After studying the weather report the pilot decided it was too
late to try to make Egypt that day and we therefore went aboard
the old hundred-ton yacht Imperia which constituted the air
base. As there were no inns at this end of Crete the air line kept
the yacht moored in the bay to accommodate pilots and passengers. Knowing that one night's delay of the boxes of serum we
carried might jeopardize the life of a girl in Cairo, the pilot was
worried.
We were called at four in the morning and breakfasted, unwashed, by the light of the cabin lamps. Just as dawn broke we
took off for Alexandria, 370 miles away, the longest regular
oversea flight in Europe. Crete soon sank below the horizon in
the dim early morning light.