"The 'All Clear' went at once after that. Its suddenness was something surprising the mournful cheerful long notes dying regretfully on a night that had only just gone quiet after the perfectly astonishing row. The moon had taken it into its head to rise; begumboiled jocular and grotesque it came from behind the shoulder of one of the hut-covered hills and sent down the lines of Tietjens' huts long sentimental rays that converted the place into a slumbering pastoral settlement. There was no sound that did not contribute to the silence little dim lights shone through the celluloid casements. Of Sergeant- Major Cowley his numerals gilded by the moon in the lines of A Company Tietjens who was easing his lungs of coke vapours for a minute asked in a voice that hushed itself in tribute to the moonlight and the now keen frost."