by Judy Nunn
Charlotte opened her mouth to say something, then decided against it. But it wasn’t the sharp look from her brother warning her not to interfere which gave her second thoughts, it was Henrietta’s resolution. What was going on between these two, she wondered. Whatever it was she would keep well out of it, but she admired Henrietta’s guts all the more.
Jackie dismounted and held Florian’s bridle, whispering gently and stroking the horse’s neck as Henrietta prepared to mount. ‘Talk to him, missus,’ he muttered.
‘I’m sorry, Florian,’ she said gently. ‘It was my fault, I’m sorry.’
As she put her foot in the stirrup, Florian’s eyes rolled white and he gave a nervous snort, but Jackie whispered soothing words in a language Henrietta didn’t understand and the horse stood still and allowed her to mount.
Jackie mounted his own horse, very slowly, talking all the while to Florian, then he gave a clicking sound with his tongue and, as they set off, Florian walked alongside Jackie’s horse, the flanks of the two animals almost touching.
‘You stay close, missus,’ Jackie murmured, ‘him fine now.’ Then for Terence’s benefit, he added more loudly, ‘We take it easy, eh boss? Don’t want ’im break ’is knees.’
Terence looked sharply at the Aborigine, but there appeared no insolence intended. Jackie simply walked his horse at a slow, steady pace, talking all the while in his strange foreign tongue to Florian who walked peacefully beside him.
During the ride home, her leg throbbing with pain, Henrietta did not once cast a glance in Terence’s direction. She resolved not to. Just as she resolved that he would never break her. If that was his intention, then let him try. But she would never give in. Never.
It was a dark night, the occasional glimmer of moonlight filtering through the cloud cover and reflecting silver on the blackness of the ocean. But the dark held no fear for Lucretia as she stood on the deck enjoying the slight chill of the evening. She was relishing her solitude. It was May now, a full seven months since they had set sail from Amsterdam, and she found the claustrophobia aboard the Batavia at times unbearable. Particularly since they had become separated from the rest of the convoy. Lucretia had found the sight of the other vessels comforting, even when, for the most part, they were mere masts on the horizon. These days there was nothing as far as the eye could see but the vastness of the Indian Ocean.
When the Batavia had been separated from the convoy in storms south of the Cape of Good Hope, Commandeur Pelsaert had been quick to quell the fears of his passengers. Such an occurrence was not unusual, he had stated.
‘No matter,’ he had announced, ‘it is as God wills. We may come up with them again in higher latitudes.’
In private, however, he had admitted to Lucretia that the loss of the convoy worried him somewhat. It had been of great comfort to have the man-o’-war Buren constantly in sight. The Buren, with her three decks of guns, was the perfect deterrent to the many pirates who roamed the high seas. The Batavia was well armed, it was true, she carried twenty-eight cannons, a company of soldiers and an arsenal capable of equipping every able-bodied man on board. But, amongst her cargo of wines and cheeses, cloths and trade goods, she also carried twelve bound chests of heavy silver coin worth 250,000 guilders and a casket of jewels worth a king’s ransom. If the knowledge of this cargo had reached the ears of those bent on piracy, then she would most certainly present an irresistible temptation.
‘We are quite safe of course,’ he’d assured Lucretia, not wishing to worry her unduly. ‘We shall keep a sharp watch, and the Batavia can outspeed any vessel upon the seas, but I shall miss the Buren.’ Pelsaert found it a comfort to converse with one of his own kind, they were of similar social standing, he and Lucretia.
Lucretia hugged her arms about her chest as the wind whipped through her bodice. After the heat of the day, the evening seemed suddenly chilly. But she delayed her return to the stifling atmosphere below decks and the unpleasant company which she might encounter and which she went to great pains to avoid. Since Commandeur Pelsaert had once again been struck ill, she missed his companionship more than ever, although she continued to nurse him as his health waxed and waned. At times he was feverish and seemed near death, then he would make an apparent recovery only to be once more struck down.
During the periods of his illness, it was plainly obvious that Pelsaert found great solace in the presence of Lucretia van den Mylen, but the knowledge that certain elements aboard slandered their relationship angered him. And the degree to which the odious rumours abounded was unsettling. The Batavia’s skipper Adriaen Jacobsz was a loathsome creature, to be sure, and the crew rough, ill-bred men, but the venom of their attack upon the character of both himself and Lucretia was so personal and vicious that it threatened to damage the general goodwill aboard ship, something an experienced sailor like Captain Jacobsz would normally avoid. Pelsaert was mystified as to why the man should encourage such behaviour, and as Commandeur he meted out punishments to instill discipline in the men, but the disquiet continued.
Lucretia too was aware of the extent of the slander. No longer was it mere innuendo spread by Adriaen Jacobsz whom she had spurned as an admirer. Jacobsz had been joined in his attacks upon her character by the powerful undermerchant Jeronimus Cornelisz, and together the two of them incited a hatred towards her which was palpable. As she passed by members of the crew they would hiss at her, make lewd gestures and mutter obscenities which were not the comments of mere lustful ruffians. Lucretia was accustomed to men’s lust and even that of base men instilled in her no fear, but she sensed hatred in these men, and hatred was foreign to her.
It was Jeronimus Cornelisz whom she most feared, however. He was the antithesis of the foul-mouthed, heavy-drinking Jacobsz, and it was initially puzzling as to how, and why, the two had become such close acquaintances. In appearance Cornelisz was a cultivated, attractive man. Thirty years of age, a former apothecary from Haarlem, he spoke French and Latin and, with an evident love of fine clothes, was impeccable in his attire. Fastidious too, his long, brown hair always brushed and gleaming, his moustache always neatly trimmed. As representative of the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, the United East India Company, Cornelisz was the third highest ranking official aboard the Batavia, second only to the Commandeur and the Captain, and so successfully had he ingratiated himself with the Commandeur that Pelsaert considered him a man of breeding. But due to either feminine instinct or the fact that Cornelisz did little to disguise his lascivious feelings towards her, Lucretia had been quick to recognise the man’s dual personality. His obsequious behaviour in Pelsaert’s presence was in direct contrast to the cruelty he displayed to the underdogs aboard and the obvious pleasure he experienced in witnessing the regular physical punishments meted out for insubordination. As the lash of the whip ripped a man’s back to shreds Cornelisz’s eyes gleamed with exhilaration and the cruel curve of his lip revealed to Lucretia the man’s true sadistic nature. In his company, she felt she was in the presence of the Devil himself, and all the more so because, as the weeks had become months, Cornelisz had taken a delight in displaying his evil for her and her alone. Whilst engaging others, particularly Pelsaert, with his wit and charm, he would whisper in Lucretia’s ear quotes from Torrentius, the painter and philosopher whose beliefs were blasphemous to the extreme.
‘All religions restrict pleasure,’ he would murmur as she sat captive beside him at the dining table. ‘Torrentius maintains that God put us on earth in order that we might, during our brief existence, enjoy without hindrance everything that might give us pleasure. It is an interesting theory, is it not?’
Lucretia would recoil at such blasphemy, and at the hideous intimacy of his tone as if he felt she might agree with his heinous beliefs. Then Cornelisz would give a merry laugh, intimating they had shared a witty story, and he would turn his considerable social skills to entertaining the table.
Lucretia avoided his company whenever she could, but privacy aboard the Batavia was a lu
xury afforded to no-one.
‘Good evening, Vrouwe van den Mylen.’
Standing on the deck, lost in her thoughts, Lucretia was startled by the voice, but she knew immediately whose it was. There was no mistaking the silken mockery of his tone. She turned in the darkness to face him.
‘Good evening,’ she said as pleasantly as she could, she never addressed him by name these days, she could not bring herself to do so.
‘It is late for you to be out on deck, is it not?’
Lucretia cursed herself. When the weather permitted, she took her customary walk upon the deck at dusk. Tonight, the seas being so calm, she had left the dining table whilst the men were still drinking, and she had anticipated a quiet ten minutes or so alone.
‘Yes it is, and the air grows chill; I shall bid you goodnight.’ She half expected his hand upon her arm, his lips close to her ear to whisper more filth, but mercifully he did nothing.
‘Sleep well, Vrouwe van den Mylen,’ he called after her, ‘may your dreams live up to your expectations.’ And there was something in his tone that willed her to dream of ghosts and demons. Lucretia put her hand to her breast and felt the comfort of the locket beneath her bodice. The man wished to instill fear in her, but she would never allow him to know that he succeeded.
Cornelisz watched her go. The haughty bitch thought she was too good for him. Well it would not be long before she would be begging for mercy, it would not be long before she would be more than willing to share her favours. How he relished the prospect. Cornelisz made his way to the small aft cabin where the meeting was already under way.
He whispered the password to the man who stood close watch at the door, and was admitted entry. Gathered around the table, in the flickering light of a single tallow candle, sat the mutineers; now they awaited only one of their members, none other than the skipper himself, Adriaen Jacobsz.
‘Where’s the Captain?’ muttered the High Boatswain, Jan Evertsz.
Cornelisz knew full well that the Captain was at the dining table still swilling back the raw genever gin he so favoured. ‘He’ll be present shortly,’ he replied. ‘In the meantime, Jan, I have a plan to further undermine our Commandeur. The skipper is in agreement, so listen …’
Cornelisz and Jacobsz had planned the mutiny from the outset of the voyage. They would pirate their own ship, they had decided. And they, together with all those who joined forces with them, would live like kings for the rest of their lives on the wealth of the Batavia’s cargo. Systematically, they had set about stirring unrest amongst the men. During the heavy weather encountered around the Cape of Good Hope, Captain Jacobsz had altered his course, successfully losing sight of the rest of the convoy. Both men had prayed for the death of Pelsaert whose illness they took to be an excellent omen, but when their Commandeur had rallied, nursed back to health by Lucretia van den Mylen, they had recognised further fertile ground in which to plant their seeds of disquiet. Their plan had proved successful. Not only had the slander of Pelsaert and his ‘whore’ unsettled the men, all of whom had lustful feelings towards the aristocratic Lucretia van den Mylen, but the disciplines which Pelsaert had set in place to check this slander had been deeply resented. And furthermore, the men, who were denied the pleasures of the flesh during the long voyage, seethed at the thought that their Commandeur was experiencing such pleasure nightly. Feelings were rife, a highly successful breeding ground for inciting mutiny, Cornelisz and Jacobsz had found.
Pelsaert’s fear of piracy was warranted, but the threat did not issue from foreign ships; it was gathering, like rancid pus, within the very bowels of the Batavia.
By the time Adriaen Jacobsz arrived at the meeting, drunk, his beard and moustache still wet with gin, plans for the final act of degradation had been made. An act intended to so anger Pelsaert that he would mete out punishments which would incite a riot.
It was dusk, the hour when others would be gathering to dine. For the past two evenings, since her encounter with Cornelisz, Lucretia had delayed her arrival at the dining table. She had no cause to regret the fact that her lateness might seem rude in the eyes of Commandeur Pelsaert, for his illness continued to confine him to his cabin. Cornelisz appeared to strictly adhere to the routine of his day, and dusk was the one time when Lucretia felt safe to walk on the deck without the risk of bumping into him. She intended never again to find herself alone in the man’s company.
The breeze was quite strong and Lucretia had secured her hair at the nape of her neck with a ribbon. She breathed in the salt air deeply as she gazed out at the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean, enjoying her solitude. The sails billowed above and the masts’ stays creaked as the Batavia cut through the white-flecked sea. They were making good speed, she thought, and she wondered, as she did several times each day, how long it would be before she saw her beloved Boudewijn. In the pale light of the crescent moon, the silhouetted shapes of the carved wooden figures, the Batavia’s guardians, were strangely comforting.
There was a noise behind her. A scuffling sound. She turned. To her horror she was confronted by a man wearing a mask. Then another. And another. Each masked. In an instant she was surrounded. Lucretia opened her mouth to scream, but rough hands threw her to the deck. The ribbon was yanked from her hair, a rag shoved in her mouth and the ribbon tied tightly to wedge it in place. She writhed, gagging, as her skirts and petticoats were dragged up over her head. The men ripped at her undergarments, tearing them to shreds, exposing her naked from the waist. Then she felt the same callused hands wiping themselves over her buttocks and her thighs and her legs. They were covering her in something. What was it? Tar, she could smell tar. And something else. Oh dear God, the stench! The bile rose in her throat. She was sickened. The vileness! She started to choke. They were covering her in excrement.
They pulled her skirts back down from her face and slapped the filth on her cheeks and her throat and her bare arms. She was choking on her own vomit now.
‘Do you like that, bitch?’ she heard one man say amongst the panting and slobbering and grunting of the others. ‘Put her over the side,’ he said, and they dragged her to her feet.
She was gibbering, she could hear herself. The horror of it all. The stench was suffocating her, she could taste the filth. Strange animal sounds were coming from her throat along with vomit and saliva as she felt them lift her over the side of the ship. Let me drown, she prayed, let them throw me into the sea and let me drown.
But they didn’t throw her into the sea. They held her by her ankles, her skirts billowing over her head, her hands catching the waves’ spray each time the ship rolled to starboard, her legs and her private parts, covered with tar and faeces, fully exposed to the men above.
She didn’t know how long they held her dangling there as she prayed for them to release her, to let her sink to the bottom of the ocean and find oblivion in a watery grave. Perhaps she lost consciousness for a moment, but she didn’t feel them haul her back on board, she didn’t hear them scuttle away into the darkness. She suddenly found herself curled up in a dark corner of the deck, still gibbering, still gagging. She pulled the ribbon and the rag away from her mouth and tried to breathe normally. She couldn’t. She was shivering and her breath came in sharp gasps. She was alive, wasn’t she? She should be grateful for that. But she couldn’t think reasonably, the smell and the taste of her degradation were too vile. Then she thought of the locket. Had she lost the locket as they held her over the side? Feverishly she fumbled beneath her bodice. Something told her if she had lost the locket then she had lost her life. But it was there.
Between her fingers, Lucretia felt the carved shape of the mountain and the diamonds of the sun, and she clasped the locket to her breast as she sat rocking back and forth, whimpering in the darkness.
Victory in Europe. On 7 May 1945, Germany surrendered. The Allies had won. But as Europe celebrated, the war in the Pacific raged on. Some said it was merely a matter of time, but men were still dying, Australia was still a country very m
uch at war, and Darwin, broken and wounded as she was, remained of central military importance.
At Bullalalla cattle station news of the victory in Europe was greeted with jubilation, but Henrietta Galloway had double cause for celebration. She was eight months pregnant, a fact which had altered the course of her life.
A year previously she had visited a doctor in Darwin in an attempt to discover the reason for her inability to conceive.
‘There’s no reason at all as far as I can determine,’ the doctor had said following his examination. ‘It’s quite possible your husband has a low sperm count, perhaps he should come and visit me.’
It was impossible, she replied, her husband was a fighter pilot. He stayed mainly at the RAAF base and was constantly on call.
‘Ah yes, well there is a war on isn’t there.’ The doctor didn’t intend to sound sardonic, but there was something in his tone which intimated he had more important things to worry about than a young woman’s fertility. ‘Perhaps he could come and see me when the war’s over, it can’t go on forever. In the meantime, keep trying. These things sometimes take time.’
‘What did the doctor say?’ Terence asked.
‘He said to keep trying,’ Henrietta replied. ‘These things take time, he said.’ Low sperm count? No, she could never tell Terence Galloway that.
Now, as her healthy body bloomed with impending motherhood, it seemed all was forgiven. Her husband was loving, ever solicitous of her well-being, and in the eyes of her father-in-law she could do no wrong. She had become old Jock Galloway’s favourite, the mother of his son’s child.
Much as Henrietta was aware that, to them at least, she had finally fulfilled her duty, she couldn’t help but respond to their kindness and she had never been happier. Even the reaction of her sister-in-law Charlotte, who might have been forgiven a touch of jealousy, was generous to the extreme.