Somme MudWritten with dignity, candour and surprising wit, this soldier’s story of the horror of the Western Front trenches is a testament to the power of the human spirit. It's the end of the 1916 winter and the conditions are almost unbelievable. We live in a world of Somme mud. We sleep in it, work in it, fight in it, wade in it and many of us die in it. We see it, feel it, eat it and curse it, but we can't escape it, not even by dying. Somme Mud tells of the devastating experiences of Edward Lynch, a young Australian private (18 when he enlisted) during the First World War when he served with the 45th battalion of the Australian Infantry Forces on the Western Front at the Somme, which saw the most bloody and costly fighting of the war. In just eight weeks, there were 23,000 Australian casualties. The original edition of twenty chapters, was written in pencil in twenty school exercise books in 1921, probably to help exorcise the horrendous experiences Private Lynch had witnessed during his three years at war from mid-1916 until his repatriation home in mid-1919. Lynch had been wounded three times, once seriously and spent over six months in hospital in England. Somme Mud is a precious find, a discovered treasure that vividly captures the magnitude of war through the day-to-day experiences of an ordinary infantryman. From his first day setting sail for France as the band played 'Boys of the Dardanelles' and the crowd proudly waved their fresh-faced boys off, to the harsh reality of the trenches of France and its pale-faced weary men, Lynch captures the essence and contradictions of war. Somme Mud is Australia's version of All Quiet on the Western Front. Told with dignity, candour and surprising wit, it is a testament to the power of the human spirit, a moving true story of humanity and friendship. |
Contents
Chapter THREE Holding the Line | |
Chapter FOUR Making Back from the Line | |
Chapter FIVE In Support | |
Chapter SIX Fallen Comrades | |
Chapter SEVEN Straightening the Line | |
Chapter EIGHT A Night in the Line | |
Chapter TWELVE Passing it on at Passchendaele | |
Chapter THIRTEEN Digging in at Dernancourt | |
Chapter FOURTEEN Around VillersBret | |
Chapter FIFTEEN Hammering at Hamel | |
Chapter SIXTEEN Leapfrogging to Victory | |
Chapter SEVENTEEN Following Fritz | |
Chapter EIGHTEEN Fini la Guerre | |
Chapter NINETEEN A Dinner to the Troops | |
Chapter NINE The Carrying Party | |
Chapter TEN Mixing it at Messines | |
Chapter ELEVEN A Quiet Innings | |
Chapter TWENTY Till the Boys Come Home | |
Glossary | |
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Common terms and phrases
ahead amongst attack Australian Bang barrage battalion bayonet bearers big shell blanket bloke bombs Breen Bullecourt bullets Cabin Hill carrying climb comes Crack Crash crawl Dark Darky dead Dernancourt digging dozen drop dugout enemy shells everywhere fall feet fire flamin flare flying Fritz front line goes gone grab ground Gueudecourt gunners half hand head hear hour hundred hurry Jacko jump land laughs Lewis gun Longun look machine-gun mates miles Mills bomb minenwerfers minutes morning move Neuve-Église night no-man's-land Nulla Number officer party pass Passchendaele patrol plane platoon Pozières quiet race reach rifle road roar rush says sergeant shell bursts shell hole shouts shrapnel sleep smoke Snow someone Somme stonker stretcher stretcher-bearers stunt tanks tell there's Tommy tonight trench Villers-Bretonneux wait walk whilst wire wiring party wonderful wounded Yacob yards yell