Batavia Epub

by Pete Fitzsimons

  It is done. Following the plan that they worked out together, Jacobsz, in command of the longboat, and Pelsaert, in command of the yawl, have now landed a total of 180 soldiers, sailors, men, women and children on the larger island with a few barrels of water and several boxes of food. The barrels are particularly crucial, as when they dig on the island in the hope of reaching water, they get only two feet down before hitting solid coral.

  Also keeping to their plan, all of the 24 senior ship officers and a dozen or so sailors, coopers, carpenters and blacksmiths of the VOC – the men they are still confident of being able to control – stay with Pelsaert and Jacobsz on the smaller island, together with some navigational equipment, Pelsaert’s casket of jewels and 80 kannen, jugs, of water and food.

  The numbers on the larger island have been boosted by the fact that Jacobsz succeeded in making one more trip to and from the Batavia to get another 40 survivors, but at the moment, for Jacobsz at least, further trips look impossible as the westerly wind suddenly blows harder than ever, and he and his men return to the small island.

  Still out in the yawl after several hours, Commandeur Pelsaert is fighting a rising sense of desperation. From the falling of one moon to the rising of the next, his entire world has been split asunder, and, even though the fault for the shipwreck clearly rests with the wretched Jacobsz, there is no doubt that as Commandeur he will be judged by the VOC on his cleaning up of the mess, and most particularly on how well he manages to salvage the Company’s treasures.

  To this point, though, he has salvaged only the one chest he had in his cabin, filled as it is with the agate cameo and all the jewellery and silver he intends to trade in India. (And even that was a close call. His personal chest was so heavy that it threatened the stability of Jacobsz’s yawl, and the skipper only managed to get it to the island with great difficulty.) Nor does Pelsaert look likely to salvage much more any time soon, with the weather suddenly so bad. But, even though Jacobsz has been unable to fight the waves and return to the Batavia in the late afternoon, Pelsaert and his men are intent on approaching the ship once more, where still some 70 souls are left on board. Though the waves crash and the wind howls, Pelsaert exhorts his men to keep trying, tacking back and forth in an effort to pull alongside.

  Alas, now that the high tide has returned, the breakers pouring over the Batavia and the reef make it nothing short of suicide to get any closer than 30 yards or so, and they have to haul off. Just as Pelsaert is trying to work out what to do next – unable to get to the Batavia but unable to leave – he is stunned to see a man on the stricken ship’s for’ard deck dive into the waves and begin to swim, powerfully, towards them. For a good five minutes, the survivors on the Batavia and those with Pelsaert on the sloop really are as one, as everyone watches, awed and aghast, as this tiny figure battles his way through the enormous swell and sometimes crashing waves. At last, the gasping swimmer claws his way to the sloop and is pulled up by many willing hands.

  ‘Egbertsz!’ some of the sailors cry. ‘It is Jan Egbertsz, the carpenter from Amsterdam.’ It is, though it is some two or three minutes before the carpenter has sucked in enough air and expelled enough water to be able to speak. He has come with a message for Commandeur Pelsaert.

  ‘Het spijt me, excuse me, Commandeur,’ he gasps, while still prone on the deck, ‘but the Onderkoopman, Jeronimus Cornelisz, wishes to advise that it is no longer safe on the ship and he and 70 other men need to be rescued, sir.’

  Of course – Jeronimus! Pelsaert is relieved to hear that the very capable Onderkoopman, his second in charge, has survived, and is not at all surprised to hear that he has taken command of those left on the ship. It gives him some confidence that the money chests and other treasures will have been properly looked after. His only regret is the impossibility of the request.

  Even in the time it has taken for Egbertsz to swim to them, the swell has increased, and another attempt to get in close to the ship is out of the question. All the Commandeur can do is to send back a message with Egbertsz that this is not possible for the moment, and to convey some further instructions. These are to throw overboard five or six planks so that his men can retrieve them and, back onshore, fashion them into either oars or leeboards for their boat, so they can lift the gunwales and hopefully overcome the swell to rescue those on board the wreck the next day. Jeronimus is also advised to organise the men on the Batavia to build some rafts, so that if the ship should entirely disintegrate they will have the means to save themselves and the money chests and be able to drift and paddle towards the islands. Finally – and this is most important – the Onderkoopman must secure the Company’s goods in a safe and high spot, and have them ready for easy transfer to the yawl when the rescuers return tomorrow.

  With such firm instructions in his mind, the brave Egbertsz again dives into the swirling maelstrom, and once more Pelsaert and his sailors on the yawl watch intensely to see if he makes it, as do Jeronimus and his men on the Batavia. As Egbertsz gets close, however – an extraordinary effort, as this time he is swimming against the swell – it is no certain thing that he will get onto the wreck. Waves that have crossed the entire Indian Ocean to arrive on this craggy reef are not to be thwarted by the wreck of one ship that the ocean is efficiently claiming back for its own, so they crash all over and around it, making the currents on the lee side of the wreck extremely tricky for Egbertsz to negotiate. At last, however, it is almost as if the ocean burps, as a surging wave throws the brave swimmer up onto the swirling deck and he is able to grab onto a line and haul himself to the higher, dryer point where Jeronimus and some sober soldiers await him.

  To the news that the Commandeur will not attempt to rescue them on this day, and that they must spend another night on the seething wreck, there is general consternation and drunken outcry that they have been betrayed, but Jeronimus holds up his hand for silence, so as to hear the rest of the instructions above the roar of the waves.

  Keeping his own counsel, Jeronimus at least thanks Egbertsz for his bravery and instructs that the six planks indeed be thrown overboard, which they are. It takes some time for those planks to be retrieved by those in the yawl, but, the instant they are, the sloop ceases its struggle to remain close to the stricken ship and allows the wind and the swell to quickly carry it away to the islands.

  Yes, for those still on the Batavia, there are no doubt sound reasons why the yawl has left them, but it is still hard not to feel abandoned by the Commandeur, sailing away to the relative safety of solid land while they are left like drowning rats on the disintegrating ship. At least they have Jeronimus with them, however. He will not abandon them. He will be the means of their salvation.

  For his part, Pelsaert steers for the smaller of the islands, where Jacobsz and his men await them with the majority of the food and water barrels that have been salvaged. The mood there is relatively calm, if entirely despondent, and the Commandeur is at least heartened to see that one of the carpenters has already begun to fashion an oar out of a piece of topmast that has floated ashore – a tiny piece of industry amid the sullen suffering. A little further along, another carpenter with lacerated feet from the coral and thorns is busy making a leeboard out of another piece of topmast that has floated to the island.

  What is clear at this point is that there is to be no respite from the weather, as a regrettably rainless storm blows in extremely hard from the north-west, so strong that as they look out to the Batavia, about a mile away, she is more often than not entirely buried beneath waves. As each wave passes, it seems extraordinary that the ship can possibly still hold together and that anyone can be surviving on her, but of the former, at least, they are assured when, in the brief interval between the thundering breakers, when the sea-spray momentarily diminishes, they can see that the Batavia endures.

  The fact that only 20 casks of bread and a few barrels of water have been landed, meanwhile, means the vast balance of provisions must remain in the stricken vessel’s belly, even if a fair p
ortion will already have been ruined by the seawater. For the majority of people, whom they have got safely to shore, there is less than half a gallon of water per person and scant food, and unless that can be replenished in some way, and quickly, everyone will surely perish.

  That afternoon on their tiny island, Pelsaert appoints a guard to watch over their small stock of provisions, including some of the ship’s finest silverware and his personal chest of jewels. Others in the ship’s company might have swiftly switched their attentions from gold, silver and jewellery to water, but in Pelsaert – a Company man to the end – the instinct to protect the VOC’s interests simply runs too strong. In the exceedingly unlikely scenario that they can ever get one of their small boats all the way to the settlement of Batavia – for that is beginning to be discussed as a possible course of action – he knows that the Company’s first concern, even before the fate of the survivors, will be to retrieve the precious cargo. And Pelsaert intends to be able to reassure them.

  What is of far more immediate concern to Jacobsz and his men, however, is searching the other nearby islands for fresh water and, hopefully, some source of food. When Jacobsz puts this obvious course to the Commandeur, he prevaricates, preferring to first return to the wreck to finally retrieve and secure the money chests. And he also wants to visit the bigger island to give the survivors some more of their water.

  Jacobsz is aghast at the very suggestion of going anywhere near the large island, as that would be madness, commensurate with the madness to be found thereon. On their own tiny island, they have boats, food, water, navigational equipment and only a small number of people to share those crucial supplies with, most of whom are sailors. On the larger island, the one they have taken to calling Eylandt van Bataviaes Kerckhof, Batavia’s Graveyard, there is hunger, thirst, insanity and 180 people, most of whom are of no use whatsoever. Any contact between the two groups of people, thus, is fraught with danger for those on the tiny island.

  Both Jacobsz and his men are of the strong view that if Pelsaert arrives with the yawl on the island then he and anyone accompanying him will be overtaken by the panic of the people and not allowed to leave again. Jacobsz therefore tells Pelsaert straight, ‘They will keep you there and you will regret it. Secondly, there is no one who will sail with you. You actually have no choice, mijn Commandeur. Neither you nor I have the control of these men that we did. If we do not agree to do what they want, they will do it anyway, without us.’

  So it is; so it has always been. When a mass of men is standing within rough earshot of two men having a strong conversation about a matter that deeply concerns them, that mass has a way of communicating its views . . . without the need for explicit statements to be made. This is just such an occasion. Though none of the mob of sailors around Pelsaert and Jacobsz cries out, it is clear from the expressions on their faces, from their muted rumbling, that they fully support Jacobsz. They want to go and explore those higher islands they can see in the distance, and if Pelsaert tells them that they can’t and that they must instead go back to the wreck or visit the dangerous rabble on the other island, well, then . . . he will likely be finding it very hard to do so.

  Sucking the air between his black stumps of teeth, Jacobsz continues. ‘What counts now, Commandeur,’ he says, pointing to the two modest vessels innocently bobbing up and down upon the seas like pleasure craft awaiting a Sunday-afternoon cruise, ‘are those two boats. They will be our only salvation.’

  Still Pelsaert demurs, maintaining that if he is not immediately borne to the other island he will report to the people on that island whenever the first opportunity arises that the sailors have abandoned them and left them to their fate. This time, the sailors standing a little way off break out laughing among themselves – and not in a kind way – baring their own yellowing teeth and gesturing towards Pelsaert in a manner most unbefitting.

  It is a stand-off.

  Yes, Jacobsz and the sailors could simply say ‘Good luck, do what ye will’, but if the sailors survive and the Company subsequently finds out what they have done, all of their lives will be forfeit anyway.

  Or, it is just possible that the Mutineers among them could kill Pelsaert on the spot, thus forestalling him telling anyone. But, they would also have to kill all the non-Mutineers, and the truth is that the latter far outnumber the former. Besides, Pelsaert is a valuable asset to all the sailors. While he is with them, he carries the imprimatur of the Company, meaning that he takes the responsibility, and the blame, for whatever they do, thus absolving them of their actions. If the Commandeur says it is all right to take the boats away from the islands, then who are they to argue?

  Further tipping the stand-off in Pelsaert’s favour is that it has been just a little more than 36 hours since the shipwreck, when his command was law, and he thus retains just enough authority to have his way, at least for the moment.

  Reluctantly, thus, Jacobsz orders six of his men and his bosun, Jan Evertsz, to accompany the Commandeur in the yawl to Batavia’s Graveyard. It is also agreed, however, that if the people do indeed seize the Commandeur, they are free to leave him to his fate without repercussions.

  5 June 1629, approaching Batavia’s Graveyard

  Exactly as Jacobsz has predicted, no sooner have Pelsaert and his sailing party approached the shore of the larger island than a mob of men, women and children appear, all of them clearly desperate.

  At this vision, Jan Evertsz is as abrupt as he is clear in his barked warning to Commandeur Pelsaert: ‘They will keep you and us there. We don’t wish to go nearer. If you have anything to say to them, you can call out. We are not going to run any risk for your sake.’ Just two days earlier, such an utterance to the high and mighty Commandeur would have been every bit as unthinkable as the refusal of sailors to follow orders – cause for their keel-hauling and torturous death. But things have changed. Pelsaert is entirely powerless to enforce his will on men who are not only facing the likelihood of their impending deaths but also, as rough sailors in a rough aquatic world, are more capable of forestalling that death than he is.

  And yet, Pelsaert is still so outraged at the impertinence of the bosun that he decides to jump overboard and swim ashore towards the mass of people. He would have done so, too, had the bosun not suddenly gripped him tightly, even while telling his men to row away.

  Finally, Pelsaert, though it goes against the grain of everything he has learned as a member of the VOC over the last 20 years, knows he has no choice but to accede to their demands and so ceases his struggle. The boat continues to pull away as the men haul rhythmically on the oars, the only sounds being their heavy breathing, the gurgle of the waves slapping against the sides of their boat and the splash of the oars as they simultaneously hit the water. Pelsaert gazes forlornly back at the mob on the shore, wondering what can they be thinking?

  On that shore, the gathered mob stare at the departing boat in stunned fury. The Commandeur is abandoning them! The Commandeur . . . is . . . abandoning them! He was right there, right about to land . . . and now he has simply left! It is incomprehensible. It is devastating. It is unforgivable. Women weep. Men stare with glassy eyes at his receding figure. The children – though they are growing up fast in these extreme circumstances – look closely at their frothing parents, trying to work out what has just happened to make them so desperately angry and so devastated, all in one.

  Slowly, the group on the shore break up. They return to their primitive hovels, which they have fashioned out of whatever they were able to bring with them and whatever has washed up on the shore – mostly pieces of sail held up by broken spars and loose bits of timber. The one who is perhaps the angriest of them all is Ryckert Woutersz, the Mutineer who for so long slept with his sword beside him in his hammock, primed to move at Jacobsz’s command. He has been ready to back the skipper at the risk of his own life, ready to attack Pelsaert at a single nod of Jacobsz’s head, yet these two now look as if they are combining forces to abandon the likes of him on this god
forsaken bit of coral at the edge of the world. It is treachery of the highest order!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Batavia’s Graveyard

  At present the pack of all disasters has moulded together and fallen on my neck . . .

  Commandeur Francisco Pelsaert

  6 June 1629, smaller island

  It is time for Jacobsz and his men to do what most of them have wanted all along. They will head off this morning in search of water, first on the higher islands, then, failing that, on the coast of het Zuidland, which they know must be only a short way to their east.

  Now, even though Pelsaert would be only a dead weight, he must decide whether or not to accompany them. On the one hand, he tells himself, as the VOC’s senior man in the midst of this disaster, it is his responsibility to make a full report of what has occurred to the VOC authorities in Batavia and to oversee the rescue. What, however, of the people he is leaving behind? Surely, if he stays, his authority will help to keep them calm? Surely he will be able to organise them to better assure their survival? Then again, he thinks back to the scene on the island the day before – could that rabble be organised? Yet, there is the agreement he has come to with Jacobsz and the crew that if they do find water on the other islands or the vaste landt, mainland, they will take it back to the survivors. If he is not with them, will they honour that?

  His mind is at sea, his thoughts surging through him like the rolling surf through the battered bones of the Batavia – no sooner does the Commandeur land on one decision than it is flushed away by another quickly taking its place. One final factor that he cannot deny is that, in a choice between staying on islands with little food and water, with an abundance only of starving and thirsty people, and getting into a boat that at least has a chance of eventually turning towards the only outpost of civilisation in this part of the world, the latter option is always going to be the most attractive.