crater

But signalman Bridges was never to answer driver Gimbert's desperate question. A deafening, massive blast blew the wagon to shreds, the 44 high-explosive bombs exploding like simultaneous hits from the aircraft they should have been dropped from. The station was instantly reduced to bits of debris, and the line to a huge crater.

The people of those parts lived in underground houses - more of dug-outs - along with their goats and sheep and they had great craters full of wine, barley-wine, that they drank through reeds.