John Masefield

“ Before they left Taboga, Captain Sharp went cruising to an island some miles distant to pick up some straggling drunkards who belonged to his ship. While he lay at anchor, in a dead calm, waiting for a breeze to blow, a great Spanish merchant ship hove in sight, bound from Lima (or Truxillo) to Panama. Sharp ran his canoas alongside, and bade her dowse her colours, at the same time sending a gang of pirates over her rail, to throw the crew under hatches. "He had no Arms to defend himself with, save only Rapiers," so her captain made no battle, but struck incontinently. ”

“ Drake blew a blast upon his whistle; the men formed up into their accustomed marching order, and tramped away from Venta Cruz, across the Chagres bridge, just as the dawn set the parrots screeching and woke the monkeys to their morning song. They seem to have expected no pursuit; but Drake was not a man to run unnecessary risks. His men, including the Maroons, were "grown very valiant," yet they were granted no further chance to show their valour. Drake told them that they had now been "well near a fortnight" from the ship, with her company of sick and sorry sailors. ”

“ All these things were divided by lot at the main-mast as soon as the anchor held. As the ship, or ships, neared port, her men hung colours out—any colours they could find—to make their vessel gay. A cup of drink was taken as they sailed slowly home to moorings, and as they drank they fired off the cannon, "bullets and all," again and yet again, rejoicing as the bullets struck the water. Up in the bay, the ships in the harbour answered with salutes of cannon; flags were dipped and hoisted in salute; and so the anchor dropped in some safe reach, and the division of the spoil began. ”

“ Basil Ringrose was one of those who landed to take part in the fight. Dampier, it is almost certain, remained on board the Trinity, becalmed some miles from the shore. Wafer was in the canoas, with the boat guard, preparing salves for those wounded in the fight. The day seems to have been hot and sunny—it could scarcely have been otherwise—but those out at sea, on the galleon, could see the streamers of cloud wreathing about the Andes.
At sunrise the buccaneers got ashore, amongst the rocks, and scrambled up a hill which gave them a sight of the city. ”

“ The heavy rain drenched them as they clambered along across the jungle. They had but a little handful of fire that night, so that they could not dry nor warm themselves. They crouched about the "funk of green-wood," shivering in the smoke, chewing bullets to alleviate their hunger. They slept there in great misery, careless of what happened to them. "The Spaniards were but seldom in our thoughts," says Dampier, for the pirates thought only of guides and food, and feared their own Indian servants more than the enemy. ”

“ The island of Tortuga must have witnessed some strange scenes. We may picture a squalid little "cow town," with tropical vegetation growing up to the doors. A few rough bungalow houses, a few huts thatched with palm leaves, a few casks standing in the shade of pent roofs. To seaward a few ships of small tonnage lying at anchor. To landward hilly ground, broken into strips of tillage, where some wretches hoe tobacco under the lash. In the street, in the sunlight, lie a few savage dogs. At one of the houses, a buccaneer has just finished flogging his valet ”

“ As soon as night had fallen the buccaneers weighed anchor. A bright moon was shining, and by the moonlight the ships steered seaward under bare poles. As they came abreast of the castle on the gentle current of the ebb, they loosed their sails to a fair wind blowing seaward. At the same moment, while the top-sails were [167] yet slatting, Captain Morgan fired seven great guns "with bullets" as a last defiance. The Spaniards dragged their cannon across the fortress, "and began to fire very furiously," without much success. ”

“ They rowed all day, suffering much from the mosquitoes, but made little progress. The river was fallen very low, so that they were rowing or poling over a series of pools joined by shallow rapids. To each side of them were stretches of black, alluvial mud, already springing green with shrubs and water-plants. Every now and then, as they rowed on, on the dim, sluggish, silent, steaming river, they butted a sleeping alligator as he sunned in the shallows, or were stopped by a fallen tree, brought by the summer floods and left to rot there. ”

“ The woods there were so dark and thick that a Spanish garrison might have lain within 100 yards of the fleet, and cut off any stragglers who landed. Having given his orders, he chose out a gang of macheteros, or men carrying the sharp sword-like machetes, to march ahead of the main body, to cut a trackway in the pulpy green stuff. They then set forward through the forest, over their ankles in swampy mud, up to their knees some [182] times in rotting leaves, clambering over giant tree trunks, wading through stagnant brooks, staggering and slipping and swearing, faint with famine ”

“ As the flames spread, the planking warped, and fell. The outer planks inclined slightly outward, like the futtocks of a ship, so that, when they weakened in the fire, the inner weight of earth broke them through. The pirates now stood back from the fort, in the long black shadows, to avoid the showers of earth—"great heaps of earth"—which were falling down into the ditch. Presently the slope from the bottom of the gully was piled with earth, so that the pirates could rush up to the breaches, and hurl their firepots across the broken woodwork. ”

“ After four hours of battle the cavalry were broken and defeated, and in no heart to fight further. They made a last charge on their blown horses, but their ranks went to pieces at the muzzles of the pirates' guns. They broke towards the cover of the woods, but the pirates charged them as they ran, and cut them down without pity. Then the drums beat out a bravery, and the pirates rushed the town in the face of a smart fire. The Spaniards fought in the streets, while some fired from the roofs and upper windows. So hot was the tussle that the pirates had to fight from house to house. ”

“ There were pelicans fishing there, and a few Indians curing fish, and an abominable smell, and a boat, with a cask in her bows, which brought fresh water thither from thirty miles to the north. The teeth of the Indians were dyed a bright green by their chewing of the coca leaf, the drug which made their "beast-like" lives endurable. There was a silver mine on the mainland, near this fishing village, but the pirates did not land to plunder it. They merely took a few old Indian men, and some Spaniards, and carried them aboard the Trinity, where the godly John Watling examined them. ”

“ Those who had picked up a little booty in the raid were only too glad of an excuse to get to the boats, while those who were most eager to break the treasure-house, would not allow Drake to put his life in hazard. Drake, poor man, was spent with loss of blood, and could not reason with them, so that, "with force mingled with fair entreaty, they bare him aboard his pinnace, and so abandoned a most rich spoil for the present, only to preserve their Captain's life." ”

“ Many of them found the life so delightful that they did not care to leave it when the time came for their ships to sail for Europe. Men who had failed to win any booty on the "Terra Firma," and had no jolly drinking-bout to look for on the quays at home, were often glad to stay behind at the hunting till some more fortunate captain should put in in want of men. Shipwrecked men, men who were of little use at sea, men "who had disagreed with their commander," began to settle on the coast in little fellowships. ”

“ This was Basil Ringrose, who was shot at Santa Pecaque a few years later. It is not known how Dampier, Wafer, and Sharp died, but all lived adventurously, and went a-roving, for many years after the Trinity dropped her anchor off Antigua. [290]
They were of that old breed of rover whose port lay always a little farther on; a little beyond the sky-line. Their concern was not to preserve life, "but rather to squander it away"; to fling it, like so much oil, into the fire, for the pleasure of going up in a blaze. If they lived riotously let it be urged in their favour that at least they lived. ”

“ As the pirates gained the inside of the fort, the Spanish Governor charged home upon them with twenty-five soldiers armed with pikes, clubbed muskets, swords, or stones from the ruin. For some minutes these men mixed in a last desperate struggle; then the Spaniards were driven back by the increasing numbers of the enemy. Fighting hard, they retreated to the inner castle, cheered by their Governor, who still called on them to keep their flag aloft. The inner castle was a ruin, but the yellow flag still flew there, guarded by some sorely wounded soldiers and a couple of guns. ”

“ The men were so faint with hunger and thirst, the heat of battle, and the long day's marching, that Sharp feared he would never get them to the boats. A fierce rush of Spaniards beat them away from the hospital, and drove them out of the town "into the Savannas or open fields." The Spaniards gave a cheer and charged in to end the battle, but the pirates were a dogged lot, and not yet at the end of their strength. They got into a clump or cluster, with a few wounded men in the centre, to load the muskets, "resolving to die one by another" rather than to run. ”

“ The pirates lay among the scrub, hidden in the bushes, in little knots of two and three. They watched the castle embrasures after each discharge of cannon, for the Spaniards could not reload without exposing themselves as they sponged or rammed. Directly a Spaniard appeared, he was picked off from the bushes with such precision that they lost "one or two men every time they charged each gun anew." The losses on the English side were fully as severe; for, sheltered though they were, the buccaneers lost heavily. The lying still under a hot sun was galling to the pirates' temper. ”

“ They lay there, hidden in the jungle, blowing their matches to keep them burning clearly. Two Maroons, whom Drake had sent forward as scouts, crept back to him with the news that the enemy were there in force, for they had smelt the reek of the smouldering matches and heard the hushed noise of many men moving in the scrub. Drake gave orders that no man should fire till the Spaniards had given them a volley, for he thought they would first parley with him, "as indeed fell out." Soon afterwards, as the men neared the Spanish ambush, a Spanish captain rose from the road, and "cried out, Hoo!" ”

“ Captain Morgan loosed his top-sail, as a signal to unmoor. His ships were fully victualled for the voyage, and the loot was safely under hatches. As a precaution, he took with him the best brass cannon from the fortress. The iron guns were securely spiked with soft metal nails, which were snapped off flush with the touch-holes. The anchors were weighed to the music of the fiddlers, a salute of guns was fired, and the fleet stood out of Porto Bello bay along the wet, green coast, passing not very far from the fort which they had blown to pieces. ”

“ Drake heard the muttered talk going up and down the shed, and promptly told the men that he had brought them to the mouth of the Treasure of the World, and that if they came away without it they might blame nobody but themselves. ”

“ Some of them, who returned to Port Royal, were brought before the magistrate, and hanged as pirates. Their old captain, Henry Morgan, left his former way of life, and soon afterwards become Governor of Jamaica. He was so very zealous in "discouraging" the buccaneers that the profession gradually lost its standing. The best of its members took to logwood cutting or to planting; the worst kept the seas, like water-Ishmaelites, plundering the ships of all nations save their own. They haunted Tortuga, the keys of Cuba, the creeks and inlets of the coast, and the bays at the western end of Jamaica. ”

“ He had promised to lead the pirates "even to the very bed-chamber door of the governor of Panama."
With the vision of this bed-chamber door before them, the pirates embarked at Santa Maria "in thirty-five canoes" and a ship they had found at anchor in the river. As they "sailed, or rather rowed" downstream, with the ebb, the Spanish prisoners prayed to be taken aboard, lest the Indians should take them and torture them all to death. "We had much ado to find a sufficient number of boats for ourselves," says Ringrose, for the Indians had carried many of the canoas away. ”

“ When the anchor was weighed, the trumpeter sounded a merry music, to cheer the workers. At dinner each night he played in the great cabin, while the captain drank his wine. At the setting and discharging of the watch he had to sound a solemn point, for which duty he received an extra can of beer (Monson and Boteler) .
The crew, or mariners, were divided into able seamen, ordinary seamen, grummets, or cabin-boys, ship-boys and swabbers. Swabbers were the weakest men of the crew; men, who were useless aloft, or at the guns, and therefore set to menial and dirty duties. ”

“ All the wounded pirates were helped up to the deck and made comfortable. Then, in all haste, the unhurt men manned two canoas, and rowed off to help Captain Sawkins, "who now had been three times beaten from on board by Peralta."
A very obstinate and bloody fight had been raging round the third man-of-war. Her sides were splintered [250] with musket-balls. She was oozing blood from her scuppers, yet "the old and stout Spaniard" in command, was cheerily giving shot for shot. "Indeed, to give our enemies their due, no men in the world did ever act more bravely than these Spaniards." ”