Batavia (29 page)
Authors: Peter Fitzsimons
Despite his joy, he insists that Zevanck tells no one. Instead, he must put it about that, on those islands, there is not just water but plenty of water! And all of it is just a little below the surface, only requiring strong men with barrels and shovels to dig down and secure it.
‘And I’ll tell you why . . .’
On Batavia’s Graveyard at this time, there are those who are already close to the rising power that is Jeronimus, and then there are those who clearly
wish
to be close, and so hang around him, offering their services in any manner that the
Onderkoopman
sees fit. One, in particular, is almost like a puppy dog, and that is young Jan Pelgrom de Bye of Bemmel, the slight lad who was a general cabin servant aboard the
Batavia
but has worked assiduously since Jeronimus arrived to look after him – running errands, emptying his chamber pot, bringing him his meals, washing his clothes. In doing so, he has entirely supplanted the role previously filled by young Rogier Decker. Still, that is not enough for Pelgrom, and, aware that something of a cabal has formed around Jeronimus in terms of the Mutineers, he does his best to wheedle his way into the group, the sanctum sanctorum of hard men.
By now, while not known by any name, the Mutineers have become a distinctly recognisable group on the island, not simply because of their red attire but also because, with their polished swords or swinging cutlasses by their thighs, they are constantly swaggering either with each other or on the shoulder of Jeronimus, and
– surely there must be some mistake? –
they even seem to have a slight hint of menace about them.
The Mutineers tolerate young Pelgrom, allowing him to run errands on their own account, catch fish for their table, prepare their meals, but it is as yet unsure if he is worthy of becoming one of them. Another of roughly similar age who is far more easily accepted by the older men is the young German soldier Mattys Beer. He has been close to both Stonecutter Pietersz and Jan Hendricxsz from the first – the two notably hard men of the Mutineers – and he also has the prestige about him of having been one of the first recruited to the mutiny. The VOC cadets Coenraat van Huyssen and Gijsbert van Welderen take their cues from Stonecutter and Hendricxsz, and accept young Mattys easily – something that drives the puppy, Pelgrom, wild with jealousy.
Beyond the constant cry of the seabirds, a new sound has come to the Abrolhos Islands for the first time in their history. Now that the immediate crisis has passed and things have improved under Jeronimus,
this wonderful sound comes from Cornelis
the Fat Trumpeter.
There are days when the elements are so calm that the ocean is as flat as a bolt of raw silk, there is nary a cloud in the sky and, of course, nothing, absolutely
nothing
, on the horizon in any direction, apart from the High Islands. On such days, as the sun begins to fall into the western seas, as the light turns to an exquisite mauve and the last heat of the day has given way to a turquoise cool, Cornelis takes his trumpet – of all his possessions on the
Batavia
, this was his first to salvage – sits upon on a rock on the southern shore and plays. His fat cheeks work like the bellows in a blacksmith’s forge as he plays happy tunes, mournful tunes, tunes beloved of those who frequent Amsterdam’s beer halls, and tunes long loved by Dutch children.
Those who have the strength sometimes gather around him, begging him to keep playing, asking him does he know this tune or that tune, and can he play again the one he played the other evening? If in the mood, which he mostly is, Cornelis obliges, playing his trumpet until it falls all but completely dark, whereupon everyone makes their careful way back to their shelters, with their upheld lanterns throwing the soft light before them. At such times as these, particularly if the day has brought them both food and water, it is even possible to feel momentarily uplifted, to have optimism that they will survive on this atoll, and that a rescue ship must eventually come for them. And then the darkness falls completely and they sleep deeply, dreaming of their lives back in the Dutch Republic, the times they used to have and would hopefully one day have again.
In the distance, the cry of the birds is unending, one wailing particularly loudly.
Yet was that cry a bird? It sounded strange, almost human. But after that one strange shriek . . . nothing. Stirring restlessly only a little, those on Batavia’s Graveyard settle down for the night.
19 June 1629, Batavia’s Graveyard
Ryckert Woutersz has disappeared. His tent-mate, confused and worried, reports to Jeronimus that, the previous evening, Woutersz was drinking with David Zevanck and simply did not return drunkenly to the tent, the way he had on previous evenings. And now the mate can’t find him anywhere. He has searched the whole island and gone from group to group, yet there is not the slightest sign of him. Strangely, Jeronimus does not seem at all concerned and simply says he is sure Ryckert will turn up.
Which, oddly enough, he does.
That very afternoon, the six-year-old Hilletje Hardens is playing down at the water’s edge under the watchful eye of her mother, Anneken. She has found a small sliver of driftwood from the broken-up
Batavia
washed ashore and is amusing herself, as she watches her ‘ship’ floating in and out on the gentle shore break.
Her ship invariably comes all the way to the shore – always in a much happier fashion than the actual
Batavia
did – and then she throws it back out again, giggling delightedly as she watches it twist and turn.
And then, suddenly, little Hilletje screams in a manner that alarms not only her mother but also another 20 or so people within earshot, who all come running. On the shore, shaking, the little girl is pointing at something else the incoming tide has washed in.
His throat has been slashed from one ear to the other, his face is purple, his body bloated. Obviously, he has been murdered. The news spreads around the island within minutes, and most of the ship’s company is soon gathered on the shore. As two burly soldiers wade in to drag his body onto land, his flaccid, blubber-lipped mouth drops open to allow the exit of a soft-shell crab from its temporary home, revealing the blackened, stumpy vestige of what was once Ryckert’s tongue. The crowd reels back in horror. Ryckert’s tongue has been cut out – a clear indication to anyone of what happens to those who talk too much.
Seizing on the death of Woutersz, the
Onderkoopman
immediately calls everyone to a meeting in the makeshift square – composed of a cleared space, delineated by rows of rocks – outside his tent.
‘I regret to inform you,’ he gravely tells the gathering, for all the world as if they don’t already know and haven’t been discussing Ryckert’s fate for the last three hours, ‘that Ryckert Woutersz has been found washed up on the shore, most brutally murdered, with his tongue cut out as though he were a beast in the fields.
‘I promise you on behalf of both the VOC and the
raad
– which has just met on this subject – to do everything necessary to both find the perpetrators of this hideous act and protect you from such heinous crimes as these against Woutersz, such a good man. It is as if we do not have enough to worry about through lack of water and food that we have a murderer in our very midst.’
Jeronimus goes on to affirm that the
raad
commands any man or woman who has in their possession any weapon, be it sword,
morgensterre
, morning star (lethal lumps of lead on the end of a rope or stick, studded with iron nails at all angles), dagger or the like, to go back to their tents, collect such and return it to this place. It will all be held in Jeronimus’s safekeeping until such time as they are rescued from this living hell. Any person found to be harbouring any weapon from this moment forth will be subjecting themselves to
the wrath of the council
and the severest of all penalties.
In one fell swoop, the apothecary has concocted a plan to not only disarm the island but also provide his Mutineers with an array of killing tools. One final measure is to put a very tight guard on the boats that have been built and strictly limit access to Mutineers only. For what he has in mind, this is going to be extremely important.
20 June 1629, Batavia’s Graveyard
As a young lad growing up in Friesland, Jeronimus studied Latin, and one famous phrase of that language, or at least its concept, is well known to him:
divide et impera
, divide and conquer. The notion is that when a small force faces a larger and more powerful force, the way to triumph is to manoeuvre so that the larger force can be broken up and thereafter beaten in successive parts.
‘And so,’ Jeronimus announces to all of the gathered survivors on Batavia’s Graveyard, ‘it is the decision of the council that in order to maximise our chances of survival, we must spread ourselves around nearby islands. This will allow each group to live better off such sea lions and water as there are on each island, and not strain the sea lions and water we have here.’
It makes a certain amount of sense – at least enough sense that when Jeronimus first presented the idea to the council the previous afternoon, it only took a small amount of forceful argument before they agreed to it.
Not that all of the survivors are delighted at the prospect of leaving Batavia’s Graveyard, as miserable a place as it is. For at least there seems some strength in community, in all helping each other to survive. Is it really wise to split up like this?
And yet, it is unthinkable to argue. When Jeronimus speaks, he does so not merely as a man among others but as a man among men,
the
man who has the full weight and authority of the Company behind him, as confirmed by the diktats of the council. So if he says they must shortly split up and go to different islands – even designating which people should go where, and which should stay on the main island with him (of whom, though he does not declare it, Lucretia is foremost) – then that is what they must do.
The first group to go is commanded by the nominal leader of the soldiers, Corporal Gabriel Jacobsz. Jeronimus insists it is nothing less than Councillor Jacobsz’s duty to take his wife, Laurentia, together with another 47 survivors over to the long strip of land across the channel to the place he has named Robbeneiland. (The Dutch word
robben
is used for all seal-like mammals, thus he has called it ‘Seals’ Island’, for the bountiful food supply that he says is there.) This group comprises a dozen or so men, the balance made up of women, children and nearly 20 of the
Batavia
’s cabin boys. It seems rum to some that if Seals’ Island is so plentifully supplied they are not
all
going there, but no one likes to say anything.
Since the murder of Woutersz, a rather chilling atmosphere has taken hold on Batavia’s Graveyard, an undefined sense of menace. The wind seems to blow colder, the nights are darker and the cry of the birds more strident. To be off this island and making a fresh start on another can be no bad thing.
So Jacobsz reluctantly agrees. It takes several trips on the yawls to ferry his large group with their immediate effects and supplies of water the half-mile distance across the channel to the long, desolate, sandy strip of land to be found there, but after a full morning of it the job is done. Jacobsz is told not to worry that they don’t have a great deal of water or food with them, for, apart from the sea lions they can easily kill, they will be regularly visited, so that any supplies they do need can be brought to them. Among those who settle now on Seals’ Island are Cornelis the Fat Trumpeter, Jacob de Vos the tailor and young Abraham Gerritsz, a deserter from another Dutch ship whom they had picked up during their brief stopover in Sierra Leone.
The next large group to go are the soldiers. The very afternoon that Seals’ Island has been effectively colonised, Wiebbe Hayes stands before Jeronimus, in the latter’s tent. It is the first time that Hayes has been so invited, and he is impressed. While other tents on the island are little more than hovels, with bits of canvas and cloth strung up against leaning bits of wood, this is a real
room
, one that has been constructed by the ship’s sail-makers at the
Onderkoopman’s
direction, with canvas walls stretched tightly between upright posts, and a peaked roof. The carpet on the floor is Persian and has come directly from the Great Cabin, as have the desk and the chair. In the corner, lying casually open, is Pelsaert’s valuables chest, with more jewels in it than Wiebbe Hayes has ever seen in his life, together with the most exquisite-looking agate cameo he has ever seen.
For this meeting, Jeronimus adopts the slightly bored drone that a high Company official uses when communicating to an underling a mundane chore that he must execute. ‘And so,’ Jeronimus tells the soldier, ‘by order of the council, who on these islands represents the authority of the VOC, you are required to gather to you a group of 20 of your best men, including the six French soldiers . . .’
Jeronimus doesn’t give a reason why he particularly wants the French soldiers gone and doesn’t care what Hayes thinks about it. The truth is, while the soldiers in general have been a little aloof, the French soldiers have been the most aloof of all. He wants rid of them. He goes on, ‘You will all be transported by rafts to the High Islands, where you will use your best endeavours to find and tank the fresh water that we believe will be relatively easy to find there. When this is done, you will light three fires separated by a distance of 100 yards and put green leaves upon them to create three long columns of smoke, which will indicate you are ready to again be picked up by raft, so we can bring the water back here.’
As Jeronimus speaks, Hayes gazes at him steadily. While many have found the eyes of Jeronimus unnerving, on this occasion Jeronimus finds it more than a little uncomfortable to look into Hayes’s eyes. There is something about the look that the soldier gives him that is different . . .