By the time she had come close enough to rake the Santissima Trinidad with her larboard guns, 50 of her men were dead and 30 wounded. It was at this point that the Victory came into collision with the French Redoubtable. Locked together, and wrapped in sheets of flame, the two ships drifted slowly through the smoke of battle. Gradually, although the fighting had continued unabated, the smoke cleared a little from the decks of the Victory, enough for the marksmen to see the epaulets of the English officers. A marksman kneeling in the mizzen-top aimed his musket at Nelson. On the quarterdeck of the Victory, Captain Hardy had turned to leave Nelson´s side to give an order when Nelson fell, mortally wounded. Immediately, Hardy, a sergeant of the marines and two privates, rushed forward to lift him up. Nelson was then carried down to the cockpit, where he ordered that his face should be covered with a handkerchief so that he might not be recognized. In the meantime, the Redoubtable´s top marksmen had shot down 40 officers and men, destroying so many that the French, seeing the upper deck clear of all but dead or wounded, tried to board her. It was an enterprise, which was to cost them dear. A boatswain’s whistle piped, „Boarders; repel Boarders", and the order immediately summoned swarms of smoke-begrimed blue-jackets to the deck, where they killed every man who had managed to board the Victory. Below decks, Nelson´s life was now ebbing away fast. But he was still alive when Hardy returned from the fighting above to inform him that fourteen enemy vessels had given in. „That’s well," Nelson said, „but I had bargained for twenty." He lingered on for a little while longer. After murmuring some inarticulate words, he said distinctly, „I have done my duty. I thank God for it!" The first stage of the battle, with the Victory leading a frontal attack, while the rest of Nelson´s fleet attacks at right angles to break through the lines of the enemy ships, and thus cut off their retreat. This tactic was in complete variance with all the accepted rules of naval warfare. The raking manoeuvre employed with great success by the British ships. When attacking the enemy line, a British vessel would steer for a gap between enemy vessels. After brilliant seamanship had gained the British ship an advantageous position, a broadside was fired at one enemy vessel before sailing in front of it to unleash yet another broadside into the stern of the next ship in the line. Yet another broadside was then delivered to that crippled vessel from the other side.