Suddenly my pilot strikes my arm. "Look! There's one of their patrol machines with a searchlight! There--_there_--to the left!" I turn and see, moving very swiftly, half a mile in front of us, a brilliant light. The pilot shouts again. "It's turning towards us! Get in the front, quick!" I crawl through the small wooden door into the nose of the machine, and unstrapping the Lewis gun get it ready for action. The light sweeps round to the right, but it is going downwards, and the German airman has evidently not seen us. I wait a minute or two and examine the sky all round us, but can see nothing. With a feeling of relief I kneel on the floor and wriggle back into my seat behind. "By _Jove_! Did you see that, Bewsh?" says the pilot. "The devil! We'll have to look out." Ahead of us now we can see the tall powerful searchlights of Zeebrugge moving in slow sweeps over the sky. Under our right wing lies Ostend. We are off Blankenberghe, and the time has come to cross the coast. We are eight thousand five hundred feet above the sea, and are not likely to gain much more height, and, at any rate, we are anxious to get the work done and to return home. To the right we turn and move steadily towards the waiting coast. In front of us lies the waving line of searchlights. Inland, to the left, can be seen in the distance the turmoil of Bruges. The beams of light sweep across the stars; shells burst in the sky; and now and then there float upwards strings of fantastic green balls, sparkling like gems as they bubble towards the upper levels, where they float gaily for a moment parallel to the ground before they fade away. Below, near the coast by Blankenberghe, an aerial lighthouse flashes and flashes--_Four shorts_--_one long_--darkness: _four shorts_--_one long_--darkness. Now we are getting near to the restless weeds of light which begin to move outwards in search of us. The pilot throttles the engines slightly, for we are getting within the range of these clutching tentacles. I feel very nervous and frightened. On either side of us now move the slow gliding beams--broad and pale shafts of light stretching high, high up above us in the darkness, blotting out the stars, and stretching far, far beneath us to a tiny spot of light on the black edge of the coast. With these arms of light coming up to us from the ground we begin at once to have a sense of height, which normally you never have when in the air. The searchlights, running from the earth to our level and past us, join us to the ground and give us a measure of distance and an opportunity of contrast. With these tall, enormously tall, thin pillars of light near us moving to and fro in a hypnotising swing, we feel very, very high off the ground, and realise how remote from the earth we sit on our little seats in the fragile structure of linen and steel and wood.