Alfred Myers followed the way of the Cross.
Who could doubt the courage of one who trod
the damp and dismal tracks of Skinningrove mine,
drilling the rock face, fitting the powder and fuse,
standing back as the rock exploded down,
its deafening boom echoing round and round,
then breaking the ironstone into smaller chunks,
ready to feed the forges of the north.
The villagers of Carlin How respected him,
this square-jawed, handsome Wesleyan tenor,
Sunday School superintendent, socialist,
believer in God and the Brotherhood of Man.
Conscription came in 1916. Alf would not fight.
‘I could not conscientiously kill, nor assist
in killing,’ he said. In April 1916 he was sent
to Richmond Castle, and the Non-Combatant Corps.
Unwilling conscript, he would not assist
in any work to aid the war, and so
joined the others in the spartan cell block.
Nearer My God to Thee, they sang, from tiny cells,
refusing to sign their army papers, until
the army in their wisdom realised
that if they shipped them closer to the front,
to France, where war zone regulations stood,
then their resistance could be quickly quashed
by court martial and the penalty of death.
In June, while other heroes fought near Ypres
to take Mount Sorrel, a travesty of justice
reigned in Boulogne. Alf stayed true to his faith.
This pious, steadfast man, who never assented
to be a soldier, was charged: ‘Refusal to obey
his superior officer in the face of the enemy.’
The perfunctory trial ended as it was planned,
with 16 men sentenced ‘to death by being shot.’
A long pause followed. Then the words,
‘Confirmed by General Sir Douglas Haig,’ and then,
another, cruel, drawn out pause, until
‘commuted to ten years’ penal servitude’ was added,
a grudging coda of half-humanity.
Alf endured three years’ drudgery and pain,
in Aberdeen, Northallerton and Kent,
until the victorious post-war mood allowed
a seemingly magnanimous amnesty.
Bert Brocklesby, his fellow prisoner, said
that on their journey home, poor Alfred
‘felt unable to go further alone.’ Alone,
he disappeared from public record.
Was Alfred broken by this cruel ordeal?
Did post-war Britain bring him any peace?
Like Jesus, whom he served, he stood condemned
a traitor to his country, expedient sacrifice
on the cross of propaganda for the cause.
The Way of the Cross is soul-crushing and hard;
our Easter-tinted spectacles can mask
the doubts, despair and heartbreak that it brings.
O Broken One, help us to bear your pain.
