As Panama Burns

From the book

The Life, Times & Adventures of

Sir George Henry Nichols

or

The legend of Captain Outrageous

As we were trying to regroup before the city, someone shouted "Smoke!" and soon many of the buccaneers were shouting smoke.

"Those damn cowards!" Henry was growing red in the face, "don't let them cowardice dawgs burn it! There'll be nothing to loot!" he shouted as loud as he could. "Don't let them burn it!"

And so we advanced on the city quickly, they had the streets barricaded, many with cannons, but no one there to man them, the city was deserted. Morgan sent Major Searle and some men down to the water front to stop any ships from escaping, and we set out to deal with the fires.

By the time we got across town to where it was burning, several blocks were engulfed. Henry started to try and move water to the fire along a line of men. I took some men and started working the houses not yet caught, and moving as much of the goods into the streets as we could. But the place was burning furiously, and consuming one house after another. With the forest being so thick and the ground soft, most of the city was built of wood, and burned quickly. One effort was made, using powder from a local magazine, to blowup enough houses in a block before the line as to create a fire break, but the wind was blowing and the hot cinders rose high into the air, carried along by the draft, raining fire over the whole of the town, starting fires, were there were no fires. We worked hard trying to get as much into the streets as we could.

By dark, it was a spectacle, made me think of the eternal flames of hell, for the fire was all around, stretching high above my head, licking at the sky, as though the whole of the place was ablaze, and so it was. I could walk about it, inspect it, and touch it, if I dare. I watched it burn, I saw it consumed, I thought of London, and how it must have been.

It was a shame, what kind of people burn their own city? Henry hadn't burned cities, we hadn't burned cities. There was no reason to think he would now, without cause, without looting it. This I failed to understand, they burned it themselves, to burn it just so we can't take it? Is this not despair, a loss of hope, for as long as it remained whole, one can hope to recover it, but to burn it, is to give it over. How can a city like this lose all love of its women, its children, how can the fear of a king erase all hope? The ancient City of Panama, the city of gold, the anchor of New Spain, the city of myths and tales of yore, and here I stood within it, as it is consumed.

This put me into a bit of a daze, spellbound by the towering flames, sweat dripping from nose, my chin, pouring from me, as though I were a pitcher. I stood there, half naked, my clothes torn to tatters, my spirit down. I had come half way round the world for this. High adventure, wasn't it? Boys dream of high adventure, don't they? And here I was living it, in the bowels of the great empire Spain, with its dead, like a sacrifice, spread out at the city gate, and the flames of an empire stretching towards the sky, in the City of Gold, Panama.

I had a strange feeling about my being, my presents, as though I was one with the moment, with what had happened, as though the moment here would be somehow larger, a space in time that would forever be remembered. ©