Recruited into the 14th Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles on the outbreak of war in 1914, Jim Maultsaid, a self-taught artist living in Donegal, saw combat on the front line before being wounded on the Somme. Jim recorded his war experiences through sketches and notes in his "little black book", and many of the striking pictures of warfare reproduced here form a graphic impression even more immediate than a photo. Jim's granddaughter has now edited selections from his notebooks and this first volume takes him up to Beaumont-Hamel and Thiepval in Spring 1916. Jim's irrepressible good humour is astonishing and catching, even when he is describing with appropriate reverence the deaths of comrades. His training starts with a route march of six miles. Jim fires his first shots two months later, and on 26 February 1915 gets his complete kit weighing 80 lbs, just in time for a route march of 26 miles. Exactly a year after enlisting, following an inspection by the King, the battalion embarks on a transport for France. Marching through Amiens and Beauval they are already deep in mud and soon "In the far distance we heard Boom! Boom! Guns! Big stuff, too. Yes! Getting there now." Jim's sketch of the front line, punctuated by pinpricks of fire and shells, is unforgettable. He narrowly avoids a bullet when he looks over the trench and does not make that mistake twice. On Sunday the sound of hymn singing floats across from the other side. Jim volunteers for bombing patrol and crawls forward on his stomach to within 20 yards of a German sentry post. He reflects that his youthful enjoyment of stories like Buffalo Bill were now a reality. Rats in the trenches are lured by cheese and then bayonetted. At the Somme conditions are pitiless and Jim's sketches of the Night Patrol convey fear and violence. "Rain - mud - snow and filth." A major attack leaves Jim's friend Billy dead, and he pays tribute. When Sir Douglas Haig himself passes by and asks to see Jim's boys doing bombing practice, they all throw a bull's eye. 17.8 x 25.4cm, 198pp, lively drawings on most pages.
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