The propeller in front moves round slowly and the engine fires and begins with a roaring noise. Now the propeller has vanished as it gathers speed and they can see ahead, across the clearing, to the orange groves and the blue ridge of moonlit mountains. The mechanics are wheeling the machine round for the run down the field, the engine is tested with them hanging on to the wings, Sanderson waves his hands, they let go. They are off. Imperceptibly they lift from the ground up into the cold air of the moonlit night. The grey-blue country spreads around them. The stars have vanished with a paling moon; to the east the silver of the dawn creeps over a black ridge. The low flat roofs of Jaffa are dimly visible, here and there they catch a glimpse of moonlight rippling on the sea. They are facing the wind, but the roar of the engine is no longer audible, lulled by the perpetuity of the sound. The coast line grows more distant as their eyes become accustomed to the light. But dawn is breaking rapidly. They are flying, for the present, until the enemy lines are reached, in close formation; to the left and right, like grey birds, soar the other aeroplanes. In a few minutes they will cross the enemy's lines, over which they will have to deploy and run the gauntlet of anti-aircraft fire. Their crossing is well-timed, for dawn is advancing. "We're over--do you hear?" cried Sanderson. Far below came on the wind a familiar sound. _Ratatatattatatatatat!_ It was machine gun fire trying to find them in the darkness above. They were flying down wind now and had lost their companions. The altimeter registered 8,000 feet. And then suddenly the world was transformed. From a cloud-bank the sun emerged with a triumphant blaze of yellow light. John saw the light, like a live thing, go streaming over the hills and valleys below, flooding in a thousand hues the objects of day. Behind them now, to the left, Jaffa, with its white houses, sparkled on the edge of a blue expanse of sea, wind-furrowed. Back on the left like a dull mirror, lay the ghostly outline of the Dead Sea, with the barren hills of Judæa. The coloured contours leapt up below them, the brown face of the grain-land, the grey villages, the green patches of woodland. A silver spear shot athwart a green-gold valley, where the Jordan twisted southwards to the Dead Sea. From the sand dunes of the coast to the Jordan basin a series of brown scars cut the earth's face.