But even at Dover, which was being shelled now as well as bombed, the British were staying put. Well, if they think they can scare us, people said, sweeping up glass and digging each other out of débris. Meanwhile, methodical as a white mouse in a laboratory, Hitler pursued his terrible pattern. After the war of nerves and prophecies of doom came the bombing of shipping and the Channel ports, the attacks on the forward aerodromes, the surprise spot-bombing to confuse and scatter the defending forces—all gathering momentum as July ran into August. The RAF had its own pattern, prompt and deadly, rising to meet each new onslaught, taking toll, taking losses. Unmoved except to derision by horrendous German threats to “make England blind and deaf”, they set about arming their fortress with a kind of grim gaiety that got things done. The beaches bristled with barbed wire and blockhouses, concrete road blocks went up, every field and golf course that provided landing room for a horsefly was ploughed into ridges or strewn with derelict vehicles and machinery.
