Here with a Dud Machine, if Winds allow, A Flask of Wine, a Load of Bombs--and Thou Before me sitting in the Second Seat-- A Midnight Raid is Paradise enow. And when I turn upon the Homeward Trail, Dreaming of Decorations, Cakes and Ale, How bitter on the First Day's Leave to find My Name spelt wrongly in the "Daily Mail!" "Ah!" protested my love. "You really don't take it with sufficient seriousness, Claude!" "I do," was my quick protest. "I am not worrying about failure: I am only anticipating success." "Do not be over sanguine, dear, I beg of you." "I never have been," was my reply. "To-morrow I shall make the first test in the air--and you shall come with me, as I have for so long promised." CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. NOT COUNTING THE COST. From our aviation map--a plan of the country unfamiliar to most people-- we had ascertained that about fourteen miles away, in a direct line due east from Holly Farm, and about three miles beyond the little town of Mayfield, lay a small village called Stockhurst. The reasons why it attracted us were twofold. First the church was situated alone at some little distance from the village, and, secondly, it possessed an unusually high, pointed spire. Therefore on the following morning Teddy and I took the car, and after going round by the high road which took us eighteen miles, through Maresfield, Buxted, and across Hadlow Down, we at last, after going along a picturesque lane, then brown and leafless, arrived at the long, straggling village street of Mayfield, a quiet old-world place, far removed from the noise and bustle of the world at war. Most of the homely cottages were thatched, and the whole place was typical of the charm of rural Sussex. As we passed slowly along we saw upon our right an ancient comfortable-looking inn with its big stable-yard at the side, the "AA" badge and a sign which told us that it was "The George." Yet, farther on, an incongruous note was struck by a glaring red-brick shop called "The Stockhurst Stores." That morning was bright and crisp, with a clear blue sky. Indeed, before we had left we noted that the barometer was rising, and that the flight conditions were hourly improving. A little way out of the village we came upon the fine old ivy-covered church, with a tall spire of a type similar to that of St Martin's in Trafalgar Square, while the dimensions of the aisle showed that it had been built in the long ago medieval days when Stockhurst had been one of the important market-towns of that district, until other and more convenient markets had sapped its trade, and it had slowly dwindled down to an obscure little place known only by reason of the monumental brasses and beautiful stained glass of its church, which Thomas Cromwell had happily spared.