Trapped against "Shannon" at an angle in which few of her guns could fire on the British ship, and unable to manoeuvre away, "Chesapeake"s stern now became exposed and was swept by raking fire. Earlier in the action "Shannon"s gunnery had devastated "Chesapeake"s forward gun crews; this destruction was now inflicted on the gun crews in the aft part of the ship. The American ship's situation worsened when a small open cask of musket cartridges abaft the mizzen-mast blew up. When the smoke cleared, Broke judged the time was right and gave the order to board. Captain Lawrence also gave the order to board, but the frightened bugler aboard "Chesapeake", William Brown, failed to sound the call, and only those near Lawrence heard his command. By this time Lawrence was the only officer left on the upper deck, as Lieutenants Ludlow and Ballard had been wounded. Lieutenant Cox, who had brought up men from the lower deck to form a boarding party, reached the quarterdeck only to find that his captain had been badly, indeed mortally, wounded by musket fire. Lawrence was clinging to the binnacle in order to stay upright; Cox, who had served all his sea life with Lawrence, carried him down to the cockpit with the help of two sailors. As he was being taken down Lawrence called out "Tell the men to fire faster! Don't give up the ship!"