CHAPTER XVIII
THE TRI-COLOURED RINGS
Almost as soon as we rose we saw straight before us a beam of reddish light moving swiftly northward in the direction of London.
For a few seconds it was shut off, shone out again, and then went out. I knew it to be from a railway engine, the stoker of which had been firing up. Moving trains, notwithstanding the pulling down of carriage-blinds, and the darkening of railway platforms so that persons break their legs in descending, or getting out at a supposed platform and falling upon the line, form the best guides for aircraft at night. By following an express locomotive, which must be stoked at frequent intervals, and looking out for the coloured signal-lights along the line, an airman can always reach the London area. I had, when night-flying at Hendon before the war, often guided myself home by following an up-express.
So terrific was the roar of my new engine that I could only communicate with Roseye by signs.
I pointed at the moving train and, understanding my gesture, she nodded.
As we rose higher and yet higher into the calm star-
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