A Green Bough
A Green Bough opens in the First World War trenches of France, with a young American, Daniel Wyndham, fighting with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers and serving under the command of the aged and war-scarred Major Fitzmullen Brophy.
Wyndham is returned, wounded, to an Ireland riven by dissent and fostering the elements and breeding the incidents which will develop into the tragedy later known as “the Troubles”. This story concludes, back in the trenches, with its surviving major players older but not much wiser and facing the horrors of the Somme.
John Ware pulls no punches when describing the appalling reality of trench warfare and its effects on the rank and file of the troops involved. What he does not do, in this meticulous, moving and often very humorous account of military escapades and procedures, is explore the reasons for the subordinates’ acceptance of the scandals of the military ethos. These serving troops are bullied, exploited, half-starved and often killed by grossly incompetent leadership from officers who are only minimally superior to them, even in rank.
Historically this particular furrow has been well ploughed, but few writers have seen within it the humour which colours the world John Ware gives us, together with the unique characteristics of the Irish.
The absurdities of the military elite, contrasted with the earthy obscenities of men such as Corporal Moriarty, are often as deliciously funny, as is the description of a group of inexperienced Fusiliers being instructed on how to employ their gas masks, where the implied horror is nicely undercut by the derision the exercise creates.
An abundance of delightful, unforgettable ideas and endearing characters lurk unassumingly in these pages, and if their futures, and John Ware’s conclusions about the history or justification of war remain a touch unfocussed, A Green Bough is still a lively, moving, absorbing and memorable read.
