Two problems face me as I kneel there in my little cockpit in the forefront of the machine. In the first place, I know well that there are nine hundred or a thousand Germans waiting round that black town for me. By the fourteen searchlights; by the forty or more anti-aircraft guns; by the machine-guns; by the "green-ball" batteries; by the sound-detectors, the signal positions, the controls--they are waiting--nine hundred or more trained eager men, determined to stop me taking these fourteen bombs to their docks, so crowded with destroyers and submarines, with soldiers and stores and ammunition, and all that they are most anxious to keep intact. I am equally determined to drive home my blow if I can. That is my first problem. My second problem is a more subtle one. If we are heard, we are doomed. So clever are the searchlight operators that if one murmur comes down to them from the dark skies, their powerful beams of light will leap over to us and hold us in a grip of radiance which will dazzle us. Our only weapon is silence. The only way we can become silent is by throttling down our engines. If, however, we throttle down our engines, we begin to lose height. Therefore if we throttle down too soon, we will be so low when we arrive over the docks that we will be seen by those on the ground. The searchlights will be turned on to us, and, blinded and shelled, we will become impotent, and perhaps will be destroyed. If, on the other hand, we throttle down too late, the men on the ground will hear us before we are silent. Again the searchlights will swing over to us and will blind us. So it is necessary for me to give the order to throttle at the last possible moment I can, and I must be very careful, for a second too soon or too late may ruin all my plans. Therefore I kneel down and lean over the front, looking below intently, trying to read every sign and signal, trying to work it all out, watching my height and my speed and my distance--trying to think what the Germans are thinking almost before they think it themselves. No light, no sign of activity, breaks the darkness below. We are as yet unexpected. I glance behind for a moment, and in a spirit of bravado throw a kiss to the pilot as he switches on the lamp which shows him the white faces of the instruments in the engine casing. For a moment the light gleams, and then is extinguished. On the pilot's face, steady and determined, the cockpit lamp shines faintly, and as I turn forwards I feel that I have behind me, to follow my advice, a strong man with whom I am safe--unto the last moment of safety.