In one instance,
according to the story related to me by an officer, "a number of
our men were resting in an open field immediately behind the
second line of trenches, being in fact the reserves intended for
the relief of the front lines during the following night. An
aeroplane hove in sight. The men dropped their kits and got
under cover in an adjacent wood. The aeroplane was flying at a
great height and evidently laboured under the impression that the
kits were men. Twice it flew over the field in the usual manner,
and then the storm of shrapnel, 'Jack Johnsons' and other tokens
from the Kaiser rained upon the confined space. A round four
hundred shells were dropped into that field in the short period
of ten minutes, and the range was so accurate that no single
shell fell outside the space. Had the men not hurried to cover
not one would have been left alive to tell the tale, because
every square foot of the land was searched through and through.
We laughed at the short-sightedness of the airman who had
contributed to such a waste of valuable shot and shell, but at
the same time appreciated the narrowness of our own escape.
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