The Siege of West Africa

Introduction
This story depicts a struggle between the English Marines, and a west African Militia. The setting is as follows: Date: March the Third, 1745 Time: 0900 hrs Location: 13○N, 4○W Vessel: HMS Battle-Royale POV: Chancellor Ryan Blademonk

Part 1: Rough Waters
I awoke to the screech of the Bugler sounding off. I knew that I had the rights to remain in my cabin, but I had been getting eager for arrival, so I dressed and appeared anyway. I walked out on to the Royal Yard of the ship, and saw the lining of the west coast of Africa in the horrizon. Our destination..... Conakry, Guinea. I was heading there to hold peace talks with a West African official in the East India Trading Company. He sent me a letter stating that he had finally beaten back the resistance known as the Waste Tribe. Their leader had agreed to listen to our terms of surrender. The Official, Lieutenant-Commander Alvin Welch, had summoned me to witness this meeting live.

Suddenly, a cry errupted from the crow's nest.

"Sir, we have unidentified ships approaching! Reccomending a change of course!" it was the voice of Colour Sergeant Herman Carlson.

"Negative sergeant, we will stay on course until we have confirmed hostile intentions from them!" shouted the brave man known as Captain David Anderson. He was, and still is the captain of Battle-Royale. After a few moments of confusion, and scrambling about the decks.... we watched the ships get closer and closer.

Next thing I knew, there were cannonballs flying towards us.

"That enough of a confirmation for you, Captain?!" shouted Carlson, now down from the nest.

"Shut your mouth and fire back Sergeant!" yelled Lieutenant Peter Blakeley

I watched as the heroic men rushed to the cannons, and threw everything they had at the bandits. I was beginning to see why the Battle-Royal had gained itself a reputation and a motto it could live up to. 'None shall sink us, without facing our Eighteen Guns'

As I watched, a guard ran up to me, and urged me to go below deck for safety. I declined his request, because I was much to focused on everything. Of course I'd been in worse scrimmages, but something about this one made my nerve endings pop open like tiny little unbrellas. I saw some men get hit by stray cannonfire, and we were impacted by a few rounds, but no major damage to the ship..... for now.

After I saw one ship go down, the men cheered and all focused on the final one. I was with them. I watched, and saw them wheeling out something on a cart. I took out my spyglass and focused in. I saw nothing out of the ordinary at first, but I then saw them wheel out quite the interesting contraption. Seemed to be some sort of Catapault. I took a closer look at the situation, and saw them loading Grape Shot canisters onto the machine.... several at once. They were going to launch that thing if it killed them. Which it indeed did, since I saw the ship start to take on water and list heavily to the port side.



I then saw something that was quite unique, and would personally like to try for myself. They lit all the Grape Shot canisters on fire.

"Unless you want burning sails, I suggest you veer to the left Captain!" I shouted in a slight panic.

We made a hard turn, but as we did, I looked back at the sinking ship, and saw a flaming ball coming our way. As it got closer, it got more spread out, and by the time it was within a considerable distance, It had almost vanished. The captain had tried his very hardest to turn us away, but impact was inevadable. As it hit, everyone dove for cover.... which we found out later was quite unnessicary. The shot hit us ( ironically ) as flaming rainfall. But it didn't even touch the decks. It hit the sails, and in a moment's notice, they were burning as if they had been thrown into a Padres lava pit.

"Get us to shore, Immediately!!!" I shouted to Anderson

"I'll do my best, Sir" he replied in a somewhat less than optomistic tone.