Don Clarke, of Nanaimo, now serving in France with the First Canadian division, 15th Battalion, 48th Highlanders, writes home to his mother as follows under date of July 13:
"Fritz has been very quiet today. We have been shelling one of their planes. I used to find it exciting watching them shelled. It happened two or three times a day. I have only seen one hit only slightly and it managed to land safely. They fire as many as two or three hundred shots at them. The smoke of the shells looks like a lot of small clouds. It ought to amuse Lewis, he likes shooting, the game is big enough When they are high up they look like eagles. The have the eyes of eagles as well, for once a German plane sees us we generally know it in a short time.
"I got an awful scare last night. I was on sentry go between 11 and 12 o'clock in a kind of lonely spot. I was going my rounds and when about 20 feet from my beat I spotted a green light. I thought I had something for sure, so I watched it for about five minutes, but couldn't make out what it was. I crept up very quietly, all the time keeping it covered. Well, what do you think it was? Nothing more than a glow worm. It's the first I ever saw, and I am not likely to forget them, for I have had a bigger scare from one than ever Hans gave me.
"I had a rather amusing incident today. About six of us were cooking dinner in what used to be a fountain in front of a battered house. I was shelling peas, when without warning plunk a shell landed right on top of the edge and exploded. How it never got all of us I don't know: it wasn't more than twenty feet away. Naturally the dinner was upset, but the funny part of it was about half an hour later. The rest of the crowding round to look at it, talking and joking, each one showing the other just where he was when it happened, when bang! a shrapnel broke on the opposite side. You ought to see that crowd scatter! There is a battered old house here by us. It was a splendid place one, but even the very trees are ruined by shells. We have been in the trenches here eight days four days in the firing lines and four days in the rear, but may get out tonight or tomorrow."
