MENDING roads behind the lines may not have been as dangerous as a frontal assault across No Man’s Land.

But the Royal Engineers repairing shell-damaged roads knew that another deadly barrage could land in the same place at any time.

Keighley-born sapper Percy Shackleton was returning to his nearby billet after repair work on March 16, 1916, when he was killed by one of those German shells.

He had just reached the billet when a “big one” landed about five yards away and smashed a cart.

A piece of the cart hit him on the back of the head, killing him instantly – only a second after he emerged from the shelter of a house wall.

Sapper Shackleton’s wife Mary learned all about the incident in a detailed letter from his commanding officer, Lt HW Cowling.

Percy had married Mary 11 years before, at the age of 21, and the pair had at least five children while living at Hermit Hole and Ingrow.

Percy, a mason by trade, had enlisted in the Royal Engineers in September 1915, and had arrived in France only three weeks before he was killed.

Percy’s widow died at the age of 85 in 1967. Percy’s brother-in-law Bertie Colledge, of Cross Roads, was killed in action in 1918.