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He worked his way across the room, following a route that enabled him to support himself on the furniture. When he reached the bureau, I heard him opening and closing a drawer. After shuffling back by the same route, he sat in his chair again. I saw that he held a Bible, its leather binding dulled and worn with use. After his breathing had quieted, he began to talk, bringing to life a piece of family history I had heard nothing about.
"I should have gone inside before," he began. "It was your grandmother, you see. She had stood by me when everyone else was against me, and I had promised her that I would not go inside. I could not keep that promise.
"Mary's three brothers were officers in the army. Real smart, they were, with their Sam Browne belts and swagger sticks and all. They didn't approve of me, not one little bit. So it was hard for her, and it got worse when her older sister's husband was killed in Flanders."
I did not understand what my granddad was saying, but I knew instinctively that it was best to keep quiet and wait for clarification.
"The army called me before a military tribunal," Granddad continued. "They questioned me for an hour before accepting my plea and ordering me into a noncombatant corps. My family asked in frustration, 'Why are you doing this?' The answer was simple. I believed that killing another human being was always wrong. That belief was based on my study of the New Testament. My family couldn't accept that I was a conscientious objector and feared that I was a coward."
"But, Granddad," I interrupted, "wasn't there a church that would help you?"
"Not in this village," Granddad replied. "The other members of the chapel supported the war, and they made me resign from the deaconate. I was bitter at the time, but I can see now that they were confused by a situation that they didn't understand." He relapsed into a silence that lasted until I gently prompted him.
"Tell me what happened, Granddad," I said. "I really want to know."
His eyes opened wide, and a small smile creased his lips. "Mary married me," he said in wonder. "She was a lovely woman with black hair and bright blue eyes. She moved with a lilt that made you want to love her. Our honeymoon lasted one day, and then I had to report back to the army." He sighed and looked at me to make sure that I was still paying attention.
"I was posted to a camp on Salisbury Plain, within sight of Stonehenge. They put us to work building roads. Our sergeant was a tough old soldier from the regluar army. One day his officer came and asked him how we were doing. 'I don't care about their consciences, Sir,' our sergeant replied. 'They're the best work crew I've ever 'ad.' "
Granddad chuckled and resumed his story. "We had a horse named Paddy and a cart to help us move the stone. It was hot and sultry that summer. I used to wipe Paddy's ears with an oily rag to stop the flies bothering him. That horse would turn his head and give me a look that said 'Thank you' as clearly as if he could talk.
"The following winter was bitterly cold, and the wind across those downs never paused. There was a battalion of Australians in camp near us. They would exercise, get hot and then stand around in the freezing wind with few clothes on. They did not know how to look after themselves in a cold climate. Many got influenza, and a few died. They were just boys, a long way from home.
"Spring came and new orders. Our gang was to help build an aerodrome that the air force would use to train pilots for the new bombers. I and a few of my mates decided that to obey those orders was as bad as dropping the bombs. We refused to obey the orders of our superior officer and were court-martialled.
"I went inside at Wormwood Scrubs Penitentiary in London on May 27, 1916. My sentence was 30 days in solitary confinement with bread and water, followed by two years' hard labour. I was 20 years old.
"They shaved my head, stripped me and made me shower. After a brief examination by a doctor, they gave me the sparse prison uniform. There was no belt or anything else that I could use to commit suicide. The old lags called the solitary confinement cell 'the hole'. It had a wooden bunk with a thin mattress, and an open toilet. A small spy hole in the steel door let the screws check that I was still alive. They didn't want the embarrassment of a dead prisoner. A floor-level latch allowed them to pass through the bread and water three times a day. It was good bread, and the water was always cold and fresh. I neither heard nor saw another human being for a month."
He closed his eyes as if to shut out the image of that place. After a few moments, he made a conscious effort to shake off his tiredness and continue. "I had my Bible," he said. "English Common Law forbids anyone to take your Bible away from you, no matter what the circumstances. I resolved to spend my waking hours in the hole studying the Scriptures. But I needed to make notes, and I was not allowed a pencil, a pen or paper. My Scofield edition of the King James Bible had flyleaves made of heavy, glossy black paper. On the second day, it occurred to me that a scratch mark would show up on those flyleaves. A search was rewarded by a split in a bunk leg that produced a long splinter. I used that splinter as a pencil.
"Look," said Granddad, handing me the Bible.
I carefully opened the old Bible and held it obliquely against the light. The flyleaves were covered with densely packed writing that my granddad had scratched into the black finish. The paper had deteriorated, and I could decipher few words, but I made out the sentence: 'My kingdom is not of this world.' I turned back to ask Granddad what the quotation meant and to hear the rest of his story.
It was not to be. My granddad died that afternoon. He went to sleep in his chair and never woke up. Granddad was old when I met him, but I shall always think of him as a young man who went to prison because he would not disobey his conscience.
Tony Hitchman lives in Kitchener, Ont. and is a member of the United Church. He retired as a medical researcher at the University of Toronto in 1990. This story is based on the experiences of his grandfather during the First World War.
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