Well, I went night bombing yesterday--rather an Irish way of putting it, though! I went up after dinner, and as it was a bit misty I signalled down “bad mist.” They signalled to me to come down, but I wasn’t having any, and turned my blind eye to ’em and beetled off. You see, from the ground it didn’t look misty, and so, as I didn’t want any doubts on the subject, I sloped off towards the lines. I soon lost sight of the flares and then became absolutely and completely lost. Everything was inky black and I could only see an occasional thing directly below me. My mapboard was in the way of my compass, so I pulled the map off, chucked the board over the side, and then flew due east for about a quarter of an hour, when I saw some lights fired. I crossed the lines about 4,000 feet up and tried to find my objective, but it was no go. I went about four miles over, and came down to 2,000 feet with my engine throttled down, but could not even recognise what part I was over, owing to the mist. Then, to my surprise, the Huns loosed off some Archie nowhere near me, so I expect they couldn’t see _me_; but it looked ripping. They got a searchlight going and flashed it all round, passing always over the top of me. Then some more flares went up from the lines, and I could see the ground there beautifully, as clear as day, and some deep craters, but it did not show me sufficient to enable me to recognise what part of the lines I was over. Deciding it was hopeless, I set out for home, flying due west by my compass. It seemed ages before I picked up the aerodrome lights again, and I was afraid I might have drifted away sideways, but I spotted them all right, and just as I was nearing them, passed another of our machines by about 200 yards in the darkness. He was a wee bit lower than I was, and as he passed I could see his instrument lights in his little cabin. I then switched on some little lights I had on the wing tips, and flashed my pocket lamp--you know, the one I had in Germany and at Penlee--and then gave an exhibition of spiralling and banking in the dark. They said it looked topping from the ground. Then I signalled down “N.B.G.” and came in, “perched” (with all my bombs on, of course), and made a perfect dream of a landing. Altogether I had really enjoyed myself, and would much rather do night bombing than day bombing. The only thing that annoyed me was that I couldn’t find my target, ’cos the bombs would have looked so pretty exploding in the darkness. I didn’t get up until about twelve o’clock this morning, and I am playing tennis at 5.15, so it has its advantages. A little red spider has just landed on me and buzzed off again; that’s lucky, ain’t it? * * * * * [Sidenote: Gesticulation in Mid-Air]