My Brother’s War

Part 1: At First-2

Edmund shook his head. He’d worked all this out in the weeks since he’d replied to the Conscription Board. ‘No, thanks, Tim. I’m—’

The other policeman shouted, ‘Prisoner will be silent!’

A woman beating rugs on her side fence stopped and stared.

Three soldiers with rifles and bayonets were waiting in the Drill Hall. Edmund recognised one of them: a friend of William’s. The man kept his eyes on the floor.

One of the soldiers wore a corporal’s stripes on his tunic. ‘Are you Edmund Frank Hayes?’

Once again, Edmund couldn’t hold back a half-smile. ‘No. Sorry.’

The corporal looked startled.

‘I’m Edmund Frederick Hayes,’ Edmund told him. ‘Edmund Frank was my grandfather. He died ten years ago; I don’t think he’d be much use to you.’

One soldier started to grin, then quickly stopped. The corporal stared at the sheet of paper he held. ‘Edmund Fr— Edmund Hayes, you are charged with failing to obey a lawful written order under the Military Service Act of 1916. We are here to take you into military custody.’ He turned to the two police officers. ‘We’ll look after him now.’

‘You’re welcome to him,’ the older constable grunted. He threw Edmund’s jacket on the floor, seized his wrists and unlocked the handcuffs. Red welts stood out on the skin where the metal had dug in.

Tim bent, picked up the jacket and handed it and the small suitcase to Edmund. ‘Good luck,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’ The two young men looked at each other; Tim nodded and left.

‘Escort, form up!’ At the corporal’s order, the other two soldiers stepped forward, rifles and bayonets over their shoulders, and stood on either side of Edmund. The NCO moved across and opened the Drill Hall door. ‘Escort and prisoner, quick march!’ Next minute, they were out in the street, heading for the centre of town.

For the first few yards, it was almost like being back in school’s Military Training. Edmund had always enjoyed marching with the brass band in those days, and he found his arms swinging and his steps matching the tramp of boots on either side of him, just as they had in his schooldays.

Then he realised what he was doing. He let his arms hang naturally and walked at a normal pace. But he kept his head up and he looked straight into the faces of everyone they passed.

There were many more people here, in the main shopping street. As he and the escort marched past the draper’s, Edmund saw a group of well-dressed women staring at him. One was Mrs Twigg, the doctor’s wife for whom his mother did washing. As soon as she met Edmund’s eyes, she turned her back.

By the hotel, some young men began yelling ‘Conchie! Conchie coward!’ Edmund’s fists clenched, but he kept his face still and gazed at them also. Then his breath caught: two of them were William’s workmates from the factory; he’d met them at rugby a couple of times. They recognised him, too, and went silent.

There were jeers and boos from other people as well. An apple landed on the road, obviously aimed at Edmund, but nearly hitting one of the soldiers instead. The man jerked, clutched harder his rifle with its glittering bayonet. ‘Steady!’ the corporal barked, and they trod on.

Past the butcher’s they went. Mr Hansen burst out of the door, began to yell something at Edmund. Mrs Hansen appeared, held onto his arm and spoke fiercely to him. The butcher stood scowling as they passed.

Then another man’s voice called out, so loud that the soldiers jerked again. ‘Well done, lad! Somewhere there’s a mother glad that you won’t be killing her boy!’ Edmund stared into the bright morning sun, trying to see who had shouted. He couldn’t make out anybody, but his head came up again, and his heart felt lighter.

They stopped outside an office building. ‘Escort, order arms!’ The two other soldiers brought their rifles down to their sides. ‘All right, chum.’ The NCO’s voice was friendly enough. ‘We’re going in here. Be sensible about it.’

Two men sat at a table, in a front room full of dark books. One was in army uniform, the other wore a suit; Edmund had seen him around town. The three soldiers snapped to attention, and the corporal saluted. ‘Prisoner under escort as instructed, sir!’

The man in uniform – an officer, Edmund realised – nodded. ‘Stand easy, men.’ The soldiers relaxed slightly, and the officer looked at Edmund. ‘I’m sorry you had to be marched through the streets like that, Mr Hayes, but orders are orders. I’m Captain McGregor. This,’ he nodded to the man in the suit, ‘is Mr Darney. Mr Darney’s a solicitor and he’s here to make sure everything is done properly. Actually, I believe you had the pleasure of meeting Mr Hayes’s elder bother just the other day, didn’t you, Mr Darney?’

Edmund’s stomach jumped. William? What was—? The solicitor nodded. ‘He and some friends came in to take the Oath of Loyalty after they’d enlisted. A fine young man. Your family must be very proud of him, Mr Hayes.’

The two of them watched Edmund. He spoke and was glad to hear his words come clearly. ‘Thank you. He is a fine young man, and we have always been proud of him.’

The officer nodded. ‘Well, I’m sure your family want to be proud of you, too, Mr Hayes. After all, you’ve made your stand, and I don’t doubt you believe in what you’ve been saying. Now, you can save yourself and your brother and mother a great deal of trouble. There’s a uniform over there.’ He nodded at a small table. ‘Just say you’ll wear it, and we can put all this unfortunate business behind us.’

Silence in the room. Edmund realised he was gazing at the neatly folded pile of khaki on the side table. His mind was spinning. Captain McGregor was right. He could save his family so much pain and worry. He could make his brother proud of him. He could do what so many other conscientious objectors had done: join the Army, but serve only as a stretcher-bearer, someone who didn’t ever carry a gun. It would be perfectly sensible; nobody would ever blame him.

Nobody but himself. A glow, a firmness seemed to flood his whole body. He gazed steadily at the officer. ‘No. Thank you, but I’ll never serve in an organisation which aims to kill my fellow men.’ He felt startled at his own words. I sound just like one of the pamphlets I’ve read, he thought.

Captain McGregor sighed. ‘Think carefully, Mr Hayes. A very difficult time lies ahead if you hold to these beliefs. And what will you achieve? You won’t stop the war. Nobody will take any notice of you.’

He waited. The room was still; Edmund could hear the escort breathing. He said nothing, but he looked at the officer and the solicitor, and he shook his head.

A shrug from the officer. His voice sounded hard suddenly. ‘As you wish. You have only yourself to blame for what follows.’

William

In the first days after William enlisted, people kept coming up to him in the street to shake his hand. The whole town seemed to know about it. Women smiled at him. Two pretty girls in big flowered hats whispered to each other, rushed up and kissed him on the cheek, then hurried away giggling. William didn’t mind that at all.

Men invited him into the hotel for drinks, and he had to find ways of refusing. ‘Sorry, but I have to be at work,’ he told them. ‘The factory is short-handed because of all the blokes who’ve already joined the forces.’

It was true. He didn’t know how Mr Parkinson would manage, now that another bunch of them had signed up. He’d heard people talking about women taking over jobs while the men were away. Women working in factories? It made William laugh just to think about it.

There were some things he didn’t enjoy. ‘You’re heroes, blokes like you,’ people told him. William shook his head. The New Zealanders who’d fought at Gallipoli, battling the Turks on bare, high ridges, going without food and water for days, surviving in trenches with their dead friends lying out in the open in front of them – they were the real heroes. Could he be like them when it came to battle? He didn’t know.

Sometimes he lay awake at night, remembering stories he’d heard of strong men who threw themselves on the ground when the first shots cracked past, tried to dig themselves into the earth with their fingernails. Would he be one of them?

He didn’t like the flags waving everywhere, either. Or the banners across streets and in house windows, reading:

THE ONLY GOOD GERMAN IS A DEAD GERMAN . . . SHOOT A HUN FOR ME, BOYS.

A woman’s dress shop had a petticoat hanging outside its front door, and a sign:

MEN:

IF YOU DON’T SIGN UP TO FIGHT, YOU SHOULD BE WEARING THIS!

A music teacher wrote to the paper saying she had ripped up all her music that was written by German composers. One of William’s friends had heard of a man who had grabbed his neighbour’s little dachshund, shouted that there was only one way to treat a dog with a Hun name, and threw it in the river.

Most of all, William didn’t like thinking about Edmund. He knew his younger brother was opposed to the war and the Army. They’d argued about it for the last three years. ‘You and your peculiar ideas!’ William had joked at first. ‘You’ll soon start thinking sensibly.’

Instead, the arguments grew fiercer and angrier, until their mother told them they weren’t to talk about it at home. Now William didn’t talk about anything to Edmund; he hadn’t spoken to his younger brother for almost a year. I’m ashamed of him, he kept telling himself. Ashamed, yet unable to forget him.

The letter ordering William to report for military training came two weeks after he signed up. Before then, he had written two letters himself. One was to his mother and Jessie, with some money Mr Parkinson had given him. William hadn’t wanted to take it: ‘I’ve already cost you a lot by leaving the factory so suddenly.’

But the older man insisted. ‘I’d go myself if I were thirty years younger,’ he said again. ‘This is the least I can do. And your womenfolk are going to need help without . . . without a man to support them.’ So he knows about Edmund, William realised.

The second letter was also for Jessie and his mother, but he left it with Mr Darney. ‘I’ll be proud to look after it,’ the solicitor told William. It was a letter to be delivered to his sister and mother if he didn’t come back alive from the war. It said how he loved them, how he didn’t regret what he was doing, because everyone must do their bit against the evil Hun. He asked to be remembered to relatives and neighbours. He didn’t mention Edmund.

Another person tried to give him money as well. When his landlady Mrs Purchas asked him to buy some meat at the butcher’s, Mr Hansen wouldn’t take the money, gave him twice as many chops as he’d asked for and tried to hand him some pound notes from the till as well. ‘Good to see there’s one son in your family who’s not afraid to do his duty.’

William felt his face go hot. Edmund was wrong and foolish, and a shame to the three of them, but he was still his brother. He pushed the pound notes and his landlady’s money back across the counter. ‘No, thank you. Mrs Purchas wants to pay.’

It was the butcher’s turn to go red. ‘It’s not for her – it’s for you! We’re proud of you!’ He tried again to thrust the money into William’s hand, but William shook his head, and said ‘No, thank you’ once more.