She had determined to follow her mother and somehow snatch the children back again and this determination and the wicked selfishness of it had been churning around in her mind when she heard the unexpected rat-tat-tat at the door and Alec Jackson appeared.
Now she felt too afraid to face the children in case they might know what she had done and be ashamed of her. Her uncleanness was so abominable it was bound to be clearly visible to everyone’s eyes.
Yet her ache for her baby tugged at her mercilessly. She loved and wanted Fergus too, but her feeling for him, try as she might, could never equal the acuteness, the exquisite pleasure-pain she experienced at the mere thought of Andrew.
She got up and began pacing the floor, desperate to run all the way to Farmbank and fight tooth and nail to get the children back, yet fearing that in her present shocked state she might do the wrong thing again, might go on heaping one dreadful sin upon another.
What if she did manage to bring Andrew back, and there was an air-raid and he was killed? She burst into tears and stood in the middle of the floor wiping messily at her face with the backs of her hands.
If loving meant really caring then she ought to care about the children, not herself, she ought to put them first.
She pressed her lips firmly together and breathed big jerky breaths.
Tea-time. Set the table. Clever girl.
For hours she wandered about the house trying to reassure herself. She longed for comfort. Not for Melvin’s bullying voice, his harsh laugh, his heavy bull-body but for somebody who really cared about her.
Thoughts of Alec’s gentleness relaxed her like an anaesthetic. Her hiccoughing breaths soothed and subsided. Alec would tell her what was best for the children.
It was late now and it was dark but she would go to him and he would make everything all right.
Her mind made up, she hurried to get her coat and find the tram-car that would carry her through the blacked-out city and to Alec’s house in Springburn.
Chapter 16
The Society of Friends, the Quakers, held Fellowship Meetings and mock tribunals for conscientious objectors, to prepare them for what was to come, to help them clarify their position in their own minds and to give them practice in answering questions.
The Quakers were a revelation to Sammy, surprising him first of all with their obvious lack of prejudice. Everyone was welcomed at the Meeting House by the same warm shake of the hand and the same cheerful acceptance. It obviously made no difference if one was a Quaker, a Plymouth or any other kind of Brother, a Jehovah’s Witness, an Independent Labour Party man, a Christadelphian, a Freethinker, a Christian Scientist, a Methodist, a Humanist, an atheist.
Sammy discovered that the Meeting House, a converted terrace house near Charing Cross, had its own library and before the mock tribunal started he had a browse through some of the books, and a few shy words with a Quaker called John Haddington, who came into the room to stand puffing at a pipe and heating his coat-tails at the fire.
The whole place was so unlike a normal church, both in appearance and in practice, that Sammy was quite intrigued. From what he had read and been told about them, he discovered Quakers believed that everyone, including women - who had enjoyed absolute equality with men right from the time of the founder George Fox - were part of the ministry. Therefore anyone could get up during meeting for worship and voice a prayer or anything he might feel moved to say.
Perhaps someone might recite a poem that had comforted or inspired him.
Another might stand up and give a few brief words on a special event.
After a silence another Friend might comment on what the original speaker had said, and so with respectful, thoughtful silences in between each speech, a little discussion might arise, a tentative spiritual probing.
Or the hour-long meeting might be held in unbroken quiet, a spiritual waiting in which the clamour of daily life was stilled. At the end of the hour notices would be read out, including the announcement that coffee was being served upstairs and all visitors would be most welcome.
‘Coffee time’s the best time!’ John Haddington amused Sammy with his candour. ‘We have a rare old talk then and thoroughly enjoy ourselves.’
As far back as Sammy could remember he had always had a church connection but it had never had much to do with enjoyment.
He had been marched to Sunday School and Bible Class. Eventually he had become a church member. The church was a background, part of the pattern of his life. Now he and Ruth attended church together.
But he had never given religion the same serious thought as he had other subjects. Ever since his childhood he had been an avid reader, and Ruth and he enjoyed going to the library twice or three times a week to change their books, but he had never bothered much with the shelves marked Religion.
His church membership was a prestige symbol, a sign of respectability more than anything else. It pleased Ruth if they dressed in their best and set out arm in arm for church on a Sunday. Their church connection gave them a place in the community and a set of decent standards to live by.
Here at Quaker Meeting House, he sensed with deep inward surprise that there might be something beyond and above this.
He sat self-consciously through the Fellowship Meeting and mock tribunal yet warming with gratitude for the practical help the Quakers, and John Haddington in particular, were giving him.
He had been completely in the dark about the coming tribunal; now, thanks to the Friends, he had some idea of what to expect, and could begin to prepare himself for the ordeal. He intensified his reading, taking pages and pages of notes to make his point on the day.
He had condensed the notes and rewritten them in a neat hand on a series of little cards that would fit in his wallet. He had muttered his arguments as he dressed, he had tried them out on Ruth until at last she asked worriedly, ‘Do you think you should learn all this, love? You might never get the chance to say it.’
‘But this is the basis of my objection,’ he protested irritably. ‘The point of these tribunals is to find out who really has a conscientious objection.’
‘I know.’
She kissed him on the brow, then on the eyes, then on the mouth.
‘Don’t lose your temper. Especially at the tribunal. That’s what you’ll have to remember more than anything else.’
The day had come, and Ruth was helping as only she could. She took extra care in the washing and ironing of his shirt and insisted on pressing his Sunday suit, while Sammy brushed his shoes until they were like black mirrors. He had already been down the road to the public baths.
‘One of these days,’ he told Ruth for the hundredth time, ‘we’re going to have a house with a bathroom. It’s terrible that people are expected to live in houses without bathrooms. What do they think we are - animals? They’ve a damned cheek, haven’t they?’
She brushed him down as if she were caressing him.
‘Yes, love.’
‘They expect us to live in hovels and pay ridiculous rents for the privilege, work long hours for a mere pittance, never raise a voice in protest, and jump to their command when they want us to put on a uniform and fight for our country. Our country! What bit of country do we own?’
‘All these dukes and lords,’ she tutted.
‘Yes, they’re the ones who live off the fat of the land. Let them fight for it. You know what the Duke of Wellington called his men - the scum of the earth.’
She tutted again.
‘A right military Charlie! They’re all the same. My father used to yell, “Come on, you scum, pick-em up, left, right, left, right!” Well I’m not scum!’
‘No, you’re not.’
Ruth pouted her lips and teased his cheek with them.
‘I told him. I was only so-high. “I’m not scum,” I said. I was always stepping out of line. He could never knock me into shape.’
Her soft burring voice tried to soothe him.
‘You mustn’t let him worry you, Sam
my.’
‘Yours not to reason why!’ Anger brought a tremor to his voice. ‘Very convenient, isn’t it? No questions asked. Just do as you’re told. Well, I won’t. Him and his patriotic jargon and heroic battle tales. If you look back on most battles they were a shambles of incompetence, stupidity and sheer lunacy at officer level.’
‘You mustn’t get angry.’
‘I’ve a right to be angry.’
He tugged at his tie in silence for a minute or two. Then he said, ‘Did you know they used to hold the tribunals in the Judiciary Buildings? Like criminal cases? The Quakers insisted the tribunals weren’t criminal proceedings so they were moved to an ordinary hall.’
‘Your tie’s fine, love.’
‘I’d better go. Now, don’t you get worried or upset, Ruth.’
Her fingers caressed his mouth and she moved closer.
‘I’m going to be fine,’ she said. ‘Don’t you worry about me.’
At least Britain, unlike its present allies, made provisions for conscientious objectors and the treatment of them was, generally speaking, very good: a state of affairs which had had its roots in the revelation of the sufferings of the conscientious objectors in the 1914-18 war, when they had been subject to brutal treatment.
Even now a CO might fall foul of a tribunal or some individual on a tribunal who regarded it as his bounden duty to browbeat the applicants, but on the whole the tribunals were conducted conscientiously and fairly.
A vigilant eye was kept on the proceedings, wherever possible, by a small band of determined MPs, some of whom had themselves been COs in the First World War.
Sammy’s tribunal was held in public and consisted of five men - a university professor, a trade union official, a King’s counsellor who was Chairman, a lecturer from the Education Department and an ex-sheriff. They made an imposing array up on the platform as if a higher floor-level was synonymous with lofty ideals.
The conscientious objectors were allowed into the hall one at a time from a back room and must answer questions sitting with necks craned upwards.
Sammy looked for Ruth as he walked in and was reassured to see her sitting beside John Haddington from the Quaker Meeting House.
Then, on the other side of the hall, he saw his father, crouched forward, palms resting on silver-topped stick, his eyes slicing him.
Sammy’s chair made a loud creaking noise.
He prayed for a mind empty of past, divorced from present, a question machine. Question and answer.
‘In your statement you say you hold as a principle that war is wrong.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You don’t believe in fighting for freedom, for justice, and for a good and lasting peace?’
‘No, sir. History shows that military means never resulted in a good and lasting peace. Victory has always sown the seeds of fresh war because victory breeds among the vanquished a desire for vindication and vengeance and because victory raises fresh rivals.’
He fingered his notes as if they were written in Braille and tried not to feel the mockery of his father’s eyes upon him.
‘In the seventeenth century we broke the power of Spain with the help of the Dutch. Then we fought three wars with the Dutch - we broke their power in alliance with the French. But within a generation we were fighting coalition wars against France. After six of these wars stretching over a century we succeeded in breaking France. But our chief allies, Russia and Prussia, became our dangers in the century that followed - together with France, the country that we had beaten.
‘In the Crimean War we sought to cripple Russia’s power in alliance with the French. Five years later we were threatened with a French invasion of England.’
‘What’s all this tosh? The French are not the enemy now. You are being asked to fight the Germans.’
‘If history teaches us anything it is this: after all the suffering and bloodshed, Germany will be our allies again. This is my point. Victory is only an illusion. A pause for changing sides. The germs of war lie with ourselves - not in economics, politics or religion as such.’
‘Have you no loyalty to your King and country?’
‘If you are thinking of the soldiers’ dictum - “my country right or wrong” - the answer is no, sir. That kind of so-called loyalty is too often a polite word for what would be more accurately described as - a conspiracy for mutual inefficiency. I’d rather be loyal to the truth.’
‘What if the Germans come over here? What would you do? Wouldn’t you fight them?’
‘War is futile. It has never gained anything. I would have nothing to do with military methods.’
‘What would you do if a German came over here and assaulted your wife?’
‘That is a hypothetical question.’
‘It is not a hypothetical question. It has happened and can happen and will happen. What are you going to do about it?’
His hands were sweating and anger was burning up to his throat like bile.
‘It is a hypothetical question. You might as well ask what I would do if a member of a Glasgow gang attacked my wife. I would have thought there was much more danger of that happening in the blackout at the moment. Or are all the gangsters already in the army?’
‘Don’t be impertinent, young man! A bit of army discipline is what you obviously need. Just answer the question!’
Fools! He glared hatred at them. Fools!
‘I would do what I could,’ he said. ‘I would put myself between my wife and her assailant. I would use sufficient force to deter him but I hope I would not make myself a killer.’
‘So you are not against force.’
‘There is a difference between a hypothetical situation of either a German soldier or a Glasgow thug attacking my wife and Haig’s blundering massacre of four hundred thousand men at Passchendaele.’
‘Are you or are you not against force?’
‘I am against military methods of trying to solve anything. History clearly shows …’
‘Never mind about history! We don’t want a history lecture from you. Answer the question. Are you or are you not against force?’
‘I am against anything military.’
‘Are you a church-going man?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know your Bible?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know that your Bible says: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”?’
‘Yes, and I know Christ made a point of contradicting that statement.’ Even if you don’t, he added to himself. Out loud he said:
‘But I am not objecting on religious grounds.’
‘You are just against the military.’
‘I am.’
‘You wouldn’t care if Hitler and the whole German army came over here.’
‘I am against any army.’
‘But you don’t want to fight?’
‘I am fighting now.’
‘Unsuccessfully. You need more training. The army is best equipped to give you that. Your name shall be removed without qualification from the register of conscientious objectors.’
His father caught up with him outside, stalking him stifffly. ‘You’ll be all right if you get to Maryhill Barracks, son. I’ve got friends there. I’ve already had a wee word with Sergeant-Major Spack. He’ll soon knock you into shape. We’ll make a good soldier of you yet.’
‘Come on home, love.’
Ruth pulled Sammy away and nothing more was said.
He had expected his objection to be dismissed even before John Haddington had warned him. He was well aware that only the religious objectors stood much of a chance. Yet now that it had really happened he was shocked.
As a child standing still in the moving darkness outside the mortuary, his mind had shuddered not only with terror but with hatred and revenge.
One day … one day …
He had never cried as his brothers had cried when they were children. He had never run away like them when they had grown up.
On
e day … one day … he always thought.
Now his father was growing and multiplying like some evil fungus and spreading all over the world. His father and his war games and his map on the wall with all its coloured flags. His father gloating over how many men he had gutted with his bayonet. His father standing angelically to attention at ‘God Save the King’.
His father shot up, a giant filling his mind in the waiting days that followed. Time blurred. The past caught up with the present and quick-marched it into the future.
Left-right, left-right, pick ’em up, pick ’em up. Come on! At the double - you scum of the earth!
The fungus had spread all over him and sucked him in.
‘What regiment?’ his father asked. ‘What regiment?’
And over and over again his mind ground out the same answer.
‘None!’
Chapter 17
Alec was so fed up over the carry-on about Catriona MacNair, that in a reckless moment he volunteered for the Navy.
If he had thought that she could have caused half as much trouble he would have kept well clear of her.
He could still hardly credit that she had had the cheek to come over from Clydend to Springburn, actually seek him out at the pend.
Her arrival had been the second shock that night. The other was Madge’s unexpected return from the evacuation.
He had been lolling back with a bottle of beer in his hand, his feet up on the mantelpiece, the wireless blaring, and had not heard the door open and Madge and the family come in.
He had never seen her look so tired and dispirited and the children were dirty-faced and dazed with fatigue. They all looked as if they would not be able to stand up for one more minute.
He turned off the wireless.
‘Madge! What’s wrong, hen? What are you doing back?’
‘Let me get them to bed first. I’m going to fling them in the way they are. I’m not even going to take their coats off.’
The Breadmakers Saga Page 29
