The Winding Stair by A.E.W. Mason

That day, the eighteenth of April, broke in gloom. A heavy canopy of sullen clouds hung over Fez. Nowhere within eye's reach was there a slant of sunshine. There were no shadows, no flashes of colour. White houses and dark gardens and green-tiled mosques all lay very clear and near and distinct, but without any of the radiance which on a day of sunlight gives to the city so magical a beauty, that a stranger looking down upon it can believe that he has wandered into fairyland.

The shells were screaming over Fez from the south. They dispersed the Moors holding the North Fort outside the walls, and they destroyed the Castle of Sidi Bou Nafa in Fez Djedid, close to the Sultan's Palace, which was held in force by the insurgents. But there were too many refugees still hiding and too many Fazi secretly friendly to the French to make possible such a bombardment as would reduce the city to terms.