or I’ll want to know the reason why.’

Leach’s heart sank.

The event was held in Devonshire House, the Quaker headquarters in Bishopsgate, a place that symbolised peace and goodwill. Organisers would later claim that almost two thousand people were crammed inside the building but there was a sizeable crowd outside as well and it was steadily growing. Fuelled by anger at the stance taken by conscientious objectors, hecklers yelled taunts, waved fists and issued wild threats. Soldiers on leave had come to see those they perceived as cowards and shirkers; miserable creatures, in their estimation, who lacked any sense of patriotism. Men who’d lost limbs or eyes in the service of their country added their voices to the hullabaloo. Women were just as ferocious in their denunciation, especially those who’d lost sons or husbands at the front. They couldn’t understand why anyone should be allowed to evade their duty so flagrantly when others had made the supreme sacrifice. It seemed unjust.

One truculent old woman, armed with a walking stick in the hope that she might have a chance to belabour someone with it, confided her feelings to all and sundry in a rasping Cockney accent.

‘It’s cruel, that’s what it is,’ she said, brandishing the stick. ‘Them what’s in there ought to be ashamed. I went to visit my husband in
prison yesterday. This woman told me they’d locked hers up for being a conchie. I said they ought to throw away the key and leave the swine behind bars for good.’ She stuck out her chin with pride. ‘My man’s in there for thieving. I mean, it’s a good, honest, decent crime – not like turning your back on your country.’

There was a surge of agreement from those around her and many other suggestions were made of suitably grim punishments for those who dared to resist conscription. Some boasted of attacks they’d made on conscientious objectors and were clearly expecting a major confrontation with them now. They wanted to hand out much more than a white feather. As the crowd grew ever bigger and more volatile, determination to take revenge hardened. A gang of sailors then joined the throng, emboldened by the beer they’d consumed in a nearby pub and roused to a pitch of fury when they’d heard about the meeting of the No-Conscription Fellowship. They weren’t content to shout abuse and hurl dire warnings. They wanted blood.

Uniformed police were on duty but their numbers were totally inadequate and, in any case, their sympathies were largely with the protesters outside the building. War had had a profound effect on them, depleting their resources as many colleagues rushed to enlist, yet widening the scope of their duties. In addition to keeping the peace and arresting criminals, they had to search for foreign spies, prevent sabotage, catch deserters, help to billet troops and perform dozens of other onerous duties unknown in peacetime. Protecting men who refused to bear arms was not an assignment that the majority of them could enjoy. They would show far more enthusiasm when arresting conscientious objectors and hauling them before a tribunal. For the time being, they were content to maintain a presence and rely on the power of their uniforms to keep violent disorder at bay. It was a power that was swiftly diminishing.

‘I didn’t know that this was going on for two days,’ said Leach, incredulously.