East India

by Colin Falconer

  How could this plain soldier understand that, good hearted as he seemed to be?

  Well, her disillusion with this life would not last long, but it would be a bitter memory to bear as she lay parched and dying.

  “Look, the weather changes here like that. A bit of rain and we might just make it.” Michiel looked up at the sky. Overcast, the same tortuous wind howling from the north-west, whipping coral grit in their faces. Not a drop of rain to be had.

  What was the point of trying to survive? At least two months, the sailors said, for the commandeur and the skipper to reach Batavia. Another month for them to return - if they made it.

  Three months too long. Without water, and in a day, two at the most, they would all be dead of thirst.

  ***

  What a rabble, Michiel thought. They drink all the water the very first day then they lie here groaning, waiting for someone to save them and cursing the commandeur and the skipper. As if it's all someone else's fault they have nothing left to drink.

  Well, I don't suppose it matters now. We're all going to die here anyway, one way or the other, whether we ration the water or not. Still, he had learned in battle that you never knew when things would turn; you think it's all over for you, then something turns up to save your skin. You had to keep going, that was the mark of a man's strength.

  He found the pastor and his family squatting in the poor shelter of a rock shelf, the youngest child wailing in her mother's lap, while its father resorted to falling on his knees and calling loudly for God's intervention. It might work. In his experience the Lord was an unpredictable fellow.

  The Houtman Rocks

  The water barrels had been left unguarded, for there was no water left to preserve. Michiel’s lips were cracked and bleeding from thirst and from the windIf he was fated to die then he meant to do it with some discipline and not shame himself in the eyes of the ordinary people and himself. He took shelter under a canvas awning, and tried to regather his strength; most of his men were already too weak from thirst to move.

  He watched one of the younger recruits, Gerrit van Hoeck, dribble urine into a metal pannikin, and hold it to his lips with trembling hands. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he upended the cup. But he couldn't do it. He spat the liquid out and threw the cup away from him, collapsed gagging and weeping onto the ground.

  Little Bean had crawled halfway to the water's edge, raving, and now lay collapsed on the coral beach, already dead, or near enough to it. There were so many ways for a man to die; to drown, to die of thirst or fever or of cold; to be broken on a wheel, or die in battle by inches with a musket ball in his belly, suffering as much pain as any common criminal. There never seemed any sense to it in the end no matter what the preachers said.

  You took it as it came, and you were a fool to resist, for you had no choice.

  The Utrecht

  Christiaan settled himself in the commandeur's carved chair, ran his hands along the smooth wooden arms, supposed himself a councillor of India and President of the Fleet. It required imagination, of course, with the contents of the commandeur's chests scattered about the floor of the cabin or floating in a slop of seawater on the starboard side. Still, a man could dream.

  “You, fetch me some wine! And be quick about it!’ he shouted at some imaginary servant who scurried away to do his bidding.

  He tapped a tattoo on the desk with his fingers.

  “Indeed, Vrouwe Noorstrandt, I have witnessed many wonders in India and you should quail to see some of the things I have seen.”

  He examined the contents of the drawers, found a half-finished letter with Secor’s meticulous handwriting, an inventory of purchases for the ship's provisions from their landing at Table Bay.

  “Here, make a copy of this letter, Krueger!’ A roller crashed into the hull and the great ship shuddered under the impact. Christiaan shrieked.

  He staggered across the sloping cabin to the commandeur’s bunk and threw himself on it, curled into a ball on his side. He pulled the coverlet over his head and lay there, shivering, shouting angrily at the sea demons that tormented him through the long night.

  Chapter 39

  The Houtman Rocks

  KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK.

  The sound was maddening, relentless. Someone had upturned one of the water barrels, so that now only their feet protruded, they had crawled inside and were scraping the slimy bottom with a pannikin for the little moisture there.

  Down at the water's edge, a child had drunk seawater, was rolling over and over in the shallows screaming. Soon he would drown and die. There was no one with strength enough to go down there and fetch him.

  The pastor, unable even to rise to his knees, was gasping hoarse prayers for deliverance. One of his children was wailing, she wondered how he still had the strength to cry out.

  A body lay bloated on the shore, stinking, drowned trying to get ashore from the wreck. At least it was quick.

  Cornelia lay under the canvas, too weak to move. Michiel had put her and the other women in their own tent, if you could call it that; a few bits of canvas tied with rope to crossed spars from the wreck. There were a dozen of them all in together, sleeping under blankets on the hard ground. Not that she cared about these privations now.

  She listened to the clicking of the rock crabs as they hunted in the coral; the shadow of a sea bird wheeled overhead and she whimpered, remembering other shadows moving in the companionways of the Utrecht, tearing off her clothes. She could still smell their breath.

  “Vrouwe Noorstrandt,” a voice said.

  Who was that? It was a man’s voice, but kind, not like the voices of those men on the ship. Suddenly she was back in Amsterdam, a servant waking her in the bedroom of the house on the Leleistraat.

  “Vrouwe Noorstrandt,” the voice said again. “I've brought you some water.”

  Someone raised her head and she felt a dribble of the precious liquid on her tongue. She sucked the last droplet of moisture from the pannikin. She stared at the face crouched over her, frowned, trying to remember.

  “It's Michiel,” he said.

  The name meant nothing to her. She smacked her lips, remembering the sweetness of water. He laid her head back on the ground.

  “I won’t let them hurt you,” he said, but she was too far gone to care.

  Somewhere off the

  great Southland

  The sea and the sky were the colour of lead and merged into one howling enemy. The waves had risen, and a gale shrieked over them from the north-west, sending waves crashing over the bows of their tiny sloop, soaking them all. The wind was too fierce for them to carry sail, instead the skipper pointed her bow seawards and hoped to ride it out.

  Ambroise shivered violently in his cloak. The yawl was taking water; the sailors started baling with cups, bowls, even their bare hands. Ambroise joined them, for rank meant nothing now, if the yawl was swamped they would all die. He scooped up the seawater with a pannikin, but was trembling so violently with cold and with sheer terror that he spilled most of the water back into the boat.

  There were simply too many on the yawl; no matter how frantically they baled, the bilges rose and he realised they were going to be swamped.

  “The barrels!’ the skipper shouted over the wind.

  “What?”

  “We have to lighten her! The bread has to go, too! Everything over the side or we're finished!’

  The men were too terrified to argue with him. Ambroise watched their precious water drift away on the angry sea.

  And then it started to rain, sheets of it, drenching them all to the skin. Perhaps this rain will reach the people, Ambroise thought.

  I should have stayed with them.

  Well, he would not have to carry his guilt much longer. If they did not all die tonight, then it would be the next. Only the skipper seemed unshaken, unshakeable, sitting at the tiller like a marble statue, his face intent on the waves, keeping the bow to the wind. It seemed there was no fear in him, none at
all. Ambroise allowed himself a moment's admiration. He was a pig, of course, and a fool, but he had spirit. He still thought he could beat the sea. Even now, after he had run the Company's greatest ship onto a reef, his confidence was undiminished.

  Should we survive, he plans to blame others for his disasters.

  He was tired of fighting to live. Perhaps it was the fever, but he no longer cared what happened to him. He threw away the pannikin and slipped down into the scuppers. I shall sleep and dream of the drowning sea, wake in the morning to heaven or hell. Let Jacob Schellinger fight on, if he must, I cannot fight any more.

  The Utrecht

  Christiaan had retreated to the stowage under the bows. The wind hammered at the wreck like a rampaging mob, breaker after breaker slamming into the creaking hull. The smell of the sea was overpowering, all salt and weed. He threw himself under a piece of sail canvas, clamped his fists over his ears, tried to block it all out.

  All the fresh water was gone and it was clear now that the skipper and the commandeur were not coming back for them. Christiaan had never trusted that bastard Schellinger, but he didn't blame him either. By now he had probably cut the commandeur’s lily white throat and sailed for Melaka.

  It was what he would have done.

  His companions too had all abandoned the ship and struck out for the island, going over the side in one’s and two’s, clinging to bits of timber and broken spars, some disappeared under the grey swell before they were even a musket shot distant. Joost and another of the jonkers, ten Broek, were the last to go, they went over the side together holding on to a piece of Baltic oak.

  The storm outside howled like a coven of devils, ripping at the tattered remnants of the shrouds. Christiaan was alone. He sobbed and raved in the gathering darkness.

  Chapter 40

  The Houtman Rocks

  AT FIRST Michiel thought it was sea spray; then a larger droplet fell on his face and he opened his eyes, staring up at the leaden sky, not daring to hope. Then there were more drops, and he sat up, cupping his hands and licking at the moisture in his palms. A chill rush of wind followed, and then it started to rain.

  It formed quickly into pools on the coral flagstones. All around him, men and women were crying out. It looked like the pictures he had seen in the kerke of the Last Judgment, the dead rising from their graves; people who a moment before had lain motionless in the brush now scrambled to their knees and held out trembling hands to cup the precious water. Michiel roused himself and started pulling his soldiers to their feet, kicking the slower ones into action, ordering them to rig up sail canvas to collect the drenching rain and funnel it into the barrels.

  He saw Vrouwe Noorstrandt crawl through the brush on all fours, all the dignity of a starving animal now, seeking out water pools and lapping up the milky water like a dog. The pastor did the same thing, on his knees, his black coat drenched, merciful God forgotten for the moment.

  His wife took off her cap and rung it out, squeezing the rainwater into her mouth. We are all one step away from the beast, he thought. All these black coats and finery we wear, it doesn’t matter a damn when the devil draws near.

  Chapter 41

  THE rain had saved them, and for now there was plenty of water for all. Michiel had ordered his soldiers to form work groups among the men to set about the industry of survival, constructing better shelters using the coral slate, brushwood and flotsam. He had set the ship's carpenters to work on the beach, while the sailors poled flimsy rafts around the shallows salvaging floating barrels of salted pork and wine, and pieces of floating timber. They even foraged for pannikins and cook pots on the beach.

  Fish darted through the shallows and bit greedily at baited lines, but they brought up only tiddlers until the sailors took the new rafts out to fish in the deeper channel. A few hours with a heavy line brought up a huge bag of fish and the next day they went over to a nearby island and bludgeoned some seals they found there and that night they all ate well for the first time in weeks.

  ***

  He found Cornelia sitting alone under one of the makeshift shelters. Not so fine now, but he didn’t mind that, even with her hair awry and her clothes salt-stained and tattered she still looked to him like one of the finest things he had ever seen.

  Still, enough of that.

  “Here, vrouwe,” he said, and held out a cup of water.

  “What’s this?” she said. He saw the other women look over, as if they thought she was still getting better treatment.

  “After the storm we have enough for everyone to have three mugs of water a day,” he told them. “Go and see the provost if you’re thirsty.”

  The women jumped to their feet and ran out of the tent, fighting with each other to be first. Michiel shook his head. “Didn’t they hear me? There’s plenty of water now, even if it doesn’t rain for weeks.”

  “They think the men will steal it all again.”

  “I have posted guards on the barrels so anyone trying to steal water will get a musket ball for their trouble. And the provost has a little ration book, everyone will get an equal share from now on.”

  “What would we do without you?”

  “I’m a soldier, I’m just doing what they trained me to do.” He held out the tin cup a second time and she took it gratefully.

  “Why are you sitting here on your own?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “Times like this, rank doesn’t count for much. We’re all in this together now.”

  “Tell them that.”

  He held out a handful of dry tack the sailors had salvaged from the ship’s barrels. They were a hard biscuit, almost impossible to chew, but like honey cake when you were hungry. “What do I do with this?”

  He crouched down beside her. “Here, look.” He put the biscuit in the mug and tore off a twig from one of the bushes and stirred it. She winced. She would have to get over her fine sensibilities if she wanted to survive, he thought. “You keep stirring it until it dissolves, it will make a kind of thin gruel. Not the kind of fare you’ve been used to in the Council Room, I don’t suppose, but it will keep you alive.”

  She took the twig from him and did as he had showed her.

  “You can even warm it a little.” He found a flat piece of coral slate. “When it’s thickened up, you put it on this and slip it into the fire. It’s a little easier to get down that way.”

  “At least there’s no weevils in it,” she said and forced herself to smile.

  “Ah, a smile, that’s the spirit.”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “I saw you sitting here on your own. The other women have each other. You don’t seem to have anyone.”

  “My difficulties are no concern of yours.”

  Her blue eyes were so frank. He was afraid if he looked back at her he would give himself away. He just shrugged and got back to his feet, as if he had pressing matters to attend to. “Just doing my duty.”

  “Thank you sergeant Van Texel.”

  “You’re welcome, vrouwe.”

  Cornelia watched him walk away, a farm boy walk, huge shoulders too, but though he was a big man he did not frighten her, not like the skipper or that big soldier they called Stonecutter. She had come to like the way he talked, soft spoken and slow. She didn’t feel so scared when he was around.

  “What would we do without you?”

  Chapter 41

  OVER the next few days they organized themselves as best they could. The only other inhabitants of the island were some strange black birds who made their roosts in the sand. Michiel’s soldiers hunted them down at night when they were blinded and panicked by the torches.

  Michiel gave her one of the birds with instructions on how to cook it; she burned off the feathers in the coals of a fire and ate it half raw, it wasn’t much, a couple of mouthfuls of stringy fish-tasting meat, and perhaps some bits of hard charcoal from the fire as seasoning. But it could have been a prince's banquet after so long without the taste of meat. T
here was a kind of tern, also, that nested in the thorn bushes. Their meat was inedible but a handful of eggs, if you could get some, could make a breakfast.

  Michiel always smuggled her one or two every morning, hiding them in the pockets of his uniform jacket.

  How long before the island's population of birds was exhausted, she could only guess. It was just enough, for now, that they had water and food.

  Meanwhile the pastor had regained his strength and was wandering around the island exhorting them all to be steadfast and trust in God.

  “Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble,

  and He saveth them out of their distresses

  For He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind,

  which lifteth up the waves thereof.”

  He reminded them all that fortitude and sacrifice was the key to their survival; easy enough for him to say when he and his family had the best shelter on the island.

  Day after day she sat huddled under the canvas awning, trying to keep warm. Michiel was her only companion--the other women had turned their backs to her. She was still Miss High and Mighty to them.

  Well perhaps I was once, she thought. Not anymore. I’m suffering here the same as you.

  The Utrecht

  Morning, and the sea as blue and calm as a lake, lapping around the hull as if it had been drawn for a bath. Christiaan emerged from his sanctuary in the bow on all fours, drenched and shaking like a frightened dog. The deck was littered with canvas and rope; the mizzen had snapped, and one of the yards swung gently in the morning breeze, timber creaking with each soft movement. A gull circled and piped overhead.

  Not a soul.