As the _Sovereign_ closed on the enemy, a French ship, the _Fougueux_, ranged up close under the stern of the _Santa Anna_, as though to bar the passage through the line to Collingwood. Captain Rotherham noted this, and pointed it out to the Admiral. Collingwood’s reply was: “Steer straight for the Frenchman and take his bowsprit!” So they closed, and then, driving through the line just under the towering Spanish’s ship’s stern, the _Sovereign_ opened the fight with her full broadside treble-shotted. The terrific discharge, at one blow, it has been related, disabled fourteen guns, and put a large part of the crew _hors de combat_. “El rompio todos” were the words of an officer of the _Santa Anna_. After that the Sovereign ranged alongside the big Spaniard to leeward to fight the battle out gun-muzzle to gun-muzzle. [Illustration: TRAFALGAR—12 NOON: AS SKETCHED ON THE SPOT BY A FRENCH OFFICER _French flagship, “Bucentaure,” 80 guns._ _“Redoutable,” 74 guns, from which Nelson was shot._ _Collingwood in the “Royal Sovereign” opening the attack._ _The “Victory” (Nelson’s flag should be at the fore, not as here.)_ _From a photograph of the original sepia drawing now in the possession of a descendant of Captain Lucas of the “Redoutable.”_] “In passing the _Santa Anna_” relates Mr. Newnham Collingwood, “the _Royal Sovereign_ gave her a broadside and a half into her stern, tearing it down, and killing and wounding 400 of her men. Then, with her helm hard a-starboard, she ranged up alongside so closely that the lower yards of the two vessels were locked together. The Spanish Admiral, having seen that it was the intention of the _Royal Sovereign_ to engage to leeward, had collected all his strength on the starboard, and such was the weight of the _Santa Anna’s_ metal, that her broadside made the _Sovereign_ heel two strakes out of the water.” Even a moment like that, though, did not in the least perturb Collingwood. “Her studding-sails and halliards were now shot away, and as well as a top-gallant studding-sail were hanging over the gangway hammocks. Admiral Collingwood called out to Lieutenant Clavell to come and help him to take it in, observing that they should want it again some other day. These two officers accordingly rolled it carefully up and placed it in a boat.” No sooner was the _Sovereign_ alongside the _Santa Anna_ than four other enemies—two French ships, the _Fougueux_ and the _Indomptable_, and two Spanish, the _San Leandro_ and the _San Justo_—closed round and joined in to help the _Santa Anna_. So hot a cross fire did these four ships keep up on the single British ship during her, at first, unsupported fight, that, in the words of those on board the _Sovereign_, “We could see their shots meeting and smashing together in mid-air round us.” The _Fougueux_, we are also told, “at one time got so much on the quarter of the _Sovereign_ that she almost touched.” It was indeed a battle of the giants—a heroic defiance of heroic odds.