very exactly the instructions that had been given him, the man's mind
was a blank. His aquiline profile against the starlight expressed
nothing but a profound gloom.

The sky below grew clearer as the Central European capital was
approached.

So far they had been singularly lucky and had been challenged by no
aeroplanes at all. The frontier scouts they must have passed in the
night; probably these were mostly under the clouds; the world was wide
and they had had luck in not coming close to any soaring sentinel. Their
machine was painted a pale gray, that lay almost invisibly over the
cloud levels below. But now the east was flushing with the near ascent
of the sun, Berlin was but a score of miles ahead, and the luck of the
Frenchmen held. By imperceptible degrees the clouds below dissolved....

Away to the north-eastward, in a cloudless pool of gathering light and
with all its nocturnal illuminations still blazing, was Berlin. The left
finger of the steersman verified roads and open spaces below upon the
mica-covered square of map that was fastened by his wheel. There in a
series of lake-like expansions was the Havel away to the right; over by
those forests must be Spandau; there the river split about the Potsdam
island; and right ahead was Charlottenburg cleft by a great thoroughfare
that fell like an indicating beam of light straight to the imperial
headquarters. There, plain enough, was the Thiergarten; beyond rose
the imperial palace, and to the right those tall buildings, those
clustering, beflagged, bemasted roofs, must be the offices in which
the Central European staff was housed. It was all coldly clear and
colourless in the dawn.