  During 1941 Arthur had come to view his pacifism as untenable, though in December he wrote two letters to the Otago Daily Times defending ‘liberty of conscience’ and the right to be a conscientious objector. In January 1942, while he and Clare were still living with the Brailsfords in Dunedin, Arthur was called up, and instead of appealing for conscientious objector status himself, he applied to enlist in the Royal New Zealand Air Force (perhaps because, under the regulations in force at that time, such an appeal would have required him to say ‘that it is wrong to engage in warfare in any circumstances’). There is no evidence that Clare’s pacifism had also weakened, and Arthur’s thinking was manifestly undergoing other fundamental changes at this time. His enlistment papers contained the brief but telling entry ‘Religion: Atheist’. It seems that a philosophical and spiritual chasm had opened up between him and Clare.