Onwards we fly, watching the compass, watching the North Star, watching the pale veils of vapour beneath us. The cloud barrier grows thinner, and more and more rifts appear in it. About ten minutes after we have passed the lines, we see ahead of us a pale searchlight flash in the masses of cloud, now shooting up through a gap, now losing itself in the lighted edges of a floating wisp. It flashes three times, and stops. Again it appears, three times stabbing the sky, challenging us with the "letter of the night" in Morse code. I load my Very's light pistol and fire it over the side. A green light drifts down and dies. The searchlight goes out; we fly on. "That light is somewhere near Furnes, Jimmy. Let's put our navigation lights on now; I'll try and pick up some landmark below,--the coast if I can ... it's awfully thick to-night!" Beneath in the murk I can see now and again a twinkling light, and then, to my delight, I pick up the shore. We fly on above it for a quarter of an hour. Then the pilot begins to get anxious. "Can you see Dunkerque yet, old man? We ought to be there!" he asks. I look below, and see sand-dunes and the unbroken coast running a little way on either side into the mist, which has now taken the place of the cloud. "Can't quite make out, Jimmy. We had better fly on a bit. We must be past La Panne!" For four or five minutes we fly on. Once I lose sight of the coast, and ask the pilot to turn to the right, not telling him the reason. To my relief I pick it up again before he suspects that I am lost. "Anything in sight yet, Bewsh?" he asks. "We must be up near Dunkerque by now. We can't have passed it!" Still the unbroken coast below. "I'd better fire a light," I suggest. "All right," he says. "Carry on--stop a minute, though! We _are_ over the lines, aren't we?" "We _must_ be ... I think. We passed Nieuport miles back. I can't make out where we are. I'll give a white!" I load my Very's light pistol and fire it over the side. A ball of white fire drifts below towards the mocking emptiness of the mist. I stand up and look all around. Through the haze comes no welcome gleam. "No answer, Jimmy! What _shall_ we do? If we go on we'll get miles down towards Calais! If we go back, we get over the lines. Go up and down here, and I'll try to find Dunkerque--it _must_ be somewhere near!" I fire another white light, and then another. No answer comes from the ground. No searchlights move across the sky. All we can see is a vague circle, bisected by the coast-line--one half being sea, the other half sand-dunes. Then, in my excitement, I accidentally fire a Very's light inside the machine. The ball of blazing fire rushes frantically round our feet and up and down the floor. I hurriedly stamp it out amidst the curses of the pilot, who says later that in my eagerness I picked it up and threw it over the side.