aviator is to shoot at the searchlight with
a large pistol loaded with an enormous cartridge. The aviator, intent on
his calculations and annoyed by any interruption, often wishes that this
pistol was a deadly weapon, but it is not. It merely fires a certain
colored light which floats slowly down changing in its descent to
certain other colors, which prove to the officer in charge of the
challenging searchlight that an Allied aeroplane is above him. The
colors which are shown on one night, however, will not do on another,
for these "colors of the day," as they are inappropriately called, are
changed every night and the utmost secrecy is maintained in regard to
them. Even the aviators do not know the "color of the day" until ten
minutes before the start of a raid, neither do the officers in charge of
the anti-aircraft batteries. The reason for this secrecy became
apparent to the Bedouins one night when a Hun flew over our aerodrome
shooting down our "color of the day," blinking his navigation lights,
and finally firing down a red light which was our prearranged
forced-landing signal. The aerodrome officer, believing that one of the
Bedouin machines was returning from that night's raid with engine
trouble, lit up the "landing T" and brought upon himself a shower of
bombs which carried him into the Unknown.

After crossing the lines the aviators are intent on steering an accurate
compass course, checking their position from time to time by various
landmarks such as canals, rivers, cross-roads, and woods, and figuring
changes in wind. The bursting shells of the enemy anti-aircraft
batteries must be disregarded, for a slight detour around a particularly
heavy barrage might mean an error of several degrees in their course
which, unless corrected, would bring them twenty to thirty miles away
from their objective after a flight of one hundred and seventy miles or
more, and an accurate correction of a compass course after a wide detour
is always difficult and sometimes impossible. Therefore, it is of the
utmost importance for long-distance night bombers to hold their course
regardless of the enemy's efforts at destruction.

The hatred in the hearts of the Huns, expressed by the constant "whonk"
of bursting anti-aircraft shells, contrasts disagreeably with the
loveliness of the moonlit panorama. All man's disfigurements of the
earth are obliterated by distance and nothing but a scene of inspiring
beauty is in view from the avia