It was a rather pathetic gathering that mourned its dead that Sunday morning in the grey church by the quayside at Dover, with the painted sunlight streaming down through the stained-glass windows, lighting the weather-beaten faces of skippers and deckhands, trimmers and enginemen of the Trawler Reserve. There was, moreover, in their solemn faces a trace of faint hurt bewilderment, like that on the face of a child that has bumped its head in the dark. They were only fishermen, for all their brass buttons and blue uniforms and plentiful display of D.S.C.’s and D.S.M.’s; simple folk accustomed to judge life by its tangible results. They were not concerned with strategy or the might-have-been. They had been accustomed to look to their big brothers, the destroyers, in the simple faith of children when there was trouble, and for once it seemed they had looked in vain. They had had a drubbing, and they took it according to the tradition of British seamen; but the puzzled, grieving look remained. The captain of the Drifter Patrol marched them away from the church and talked to them, standing on a drum of paint in the more familiar environment of coils of wire, floats, nets, mine-cases, and all the grim impedimenta of their calling. It was in no sense of the word a speech, but it was a very moving little address. “Never fear,” he concluded; “we’ll take tea with the Hun before you’re all much older, or I’ll eat my hat.” It takes a brave man to prophesy concerning war these days, but the men of the Drifter Patrol stumped back to their little craft comforted, and, as events transpired, he was right. In the dark hour preceding dawn on March 21st (five weeks later) the British destroyers _Botha_ (Commander Roger L’E. M. Rede, R.N.) and _Morris_ (Lieutenant-Commander Percy R. P. Percival, R.N.), and the three French destroyers _Mehl_, _Magon_, and _Bouclier_, were on patrol in the eastern waters of the Channel, when a sudden outburst of firing was heard to the northward. Vivid flashes of gunfire out to sea made it plain that the enemy was engaged upon a futile bombardment of the crumbling bathing-sheds of deserted French watering-places. The Allied force promptly made for the flashes at full speed, led by _Botha_; star shell fired in an endeavour to light up the enemy and obtain their range however merely had the effect of quelling the bombardment and scattering the raiders, who were never seen again. The patrolling force then proceeded to search to the northwestward in the hope of intercepting any divisions of the enemy who had ventured more into mid-channel; star shells were fired at intervals, for the night was misty, and presently one of these bursting ahead revealed the shadowy outline of a force of enemy destroyers and torpedo boats sneaking off through the darkness in the direction of their base.