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Date: May 31st 1915
Letter

May 31st, 1915 "Somewhere in France" We are in a quieter spot and I am lying out in the sun behind the farm house. We were awakened last night by the arrival of a shell in our field. It hit two men, not seriously, and never touched a third. Some freakish things happen. It cut one man's boots to ribbons, which he had taken off for the first time for over a week and cut his little toe. Hence if he had had his boots on it might not have cut his toe, or if he had lain where he put his boots it would have cut his legs very much more than it did. The funny part about it was that he did not know the state of his boots and on going away in the ambulance he called out to one of the men, "Mac you can have my big boots". They are'nt much good to "Mac" as boots. So you see there are humourous sides to the war as well as sad ones. Mac is in the F.O.S. and I am with the battery. Ell and the Major are elsewhere. We are just about to have supper shortly consisting of, bread, jam, cheese and tea, very healthy fare. I may be able to get an egg from the inhabitants. Our infantry are still doing splendid work, also the Dragoons and Strathcona Horse and K.E. Horse. We dont shine but just have to "stay on the job" night and day. Some days it is hot and others all is quiet. We have had 40 casualties out of 135 men up to date. So you see we are fairly lucky as many of these were only slight wounds. We are up at intervals every night with orderlies and phone messages, sometimes firing and sometimes moving, so we sleep during the day lying out in the sun.