East India

by Colin Falconer

  Christiaan grinned. “There is argument about that?”

  All of them laughed, except Krueger; nervous laughter, to be sure, but it broke the tension. Steenhower sat back down. Joost and Gerrit van Hoeck relaxed.

  “You forget why we are here,” Christiaan said. “Look at you all, some little thing goes wrong and you are at each other's throats.” He took a silver thaler from his pocket. “Look.” He held the coin up to the light. “There are chests of these, not just handfuls, but whole chests of silver bullion for each one of you if you have the courage for it. Or do you want to fight with each other, instead of fighting the men who stand in your way?” He turned on Steenhower. “What is it you want, Stonecutter? Respect, women? You can have it!’ He held the coin in front of the big man's face. “What about you, Gerrit van Hoeck? Easy to kill other men when they don't have weapons but it's different against real soldiers, isn't it? You want to be a hero, but you're scared. Are you going to be scared all your life?” He shook his head, like a schoolmaster with unruly pupils. “I can give you all what you want. All you have to do is trust me. One little setback is not going to stand between us and our destiny.”

  He looked round at them.

  “Do you trust me?”

  One by one they nodded their heads.

  “We have to get our women back,” Krueger said.

  “The raft is more important than the women,” Steenhower said.

  Christiaan looked around at all their faces, trying to make them understand. “He’s right. Now they have a raft, Michiel and his men will be able to alert the rescue boat when it comes. If that happens, it is all up for us. We have to get the raft back. To do that we have to kill them, all of them.”

  “How far away do you think they are, with rescue boat?” Krueger said.

  “It could be months,” someone said, one of the sailors. “Or it could be days.”

  “Look at the fun we had on the seal island,” Strootman said. “What are we waiting for?”

  “You are talking about soldiers like me,” Steenhower growled at him. “You wouldn’t kill me as easy as you killed those wretches.”

  “But they don’t have weapons.”

  “I know Michiel Van Texel. He will have thought of something. And believe me, if you came at him with a sword, he’d take it off a little runt like you with one hand and break your neck with the other.”

  “We should use the muskets,” Gerrit van Hoeck said. “We'll make short work of them then.”

  They all looked at the Captain-General for his agreement.

  “How many musket balls will it take to subdue them all?” Christiaan said. “We must husband our powder and shot for we may need it to overcome the rescue ship.”

  Krueger looked at Steenhower. “You and your men are soldiers,” Krueger said. “If you take your swords, you’ll make short work of them.”

  “Maybe we don’t want to kill all of them,” Gilles Clement said, “If we are going to take the rescue ship and go pirating, we need more men.”

  “Maybe we could turn some of the Frenchies,” Steenhower said. “They’ve been living like dogs over there for weeks.”

  “You’re right,” Christiaan said. “They may be ripe for persuasion.”

  “How do we do it?” Joost said.

  “We will take the preacher with us,” Christiaan said. “We will promise them blankets and food and perhaps even their weapons if they give us back the raft.”

  “They won’t fall for that.”

  “They won’t need to. It’s just a distraction while we talk to the Frenchies, get them onto our side. Any that don’t turn we put to the sword.”

  “I still say we take the muskets,” van Hoeck said.

  Christiaan looked at Steenhower, who shook his head. “We don’t need muskets,” Steenhower said.

  “That’s settled then,” Christiaan said. “Tomorrow we will go over and see if any are ripe for the turning. Then we take our raft and our women back. This time Miss High and Mighty goes to the womwns’ tent!’

  And they all cheered.

  The yacht Zandaam

  They came upon the reefs on the forty-seventh day of sailing.

  It seemed impossible that it had taken so long, and Ambroise wondered again if the skipper had been right when he told the Governor-General: you need me to find the Utrecht. Perhaps with the skipper in command they would have been at the wreck site weeks ago. Did I let my personal feelings stand in the way of the salvation of those yet alive on these cursed islands?

  He saw the white sprouting of reefs, and Evarts, the Zandaam's skipper, saw them too. He shouted orders to bring the ship around.

  “You cannot turn back!’ Ambroise shouted at him. “There has to be a way through the reef!’

  “It's too dangerous, Sinjeur Secor,” Evarts grunted but the look on his face was plain. You've supervised the destruction of one ship. You're not going to watch over the destruction of mine.

  Ambroise turned away, white lipped. They were so close. If they could find a way through that reef, they would be less than a day's sailing. Those islands n the distance, he was sure they were the high islands they had seen from the site of the wreck.

  Now another delay.

  The Zandaam tacked west, headed back out to sea looking for another passage through.

  Dear God in Heaven. Just let this be over soon, let me know the worst.

  Chapter 87

  The long island

  THE wind whistled and moaned through the saltbush, lifting a fine mist of salt and grit across the island. Michiel's verediggers lay huddled for warmth in little depressions in the sand, watching the sea, waiting. Their clothes were rotting on their bodies, no more than rags. The tattered cats’ hides they wore were poor protection against the biting cold of the Southland winter.

  “We should not lie here like this,” Michiel told her. “You’re a married woman.”

  “I need you to keep me warm.”

  “You have your arms around me. Is that keeping you warm?”

  “It’s helping.”

  She snuggled closer to him. It was a poor bed, the hard ground might be a nest to a mutton bird but there was no way for a man or woman to get comfortable on it. Still, lying next to Michiel Van Texel, she did not mind so much. She nestled her face into his shoulder.

  “Look, a shooting star,” he said.

  “Did you make a wish?”

  “You believe that story? I could wish for something but it’s never going to happen.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m just a soldier.”

  “You’re every bit as warm as a gentleman.”

  “This is not right.”

  “What is right and wrong, Michiel? I don’t know anymore. I don’t even know if I will trust the world when I go back to it. Nothing is like it seems. I never thought to see men behave as I have. Our skipper was a lecher and a drunk, our commandeur was a coward and our undermerchant a monster.”

  “No one knows how he will behave until he is tested in the fire himself.”

  “Cowardice is one thing. Evil is another.”

  “You are surprised at villainy?”

  “In men I thought I could trust, yes. You are not?”

  “I have lived a different life to you. People think to find monsters as they would recognise madness, by the blood between the teeth, a crazed look in the eye. But a real villain will smile and make you laugh and put you at your ease before he cuts your throat or forces you onto a bed.”

  “Like the undermerchant.”

  “The world is full of men like him. They only need an accursed island like this one so you can see them as they really are. Villains will work at ledgers in warehouses or they will lounge in the salons of fine houses, spoiled young men with dainty manners and soft hands, or they will wait on tables with their eyes lowered, while their minds run to razors and rape. They are all the masters of disguise.”

  “Those men, what they did. They enjoyed it. I can u
nderstand lust. But not murder. They went at murder like it was a joy.”

  “In a war, there are two kinds of soldier. Some kill because they have to, but they never get a taste for it, it is just what they have to do. But there are others--Steenhower was one, so was Willem Groot--they couldn’t ever get enough of it.”

  “Why did you become a soldier?”

  “Well, a farm could not support me and all my brothers. The Company’s guilders are as good as anyone’s.”

  “You have brothers? There are more Michiel Van Texels?”

  “Now there is just one other. My youngest brother died fighting in Mataram. My other brother died of plague in Paris. It’s my older brother who has the farm.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Oh, you know, big stupid fellow, a lot like me.”

  “You’re not stupid, Michiel.” She stroked his cheek.

  “You shouldn’t do that.”

  “You’re trembling, Michiel Van Texel.”

  “I’m cold.”

  “Liar.”

  You make me nervous.”

  “You? I didn’t think anything scared you.”

  “You do.”

  She laid her head against his chest. “I can hear your heart beating.”

  “You should not be doing this, Cornelia. It’s not right.”

  “Are you really this noble, Michiel?”

  “I am trying very hard to be.”

  “Then stop trying. Maybe tomorrow the muyters will come and we will all be dead.”

  “What about your husband?”

  “If I ever had the chance to choose my own husband, it would be you. So how can it be wrong?”

  “Cornelia, how can you say such a thing? Look at me. What is it you see in a man like this, and you such a fine lady?”

  “Courage and a good heart, that’s what I see. It’s a rare thing. You were my candle in a dark night, Michiel Van Texel. You said you would come back for me and you did. You did because you are who you are. Tonight, let me pretend I am who I am.”

  She kissed him.

  “Michiel, put your arms around me. It’s all right.”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “My hair is crusted with salt. My lips are cracked and bleeding. I have not worn perfume or had a proper bath in months. I am not beautiful. But tonight, Michiel, close your eyes and let me be your woman.”

  He managed a fumbling and uncertain kiss. Their lips hardly touched.

  “I won’t break,” she said.

  “This just doesn’t seem right.”

  “What doesn’t seem right? Don’t you want me?”

  “More than I ever wanted anything.”

  “Then take what you want, Michiel.”

  “After what happened to you on the boat?”

  “But you’re not like them. You have made me believe in men again. Be gentle and make me remember why I once dreamed of being a wife. Can you do that?”

  “But isn’t it wrong?”

  “We are here at the end of the world. No one can see us here. Not even God.”

  He touched her face and she held his hand and closed her eyes. He had big, rough hands, not like her husband’s, they were soft and cold. He bent over her and tried to kiss her a second time. He drew away still shy and awkward. “I have never loved a fine lady.”

  “I’m just a woman like any other.”

  “No, you could never be that.”

  She put her fingers in his hair and pulled his face towards her, and this time she kissed him, fiercely, something she had never done in her whole life. “There,” she whispered. “Do you mind if I am a trollop now?” And she took his hand and put it on her breast, and he closed his eyes and groaned. “Please, Michiel.”

  The wind howled over the island. She sheltered from the gale under his big body. Her wedding bed in the Leleistraat had had feather down and four posts, her husband had worn a nightshirt and she a linen gown trimmed with lace; but if she ever remembered what love was like she would think of a small depression in the shale, cold and blasted with sand, a man and woman fumbling with salt crusted clothes. Michiel Van Trexel was not a great lover, but his big hands were gentle and as she wrapped her legs around his hips she stared at the wheeling southern stars and knew she had found what she had ached for her whole life.

  The Houtman Rocks

  The pastor shivered in the cold. His feet were bare, his coat in tatters. At some point he had even lost his Bible. Lost or cast aside? Now that would be interesting to know.

  Christiaan sat in the Great Chair, this morning placed outside his tent so that he could hold audience. He let the pastor stand there in the wind for as long as it pleased him. Then he said: “We need you to act as emissary for us.”

  He detected a flicker of hope on the old man's face.

  “I have decided these islands are too poor to sustain us. Although I have done my utmost by the strength of the God Almighty to preserve the peace here among the fractious survivors of the wreck, we require more food and water than I am able to provide. I therefore intend for us all to sail to the high island you see in the distance. But to do that we need the raft the mutineers have stolen from us.”

  The pastor nodded, as if he understood.

  “I want you to act as our intermediary with the muyters. Tell them we will exchange the raft for cloth and wine and blankets. When it is done we will leave them in peace and may God have mercy on their souls.”

  “If I do it, will you let me go?”

  “Let you go? You sound as if you are my prisoner.”

  “Surely I am a burden to you?” he whispered.

  “You want to stay on the island with the muyters?”

  He looked like a cornered animal.

  “What about Hendrika, man? I can’t part her from her husband. You married them with all proper forms. You want to leave her behind?”

  He could see what he was thinking. He didn’t care about her anymore.

  “I’ll tell you what. Do this for me, and I’ll let you have a place back on the Council. I’ll even give you a bigger shelter. How’s that?”

  He was still snivelling.

  “I don't know why you look at me like that. I have always treated you well, haven't I?”

  The stupid old fool nodded his head.

  Christiaan smiled. It just showed: you could beat a dog all you liked, bring him a bone and he was still yours to command.

  The Zandaam

  Lying awake in his bunk, Ambroise heard the drum roll of breakers on the reef. They were in calm seas, every day they saw the gentle ruffle of foam on uncharted reefs, but still no sign of the wreck or the people. Yet again he found it impossible to sleep, though his body screamed with exhaustion. He dressed and went back on deck to stare at the moonlit sea. He asked himself again, as he had a thousand times before: did I do the right thing? Was it fear or good judgment that guided my hand?

  Arie Barents said the ship had foundered atthirty minutes of latitude. But that was clearly wrong. He suspected that his understeersman did not want to admit that he knew as well as the skipper that when they hit the rocks they were at twenty-eight degrees of latitude, at either fifteen or twenty minutes, the latitude Governor Coen had warned them of in his directive. His dissembling had cost them weeks of fruitless searching.

  And where was the passage through this endless maze of reefs? Still, a chance he might still salvage his career, he supposed, if he could find the Company treasure and some of the people, alive. What if he found an island of skeletons, picked clean by the birds and crabs, would he ever be able to rest again?

  He just wanted to know the worst of it. The dark and whispering sea mocked him.

  Where were they?

  Chapter 88

  The long island

  MICHIEL watched the pastor wade ashore, clutching a pole with a strip of white linen tied to it. A flag of truce. Well, this should be interesting. He looked thin, Michiel thought. I don't think he's been getting his full ration from the
undermerchant.

  “What are they up to?” Westerveld whispered.

  “We'd better find out,” Michiel said and made his way down to the beach. Two rafts stood off in the shallows. They were within range of their muskets, if they had them. But he could see no burning powder. Besides, he thought, Steenhower would be the only one out of this shower who knew which end of a gun to hold.

  “Pastor,” Michiel called out.

  The pastor looked particularly pleased to see him. His face split into a smile of pathetic gratitude. “Praise be to God,” he gushed, ‘the muyters want to help you!’

  Michiel kept his eye on the men in the rafts. Now here is a sight a man doesn't see every day of his life. Look at them, the way they are dressed, scarlet coats and thick gold chains around their necks. A beggar's costume party; Christiaan looked the dandiest of them all, of course.

  The pastor had tears on his face, was sniffling like a scolded child.

  “What's the matter?” Michiel said.

  “You don't know how I have suffered.”

  “Well, this has not been an easy time for anyone.”

  “You don't understand. They have slaughtered my family. I have been reduced to eating grass. Please, you must help me, sir.”

  “Sir?” Michiel had no time for this whining. He again looked beyond the churchman’s shoulder to the boats. Christiaan and his band had poled their own raft further down the beach.

  Do they know we have weapons? he wondered. No, that’s impossible. So why haven’t they come ashore and tried to slaughter us? It’s what I would have done.

  “What is it they want?” he snapped.

  “They have commissioned me to tell you that they intend to sail to the distant high island, as we are low on food and water and cannot survive longer where we are. If you will but give the raft back to them, they have promised to leave you in peace. In exchange they will give you a cask of good wine and two chests of cloth and blankets, so that you may make new clothes.”

  “Those I stand in have served me well enough,” Michiel grunted.