In the Footsteps of Private Lynch Read online

  Whether this account accurately reflects a real event is a matter for speculation. If Lynch himself came upon a scene such as this, it would have to have been the result of the fighting in July or August 1916, some six months before. While Nulla mentions that the bodies are shrunken, perhaps one would expect them to be more decomposed, or in fact to have already been buried. It was not as if these bodies were in no-man's-land and hence unrecoverable.

  These question marks do not detract from the essential truth of his description of close-range combat and the routine heroism on the Somme. In the grim days in Delville Wood, when thousands of lives were lost taking ground from the Germans and then fending off their counter-attacks, the bayonet did see action. When we think of First World War weaponry we are more inclined to think of shells, grenades, machine-guns and mustard gas, but when a man found himself face-to-face with the enemy in a narrow trench, the bayonet could prove invaluable.

  How many men were killed with the bayonet has long been argued about and there are no precise figures. We do know, however, that for the Australians, it was a favoured weapon – men trained hard with the bayonet and it became a feared skill. Australians used to slash sideways with it, rather than parry and stab, as this would open up the stomach and give the victim a frightful wound (if it did not kill him outright) requiring four men to carry him out. Wounding a man would drain resources more than outright killing him – a chilling reality in the quest to win the war.

  For the most part, Nulla's war is filled with dreary boredom and strenuous labour, just as Private Lynch's would have been. One day, the monotony is broken for Nulla by a delivery of mail from Australia, including three-month-old newspapers that the men think will be great to burn so they can thaw out their frozen boots in the morning. They also get their news when reinforcements arrive who are fresh to the front, including Jacko, who's 'a real newspaper, a whole newsagency in fact to us'. Meeting Jacko and hearing about home makes Nulla realise that trench life has replaced the reality he once knew; the new man is a link to his old life across the other side of the world. Jacko's entry into Nulla's circle of mates brings the men a feeling of optimism because it causes them to think about the future, when the war will be a memory 'blanched by the sunshine of our own land, our own Australia Fair'.

  Nulla and his mates take Jacko under their wing and teach him the ways of life on the front. Although he is in fact older than Nulla and Snow, he is 'young Jacko' to them; they have been seasoned by their time at the front and they cherish the opportunity to pass on what they know. They instruct him to freeze when an enemy flare is fired, so that he will not be seen; they take care to make sure that he and the other reinforcements keep well down when they are fired on by an enemy machine-gun. Perhaps Jacko represents to Nulla and his mates not only the opportunity to pass on their knowledge and experience of warfare, but the chance to care for someone, look after someone's welfare, and be responsible for them. In a world of killing and hard, dangerous graft, a chance to care for another person could have been one small way to recapture their humanity.

  When Nulla first entered the line, he was young and inexperienced and wanted to hide when they were shelled, astounded that experienced soldiers walked on, unfazed. Now, after only a couple of months in the trenches, Nulla is one of those experienced soldiers, able to explain to Jacko why the other men don't flinch when they hear the sound of gunfire (they can tell from the sound that the enemy isn't firing in their direction) or why they reach for their gas masks when they hear dud shells that have failed to explode (they sound a lot like gas canisters). All across the Western Front, the war was turning Australian boys into men at a vastly accelerated pace.

  Young Jacko is lucky to have the support of Nulla and his mates, particularly when they are out on a fatigue digging a trench and the Germans mount an attack. They are called back to the support line and must pass through an area of heavy shelling to get there. In the trench, they watch for the SOS signal from the frontline – a red flare followed by a green followed by a red – which thankfully never comes. The attack is fought off, but with many casualties amongst the gunners, drivers and horses. Though the men can find humour in such sights as human hands and skulls protruding from trench walls, the misery of wounded horses – such dependable, innocent and defenceless creatures – is something they'll 'never get hardened to'.

  Since arriving at the front as a fresh reinforcement, Nulla has been, by turns, scared, shocked, appalled, disgusted, cold, hungry, miserable, amused – and now, for the first time, he is reverent. Confronted by the sight of Australian bodies lined up in rows on the snow, today fallen comrades but only yesterday mates, sombreness falls over not just Nulla but all the men. There are things, it seems, that even Australian soldiers can't laugh off.

  Lynch, as a private who had seen countless men die and countless bodies lying in the snow or mud, is able to take the reader deep into the psychology of every soldier who ever saw a mate fall:

  'Cripes, mate, you'll sleep cold tonight,' a man remarks as he tenderly straightens the poor broken body in its grave of mud. There's nothing irreverent or callous or frivolous in the remark. It's just familiarity, the sorrowful, friendly familiarity of the sad side of soldiering. [p. 71]

  SEVEN

  Straightening

  the Line

  The routine of a soldier on the Western Front was one of being rotated through the different stages of the trench system, with occasional trips to rest areas at the rear. After a stint on the frontline, a battalion would be moved to a trench in the next line back, the support line, or the furthest one, the reserve line. When a battalion wasn't in one of the lines, they were sent back to their rest area at the rear. There wasn't necessarily much rest to be had in a 'rest' area, as the men could be sent out for fatigues or given training to prepare them for future operations. Then, after a stint in the rest area, it was back into one of the lines.

  Each AIF division, comprising between 10,000 and 20,000 men, was designated a locale in the areas well behind the lines in which to rest their 12 battle-weary battalions. As part of the 4th Australian Division, the 45th Battalion's rest area was Mametz camp, about 12 kilometres south of the frontline at Gueudecourt. The 45th Battalion history describes it thus:

  This was a comfortable place and as each hut had a couple of braziers, the men used to augment their daily issue of fuel by bartering rum and cigarettes for supplies from the Tommy sentries on the coal dump at the railway siding. Whilst at Mametz, numerous working parties were sent out. Full use was made of the Divisional baths at Fricourt, and the opportunity was taken to disinfect the blankets and uniforms, as it had been proved that lice were responsible for disseminating trench fever.1

  In the chapter 'Straightening the Line', we find Nulla and his battalion back in the support line after a rest in the huts at Mametz. They're about to be sent up to the frontline for a 'stunt', the men's term for an attack on the enemy. This is a tense time, the men knowing that once over the parapet and walking across no-man's-land, they will be easy targets. As soon as the Germans detect an attack, their artillery fire will come down with devastating consequences; the air will suddenly be filled with bursting shrapnel, exploding grenades and the whine of bullets. Men will be falling everywhere and the call 'Stretcher-bearer!' will be heard all along the front. Men will be surrendering, the wounded will be screaming, the air will be thick with the explosive cordite, and the smoke of battle will be lit in eerie confusion from flares and exploding shells.

  Lying in cold dugouts writing letters home, the men cope with the awareness of what is to come by hiding their own fear from themselves. The 'depressive knowledge' that for some men these will be the last letters they write to their loved ones is what makes them 'write so cheerfully'. Simply in order to keep going, each man needs to kid himself that it will not be him who is killed.

  Nulla is called upon to be a runner, a very responsible and dangerous job, entrusted to few men and crucial to the success of their operation to
'straighten the line'. Military planners on both sides were always keen to 'straighten' a frontline to avoid bulges or salients. These would provide the enemy with an intrusive wedge into the other's front, allowing them better observation and, most importantly, allowing them to enfilade the other's trenches from the side, or fire into and across rear areas.

  Nulla's task is to lead 400 men and an officer through a maze of support trenches to collect bombs and then to Fritz's Folly, a sunken road where the men will be met by the officers and the handover completed.

  It may seem extraordinary that a 19-year-old private who has only been in France a couple of months would be given responsibility for getting 400 men safely to the frontline trenches prior to an attack, but young men on the Western Front routinely found themselves in situations requiring bravery, skill and maturity. There was a maze of trenches and saps leading off in all directions that needed to be negotiated, there were no torches or lights of any kind, few trench signs, and this relief needed to be done silently and carefully, because any noise could instantly bring a German bombardment along the crowded frontline trenches.

  The night is 'as black as an infantryman's future' and Nulla can see little, but he bluffs when an anxious officer asks him if he can see any landmarks. 'Yes, plenty of them,' he says, though he recognises nothing in the blackness. He understands enough of a soldier's psychology to have the sense to keep this to himself; 400 men finding out they are being guided by the distant horizon or, when Nulla cannot see that, by a sense of direction and luck, could perhaps turn into an angry mob.

  Nulla successfully guides the men into the frontline and returns to his company, who are anxiously awaiting the 'hopover'. He attributes his ability as a guide to an 'instinct inherited from my pioneer ancestors'. In reality, according to Lynch's children, when he was around eight to ten years old his uncles would take him into the bush and leave him to find his way home. Tough love, but something he would have been grateful for at this time.

  Nulla is ordered to take part in the attack alongside his commanding officer so that he can send messages from him back to the battalion commander, or forward to officers or men ahead should this officer become a casualty. The stretcher-bearers begin to assemble, met with an ambivalent attitude from the men: no one wants to be reminded that they may soon be carried off on one of those stretchers, yet they are thankful the stretcher-bearers are there, waiting. The stretcher-bearers move along the trench handing out extra field dressings. Men also carried small glass vials of iodine to tip straight into a wound, as an antiseptic. Bandages and iodine were useful for minor wounds, but not for the horrific injuries often sustained on the frontline – nevertheless, they helped reassure men.

  Five minutes before the attack there is an unnerving silence in the trench as men ready themselves for the assault. Some pray, making their peace with God; others wait nervously, jaws or hands quivering. We know from many written accounts that Lynch's portrayal evokes a common reaction amongst men on the line in the moments before they were to hop over a parapet. Some would wet themselves in fear.

  Everyone counts the minutes, wondering if these will be their last on earth, thinking of home and their loved ones oblivious to their peril. The tense quiet is shattered as the officer calls, 'Come on!' and the men leap out of the trench into the nakedness of no-man's-land. The Allied artillery barrage crashes on the German frontline and the men run, half doubled over, towards the line of exploding shells. The euphemistic terms 'hop-over' or 'stunt' belie the horror of men dropping every few yards while the remainder charge on through a stream of bullets.

  When they have nearly reached the enemy's trench, they throw themselves on the ground. The Germans are shelling the Australian frontline, but Nulla and the men around him are close enough to the enemy trench to be safe from their bombardment. In another example of the randomness and mercurial nature of war, only moments before it was the men dashing across no-man's-land who seemed to be in the most unenviable position; now, they 'heave sighs of relief ' that they aren't still in their trench.

  What Lynch described was typical of an attack on the German line. First an artillery bombardment was launched on the German trench and then, while the enemy was reeling from that, men charged across no-man's-land to take the trench. Part of the first wave were Lewis gunners. They would set up their guns immediately in the captured trench, in readiness for a German counter-attack. What had been the parados (the back of the trench) to the Germans was now the Australians' parapet and so its defences needed to be bolstered. Men busied themselves with their spades to fill sandbags to defend the Lewis gun emplacements and build up the parapet, and they repaired other parts of the trench that had been damaged by their own artillery bombardment.

  Attacks on enemy trenches were frightening and dangerous operations that the men never got used to. The confusion, the noise, the stench and the fear made it the most surreal of experiences. Some fell, yet many men went into these actions time and time again, dodging the bullets and the bombardments, to come out alive.

  It is not known whether Private Lynch was a runner, but what is clear is that giving Nulla that job and making him privy to the communications of officers and battalion headquarters, he had the opportunity to comment on army command. Until this point, Nulla has been learning how to be a soldier, discovering the value of mateship and understanding the supreme sacrifices that men make for their country. In 'Straightening the Line', he learns a different, darker, kind of lesson: the scant value the army command puts on the individual lives of men in the line, and hence his own life. In the previous chapter, solemnity falls upon the men for the first time as they come to terms with a large number of fatalities, their mates lying dead on the snow. Here we see a very different perspective on the death of men, the perspective not of mates but of the officers who command them.

  Once the German trench has been taken, Nulla is instructed to go back to the rear and tell the colonel that they took their objective 'with small loss'. Nulla laments the army's sense of proportion, given that at least 20 of his own company's men lie dead. The colonel 'seems happy' and declares to the brigadier by phone, 'The stunt is over.' Nulla, who experienced the attack and saw men fall around him, cannot share in the colonel's happiness. All he can think of is the dead for whom it really is over, forever; the men so badly wounded that they will be disabled for the rest of their lives; the women who are 'doomed to long, lonely years ahead with nothing but a memory to cherish'; the children who will never again see their fathers.

  EIGHT

  A Night

  in the Line

  Taking the German trench, which the Allies dubbed Hoop Trench, was a positive step forward in this winter of little movement on the frontline – but it put the Australians in danger, for it meant that the German artillery now knew their exact location. So it was decided to move the line forward 50 metres into the 300-metre-wide no-man's-land.

  This was dangerous work that required a great deal of organisation and resources. It meant bringing up to the frontline entrenching tools, picks, shovels, barbed wire to be laid to protect the new trench, timber for shoring up the walls and duckboards to raise the bottom of the trench above the water line. It also meant bringing in additional men and ammunition, to ensure that those doing the digging were protected and the present frontline trench could be defended from an enemy attack.

  In the chapter 'A Night in the Line', Nulla's battalion assisted the Pioneer battalion, something commonplace on the Western Front at the time. There was so much infrastructure to be built and maintained during the First World War – everything from trenches, duckboard tracks connecting the frontline to the rest areas at the rear, roads, bridges and railways – that five Pioneer battalions were raised by the AIF in 1916 to support the work of the engineers and the infantry. Digging was often done by sappers – a rank equivalent to private – from Pioneer units. Labourers imported from China and India were also sometimes employed for trench building.

  First a rudim
entary trench, known as a sap, had to be dug towards the German lines, from the head of which the new trench-line would spread out, left and right. So that men knew where to dig, first a team of Pioneers would creep out across no-man's-land under cover of darkness to lay a white tape, pegged into the ground, to show the zigzagging course of the new trench.

  The tension during such an operation was high because all of this had to be done without alerting the enemy less than 300 metres away. All the while, German artillery continued their occasional firing on Australian positions. And in the case of Nulla's battalion, a lone enemy machine-gun that caused many fatalities during the taking of Hoop Trench is still in action, sending out a burst of fire along the Australians' parapet every now and then. In his job as runner, Nulla suddenly finds himself going out on a raid to try and take out the German gun.

  Their small party crawls out into no-man's-land to try to surprise the machine-gunners. The type of scene that Lynch describes here was repeated across the front during the war and numerous Victoria Crosses were awarded to men who put their lives on the line to eliminate an enemy machine-gun holding up an Allied advance.

  Nulla's party does manage to capture the gun, but Nulla has to shoot one of the enemy – if not the first casualty he has directly inflicted on an enemy soldier, at least the first he has shared with the reader. The man groans, badly wounded in the arm, inspiring Nulla's pity for a moment. Despite being surrounded by unrelenting carnage for so many weeks and despite having been under threat himself from the German machine-gun, he has not yet lost his compassion and humanity.

  He soon learns another important soldier's lesson: that compassion and humanity are not necessarily repaid in war. Hidden under the man's legs is a fully loaded automatic pistol with the safety catch off, and it is only through Dark's careful spotting that Nulla has a narrow escape. It is another reminder that the dividing line between life and death, and between being a man and being a ruthless killer, is razor-thin on the Western Front.