With a mighty roar the shell explodes spouting flame and phosphorous fumes everywhere. Mud is showered over everyone as pieces of shell fly over prone bodies. A man five feet ahead of me is sobbing - queer, panting gasping sobs. He bends his head towards his stomach just twice and is still. We've had our baptism of fire, seen our first man killed...When Will Davies discovered the manuscript for Somme Mud he knew he had found a lost treasure. Private Lynch's powerful, personal story of his time in the trenches of the Somme has become a classic. In this new book, Will Davies meticulously follows in the footsteps of Lynch and his battalion, the 45th - from their long route marches to lice ridden billets, into the frontline and seeing action at such infamous battles as Messines, Dernancourt, Stormy Trench and Villers Bretonneux, and on the last great push to final victory after August 1918. Incorporating an innovative 'then and now' approach in words and pictures, the author assesses the impact Lynch and those like him had both on the battlefield and in the greater context of the war on the Western Front. Written in a lively and accessible style, it sheds light on the campaigns and offensives, the weapons and the equipment, the food, the living conditions and the neglected minutiae of war and in so doing brings to life the young men who sacrificed their youth over 90 years ago.