a First Division Reservist. The Act also required all eligible males to enroll in the Expeditionary Force Reserve or face up to 3 months imprisonment or a fine of £50. Baxter had not enrolled. Failing to enroll and being convicted of it also meant that Baxter could be immediately called up for service. Failure to report for duty became either desertion or absence without leave, offences under the Army Act. Baxter and two of his brothers – Alexander and John – were arrested by civilian police in mid March 1917 for failing to enroll under the Act and were first imprisoned in The Terrace Gaol, Wellington. They were subsequently transferred directly to Trentham Military Camp when their appeals as conscientious objectors were rejected. On 21 March Archibald and John Baxter and William Little, another objector, refused to put on Army uniform; Alexander Baxter refused to work. All were Court Martialed, all stating that they did not consider themselves soldiers, having never volunteered or taken the oath of allegiance. None was represented by legal counsel. The four were sentenced to 84 days imprisonment with hard labour, served at both the Terrace Gaol and Mount Cook Prison. At the end of their sentence they were to be sent back to Trentham Camp. Back at Trentham after release, Archibald Baxter continued to refuse orders and was sentenced to 28 days detention. Deportation to the front In 1917 the Minister of Defence, Sir James Allen, decided that all men claiming to be conscientious objectors but not accepted as such should be sent to the Western Front. Accordingly, orders were given by Colonel H R Potter, Trentham Camp Commandant, that he along with 13 other conscientious objectors – his two brothers, William Little (Hikurangi), Frederick Adin (Foxton), Garth Carsley Ballantyne (Wellington), Mark Briggs (politician), David Robert Gray (Hinds. Canterbury), Thomas Percy Harland (Roslyn, Dunedin), Lawrence Joseph Kirwan (Hokitika), Daniel Maguire (Foxton), Lewis Edward Penwright (Geeverton, Tasmania), Henry Patton (Cobden Greymouth) and Albert Ernest Sanderson (Babylori, North Wairoa) – were to be shipped out. On 24 July they were embarked on the troopship Waitemata en voyage to Cape Town, where a measles epidemic on board caused the ship to stop. Archibald, Jack and Sanderson and some troops were taken to hospital, and the ship was condemned by the port authorities as unfit for troops, necessitating the civilian liner Norman Castle being used to take the main