Ada and the cook shuddered and shut their eyes.

Eleanor asked:

‘Why is there such a noise?’

Maud said:

‘Gun practice, my dear child. They are practising with guns.’

And she seemed satisfied, she was still half asleep.

And I thought:

‘Those bombs have fallen somewhere; they have fallen on something; people must have been killed.’

But it did not mean much to me even so.

Maud said violently: