Compasses, electric light torches and maps were dragged hurriedly from their hiding-places in lockers. A general bearing was taken of the enemy’s course, and we ran out on to the aerodrome, where a searchlight had already begun to work, sending long, scintillating beams of light across the dark night sky, turning and twisting, first in one quarter, then in another, covering the heavens in the twinkling of an eye, but never disclosing the true object of its search. At last there is a shout from one of the men by the light. He had discovered the whereabouts of the Zeppelin. Yes! there she is! A long, gray, cigar-shaped object far up in the clouds. We hurried across to the machine, and while I examined the bombs in the bomb-rack beneath the fuselage (body), and attended to the fitting-in of the Lewis-gun, the pilot tested the engine. And before five minutes had elapsed since the first alarm we were off the ground. Who can well and truly describe the sensations of night flying? Suddenly one is hurled from the ground into an unbounded space of darkness at the rate of fifty miles an hour. It is like jumping off a cliff on a dark night and plunging on and on, one knows not where. It is impossible to see beyond one’s nose, and the only thing that seems real and natural is the incessantly loud hum of the engine. It is a by no means pleasant task. Leaving the ground we miss a roof-top by inches, and, feeling considerably shaken, climb rapidly. At first it is dark, pitch dark. We see nothing, we know not where we are. One would lose one’s reason were it not for the hum of the racing engine. At last there breaks through the long shadows of darkness, beneath us, a long, narrow, winding ribbon of shimmering gray. The young moon has broken through the clouds and the reflection of its light upon the water gives us the position of the river. On either side or moving slowly along the surface are small pin-pricks of colored lights; I switch on my electric light in front of the observer’s seat, glance at the altimeter, and discover that we are already 500 feet up. The glare of that light, feeble though it be when contrasted with the black darkness of the atmosphere around, has got into my eyes, and for a moment or two I can distinguish absolutely nothing. Then lights begin to make themselves visible. The street lamps can easily be distinguished; as being darkened at the top the light is concentrated downwards in a circle onto the pavement beneath, which serves the purpose of reflecting it heavenwards and upwards. The main streets can be picked out by the two parallel lines of colored lights; the windows of shops, the lights of which have been covered with red and green shades.