But he did write a diary, kept for decades in a trunk with postcards sent home to his mother and sister Blanche.

The discovery of this memorabilia decades later led Robyn Wood on a journey back in time to the frontline with Walter and his younger brother Arthur, of a farming family in Georges Creek.

Robyn married Walter Wood, the grandson of Walter and great nephew of Arthur, and they took on the family home in 1980.

“Arthur and Henry, Wal’s great uncles, had been living here as bachelors,” Robyn said.

“Rooms with all this memorabilia were closed off and cupboards were full of things – nothing was thrown out.

“We had to sort through what was here and keep what we thought was important. Some of it had been here for 100 years.”

Among the collection was the small pocket diary, protected in a black wallet issued by the YMCA, and the very pencil Walter used to write as enemy fire persisted overhead.

It was difficult at times for Robyn to decipher the handwriting of the diary entries. Most were just a date and a one-line description.

“I didn’t have much to work with,” she said. “The first page goes from Enlisted 1916 to Torpedoed April 25th 1917.

“There was another document I found which I misread at first  - I thought it was about Ballarat - but the name of the ship was The Ballarat. Arthur sent it home and they received it on July 28 1917.

“It gives a first-hand description of what happened to the boat – it was only 25 miles off the coast of England and they were torpedoed by a German ship.”

This link made Robyn, who was a history teacher, hungry for more information.

She found Walter’s service record on the Australian War Memorial website and discovered, through tracking the HMAT Ballarat’s movements, that Walter and Arthur arrived safely at the British training camp at Lark Hill, just a mile from the famous Stonehenge site.

As part of the 10th Training Battalion the brothers were trained as machine gunners - roles entrusted to just 1 per cent of the Australian men who served overseas.

The brothers were then drafted to the 5th Division of the Australian Imperial forces, as part of the 25th Machine Gun Company.

The official diary of the company was significant for Robyn’s research.

Their first conflict was the Third Battle of Ypres. Walter wrote ‘Shifted into Front line’. Robyn was able to find this event in the Company Diary from the Australian War Memorial records.

“Within days they went to the front line and the only way I could expand on that was using the National War Memorial Archives,” she said.

“The company war diary detailed the daily activities and I could correspond that with what was written in Walter’s diary. I could figure out where he was, who he was with and that allowed me to expand on the one liners.”

With this extra detail Robyn was able to write a 172-page book Tug of War, which documents Walter and Arthur’s service. The details contained in the official diary give insight to what Walter witnessed and the near misses he didn’t mention in his accounts.

During Walter’s next battle on the Kemmel front at the end of 1917, his section expended 6500 rounds in one day – and Walter was lucky to miss a shower of gas shells on their gun position just a day after being moved back to camp.

On March 2, 1918 the 25th Machine Gun Company was amalgamated with four others to become the 5th Machine Gun Battalion, and later that month they left Kemmel for the Somme in France to try to prevent the German advance.

It was from the front line there that one of few stories Walter relayed in detail made its way to the Wood family.

Robyn’s husband recalls his grandfather telling the story about Private Leo Joseph Yorke, who had teamed up with Walter in the gunner’s position on April 9.

“The story Walter came back with was they were digging a dug-out - machine gunners were not in the trenches but in spots in between the German line and the Australian or British line - and about four or five of them were working as a team.

“Walter said that he and Yorke, as he called him, were digging the trench out and Yorke stood up and got shot in the head.”

Walter told his grandson of the sniper’s precision, “I was lucky, it could have been me”.

Despite the impact his comrade’s death would have had on Walter, the event is simply noted in his diary as: April 9th Advanced six hundred yds and dug in Yorke was killed.

But there are glimpses elsewhere of the reserved yet funny man who left for the war as a 34-year-old, probably not to be a hero, but to protect his 19-year-old brother, so young he was nicknamed ‘Boy’.

They can be found within postcards sent to his sister, during his leave.

Walter was evacuated from the battalion on July 29, 1918 after contracting influenza - which killed 50 million across the world within a year - but after three weeks in hospital moved to a convalescent camp at Le Havre. Meanwhile the battle of Amiens commenced in August 1918 and the German army was taken by surprise.

The attack saw three killed and 26 wounded from 25th Machine Gun Company including Arthur, injured in the buttock from an exploding shell while at machine gun position.

He was taken to Colchester military hospital in United Kingdom, and he would not return to active service for the duration of the war. On October 5 all Australian troops were withdrawn for a rest. Walter took leave and went to visit Arthur in London.

I went through the King’s stable, he writes to Blanche, they are allright (sic). I also took a look at Queen Victoria’s memorial it cost three million and is quite allright (sic) but I would rather have the cash.

Then in diary entries from Nestelle, recorded after the Germans signed the armistice agreement created by the Allied Nations he writes: Some of the B section got drunk and got mixed up in a poultry raid arrived home at 2 in the morning with five geese and some fowls … French police searched out billet and found two geese cost us 250 francs to keep them quiet.

One of the stories that bore the most detail, Robyn notes, was Walter’s win in sport.

“In the war, particularly when John Monash took over the commanding of the Australian troops, he felt that recreation and rest was really important,” she said.

“Instead of them thinking about the war, they thought about sport.

“Walter was very proud of being in the team that won the tug of war contests.”

He had sent numerous photos home of his winning team, and when he boarded a ship home on July 25 1919 – after two years of war and 9 months of travelling Europe – Walter still wore the badge with the inscription of ‘Tug of War’  on the back of it.

“That’s what he related from the war, more than anything,” Robyn said.

“It made for such a fitting title for the book.

“There were elements of division in Australia with some not wanting to support the war, and others felt obliged. Walter and Arthur were farmers, so they were exempt, but they felt they should go because so many men were being killed or coming home wounded.

“Eventually they did, but not until 1916, two years after the war had started.

“Everybody thought we wouldn’t be there long, but it didn’t happen that way.”

Tug of War was published in 2014 after years of research.

It not only explores the story of Walter and Arthur, but many other young men from the North East who wrote to Mary Irvine, who became Walter’s wife in 1920.

Among them was Samuel Joseph Rousseau of Granya, who enlisted in 1915. He played an interesting role in the war, belonging to the Cycling unit, and had a memorable writing style.

I have seen enough of France to do me for a long life time, he wrote in October 1916.

I saw Ernie Hillas once since I came to France last I heard of him he was in England on leave but that is (sic) a long time ago.

He told you the girls were just the thing there (sic) not bad but not in the same street as the Australian lassies. If you go to the New Years Night Ball, keep the first dance for me as I might be home (I don’t think) in 1919 with a lot of luck.

He did indeed come home in 1919, on July 6.

Robyn also writes about Sandy, the only horse from 136,000 to make it back to Australia after World War I.

Sandy, a 15.3 hands high bay gelding with a white star, originally belonged to brothers Francis and Jack O’donnell of Tallangatta.

Francis, or ‘Bonner’ as he was known, was Jean Merbach’s great uncle.

Jean explained, “When the war broke out and dad joined the army, Bonner tried to as well, but at that stage of the game Melbourne had a brand new Roman Catholic Head by the name of Mannix.

“Mannix made up his mind he disliked the British with a passion and he said no Roman Catholic would join the army, so that wiped Uncle Bonner out.

“He was very upset about it because dad had joined the army and so had his younger brother, so Bonner decided he would give his horse.”

Jean said Sandy became the favourite horse of General William Throsby Bridges.

“He was a man of probably six foot and was quite a target, and he got shot, but it wasn’t fatal,” she said.

“The wounds weren’t being properly looked after and he died.

“His body was to be sent back to Australia and he had got permission for his horse to be sent back too.”

Jean said Sandy was retired to the remount depot at Maribyrnong, where he was cared for until his death.

“Sandy was just a very ordinary Australian work horse,” she said.

It seems the same is said about every brave soul who fought in the war, including Walter and Arthur Wood.

“Although I never met him, I’m told Walter was a quiet, reserved man,” Robyn said.

“I don’t think he went to war to be a hero, but because it was the right thing to do at that time.” 

Robyn Wood and Jean Merbach will be speaking at the Tallangatta Library on January 24, as part of Writing the War. The exhibition continues until February 2.