On being hit by a sniper's bullet at 1:25pm on 21 October, 1805, Nelson collapsed on to the deck of Victory. He was carried below deck to be tended by distraught shipmen and Captain Thomas Masterman Hardy (1769-1839), an old friend of Nelson's. Just before the admiral died, he called Hardy and famously requested an embrace with the (now often ridiculed) words 'Kiss me, Hardy'.