East India

by Colin Falconer

  How many were there? She had no idea. One of them smudged out the candle while another tore off her nightdress. Fingers probed inside her, and it hurt.

  She could not believe this was happening here, with so many asleep all around her. One of the men was on top of her, his weight crushing her. His breath was hot on her face and it stank like a dog's. The hand on her jaw loosed its hold for a moment and she bit down as hard as she could. The man yelled and she took a breath to scream for help but then she took a clout around the side of the head that knocked her senseless before she could make a sound.

  After that they hit her every time she struggled and by the time they finished she was barely conscious. One of them stuffed a filthy rag in her mouth and it made her gag. They smeared some foulness on her, tar and ordure, and then they were gone.

  Her hands shook so badly she could barely pull the gag from her mouth. She turned on her side and vomited. She put a hand between her legs, groaned with pain, her fingers came away dripping with blood and muck.

  No one must see me like this, she thought.

  She tried to sit up, fumbled in the darkness for the scrap of her nightdress but could not find it. Finally she gave up and lay on the floor until morning, naked and shivering, too weak to wipe away the filth they had smeared her with, let it dry to a crust on her, one eye swollen shut, her spirit crushed. The door creaked against the rolling of the ship until finally a massive swell passed under the hull sending the ship pitching to starboard and it finally slammed shut.

  ***

  The fever left Ambroise feeling so weak that he found it hard to concentrate. He sat in the Great Chair in his cabin, a sheen of sweat on his forehead, listening to the pastor prattle on. Would the man never stop talking? He wanted only to lie down and sleep. This pompous black crow made him feel bilious.

  “There has been godless behaviour on this ship,” the pastor was saying. “The high boatswain and the skipper himself blaspheme and use oaths against our Lord while they are on deck in the most scandalous manner. I urge you to take action.”

  “What would you have me do?”

  “You know the Company has legislated a punishment for such behaviour?” It was true, under the rules of the Honourable Company it was not permissible for any man ‘to call loudly or with familiar vanity on the name of God.” But if they were to enforce the letter of the law every day there would not be a man left standing to crew the watch.

  “You wish me to order twenty lashes for the skipper?”

  “It is the law.”

  The law.

  The law, it seemed to him, was whatever was reasonable on an unescorted ship halfway between the known world and an isolated colony eight months sail from the Netherlands. Ambroise feared the Lord, of course, but sometimes he feared Bible-thumping fools like the pastor even more.

  “I shall think on what you've said.”

  He waited for the preacher to leave.

  “Also the ship is unruly. You should be more careful of your underlings.”

  “What do you mean?” Ambroise said. There was a pain behind his eyes.

  “I mean the undermerchant, Christiaan van Sant. Did you know he was a follower of Torrentius?”

  Ambroise stared at him; Torrentius van der Beeks was a famous painter who also happened to be the leader of a group calling themselves ‘spiritual libertines.” Back in Holland there had been rumours of orgies and other scandalous incidents, and Torrentius had finally been arrested and put to torture. Before they left Amsterdam his trial was all anyone could talk about.

  He refused to believe that an undermerchant in the Honourable Company could be allied to such devilish societies. “That is nonsense.”

  “I have it on good authority.”

  “Whose?”

  “I overheard Joost van der Linde say it to one of his jonker friends.”

  “Tittle tattle.”

  “He is impious.”

  “Oh impious, is it? Very well, I shall have him keel-hauled.”

  “That seems excessive.”

  “I was being ironic.” He sighed. “What makes you cast this calumny against Christiaan van Sant?”

  “He smirks during the Sunday sermon.”

  Ambroise would have laughed in his face if he did not feel so ill. “Thank you for bringing these matters to my attention. Will that be all?”

  “There is the matter of Vrouwe Noorstrandt's maid.”

  Oh what do I have to do to get this insufferable man out of my cabin? “I am aware of that matter. I shall see to it. Good day, Maistre Molenaar.”

  “It is your responsibility, as President of the Fleet, to maintain moral order on the ship.”

  “Thank you again for reminding me of my duty.”

  “You must act!’

  “I will give everything you have said full consideration. Now if you do not mind, I have urgent matters to attend to.”

  The insufferable prig clearly wanted to say more, but thought better of it. With ill grace he took his leave. He was glad to see the back of the gloomy bastard. It took all of his self control to keep from hurling his ink stand at the door after him.

  He went to the window, threw it wide, and watched the great ocean swells marching towards the coasts of Africa, far behind them. The sky was like lead, all of it terrible in its vastness.

  Easy for the pastor to lecture him about his duty. If the Beschermer were off the starboard and the Zandaam and the Groningen with them, he might more easily bring the skipper to heel. The mood on the ship had changed while he had been sick, and it had nothing to do with oaths or with blasphemy. He was frightened.

  Most of what the pastor had said was true, the skipper had indeed been fornicating with Sara de Ruyter in the gallery; but he was still the best skipper in the whole fleet, and they had far to go before they reached Batavia. There were more important things to concern him right now.

  God was all very well; but right now they were somewhere far off the Great Southland and he wondered if the Almighty had dominion all the way out here.

  ***

  He went up to the poop deck, though it took all his strength, he might as well have been climbing to the top of the tower in the Westerkerk. “Where is the Beschermer?” he snapped at the skipper who gave him a lazy smile.

  “I told you, we shall come upon her soon enough. But it is a wide sea and a small ship.”

  “We should have come upon them days ago,” he said, and wondered for the first time if the skipper had somehow lost their escort deliberately.

  The skipper leaned on the rail, his eyes fixed on the horizon.

  “There is a matter we must discuss,” Ambroise said. “It concerns Vrouwe Noorstrandt's maid.”

  “What about her?”

  “Your behaviour with her has caused scandal about the ship.”

  “One rule for you and one for the rest of us, is that it?”

  Ambroise could not believe the skipper had said that. He was too stunned to speak.

  “It's all round the ship,” the skipper said.

  “That is scandalous gossip and there is not a word of truth to it.”

  “I could say the same about me and Sara.”

  “Let me make myself clear. You are not to speak with that woman again, nor should you go near her. Am I making myself clear?”

  They stared at each other.

  He wondered if the skipper would defy him. If he did, what could he do? He turned away and went back to his cabin. His hands were shaking. He felt his command of the ship slipping away.

  ***

  They arrived singly to the steerage, talking in whispers; a single candle flickered on the table, throwing shadows on the tarred oak walls.

  The commandeur was still sick with the fevers; Cornelia Noorstrandt was locked away in her cabin, and refused to come out. Nerves on the ship were at breaking point.

  “So what's to be done now?” the fat constable, Konick, said.

  “We will wait,” Christiaan said. “Our opportunity wi
ll come. Secor will soon be forced to take action against the skipper and then we will take our chance.”

  “I say we forget about all this,” Krueger said. “That bastard was supposed to die.”

  “I don't see how we can forget about it,” the bosun said. “I've already got men ready for trouble, like Christiaan here said. Too many know about it now. There's going to be talk when we get to Batavia.”

  “No one's going to talk,” the constable said. “They know what it means for them if they do.”

  “It will all come out all right,” Christiaan said. “Trust me on this.”

  The bosun chewed on a knuckle; David Krueger looked like he wanted to cry; Joost was grey as a corpse. Christiaan knew he was the only way out for all of them. One loose word now and they would all die cursing their mothers for giving them birth.

  Chapter 24

  CORNELIA used the water in the ewer by her bed to wash the filth off her body as best she could. She put on a new nightdress and lay on her bed, staring at the timber decking above her head, murmuring to herself in between bouts of sobbing. Anyone who had seen her would have thought her mind had gone.

  Ambroise was solicitous at her absence, and thinking she was seasick, sent the pastor’s maid to her cabin with dried plums and with water, but she wouldn’t open the door to her and sent her away. He had sent Maistre Arentson to visit her but she refused to see him as well.

  It took her two days to gather the courage to come to the Great Cabin and speak to the commandeur. All that morning she had scrubbed at her skin until it was red; had soaked herself with her most expensive perfumes. Finally she put on her finest dress with a white coif and a lace ruff to hide the marks on her neck and knocked on his door.

  “Cornelia,” Ambroise said when he saw her, ‘what has happened to you?”

  He called for Welten, his chief steward, to fetch wine to fortify her and then he sat her down in the great chair and waited for her to speak. But she could not find her voice.

  “The barber said you have been sick.”

  She shook her head.

  The steward returned and poured wine into a pewter cup. Her hands were trembling so badly that when she tried to pick it up she spilled most of it on her dress. Ambroise took the cup from her and set it back down on the table. He sent Welten scurrying from the room with a look.

  “You’re hurt,” he said. Her left eye was still swollen, and she was conscious of the livid bruises on her throat.

  “I was attacked,” she said, so softly that he did not hear her at first. “I was attacked,” she repeated.

  He said nothing for a long time just stared at her, aghast. Finally: “By whom?”

  She shook her head.

  “When?”

  “Two nights ago.”

  “Two nights!’

  She nodded.

  “Why did you not come to me straight away?”

  “I could not face…I could not...” She shrugged helplessly.

  “Who was it? I'll make them sorry they were ever born!’

  “I do not know. It was dark.”

  He sat down, then stood up again. Finally: “This is an outrage.”

  For the first time since it happened she wanted to laugh. “An outrage?” Was that what it was? Until now it had been this obscene, evil and unspeakable thing, something too terrible to say aloud. Now it was simply an outrage.

  “What hour did this take place?”

  “I don't know. There was no moon.”

  “What were you doing abroad at that hour of the night?”

  It was not meant as accusation, but she understood in that moment that should the story ever be told, it would become one. In the eyes of men, every violated woman was somehow to blame.

  “Someone knocked at my door, I did not see who it was. I went out into the passageway and started for the companionway. I thought perhaps it was Maistre Arentson, that you were sick again.”

  He stared at her, white-faced. “The skipper,” he said, finally.

  It was what Cornelia thought too. Sara was somehow behind it, whispering in the skipper's ear, and even if he was not part of it, then he had ordered some of his lapdogs to do his bidding, and eagerly enough.

  Cornelia wondered what Ambroise would do. What could he do? Nothing would ever set this to rights. She felt just empty inside, wondered if she would ever feel anything again. “What happened?” Ambroise asked her, but reluctantly.

  She told him, or half of it at least; how they had stripped her and smeared her with pitch and human ordure and left her there, half strangled with her own hair ribbon. She didn't describe to him how they had raped her, but she supposed he guessed the rest of it.

  “And you are sure you do not know who these men were?”

  “All I know is that I fought them as best I could and that I bit one of them on the hand. Whether he still bears the wound I do not know.”

  “I see.”

  She wondered what he was thinking. I came to you when you were sick, she thought. Do you not have one single gentle word now for me?

  “This is beyond words. What can I say?”

  He could have said so much, but his silence appalled her. She got to her feet, gripped at the chair to keep from falling. “Just find them, Heer Commandeur. Just find them.”

  “Leave this matter in my hands,” he said to her, but she was already gone.

  ***

  Down on the gun deck, the fug of tobacco fumes, sour breath and bodies was stupefying. The hammocks were packed so close they nudged each other as the ship rolled. It was a sweat-stinking gloomy place filled with snores and the shouts of men playing dice or checkers. Michiel closed his eyes and imagined he was back on his parents’ farm at Enschede, sitting by the dyke in the summer sun, watching the slow turning of the windmill blades. He thought about the simple pleasures of fried North Sea herrings and good Dutch beer.

  He missed the smell of good dairy cows. They didn’t stink nearly as bad as soldiers.

  “You heard what happened to the Noorstrandt woman?” Willem Groot whispered. “She was attacked, outside her cabin. They say five men took off all her clothes and had their will with her.”

  Some of the men still had not heard about it. That such a thing should happen on board the commandeur's own flagship! Worse than a murder.

  “She was asking for it,” Abraham said, puffing on his pipe.

  “What are you talking about?” van den Bergh said.

  “The way she carried on. It doesn't do to incite a man.”

  “What's the commandeur going to do about it?” Luyster wanted to know.

  “I knew the bitch would be trouble!’ Willem Groot whispered. “A woman has no right to be that beautiful on a ship like this; eight months we are at sea and have to watch her every day. Serves her right.”

  “They are saying it was one of us,” Steenhower said. “The bosun said someone has given the commandeur names. One of them was you, Little Bean!’

  He jerked out of his hammock. “I had nothing to do with it!’

  “You were up and down all night.”

  “I had the gripe! I spent half the night in the heads.”

  “So you say.Well, someone gave the commandeur your name,” Steenhower went on, enjoying himself. “He’s looking for blood now and he won’t care whose it is.”

  Little Bean was close to tears. “But I didn’t do anything! Who gave him my name?”

  “I’m just telling you what the bosun told me.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Michiel said. “He’s making it up to scare you. And where were you that night, Steenhower? I saw your hammock swinging empty at six bells.”

  “You imagined it,” Steenhower said.

  Did I? Michiel thought. He didn’t trust his lance corporal. He didn’t trust anyone on this ship anymore.

  ]***

  “What happened to your hand?” Ambroise said to the bosun.

  There was a filthy piece of cloth wrapped around his right hand. He couldn’t mee
t the commandeur’s eyes. He was a likely specimen, with that ugly scar that twisted his right eye and the corner of his mouth. “Caught it in a halyard, Heer Commandeur. Rope burn, that’s all.”

  “Let me see.”

  He took his time getting off the filthy bandage so he could examine the wound. There was a half moon tear on the palm, another on the back of the hand. “That doesn’t look like a rope burn to me.”

  The bosun looked to the skipper for his salvation; the big man stepped between them and took a look himself. “Rope burn. Any real seafaring man can tell. Anyway, I was there when he did it. Now get back to your duties, man,” he said, and the bosun scuttled off.

  Ambroise and the skipper stared at each other. “I need to see you in my cabin,” the commandeur said.

  ***

  The skipper stood there, arms folded, this mountain of a man looking around with wry contempt at the carpets and the Bible open on the table by the great window. Ambroise sat in the Great Chair and wondered the best way to do this.

  “You have heard about the outrage perpetrated on Vrouwe Noorstrandt?”

  The skipper put his hands on his hips and scowled.

  “It is my belief the bosun is one of the men responsible.”

  “Jan is one of my best men.”

  Ambroise held his gaze. “I have to know who is responsible for this attack on an innocent woman.”

  “I hope you know what you're doing,” the skipper said. “There's a feeling on the ship you're looking for scapegoats.”

  “On the ship?”

  “My crew.”

  “They are not the law on this ship. I am.”

  A slow smile. “Yes, Heer Commandeur.”

  “This unspeakable crime will not go unpunished.”

  “Yes, Heer Commandeur.”

  “That will be all,” Ambroise said.

  After the skipper had gone he took a deep breath. He had deliberately omitted mention of Sara de Ruyter. He was sure she was part of it somehow, and if she was involved, then it was almost certain that the skipper was in it too. But he needed him right now, they all did. Best to leave that part of it unresolved until they reached Batavia.