Terrors of 1745

Part 1
1745 marked the beginning of the end for the war surrounding Carlos Clemente and Spain. He was condsidered the most powerful and brutal leader of this century. A prime demonstration of his power took place in an invasion of Tangier, a town in Northern Africa guarded by a seemingly strong fort. It was within miles from Spain, and saw very much action during Clemente's dynasty. He saw it as a weak spot lacking any British assistance, or any assistance for that matter. It was simply in the hands of nothing short of savage pirates such as myself, and the pirates that possessed the Barbary Coast.

We knew the invasion would come the night prior to it. A fleet of fearsome frigates fifty times the size of ours guarding the fortress would ravage through our waters, and finally raid the fort and possibly occupy our towns. It would probably be a massacre, but for foolish pirates like us, there was a fighting chance. That night, I drank whiskey until my gut bursted. It may be my last opportunity to drink, so I seized it. By the next morning, it grew evident that I was by the far the least confident of the fort's crew.

"Hah, by tonight, we'll have Clemente's head on a platter!" I heard from a hallway where the ammo was stored.

"Those weaklings won't even get through our fleet," A grenadier on the roof remarked. I began to question the sanity of my men. In fact, at this point, they just seemed to purposely be as cocky as possible before they get annihilated, just to give themselves one last chance to be content with themselves.

Part 2
All of the talk ceased when we spotted a collosal Spanish galleon intercept the horizion, followed by several sloops that I presumed were scout ships. Our ship of the line and the remainder of our fleet awaited the first shot, allowing the Spaniards to close in on the fort so that our hundred-pound cannons could reach them. The galleon, stopped, and the war sloops entered our line of fire first, laying down a few small broadsides. These were met by a series of heavy explosive shots from three of our frigates which completely crippled their first line of sloops.

"See what I mean? Spaniards make such weak vessels!" Chuckled the same grenadier from this morning. I squinted at him and shook my head, enough of a gesture to shut him up.

The second line of Spanish sloops caught our frigate off guard completely. The four simultaneous broadsides was enough to sink two of our three frigates, and board our third one. They slaughtered each man on board it, and started operating our cannons. They then began firing at the seven remaining frigates as well as our ship of the line. As our vessels fell back to our fort, I gave final commands to take to the cannons. Before we knew it, the once Barbary frigate fired onto our fort.

"CANNONFIRE!" yelled the head grenadier as it penetrated the fort. After that shot, dozens upon dozens of cannonballs bombarded our fort, leaving us overwhelmed. Cannonfire knocked a grenadier beside me off of the side of the three-story fortress wall. He layed there, motionless, with a pool of velvet-colored blood under him. An explosive round hit a wall within meters away from me, I knew it would only be a matter of time before it hit the wall where I'm standing and send me flying, possible fatally off of the fort.

We managed to either cripple and board, or sink every Spanish sloop, but only after the immense damage they caused us. Our ship of the line was doing very much of the productive damage, and put forth a galient effort in stopping the Spaniards, but it was taking too much of a pounding. The collosal Spanish galleon managed to bypass our ship of the line and its armor could not be pierced by our fort's cannons. The only damage we could do on it was with grenade, on its upper deck, but we knew their relentless crew would swing onto our fort in a matter of seconds.

Part 3
Until now, most of us on the fort's roof weren't under any actual danger, but the Spaniards on ships began hauling out muskets. They fired at our grenadiers, while our grenadiers responded with only a handful of grenade throws which put barely any considerable damage on the galleon's deck. I looked to my right, and saw a bullet pierce the head of one of my closest first mates. His face was a symbol of complete astonishment. His mouth and eyes widened as his life slipped away from him. Lives were being lost all around me and all I could do is avenge them. I pulled two pistols from my belt and managed to take out one Spanish musketeer, ONE. One, while they were causing an absolute massacre.

I noticed that Spaniards were now swinging on ropes onto the fort with twin scimitars and beheading my men one by one. I responded by sprinting towards them, sword in hand, and releasing my anger on their chests, running them through with quickness and stealth. They began to outnumber me, so I hurried away towards the lower floors to command reinforcements, but an explosive round hit the wall under my feet and sent me flying. Just as I predicted, I fell off the side of the fort, facing the ships that were still exchanging cannonfire. Halfway to the ground, a hand reaching through a crumbling wall on the second floor grabbed my wrist. It was a young recruit who looked no older than seventeen.

He lifted me into the the fort, but before I could thank him, he fell over from a bullet wound in the back after a gunshot rang out. A Spaniard was holding the gun with a sinister half-smile. I grabbed his wrist and stabbed him through the neck, as the smile turned to a blank expression of awe.

More chapters to come