Chapter 71: A Pirate's Life is Not for Me, Part 1

Merrick stepped from the longboat onto the shore of Hispaniola, shook the wobble from his sea legs, and began trudging through the sand. Behind him, twenty men clambered from the boat, weapons in hand, spreading over the shoreline like a plague. Another blast from the Satisfaction's cannons thundered through the midnight sky. An eighteen-pounder tore through the fort's crumbling towers as if they were parchment, sending stone fragments in all directions, and destroying the town's only defense.

The fort, recently built, was undermanned and ill prepared for the piratical onslaughtwhich was precisely why Collier had chosen Barracoa. Rumor had it the Spanish were hoarding large amounts of gold in the fishing town, with barely a fort to protect it. The ruse was a clever one, but rum loosened the tongues of Spanish sailors as readily as those of any other, and word had quickly spread.