"Jimmy! I am going to get into the nose now. We are about seven miles away. I am going to drop the bombs down-wind. I shall drop all at once. See here--these are my signals! Right hand out--turn to right. Left hand out--to left. Hand straight up--dead ahead. One hand on my head--half-throttle the engines. Both hands on my head--throttle the engines altogether. When I have dropped I will wave my arms. I think it will be all right. I will try my best. I will adjust the pressure first!" I look to my pressure gauge, and adjust the necessary taps. Then I collect my case and my torch, shout out "Cheero! Good luck! It will be all right!" and kneel on the floor of the machine. I unlatch the little door in front of me and crawl through it, and shut it behind me. Now I am kneeling in the cockpit, whose sides come a little above my waist. Around me is the ring of the Lewis gun mounting. I grasp this, and, lifting a lever, turn the machine-gun round till it is behind me and out of my way. I look over the nose of the machine, and shine my torch for a moment on to the bomb-sight which I adjust for our height. On my right-hand side, fixed on the floor, is the little bomb-handle, held safely by my piece of string. From this short vertical bar of wood runs a Bowden wire back under the pilot's seat to the bombs, which are some fifteen feet behind me. A wonderful spectacle is now before my eyes. I can see the whole Belgian coast in one long sweep to Holland. On the left, and a little behind me, Ostend haunts the night with its pale restless beams of light, while near it to the east flashes the aerial lighthouse of de Haan. Along the edge of the shore is a fringe of moving beams, as far as Zeebrugge, where another thick cluster wheel and hover in the sky. There a rich chain of emeralds floats upwards to some suspected menace, and a few shells burst in a scattered group above the distant Mole. On the left, beyond these signs of an uneasy enemy, lies the dim and unemotional sea. Ahead of us, like a sea of twinkling gems, glitters Flushing. Along its quays shines a white line of electric arc-lamps. The dull silver band of the moon-kissed Scheldt winds through the dim territories of Holland, and on either side the Dutch villages flicker with little lights. Ahead of us, unlit and waiting, lies the dark circle of Bruges with the water gleaming in its docks on the left, and a little light on the factory to the right of it. While far far away to the east over remote Ghent ghostly searchlights dance in a goblin measure.