three
o'clock in the afternoon
No more shots were fired into the air after that . There was nothing for it but for British valour to bow to the inevitable , and evacuate the town and what remained of its fortifications ; and so with sad and heavy hearts the remnant of the brave defenders turned their faces inland , leaving Dover to its fate . Meanwhile exactly the same havoc had been wrought upon Folkestone and Deal . Hour after hour the merciless work continued , until by three o'clock in the afternoon there was not a gun left upon the whole range of coast that was capable of firing a shot . All this time the ammunition tenders of the aërial fleet had been winging their way to and fro across the Strait constantly renewing the shells of the war-balloons . As soon as it began to grow dusk the naval battle commenced . Numerically speaking the attacking force was somewhat inferior to that of the defenders , but now the second element , which so completely altered the tactics of sea fighting , was for the first time in the war brought into play .