Such had been the record, then, of the Dover Patrol up to the events described in the last chapter--events that, as we have shown, drove Germany's naval activity, for its main efforts, under the water, and confined it afloat to those tip-and-run raids of which that of the following February may be taken as typical. It was on Sunday night, February 25th, soon after eleven o'clock, that a number of star-shells suddenly broke in the sky over the Isle of Thanet, illuminating {215} the coast for a long distance and bringing many of its inhabitants to their windows. Almost simultaneously a brisk bombardment revealed the presence of a flotilla of German destroyers--Margate, Broadstairs, and a little hamlet between them, being subjected to the enemy's fire. Fortunately the casualties were few, and there was no military damage--none of the places attacked being fortified towns--but a woman and a child were killed and two children seriously wounded, and a dozen houses wrecked or injured. A single British destroyer pluckily engaged the enemy, who was soon lost to sight in the darkness, neither the British vessel nor any of the raiders suffering, as far as was known, any serious hurt. For this enemy success, if such it can be called, and for one or two previous ones of a like nature, there was considerable criticism of the Dover Patrol, chiefly of an ignorant and hasty character. With the Germans at Zeebrugge and Ostend, and in favourable conditions of weather and darkness, it was obviously out of the question to give immutable guarantees against occasional excursions such as these; and that these brief and lawless bombardments reflected no lack of spirit on the part of the Patrol, the Dover destroyers _Swift_ and _Broke_ were soon triumphantly to demonstrate.