midnight
`` So do I , so long as I can keep cool . At any rate we can start to the second . Are you ready ? '' The sky was brilliant with stars when , just after midnight , they took their places in the aeroplane . Twenty-five minutes ' easy run , east-north-east , brought them within sight of the dull red glare northward that betrayed London . Smith had so often made this journey that , even if the stars had been invisible , he could almost have directed his course by the lights of the villages and towns over which he passed . He knew them as well as a sailor knows the lights of the coast .