East India

by Colin Falconer

  You have brought the Devil here.

  ***

  At midday Michiel went up to the gun deck, where the galley was. Always hot as hell up there, porridge or stew boiling away in the three legged copper cauldrons over a wood fire; noisy as a dockside tavern too, babies crying, everyone shouting, some hag birthing a baby over in the corner, the midwife burning seagull feathers under her nose for the pain, and her shrieking like someone was torturing her, and none but a midwife taking any notice.

  Not like in the commandeur's cabin, he supposed, the table with a nice linen cloth, pewter bowls instead of these wooden ones. Refined company too, like Vrouwe Noorstrandt, no sitting on your haunches on the deck listening to the women squabble and the babies scream.

  He collected a plate of salted pork and prunes from the cook, stepped over bodies on the way up to the deck. He saw a cabin boy, Strootman, trying to catch the eye of one of the Post girls. As if she would ever be interested in a pimply little boy like that.

  One of the gunners, Ryckert, blew his pipe smoke in the direction of little Elisabeth Post as she passed him, and then make some remark to his comrades that caused ribald laughter. Everyone knew what a clay pipe represented when a man waved it in a lady's direction. Ryckert would not have got away with such thing if the commandeur was well.

  What was happening to this ship?

  He went up on deck and sat with his back against the sterncastle, heard the skipper up on the poop, shouting commands to the uppersteersman. He was not alone up there either; Sara de Ruyter was with him, brazen as you like, flaunting her skirts and curls. The women sitting under the awnings flashed her dark looks.

  “Look at that tart!’ Neeltje Groot hissed.

  “It is a mortal sin!’ He looked around; it was old Grietje Willemsz.

  “They say she sleeps in his cabin every night now!’ Neeltje said.

  “What is Vrouwe Noorstrandt doing about it?” the pastor’s wife said. “That's what I want to know.”

  “Has your husband spoken with her?” Neeltje asked.

  “Of course he has, and sharply, too! She told him that it is a matter between the skipper and the provost now. But the provost is scared to go against him and so he lets it continue!’

  Neeltje and Grietje shook their heads and muttered darkly at such goings on. What was to be done? A violent man, the skipper, yet now he held all their lives in those brute fists.

  The weeks stretched in front of them, interminable.

  Chapter 21

  THE Utrecht sailed on alone on a vast ocean, beating to eastward. A different ship to the one that left Amsterdam, though the timbers and cordage was the same; there were whispers and gossip in the passageways, averted glances on the decks. Not much laughter from the women gathered under the awning on the quarterdeck, either; everyone waited for news from the Great Cabin, dreading what would happen if the commandeur lost his fight with the fever.

  ***

  They were gathered in the steerage, a dozen of them crowded in there: Jan Decker, the high boatswain; the fat constable, Floris Konick; David Krueger; Ryckert, the master gunner and most of the jonkers.

  And Christiaan, of course.

  The bosun kept watch through a knothole in the door, while the others huddled together, a flask of genever gin passing from hand to hand, the oily fumes filling the cramped cabin. A candle leaked grease onto the table. The only sound was the creaking of the rudder post.

  “He's going to die,” Christiaan whispered.

  “He was supposed to have died two days ago,” Joost said.

  “I went in the Great Cabin tonight and had a look for myself. He's just bones and rags. To look at him, you'd think he was dead already.”

  Silence, the men alone with their dark calculations.

  “Do any of you know how much treasure there is on this ship?” Christiaan asked them.

  Konick swallowed the gin and wiped his beard with the back of his sleeve. “Treasure?”

  “There is in the hold a dozen bound chests of silver coin, a quarter of a million guilders! Even our commandeur, who lives like a prince, would not see so much money if he lives ten lifetimes. Did you also know that there is, in the Great Cabin - and I have seen this with my own eyes - a casket of jewels so precious they are intended for the treasure house of the Moghul Jahangir in India himself?”

  “What are you suggesting?” Krueger whispered.

  “The choice is yours, David,” Christiaan said, as sweetly reasonable as if they were discussing who should have the last crust of bread at table. “For myself I know I shall never see such riches again in my lifetime. You too, Joost. What good has your noble blood been to you without real money?” He looked at Ryckert. “How many guilders do you get a month to sail this stinking tub to the end of the earth and back, to help make some rich burgher in Amsterdam his fortune?”

  He looked around at Konick and the bosun and knew he had made his point with them, also.

  “Every important officer in this boat is in this room. When Secor dies, we shall have a fortune in cash and jewels in our trust. As your new commandeur, what would you have me do? Shall we continue to Batavia so you may finish your short and miserable lives, or do you wish me to deliver your dreams into your hands?”

  “What about the skipper?” the bosun asked.

  “He has told me that if Secor dies, he will ally himself with me.”

  He could see them all thinking it through; how much could they trust each other? The black robed judges of the Company showed little sympathy to muyters, mutineers. None of them fancied the rod and the wheel.

  And yet a life could turn on such a moment. They all knew that if this opportunity slipped by them, they faced a lifetime of drudgery in the Company's service, eating stinking food on tubs like this one, or a damp grave somewhere in the Indies, far from home.

  “You have a plan, Christiaan?” Konick said, carefully.

  He gave them a crooked smile. “Let us suppose the Utrecht does not arrive in Java,” he said. “How long before she is reported missing in Amsterdam? A year?”

  “Most likely,” the bosun nodded.

  “More than enough time for us to disappear. We might even add to our riches in the meantime.”

  “How?”

  “The flag at the top of the masthead could be as precious to us as the caskets of silver. With the Company flag flying we can come close up to Indiamen stragglers who will suspect nothing until it is too late. How many cannon do we have, Konick?”

  “We have twenty-eight cannon, seven of them bronze pieces large enough to batter down the walls of Batavia Castle itself!’

  Christiaan looked around their faces and his eyes shone in the darkness. “There are also muskets, cutlasses and pikes in the arsenal. We can raid from Coromandel to Madagascar then sail through the Straits of Gibraltar to the Barbary Coast and live like kings!’

  Konick and Ryckert nodded. They could see it now, how easily it might be done, if they had the nerve to follow through.

  “What about the rest of the crew?” Krueger said.

  “That's up to you. You each know which men can be trusted, and who cannot. Tell them nothing about our plan--just have them ready to act on your command. The constable here will know which gunners we can trust, the bosun here can recruit from the sailors.”

  “What about the soldiers?”

  “Too dangerous. Their sergeant, Michiel Van Texel, keeps them under an iron fist. When the time comes we lock them in the orlop.”

  Joost looked around at Christiaan. “Can such a thing be done? We are a handful against three hundred.”

  He nodded. “Ask Jan here. These ratline monkeys are whores' brats from the docks. They'd shit on their own mother's head for a silver guilder. That's right, isn't it?” he said and looked at the bosun, who nodded. “When the pansy boy goes over the side with the preacher's prayers, they'll all do what the Undermerchant says.”

  Ryckert and the constable exchanged a look, no doubt thinking about the
maggoty meat and endless months at sea that had been their life until now; Krueger imagined a future different from sitting at gloomy desk in Batavia castle, with piles of letters to be copied; Joost wondered how long even a young man like himself might survive among the gloomy vapours of Java. Christiaan had already warned him.

  And look at the bosun there, thinking no man is ugly with gold in his pocket.

  “If you don't have the balls for this,” Christiaan said, ‘you might as well be maidservants or cabin boys.”

  “All right,” Ryckert said. “Let’s do it.”

  The gin bottle passed again from hand to hand. Oaths were foresworn.

  Everything was ready.

  Now all they needed Secor was to die.

  ***

  Cornelia went up on deck to get some air. It was on twilight, the ship beating against the wind, spray rushing over the bows, the dark clouds astern stained a dirty orange from the sunset. The pastor stood at the rail with his wife; he looked like some predatory black bird with his cloak flapping behind him in the wind.

  They hurried towards her, clinging to the ships’ rails.

  “How is he, vrouwe?”

  “He is very sick.”

  “The barber says he will die.”

  “We must pray for him.”

  The pastor shook his head, as if the commandeur’s sickness had been planned to personally inconvenience him. “We need him well. We need a firm hand on this ship.”

  “I am sure the commandeur will not die if he can help it,” she said, but he seemed not to have heard her. Perhaps her answer was carried away on the wind.

  “I have had cause to speak most sternly to the undermerchant,” he said. “I have warned him that when we reach Batavia I shall be most severe in my reports of the behaviour I have witnessed since we left Table Bay.”

  “You mean Sara?”

  “She is your maidservant! Can you not speak to her?”

  “She no longer listens to me.”

  “She fornicates with the captain and flaunts herself in front of the crew and passengers. Schellinger has a wife in Holland, you know.”

  She nodded. “Such godlessness from the very people who should set example to others! I must pray to the Lord for guidance on this matter.”

  “We must hope the Undermerchant will act on this.” “I would not hope for too much from Heer van Sant,” he said. They went below.

  The creaking of cordage, the groan of timbers. Rats scuttled in the hold; demons chased each other through the dark dreams of the sailors; a child called out in the night among the huddled shapes asleep on the gun deck. The devil at sea, the coasts of Christian men receding in the darkness.

  She clung to the gunwale, staring at the great ocean swells. The land was out there somewhere; Hurry to us, she thought, before everything is lost.

  Chapter 22

  THE next morning Cornelia came to the Great Cabin and supposed to find Ambroise dead. Instead she found Maistre Arentson in a great excitement. “He's better!’ he told her. “The fever has broken. It is a miracle!’

  She rushed past him and to her astonishment found Ambroise sitting up with his eyes open. She fetched a cup of water and held it to his lips. He even managed a smile. “Thank you,” he croaked. “You are like an angel.”

  “Ambroise, we thought you were lost to us.”

  “Every time I went to leave...your voice brought me back.”

  She touched his forehead. It was cool, for the first time in a week.

  He smiled. “I have dreamed of your touch.”

  She excused him that remark, for he must still have a little of the delirium. She hoped that Maistre Arentson had not overheard.

  “You must get well,” she said. “Everyone has prayed for your recovery.”

  “Everyone?” he said.

  It was another week before he was well enough to rise from his bed. The fever had left him painfully weak, and so she spent the days during his recovery in his cabin, either reading passages to him from the Bible or in idle conversation.

  Others meanwhile had begun to panic.

  ***

  The plotters regathered in the steerage, where the creaking of the rudder drowned out their voices. The skipper was there too, he had brought Sara de Ruyter, all of them were crammed in with the gunpowder and gin fumes, while the ship pitched and rolled in the trades.

  “He got out of bed today,” Christiaan told them.

  Konick put his head in his hands. “Godverdomme! This was not the way it was meant to turn out at all. You told us he was dying!’

  “The little pansy is tougher than we thought.”

  “Now what's going to happen to me?” Sara whined. “Miss High and Mighty will have me whipped.”

  “No one's going to even look at you sour while I'm skipper of this tub,” the skipper said and pulled her onto his lap. “Isn't she the most beautiful woman on this boat?” he said to the others, inviting their hungry stares. “You can keep that stuck up Noorstrandt bitch. I reckon fucking that one would be like sticking it in snow.” He squeezed her breast. “You won't have to take orders from that bitch much longer, soetecut.”

  She let him squeeze her boobies and pretended she was enjoying it. But Christiaan knew it was an act. She had come to see him today. His remedies hadn't worked - or she had not properly followed his instructions - and she knew from her breasts and her bleeding that she had the skipper's baby growing inside her.

  Christiaan wondered what he would think of that when he heard the news.

  Would she still be his soetecut then?

  ***

  It was the first time he had been on deck in weeks. He looked desperately weak, the maistre said he still could not keep his food down. There was still no sign of the rest of the fleet. The skipper said they had lost them during the storm, a few days out from Table Bay. He said it was nothing to worry about.

  “We'll come up with them in the high latitudes,” he said.

  “It's on your head,” Ambroise grunted.

  Ambroise retched over the side then went back below, did not want the crew or passengers to see how desperately ill he still was, he supposed.

  “Good to see Sinjeur Secor in such good spirits.”

  The skipper turned around. Not so friendly now, Christiaan thought. He’s all bluff, Christiaan thought. For all his bold talk about what he’d like to do to the commandeur, now he was up and about again he looked as fidgety as a virgin in a whorehouse. Perhaps he was having second thoughts about their plans.

  “I have heard him say he owes his recovery to Vrouwe Noorstrandt. She was very solicitous during his illness.”

  “What is it you want, undermerchant?”

  “I am privy to many things that happen in the Great Cabin. I hear your mistress may soon find herself tied to the main mast to earn herself some stripes from the provost.”

  “And where did you hear that?”

  “Vrouwe Noorstrandt has pleaded with Sinjeur Secor to have her maid disciplined.”

  “Not while I live and breathe.”

  “Well, I'm on your side, but I'm hard pressed to see how you can prevent it. Yet it seems a great injustice is done here. Especially if what they say about him and his dalliance with Vrouwe Noorstrandt is to be believed.”

  “She took him soup and read the Bible to him. That streak of milk and water couldn't get a hard on in a brothel.”

  “You and I know that, but others have wondered at her immodesty.” “What are you saying, Undermerchant?”

  “Opinion is on your side, skipper. You would do well to use it.”

  “What do I care of men's opinions?” he said and turned and left the deck.

  The bosun was watching them. He looked at Christiaan and shrugged his shoulders. Hard to credit that the commandeur would rally this way or that the skipper would turn out to be a milkmaid beneath all the bluster. Christiaan had got used to the idea of Secor being dead. Now what were they going to do?

  “We have to force his
hand,” Christiaan said to the bosun.

  “How are we going to do that?”

  As Christiaan stared into the swell, a plan came to mind. “There is a way and one you might find pleasing for yourself, as well as pleasing to our purpose. Have you ever imagined having the Noorstrandt woman under you?”

  “I have not thought about anything else the six months of our voyage. What are you thinking?”

  “I was wondering what might happen should someone take her unawares. I do not think the commandeur is any longer in a position to impose his authority. He might be forced into rash action and turn opinion among the crew against him.”

  “You think so?”

  “Will you ever have such a chance again in your whole life?”

  The bosun shook his head. “It is too dangerous.”

  “That’s why you’re just a bosun,” he said and left it at that. Let the dog think about that for a day or two.

  Chapter 23

  THE ship’s timbers creaked in the following swell. Rats scuttled in the shadows and the candle beside her bed guttered. Cornelia woke in the semi-darkness to find a cockroach scuttling across her pillow. She screamed and knocked it away with the back of her hand. She tried to get back to sleep, but her nerves were shaken.

  Someone knocked on her door. She put a cloak over her shoulders and threw it open. The corridor was empty. She heard footsteps scuttle up the companionway.

  She called out but there was no answer.

  Perhaps the commandeur was sick again, and had asked for her.

  She took a step into the passageway, still half asleep. A hand clamped across her mouth. She could not breathe, thought she was going to faint. Someone grabbed her hair, pulled her head so far back that her eyes filled with tears.

  She kicked out in panic, but someone else grabbed her feet and they dragged her into her cabin. The hand around her throat was choking off her air, and she felt herself slipping away.