But as the Americans closed in the three British ships--the _Detroit_, the _Hunter_ and the _Queen Charlotte_--formed a crescent around one side and the stern of the American flagship, the _Hunter_ taking a place where she could fairly rake the _Lawrence_ aft and fore, and the _Lawrence_ was supported only by the _Ariel_ and the _Scorpion_. There were but seven long guns on the three American vessels actually engaged, to thirty-two on the British vessels that were pelting the Yankee flagship. But in spite of such hopeless odds, Perry drove his ship into the thick of it until within half a musket shot of the _Detroit_, and there worked his guns, both long and short, for life. [Illustration: “Perry’s Sieg”--A German View of the Victory on Lake Erie. _From an old engraving._] As he stood on the quarter-deck, cheering his men, his little brother of thirteen stood beside him, wholly undismayed. The balls came crashing through the bulwarks, hurling unfortunates as mangled corpses across the deck, and driving the radiating splinters like jagged arrows into those who stood near by. The blood of wounded and dead splashed and flowed across the deck. The men pushed aside the limbs and dismembered bodies of their shipmates when working the guns. The surgeon’s assistants hurried to and fro, carrying the wounded below, while here and there a wounded man with bandage on head or shoulder came up to take again his station. The roar was incessant, the air a grimy cloud filled with the débris of splintered bulwarks and spars and shredded sails and hammocks, and of the down of cat-tails that the crew had gathered and stowed with the hammocks in the bulwarks. Lieutenant Yarnall, the executive officer, came aft, his face covered with blood and his nose swelled enormously because a splinter had been driven through it. “All the officers in my division are cut down,” he said. “Can I have others?” He got others, and went forward. Two musket balls passed through the hat of the lad beside Perry, and then a splinter darted through his clothing, but still the lad did not flinch. And then, suddenly, he was knocked across the deck, and for once the face of Perry paled, for he supposed the boy was killed. As it happened, only a flying hammock had struck him, and he was soon on his feet. At this moment Perry turned once more to greet his first lieutenant. He had been wounded twice since going forward. He was fairly drenched in his own blood now, as well as that of others splashed over him, and the fuzz of the cat-tails had gathered over his face in such masses as to almost conceal his features. He was after more assistants, but Perry could only say: “I have no more officers to give you. You must try to make out by yourself.” [Illustration: PERRY’S VICTORY. Positions at Height of Battle.