As if all this wasn’t enough to wash out Dudley’s last ailing kidney, there was another complication. During his illness the head-woman of the village had nursed him. In the course of her ministrations, she’d developed a head-over-sandals crush on her patient. As soon as he showed signs of recovery, the wrinkled but still game old harridan had attempted to slide into bed with him. From Dudley’s point of view she’d built him up only to knock him down again. He put it to me this way: “Sex is suicide for me, Steve. My heart can’t take it; my kidney can’t take it. But I can’t get it across to the old bag. When I try to explain she just smiles and nods and croons the local argot and tries to pull my pants off. She’s got six husbands. Isn’t that enough? Why can’t she leave me alone?”
“She must be the motherly type,” I told him. “And nothing turns on the maternal instinct like a sickie.”
The conversation took place some three days after my initial encounter with Captain Morgan. It was that long before I had the privacy necessary to put through my call to Dudley. It was an interesting three days.
I found favor with Captain Morgan. My dudsless dueling had tickled his vulgar fancy. I became something of a pet with him and when the plank had dropped its last victim he took me back to his flagship to show me off to his officers. He refused to let me dress and told the tale of my untogged antics repeatedly, guzzling rum, gesturing at my “sword” and whooping over my seasickness for the benefit of his audience.
I kept my ears open and the scuttlebutt confirmed what I had already suspected. I was on board the flagship of the infamous Panama expedition all right. And its second phase was about to be launched with a confusion it took me awhile to realize was calculated.
Thirty-seven ships dropped anchor in a wide curve that spanned the horizon of the shoreline. Longboats were lowered and then flatboats to be towed behind them. The flatboats were laden with cannon, ammunition and provisions. It took all that day and half the night to disembark. A makeshift camp was set up at the mouth of the River Chagres. Here the two thousand odd freebooters under Captain Morgan snatched a few hours sleep.
The next morning, logy from lack of sleep, but fired by the enthusiasm of Morgan, the expedition set out up river. Morgan’s plan was to attack the city of Panama from the landward side. It was well known that the coastal walls of the city bristled with Spanish cannon capable of sinking a flotilla before it could get far past the mouth of the Gulf. So Morgan floated his army up the River Chagres, after which he would march his men and supplies across the Isthmus of Panama through some of the most rugged, disease-ridden jungle terrain in the world.
Still a source of amusement to Morgan, I sailed in the lead flatboat with him. Like the other boats, this one was weighted down to its limit with men and supplies. The pirates lahored mightily to pole them against the current into the interior of the jungle. I did my share and my shoulders and back ached with the activity and burned under the merciless tropical sun.
When we made camp for the second night on the River Chagres, l managed to creep off into the jungle by myself and call Dudley on my wrist radio. This was when he brought me up to date on all that had happened since our last conversation.
“By the way, where and when are you?” Dudley asked after he’d caught me up on his troubles.
“In the year sixteen seventy-one on the way to sack Panama with the pirate Morgan,” I told him. “And I wish you’d get me out of here and back to Tibet,” I added. “A fellow could get killed playing with these bozos.”
“You’re complaining! I could drop dead any minute! A man in my condition-- Oh, Lord, here she comes again!”
“What’s the matter?”
Dudley spoke, but he wasn’t answering me. “Leave me alone! I don’t want— Don’t grab me like that!” There was a female cackle. “Button up now!” Dudley again, sounding even more desperate. “Don’t you have any modesty?” An aging female voice chattered unintelligibly. The tone managed to be both merry and cajoling. “No!” Dudley’s voice went up a few notches. “I’m not a well man! And we’re both too old! Where’s your sense of propriety? Go pick on one of your husbands -”
“Fight the good fight, Dudley,” I advised him. “And remember that virtue is its own reward. Goodbye for now.” I broke the connection.
Thinking of Dudley’s plight and how it affected my own, I drifted off to sleep on the banks of the River Chagres. A casual boot in my ribs woke me at dawn and I joined the other picked men aboard the lead flatboat. Soon we were poling our way up the winding river again, frying under the sun, lumpy and bloody from the constant assault of the ever-present, ever-droning mosquitoes.
It went like that for the next few days. Then the river veered away from the route Morgan had planned and we pulled the boats up on its banks and left them there while we set out to breach the jungle. We carried no food, only weapons. It was Morgan’s idea for the privateer-army to travel as lightly as possible, to cross the Isthmus by forced march and to live off the land.
Within two days the fallacy of this idea became obvious. The thick jungle was lush with fruit all right, but it was impossible to distinguish between the edible berries and the poisonous ones. After two men died in horrible agony, the rest of us refused to try to make the distinction. Having left the banks of the Chagres, there were no fish to be caught either. This left only the jungle animals to provide sustenance for the band. The problem was that there wasn’t too much small game in the jungle and what there was usually fell prey to the larger predators. The Caribs went out by twos and threes to hunt with spear and arrow, but they couldn’t supply the whole band. Most of what they caught they ate themselves.
We're all going to die here, I thought to myself, although I knew history well enough to be sure it wouldn’t happen. I ate jungle roots and cooked bits of leather from the Spanish boots I was wearing, hacked pieces from them until nothing was left and I trod the jungle with my feet bare and bloody. Finally we reached the banks of the winding River Chagres again and we were on the last lap of the trek to Panama City.
It was two days before we reached a Spanish plantation. The Spaniards left plenty of food behind for the conquerors. The starving men fell on it and glutted themselves. As much authority as Morgan packed, he couldn’t get any of them to pursue the fleeing Spaniards and catch them before they could alert the city of Panama that we were on our way.
The result was that the Spaniards had time to prepare their defenses. They chose a plain within sight of the city, arranged their artillery to rake the jungle edge and massed their cavalry to counterattack the invaders. Two ranks of foot soldiers marched in front of the cavalry.
This force was commanded personally by Don Juan Perez de Guzman, the Spanish governor of Panama. A stickler for appearances, Don Juan had seen to it that his troops were turned out in a manner worthy of a parade. Not a button was out of place. Muskets were held rigidly in a straight line across the plain. Every one of the well-trained horses stood still and straight and proud. It was a full-dress-review army. Unfortunately it had never seen action before and was ill prepared for it.
Morgan had word of the Spanish army from his scouts the night before we reached the plain. The next morning he had his men fan out at the edge of the jungle before attacking the Spaniards. When the pirates emerged onto the plain, the line of Spaniards held their fire until Don Juan gave the command.