Higher and higher we climbed. Every now and then I stood up and shone my torch on the two engines to read their dials, and to see if they were giving full power. Towards the north we moved, towards the gleaming Moselle and the distant star-shells of the lines. Then the French observer grew restless, and looked over the side, and down at the compass in his cockpit, and at the timing signal-lights beneath. At last, when we were eight or nine miles from the lines, he gave his verdict--the almost inevitable word _Brouillard_. He thought it was too misty. He stood up and leaned back to the pilot, and shouted his words of explanation-- "_Trop de brouillard!_ No good! It will be very bad by Metz!" We turned back disappointed, and drew nearer to the lighted rectangle of the aerodrome far below. The pilot pulled back his throttle. A sudden and almost painful silence followed the roar of the engine. In an agreeable tranquillity after the incessant clamour we had known so long, we glided downwards towards the queer world of the deep shadows. Slowly, slowly over the dazzling acetylene flares we floated. The most critical moment had come: the pilot was going to make his first night landing. I sat silent and unmoving, my left hand again subconsciously holding the edge of the machine in readiness. The ground grew imperceptibly nearer. We were below the level of the sheds. I felt a little vibration quiver through the machine, and then another. We had touched ground. We slowed down and drew up near our hangar. I dropped out of the machine, beneath which the disappointed mechanics were gazing at the unbroken surface of the brown paper pasted below the bomb-racks, and walked over to my cabin through a little pine wood. The rose-shaded lamp still shone softly. As I took off my heavy flying kit I recalled with a feeling of foolishness my fears and dreads when I had left it, and felt how wasted my sentiment had been. Almost the next night we started again. Once more I dressed in the heavy flying clothes, and collected my maps and impedimenta. Again I bade a sad farewell, and again sat beside the pilot, feeling weak and frail. Again we rose up in thunder across the lighted aerodrome towards the stars. The world lay before us hard and clear. No white scarves of mist were flung over the dark woodlands. The horizon lay almost unveiled, and above was the deep immensity of the night. Here and there across the country we saw the scattered lights of cottages and the twinkling of the French guiding stations. To the north were the brilliant star-shells, and far, far away in the mist glowed dully the little red flame of some blast-furnace beyond the lines.