Batavia (35 page)

Of course, Coen cares to share none of this with Pelsaert. Rather, after briefly clearing his throat, the Governor-General begins. ‘Tomorrow morning,’ he says, ‘you will address the full Council of the Indies and give them the benefit of this account.’ He goes on to express his deep disappointment with what has occurred, and most particularly that so many of the Company’s goods have already been lost. The primary concern for the moment, therefore, must be to work out the best way to return there as quickly as possible to salvage those goods. Between now and tomorrow’s meeting with the Council, Pelsaert is invited to turn his thoughts as to how that might best be achieved.

Coen utters the last sentence in such a way that it is clear his interview with Pelsaert is now over and it is time for him to go. Pelsaert immediately stands and manages to get through a few sentences about what an honour it has been to see Coen again, how instructive he has found the meeting and how he only wishes it could have been under better circumstances, before Coen lifts a languid hand and waves him away.

8 July 1629, Batavia’s Graveyard

Jeronimus is at last close to solving the problem of the soldier Hans Hardens and his wife, Anneken. From the time of the wreck, or at least from the time that Jeronimus has been able to observe him on Batavia’s Graveyard, there has been a certain independence about this man, something that Jeronimus finds both admirable and troubling.

The admirable part is that, as an independent man who seems almost exclusively devoted to looking after his wife and their six-year-old daughter, he is forever going fishing to get his family food, hunting for sea lions, searching for wood to build them a fire or ferreting out whatever he can find to better equip their rough tent. This means that he and his family are less of a drain on resources than others on the island who simply want to eat their way through the limited supplies and drink whatever water has been gathered for them.

The troubling part is that all independent men are a clear threat to Jeronimus and his Mutineers. Those who are not with them could very easily turn against them, and though Hardens has never made the slightest aggressive move against the rule of Jeronimus – he is too busy looking after his family – Jeronimus has decided it is time to bring him to heel.

On this very evening, in fact, he has invited Hardens and his wife to his enormous tent, where they enjoy an evening entirely foreign to the couple’s experience. They are amazed that it is possible to dine on such fine delicacies – all of it on splendid silverware atop exquisite lace that has been retrieved since the wreck of the
Batavia
– washed down by more fine Spanish wine than they thought it possible to drink in one sitting. And all of this while they know many of the rest of the people on the island are half-starving. True, the fact that Lucretia remains nothing but a sullen presence at the table takes something away, but the wine continues to flow freely, and that makes up for it somewhat. Jeronimus himself proves to be a charming host, gay with his conversation and full of hope for the future and the prospect of a rescue yacht soon coming for them.

‘The important thing,’ he says, ‘is that we must all stay together and continue to support each other . . .
come what may
, otherwise it could be very
dangerous
for us all.’ Strangely, he seems to emphasise that particular statement, but there is little time to reflect as the ever-hovering Jan Pelgrom and Rogier Decker continue to bring them more, ever more, courses of food and wine.

The only real regret of the Hardenses is that their beloved daughter is not with them. They wanted to bring her, but the request has been declined without explanation. So, after the evening draws to a close, Hardens and his wife profusely thank Jeronimus for his hospitality and take their leave. Jeronimus waits, and, sure enough, just two minutes later – the time it takes for them to return to their tent – a wry smile crosses his face in response to hearing an agonised scream in the distance. If most on the island lie chilled in their beds wondering about the cause of this scream, Jeronimus does not. The reason he did not want the little girl there was so that, while her parents dined with him, the hulking Jan Hendricxsz could, on his orders,
stab her dead
.

More satisfying than Anneken’s scream is the fact that it is quickly muffled as Hardens, a realist, puts his hand over his wife’s mouth and holds it there until she falls to the ground in a near faint. Though as shattered as his wife, and
outraged
, Hardens knows that those who have done this – Jeronimus and his men, even if the former did not wield the knife – would not hesitate to do it to them. He loves his wife, just as he loved his child, and though he has lost the latter he is determined to do what he can to ensure his wife’s and his own survival.

The murder of his daughter is clearly a warning. Jeronimus and his men will stop at nothing. And you are either with them or you are against them. Over the blood of his daughter, which has turned the mud floor of their tent crimson – her body has been dragged away and likely buried, but it is all too obvious that she has been killed – Hardens decides he will have to be with them. The alternative is his and his wife’s certain death.

9 July 1629, Batavia

On this fine Sunday morning, the upshot of it all is as good as Pelsaert could have hoped for. Yes, in the massive meeting room of the citadel, before the Council of the Indies, he receives a certain amount of acidic questioning. And, yes, he is left in no doubt that at a later point he will have to answer in greater detail for his own role in the disaster. But instead of wasting too much time castigating him there and then, the Council impresses upon him the need to return as quickly as possible to the wreck to retrieve whatever of the Company’s precious cargo he can, as well as rescuing whatever survivors might still be alive. (For, as the Council also makes clear, while rescuing the survivors is important, nothing is more crucial than retrieving the Company’s lost wealth.)

On the spot, the Council decides that the yacht Pelsaert will be given to accomplish this is none other than the
Sardam
, which left Texel with him eight months earlier and picked him up in the Sunda Strait just a week ago. It will take a week to get the
Sardam
shipshape again – to scrub the barnacles off her tired hull, revictual, and install a new skipper and crew. The yacht is to be fully stocked with salvaging equipment. And, though there will be a minimal crew in order to leave room for the maximum number of survivors, that crew will include a special retinue of
duijckers
, divers – of whom the principals come from the Indian state of Gujarat – to retrieve the money chests.

No more than minutes, thus, after thanking the Council and the Governor-General for their wise deliberations, and for the fact that they have placed their trust in him again, Pelsaert takes his leave, so he can apply himself instantly to expediting the whole process. If he can just secure the precious money chests, he feels, it is possible – just possible – that he will have a future worth living.

9 July 1629, Hayes’s Island

Another day, another search . . .

The sun is climbing high in the sky and beating down upon Hayes and his men to the point that they should be perspiring profusely, if only they had any moisture left in their bodies to sweat out. Now, they are searching along the western side of the island, at a point where there is a large expanse of sandstone covered by various boulders and flat rocks. It does not look promising, as it seems every bit as arid as everywhere else, with the only leavening feature being the shrubs. But nowhere they have searched so far has looked remotely promising. Their mood is sombre, bordering on desperate. Though they have been able to eat well by killing the jumping cats and slightly assuaging their thirst by drinking their blood, the lack of water remains a severe problem. The only drops they can get lie in the brackish pools, and if it does not rain again soon they will be in real trouble.

Typically leading the way, with his men fanned out like ducks in flying formation behind him, Wiebbe Hayes is crossing a flat expanse some 200 yards back from the shore when he steps upon a large, flat rock . . . and stops. That sounded odd, beneath his wooden clogs. It was sort of . . . hollow. Motioning for the others to give him a hand, he shifts the rock aside to reveal a small, almost perfectly circular hole about a foot across. Leaning over it, he looks down and is confronted by a vision of . . . himself.
His face and the bright blue sky
above are reflected in the water below!

Excitedly, his men gather around and gaze down the hole. Scarcely able to believe it, one of them lightly tosses in a small stone, and an instant later they hear a wonderful, soft . . .
plop
, as their reflected image is broken up in so many ripples.

But is it going to be seawater or fresh water? One of the soldiers takes a cup he has been carrying more in hope than belief, attaches it to a piece of twine, lowers it until the twine goes slack and the cup becomes weighty, then carefully hauls it to the surface. It has clear water in it. The cup is handed to Hayes, their leader, who takes a tentative sip and then knocks back half its contents before handing it back to its owner, hugely grinning. It is
fresh
water!
They are saved
.

Weighting the cup with a rock, they are quickly able to establish that the water goes to a fair depth and that they are at no risk of running out – so, in short order, all the men get their fill, before moving on to the next project. Now, they all excitedly build a bonfire to send the agreed signal – three plumes of smoke with a hundred yards or so between each – to those on Batavia’s Graveyard. Water has been found, and the others should be coming quickly with their barrels to have them filled. How pleased everyone will be!

True, so strong is the wind that it is very difficult to get the fires going, but – just as they have done with their cooking fires – they lean three large, flat rocks against each other on the side of the cliffs to make each sheltered fireplace while gathering whatever green foliage they can to generate the smoke. And then, at Hayes’s signal, all three are lit, using flint struck on steel to first light the tinder, and soon the three fires are roaring, sending to the skies three billowing plumes of . . .

9 July 1629, Batavia’s Graveyard

Rook!
Smoke! And more smoke! And yet
more
smoke!

Back on Batavia’s Graveyard, it is the pale and still shaking Andries de Vries who sees it first, and he quickly points it out to all the others. Sure enough, there, about five miles to the north-west, can clearly be seen the three thin plumes of smoke emanating from the very islands on which Wiebbe Hayes and his 19 men were dropped 20 days before. Water!
Oh mijn God, zij moeten het gevonden hebben!
Oh my God, they must have found it!

The signal has worked. The survivors on Batavia’s Graveyard expect it will only be a matter of time before Jeronimus either sends boats to bring back freshly filled barrels of water and the men from those northern islands or relocates the whole lot of them there, where there will be plentiful water and maybe even food. All of the non-Mutineers on Batavia’s Graveyard are tired of the constant need to live on meagre rations of both food and water, so the smoke signal is greeted with great rejoicing. (And none is more jubilant than Anneken Bosschieters – as she receives a sign for the first time that her husband, Jan Carstenz, is likely still alive – even if, at the time the smoke is first spotted, she is otherwise engaged with Wouter Loos in one of the tents used by the women for common service. She, too, has now fallen.)

Surely, the
Kapitein-Generaal
will be thrilled, too.

In fact, however, not only is Jeronimus not happy, he is appalled and outraged in equal measure that, despite the firm assurances he received from his scouts that both of the High Islands are bereft of water, somehow,
somehow
, Hayes and his men have found some.

9 July 1629, Traitors’ Island

The instant the smoke signals are noticed by the 14 inhabitants on Traitors’ Island, the whole lot of them, led by the provost, are galvanised into action. Since being landed on the island three weeks earlier, life has been exceedingly difficult for Provost Pieter Jansz, his wife, child and the eleven others, including two women and two children, but they have managed to survive . . . just. Partly, this has been through sipping whatever water they could get from the brackish pools left over by the rain, and partly through drinking the blood, as well as eating the flesh, of the few sea lions they have managed to kill. But it has not been an existence that could endure for long.

The fact that there has been no contact at all with the
Onderkoopman
and those on Batavia’s Graveyard at first surprised the provost and then gravely concerned him. Something about the whole thing does not add up, and the more he has thought about it the more concerned and then
afraid
he has become – especially since he saw the three men trussed like turkeys and peremptorily executed on the southern shore of Batavia’s Graveyard only a few days before.

He has not been alone in his fears. Others on the island, led by his own wife, have had the same thoughts about their abandonment. Have they been put on this island to
die
? After all, for what other reason could they have been left on this barren outcrop of coral, removed from the larger island of Batavia’s Graveyard, where there are at least some supplies, and shelter, and a collection of skills to make life more sustainable? It seems unimaginable that this has been the
Onderkoopman’s
plan all along, yet the more they think about it and discuss it, the more it becomes clear that the building of the small rafts from the wood washed up on the shore is not just going to be the most likely means of their salvation, it is their
only
means. As a precaution, Jansz has had his men build two rafts on the southern side of Traitors’ Island, where they cannot be observed by those on Batavia’s Graveyard.