Towards sundown the occupants of the various bomb-proofs used to emerge and sit on the steps or the sandbags of their shelters, conversing with their neighbours and discussing the day's damage.

All of a sudden the bell would tinkle, and down would go all the heads, just as one has often seen rabbits on a summer evening disappear into their holes at the report of a gun.

In a few minutes, when the explosion was over, they would bob up again, to see if any harm had been done by the last missile.

Then night would gradually fall on the scene, sometimes made almost as light as day by a glorious African moon, concerning which I shall always maintain that in no other country is that orb of such brightness, size, and splendour.

The half-hour between sundown and moonrise, or twilight and inky blackness, as the case happened to be, according to the season or the weather, was about the pleasantest time in the whole day.