Some seventy feet overhead, at the caps of the lower masts, were widespread platforms, the fighting tops on which the best marksmen were always posted. “All our topmen,” says Guillemard, “had been killed, when two sailors and four soldiers, of whom I was one, were ordered to occupy their post in the tops. While we were going aloft, the balls and grapeshot showered around us, struck the masts and yards, knocked large splinters from them, and cut the rigging to pieces. One of my companions was wounded beside me, and fell from a height of thirty feet to the deck, where he broke his neck. When I reached the top my first movement was to take a view of the prospect presented by the hostile fleets. For more than a league extended a thick cloud of smoke, above which were discernible a forest of masts and rigging, and the flags, the pendants and the fire of the three nations. Thousands of flashes, more or less near, continually penetrated this cloud, and a rolling noise pretty similar to the sound of thunder, but much stronger, arose from its bosom.” Guillemard goes on to describe a duel between the topmen of the _Redoubtable_ and those of the _Victory_ only a few yards distant, and when it was finished he lay alone among the dead who crowded the swaying platform. “On the poop of the English vessel was an officer covered with orders and with only one arm. From what I had heard of Nelson I had no doubt that it was he. He was surrounded by several officers, to whom he seemed to be giving orders. At the moment I first perceived him several of his sailors were wounded beside him by the fire of the _Redoubtable_. As I had received no orders to go down, and saw myself forgotten in the tops, I thought it my duty to fire on the poop of the English vessel, which I saw quite clearly exposed, and close to me. I could even have taken aim at the men I saw, but I fired at hazard among the groups of sailors and officers. All at once I saw great confusion on board the _Victory_; the men crowded round the officer whom I had taken for Nelson. He had just fallen, and was taken below covered with a cloak. The agitation shown at this moment left me no doubt that I had judged rightly, and that it really was the English admiral. An instant afterward the _Victory_ ceased from firing, the deck was abandoned.... I hurried below to inform the captain.... He believed me the more readily as the slackening of the fire indicated that an event of the highest importance occupied the attention of the English ship’s crew.... He gave immediate orders for boarding, and everything was prepared for it in a moment. It is even said that young Fontaine, a midshipman ... passed by the ports into the lower deck of the English vessel, found it abandoned, and returned to notify that the ship had surrendered.... However, as a part of our crew, commanded by two officers, were ready to spring upon the enemy’s deck, the fire recommenced with a fury it had never had from the beginning of the