This was the decisive stroke. The fight itself was simply the slaughter of a floating army by a fleet. The Spaniards fought like heroes, day after slaughterous day. But their light guns, badly served by ill-trained crews, fired much too high to hull the English ships "'twixt wind and water," that is, to smash holes in their sides along the water-line. On the other hand, the English had more and better guns, far more and far better seaman-gunners, and vessels managed by the sea's own "handy men." They ran in with the wind, just near enough to make their well-aimed cannon-balls most deadly on the Spanish water-line, but never so near that the Spaniards could catch them with grappling hooks and hold them fast while the Spanish soldiers boarded. Another way the skilful English had was to turn their broadside against the enemy's end-on. This, whether for a single ship or for a fleet, is called "crossing the T"; and if you will look at a T you will see that guns firing inward from the whole length of the cross-stroke have a great advantage over guns firing back from the front of the up-stroke. In other words, the broad front converges on the narrow front and smashes it. The crowded Spaniards sailed on, the whole week long, before the pursuing English in the "eagle formation," with the big ships forming the body and the lighter ones the wings: good enough for ancient battles like Lepanto, but of no use against a modern fleet like Drake's. Most of them could hardly have been more nearly useless if they had been just so many elephants fighting killer whales at sea. Do what they could, they could not catch the nimble Sea-Dogs who were biting them to death. But they still fought on. Their crowded soldiers were simply targets for the English cannon-balls. Sometimes the Spanish vessels were seen to drip a horrid red, as if the very decks were bleeding. But when, at the end of the week, Sidonia asked Oquendo, "What are we to do now?", Oquendo, a dauntless warrior, at once replied: "Order up more powder!"