Almost straight eastward they headed, bearing just a little to the southward, so as to strike Singapore on a bee-line.  They hoped to reach this stop some time before dark, which would give them approximately twelve hours' flying time.  Under ideal weather conditions, they could make the journey in considerably less time, but it was the season for the well-known monsoons of the Indian Ocean, and it was quite unlikely that they would be able to wing their way across the fourteen hundred odd miles of sea without encountering some of these deterrent trade-winds.