'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...'
Edward Lynch enlisted when he was just 18 - one of thousands of fresh-faced men who were proudly waved off by the crowds as they embarked for France. It was 1916 and the majority had no idea of the reality of the Somme trenches, of the traumatised soldiers they would encounter there, of the innumerable, awful contradictions of war. Private Lynch was one of those who survived, and on his return home in 1919, wrote Somme Mud in pencil in over 20 school exercise books, perhaps in the hope of coming to terms with all that he had witnessed there?
Written from the perspective of an ordinary 'Tommy' and told with dignity, candour and surprising wit, Somme Mud is a testament to the human spirit, for out of the mud that threatened to suck out a man's soul rises a compelling story of humanity and friendship. It is a rare and precious find.
These are the lost words of a young Austrailan soldier who was repatriated in mid 1919 and wrote about his experiences in pencil in twenty exercise books in 1921, probably to exorcise the horrors of all he had witnessed. He typed it up in the 1930s and it passed down through the family forgotton. In 2002 the author's grandson Mike Lynch gave it to Will Davies, a military historian, who produced this book.
This is a jewel of a book. The reader learns about the minutae of soldiering as the young man vividly records his experiences. For much of the time he was a "Runner" - taking messages from his unit to others, one of the most exposed and dangerous jobs in any army. His eye for detail and his turn of phrase make this a page turner. He was involved in some of the fierest fighting yet not only did he survive but also without serious injury. I would highly reccommend this book to both the general reader and the student of WW1 - both will be appalled and fascinated with this tale.