Poor Salomon looked sick with fear.
“I will see you onto the yawl. And may God be with you.”
“You also, Heer Commandeur.”
Dear God. He already feared for the bullion. If he lost the jewels as well, he might never show his face again in Batavia or even in Holland, even if he lived.
He crawled back up the companionway. The bullion chests had been lashed to the deck, eight so far. Another four still down in the hold. The provost and the sergeant got their men into the yawl, were ready to push off for the island. He made sure Salomon went with them, saw him huddled at the stern, clutching his cargo to his chest like it was an infant.
Steenhower looked up Amrboise, grinned and gave him an ironic salute.
***
Someone threw open the door of the cabin. Christiaan crouched in the dark, a pool of vomit on the floor at his feet. “Who’s there?” he said.
“It’s me,” the skipper said. He held up the oil lamp he was carrying. “Is that you, Heer Undermerchant? The commandeur has been looking everywhere for you. What are you doing? Christ, it smells like a dockside privy in here.
“Is it bad?”
“Of course it's bad. We're on the Houtman Rocks.”
“Can't you float her off?”
“Haven't you been up to see for yourself?”
Christiaan just stared at him.
“The ship is finished. The mast is down, and it's pinned us to the rocks like a butterfly. Her back's broken. You'd have better chance of floating a hearth brick now.”
“Is there no chance?”
“She's going to sit here until she breaks up. Do you understand?”
“What about the money chests?”
“Easy, we put one under each arm and swim to the islands with them.”
The skipper disappeared. Christiaan heard the screams from the main deck; water streamed down the passageway as another breaker hit them broadside. He wanted to get up and follow the skipper but his legs would not obey and so he just sat there, listening to the sounds of the ship dying.
Chapter 29
THE Utrecht shrieked with each roller that smashed into her, the seas washing over her decks. The skipper watched from the stern, white-lipped. They had landed over a hundred of the passengers, and now, by all accounts, they were fighting each other on the beach for the little water they had ferried over with them.
What a gutless bunch. The few honest sailors had been hindered at every turn in their attempts at an orderly evacuation, the passengers fighting with the crew and with each other every time the boat came alongside. And the soldiers, if you could call them that! There were a few who still obeyed their sergeant and tried to keep order. The rest of them, well, you could hear their drunken singing from down in the holds, they had broken open all the brandy and wine barrels and were given over to their own wake.
The sun rose over the meagre outcrops of grey sand where even now those yellow-bellied tailors and shopkeepers were crying for their mothers. Salvation for some, he supposed, though it looked to him like a graveyard.
There were decisions to be made here. Pastors who droned on about honour and morality and the esteem of other men had never found themselves foundered in the middle of the ocean with a scurvy bunch of cowards, drunks and women.
Their only chance, it seemed to him, was to take the yawl and make for the Indies. It would be months before anyone in Batavia realized they had foundered, months more before they sent a ship down here, if one came at all. They had not nearly enough food and water to sustain them for a few days, never mind the long months they might wait for rescue. These pitiful islands looked no Eden.
It was the only way out.
The Houtman Rocks
Cornelia opened her eyes.
It looked like a battlefield; wreckage from the Utrecht littered the beach, washed up by the fast running current; broken spars from the toppled main mast were angled into the sand like battle flags, a flotsam of broken timbers lay along the half crescent beach, while among the brushwood those saved on the yawl lay sprawled and groaning in the ghost grey light.
For all the pastor’s talk of God-fearing Christians, it did not take a great deal for men to become animals again. Already most of the water barrels had been broken open and precious little remained. It had started with a few men claiming they needed it for their women and children, and then some others, thinking they had been duped, considered it this justification for them to take whatever water they wished. Before long the pilfering became a general assault and now up and down the beach men were nursing blackened eyes and bleeding lips.
Even the pastor had a bloody nose from the carpenter. At last some soldiers landed and formed a cordon around the remaining water barrels, pikes and swords at the ready, and order had been restored.
She huddled into her cloak, her limbs stiff with cold. The wind beat off the reef, set her shivering again. The Utrecht leaned drunkenly on her side. The sea broke over her, each roller throwing up a great mountain of spray.
“Are you all right, vrouwe?”
She looked up; it was the corn-haired sergeant, Van Texel. It was reassuring to see him here.
She nodded.
“Have you had a ration of water?” He called for one of the soldiers to bring a pannikin over.
“How much do we have left?”
He shook his head. Not enough.
She took the water, her hands shaking. It tasted like the best Madeira. That something so very commonplace could become so precious! What desperate straits we are in now.
Dawn broke to chill wind and racing clouds, another storm driving in from the sea, there was no shelter among the sparse bushes and stones. They were at the end of the world, without hope or haven, so she supposed one pannikin of water would make no difference now.
Chapter 30
ARIE Barents, the upper steersman, emerged from below decks to report that the holds were broken and most of the remaining water barrels were ruined with seawater.
“We should have brought them up before the bullion,” the skipper growled.
Ambroise leaned on the rail, his mind paralysed. All he could think of was the terrible consequences of what had happened, the Company's reaction to the loss of so much silver. In his mind he argued his case before Governor Coen:
I warned the skipper to post mast lookouts.
He needed to lie down and rest, the fever was back. The rain lashed down as he sweated and burned, tried to blink the sweat out of his eyes.
Someone take this burden away from me. Let me rest, just for a moment.
The yawl returned from the cays, all the passengers were off the ship now. Messeker, standing in the bow, his hands cupped to his mouth, shouted something up to the skipper at the quarterdeck rail.
The skipper turned around and announced: “The people are fighting over the water. The provost is unable to keep order.”
Ambroise stared at him.
“You have to go ashore and take charge. There is nothing more you can do here.”
“I cannot leave the ship,” Ambroise said. “The bullion is my direct responsibility.”
“What's more important, silver or men’s lives?”
“You go to the island,” Ambroise said.
“They will not listen to me! You are the Commandeur.”
“Where's Christiaan?” he said helplessly.
“Christiaan is drowned!’ the skipper shouted.
Drowned? Was that true?
“You have to go with us to the island to restore order,” the skipper said. “We are all dead men without the water!’
“I’ve sent the soldiers. They will restore order when they get there.”
What should he do? The skipper was right; he did have a responsibility to the people. He looked around and saw van der Linde, one of the jonkers, clinging to the rail beside him.
“You and your cadets must watch over the bullion.”
“You are leaving us here on the boat?”
<
br /> “There is no choice. I have to go to the islands and make sure there is order. I will come back for you as soon as it is done.”
He turned away.
“You can’t just leave us here!’
“Don't worry, boy,” the skipper said. “I'll be here to hold your hand. We have to look after the Company's precious silver.”
***
The seas were getting higher; it was dangerous now to clamber down the fallen lines in this gathering dark, waiting for a moment's respite between the breakers to drop down into the yawl. Hands clutched him and carried him safely aboard. The boat pitched dangerously in the surf, and he fell face first into the scuppers.
Two men scrambled into the boat after him’ Jan Decker the bosun, and the skipper. He knew then that he had been outmanoeuvred.
“You are not staying with the ship?” he demanded.
“It serves no purpose now,” the skipper said. “They need me to pilot the skiff.”
“They have done well enough without you until now.”
Ambroise looked up at the stern, saw faces lining the rail, the jonkers screaming like women, hysterical to see him leave. “I am not abandoning you!’ he shouted back at them. “I have to attend my duty. We will be back!’
The skipper smirked, as if he knew something better. Besides, they couldn’t hear him--his words were lost in the wind and spray. The little boat pitched again, and he nearly fell into the foaming water.
The skipper let the wind take them over the reef towards the crouching islands. Ambroise looked back at the broken ship, she looked like a beached whale. He experienced a sense of dread. He hoped he had made the right choice.
I was forced to leave the ship, governor, for the sake of the people.
People were more important than silver bullion.
He wondered if Governor Jan Pieterszen Coen would see it that way.
***
Christiaan clung to the bulkhead. His knees were shaking so badly he could barely stand up. Why had no one come to save him?
The hold reeked of brandy fumes.
Oliver van der Beeck threw a handful of silver thalers at the head of one of the gunners, Hermanus Schenck. “There, I told you one day I'd be rich enough to throw money around!’ He laughed at his own poignant wit until he was sick.
Schenck wanted to know what it was like to roll in money. There were piles of silver cash on the deck from a chest they had looted and he squirmed among the metal coin like a puppy in dirt.
Konick let a pile of rix-dollars slip through his fingers like sand. “More than I made in my whole lifetime for this god-rotting Company,” he said and took another swig of the captain's best brandy.
“Where’s the skipper?” Christiaan said.
Joost turned around. His face looked ghastly. “He’s abandoned us, left us here on this tub, the lying yellow bastard. And the commandeur has behaved like any fine lord, only thinking about his own scrawny neck. They’re all gone.”
Christiaan whimpered and staggered back to his cabin. It couldn’t be true, it couldn’t be. They would come back for them. He was the undermerchant, how could they leave him here?
Damn the Honourable Company to hell.
***
It was almost impossible to see the little cays--they were so low the spray from the waves breaking over the rocks almost obscured them from sight. But Ambroise was sure he could see figures moving about.
“We cannot make it to the island,” the skipper shouted over the rush of the wind. The waves had risen and they were all soaked through.
“But that is the only reason I agreed to leave the ship! You have to put me with the people!’
“Can't be done!’ the skipper shouted back, wrestling with the tiller.
“Then what are you going to do?”
“We'll make for that island there,” he said, pointing out a scrap of land scarcely larger than the Utrecht herself.
Ambroise stared at the grim speck. “You said we had to get to the island!’ The skipper shrugged his shoulders. The bosun stared at him, eyes as black as a bear's. Amrboise looked around the boat, counted how many friends he had here.
The current was still running strong from the south-west. Elsewhere, the tide had turned.
Chapter 31
AND so to Christiaan, resplendent in one of the commandeur's splendid silk-lined cloaks, reclining in the carved chair in the Great Cabin, a bottle of finest burgundy from the commandeur's own stock there at his elbow. Crowded in around him were the drunken, the frightened and the mutinous. A skewed, topsy-turvy world, a steeply sloping deck and a world where apothecaries were king and ordinary seaman drank the finest brandies straight from a crystal decanter.
The skipper had miscalculated, Christiaan decided. Their castle of Baltic Oak was beached, most assuredly, but he felt in no more danger now than in some island fortress. From time to time the swell rolled across the reef and a wave broke against the hull of the ship, sending foam and spray hissing around her, but she was firmly wedged and moving hardly at all now.
He had emptied out Heer High and Mighty's desk and upended the contents onto the floor. Wet boots trampled his letters and family portraits and the company seals lay in the saltwater slop with the ruined carpets. Joost had put one of the commandeur's medallions around his own neck and, with a bottle of French wine in one hand, was doing a passable impression of Heer Commandeur.
“You men!’ he squeaked. “Away from those casks or I shall have you charged with mutiny!’
The gathered assembly of soldiers and sailors roared with laughter.
His sea chest was opened and Konick put on the commandeur's frock coats and hats.
Christiaan banged on the desk with his fist and called the others to silence. “I have here the commandeur's journal,” he announced.
The men whooped and whistled and then fell expectantly to silence.
“I read you an entry from March,” Christiaan said. ‘“There is on board a very lovely young woman by the name of Cornelia Noorstrandt. She is a woman of great virtue and intelligence, and she has shown me much friendship...”’
“I bet he fucked her!’ someone shouted, and they all roared.
‘“...she has much interest in my experiences in the East...”’
“That means he did it to her from behind!’ Krueger shouted.
“...and I have tried to share with her my knowledge of the court of the great mogul, such as it is.”
“I know what he shared with her!’ Quick said, and made a gesture with his hips.
There were more several more passages concerning Cornelia to be read aloud, and then he reached the entry for the twenty-seventh of May.
‘“I am still no closer to discovering the names of those responsible for the Most terrible Outrage on Vrouwe Noorstrandt. So far the only name I have is that of Jan Decker the bosun. Even Christiaan, the undermerchant, despite exhaustive enquiry, has accomplished no more than I.”’ There were cheers at this and Christiaan looked around the room and gave a slight bow of his head.
‘“However,” ’ he went on, reading, ‘“I now suspect that certain men among the constable's gunners are not without blame, in particular one Hermanus Schenck, an ugly and surly fellow...”’
“The bastard!’ Schenck shouted.
“He was right though, wasn't he?” the Constable shouted.
“Yes, but ... what does surly mean?”
And they all laughed again.
Afterwards the journal was placed in the middle of the room and those that felt the need urinated on the open pages. Then Joost picked it up, dripping and stinking, and tossed it out of the stern window, to the cheers of the men.
They took to looting the commandeur's chest. At this, Hermanus Schenck excelled himself. He found a medallion, cut from agate and bearing the likeness of the stadtholder, Prince Frederick Henry, God alone knew how many thousands of guilders it was worth, and before anyone could stop him, he had tossed it out of the window after the journal.
“There goes the rest of the rubbish!’ he shouted and then he saluted and fell down drunk.
Christiaan had what he wanted. God had led the way to the kingdom, although the way of it was a mystery. They were not about to die, he was sure of it.
No, they were just about to live.
These men had all gone too far in this now. You made a woman pregnant, she had no choice but to bear the pain of childbirth; you made a man a muyter, he had no choice but to cut throats.
The seal island
Just a mile away, Ambroise crouched over a tiny fire of green sticks. They had spent the whole day sheltering under a scrap of canvas, whipped and harried by the wind, soaked through from the storm. He gazed out at the reef. A pinprick of light burned in the stern cabin, a mere firefly in this grim horizon What were they doing out there?
Twelve chests of silver rix dollars and German thalers were on board that ship. Tomorrow he must go back and salvage them, and save too those good young officers who protected them. As for the drunken rabble that had so defied him and disgraced their commission to the Honourable Company - well, they would have to wait for justice for now, but he would see them punished for their perfidy.
The wind howled, setting the tiny embers glowing. The reef sounded like cannon fire.
Each time the wind abated, he prayed that it would be the last of the big gusts, that tomorrow he would wake to seas blue and calm, so that he restore order among the people and retrieve the bullion, and those charged with its protection. Then and only then perhaps he could worry over his own survival here on this accursed rock.
Chapter 32
CLOUDS chased the moon and the lanterns on the poop threw an eerie light over the sloping deck and the ragged stump of the mainmast. Another breaker lifted the ship and crunched her down again on the reef.
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