Archibald Baxter: We will not cease (reprint)

Reviewed by KEN LARSEN

Sometimes a work attains the status of a "classic" because of some literary merit that is universally acknowledged or because in retrospect it is seen to have forged new horizons.

Archibald Baxter's We Will Not Cease, now claimed a New Zealand classic, earns the description because of its dispassionate and non-rancorous portrayal of man's inhumanity to man.

It has also stood the test of time: originally published in 1939, it was reprinted in 1968 with four subsequent editions, this latest with a foreword by Michael King.

Baxter's is an account of his experiences as a conscientious objector during World War I. Six of the seven sons of his Otago farming family objected, and he was 33 when first arrested. Baxter's contention remained firm that, having never signed up, he was never subject to military law.

"I argued that, not having taken the oath or agreed to take on service in the army, I was not a soldier and could not, therefore, be charged with disobeying the lawful command of a superior officer."

Yet he was found guilty and sentenced first to two months in a civilian prison.

Baxter subsequently would be shipped in the "clink" to Europe, with a stopover in South Africa, refusing all the time to wear military uniform. He was imprisoned in England, often starved and physically assaulted. Transported to France, he was finally condemned to the "No 1 field punishment", known as "the crucifixion", where each day he was tied to a forward-leaning post and hanged by his arms and shoulders.

He was made to remain in sections of the front that were bombarded particularly heavily. Finally he was returned to England, judged mentally unfit, confined to hospital and ultimately returned to New Zealand, still unbowed.

After the war, Baxter married Millicent Macmillan Brown, who had been educated in Sydney and Cambridge, and was the daughter of a well-known Canterbury University professor. They were to have two children, Terence, a conscientious objector in World War II, and James Keir, named after the English socialist Keir Hardy.

It was to Millicent Baxter that Archibald "dictated" We Will Not Cease, while living in Britain in 1937. And here lies the conundrum.

Baxter's reconstruction of events occurred 20 years after they happened, yet the account gives every impression of immediacy. Incidents are recounted in minute detail; dialogue is shaped as direct and actual. Characters, events, and speaking voices are all presented not as fiction, but as actually recorded. What role did Millicent Baxter play here as translator, shaper and architect of the text? In other writings her husband shows himself only a stalwart writer.

Is the understated prose and emotional equilibrium that mark the book of her making? Her own memoirs, published in 1981, give evidence of a controlled pen and easy style.

What effect on the "dictation" of Baxter did her own marshalling of events and colourless accuracy have? Whatever her role as translator, she created — or reflected — a simplicity of tale which would reward further study.

The volume is prefaced by a small foreword by King at his most accurate and poignant best, and it stands as a balanced assessment of We Will Not Cease.

* Cape Catley, $24.95.

* Ken Larsen is the head of English at Auckland University.