The _Temeraire_, as it happened, had not yet fired a single shot from her guns on the starboard broadside. She had her triple tier of 32-pounders and long 18's ranged there all ready, all double-shotted and clear for action. To man these guns was quick work. Without checking the fire that the _Temeraire_ was keeping up into the _Redoutable_ and the _Neptune_, Lieutenant Kennedy, the first lieutenant, rapidly called away sufficient hands from the guns on the port side to man all the starboard batteries. Then the gallant officer and his men waited--the captain of each gun standing ready with arm raised and his firing lanyard out-stretched stiff as wire--all eagerly watching the coming on of the _Fougueux_. Not a sign that the guns were manned came from the _Temeraire's_ ports, as nearer and nearer the French seventy-four swept down on her. Now she was 200 yards off--now 150--now 100--now 80 yards! Confidently came the _Fougueux_ on as to certain conquest, amid wild tempestuous shoutings of 'A l'abordage!' 'Vive l'Empereur! Vive l'Empereur!' The supreme moment came. '_Temeraires_--stand by--fire!' Holding back until the yard-arms of the two ships all but touched, with a deafening thunder-burst that for the instant overpowered all other sounds of battle, the _Temeraire's_ whole starboard broadside went off at once, in one salvo, like one gigantic gun. A terrific crash re-echoed back, with yells and shrieks. There was no more shouting from the _Fougueux_. As the smoke drifted off, the _Temeraire's_ men looked and saw the enemy's rigging and forecastle and decks swept clean and bare. The next minute, with her whole side practically beaten in, crushed in like an eggshell trampled under foot, the hapless seventy-four ran, blundering blindly, in hopeless confusion, right into the _Temeraire_.[105]