The Harmony of the Spheres

Arc 2:1:3

No one wanted to reveal that the war hero's closest friend was currently in jail for refusing his conscription papers.

I have no words to describe a death during war... death is a sneak thief who steals your dignity with your life. Maybe we died the moment we stepped on this foreign soil and all we have done these last months is wait for death to find us and collect his dues...

Stephen read the same words as Robert, but the effect on his heart was like day and night. Where Robert was fired up and determined to prove his worth, Stephen mulled over the morbid meaning, turning the words over in his mind like a pair of dice in the hands of a gambler. Like that gambler, he blew on them, whispered to them, held them to his ear in the hopes that they would reveal their true wisdom. And like that gambler, when he finally rolled the dice he was prepared to lose his highest stakes.

When Robert enlisted, everyone expected Stephen to disappear one morning, chasing after his best friend and refusing to let him leave on an adventure without his partner in crime. Instead, day after day, Stephen appeared unmoved.

The year they turned eighteen, was the year that compulsory military service was brought into being. Many of the youths on the tablelands enlisted as part of the Civilian Military Forces in order to avoid overseas postings that came with conscription. They would rather avoid the risk of being sent to war and preferred to serve in defense of the country. Once more, Stephen defied expectation when he remained at home, helping out on the farm.

In 1965, with the help of an activist group, Stephen applied to register as a conscientious objector to the war but his case was upturned due to his past hunting tendencies. Even though he argued that he valued human life more than the lives of the fish he caught to eat, it was decided that he'd proven to have no psychological deterrent to killing and was disallowed from registering.

Public enthusiasm for the war had waned, and rather than facing derision for his decision, Stephen was seen by the community has a mature young man who stood up for his ideals. When another conscientious objector went on the run from police after refusing conscription, the Tablelands sheltered him for a few weeks and then cheered wildly when he was interviewed on live TV, much to the embarrassment of the cuckolded police force.

One of the families to shelter him was the Innes' and he and Stephen talked long into the night about their choices, and the legal ramifications. By chance, it was while the Innes' were harbouring the fugitive, that Stephen's conscription letter arrived.

His family and their new friend encouraged him to leave them; wanting both young men to take off together and keep each other company until the war came to end. Despite their pleading, Stephen stayed firm to the choice he'd made when he first decided to stand against this war.

In 1967, at twenty years of age, Stephen took his conscription letter to the local police station and turned himself in for refusing to obey federal law.

Poor Sergeant Martin was perplexed. It was strange to have only one half of the terrible two in his cells, but the last time he'd locked the boys up they were rowdy teens who'd decided to slap bright blue and green hand prints on the Murphy's cows at night; the one with the most hand prints won but the Murphy's cows were scared silly and stopped producing milk overnight. The young man sitting calmly in the police station holding cell was so different to the boy from long ago and, in the opinion of Sargeant Martin, he hadn't done anything wrong.

Unfortunately, the law was the law and he was still six years off retirement. It was his responsibility to arrest all criminals, even if doing so made him a criminal to the community. Lucky for Sargeant Martin the Innes family spoke up for him, thanking him for his kind treatment of their son and brother when he handed him off to a federal escort.