Batavia Epub

by Pete Fitzsimons

  Zevanck takes his foot off, and then he signals for the other Mutineers to bring from the shore the weeping Jacop Groenewaldt, who is now pleading for his life. By the time the Mutineers have gripped the second man, the first has floated to the surface, his face purple and bloated. He is dead. With one look at him, all the fight goes out of the second man, and this time the whole drowning takes less than a couple of minutes.

  And now it is Andries’s turn.

  ‘Nee! Nee! Nee!’ Andries de Vries screams. ‘Please! Please spare me! I will do anything! Anything!’

  Zevanck holds up his hand, and the Mutineers pause for a moment. Anything? This could be very amusing, and an interesting experiment. On the spot, Zevanck has an idea and decides to spare Andries’s life, at least for now. After all, though Andries possesses no valuable skills, he is a weak man and will never present a threat to them. The sole downside of his continued existence is that his is another mouth to feed, which, though significant, can be counteracted if he eliminates more mouths. So he is taken back to Batavia’s Graveyard and, after Zevanck consults with Jeronimus, Andries is told that he will shortly have a meeting with Jeronimus, where they can discuss an important matter.

  7 July 1629, Batavia

  On the tail of this shining day, Commandeur Francisco Pelsaert, aboard the Frederick Hendrick, first sights Batavia in the distance before arriving there just an hour later. As the anchor is dropped, the rays of the setting sun illuminate the foreboding dark-blue coral stone of the citadel, the heart of Dutch power in the East Indies, which dominates both the harbour and the surrounding countryside. For Pelsaert, and most who have survived the long ordeal, it really is a matter of thanking God the Lord for His supreme mercy in having delivered them all from the very jaws of hell, to here, their long-awaited destination.

  True, gazing shorewards, it is not remotely as Pelsaert remembers it from several years earlier, as the attacks of the soldiers of the Sultan of Mataram have left whole sections of the old settlement in complete ruins. But compared with the barren wilds of where he has come from it still looks to be the very height of civilisation. And yet, despite having finally arrived, Pelsaert decides to remain aboard and go ashore on the morrow. For the moment, he simply wants to savour the fact that their physical ordeal is over, before facing the new ordeal of explaining how it all occurred.

  Notwithstanding the fact that Pelsaert’s own safety is now assured – at least in the short term – he cannot help but wonder, as he sips wine in the Frederick Hendrick’s Great Cabin, gazing into the twinkling lanterns of Batavia, just how those back on the Abrolhos Islands are faring . . .

  8 July 1629, Batavia’s Graveyard

  On this wild morning, down by the beach, a sad little group of survivors is gathered around the Predikant as he holds his daily service. It includes, of course, all the members of his own family plus something of a graveyard gathering of those who still have the energy and will to attend his service, who still steadfastly believe, despite everything, that the Lord is with them even now.

  ‘My brethren,’ he pronounces, his voice rising to get above the now whistling wind, ‘I tell you all that Almighty God and all of His holy angels will come and take us all under their wings and . . .’

  And suddenly the Predikant is aware of some chortling going on behind him, even as he sees a stunned expression on the faces of the gathering as they look over his shoulder. He turns to see several of the Kapitein-Generaal’s red-coated men, led by an insanely grinning Mattys Beer and Lenart Michielsz van Os, cavorting around and waving the bloody, severed flippers of sea lions above their heads as if they are the angel wings he is referring to.

  ‘There is no need,’ Beer sneers at him in a manner that he clearly thinks is hilarious, ‘for we already have the wings!’

  The Mutineers fall about with laughter, as if this is the greatest joke ever told, but they are also serious: no longer will they have the Predikant talking of God, angels’ wings and such things.

  The service instantly breaks up.

  Within minutes, the outraged Predikant is before the Kapitein-Generaal, making a formal complaint at this outrageous behaviour. Yet, to his complete amazement, Jeronimus gives him short shrift. Not only does he refuse to punish his men, he also tells the Predikant that just this morning the raad has decided on a new edict: there are to be no more services of worship held, and not even any praying. The council has decided that such things are a luxury that can no longer be afforded, as all energies must be focused on ensuring their survival, not asking for God to ensure it. Never in his life has the Predikant been so appalled, and yet, again, it requires more strength (and less sense) than he has to protest too vociferously.

  Jeronimus watches him go, amused at seeing the struggle in the Predikant’s soul between his outrage and his fear, with fear winning out in the end – as he was certain it would. The Predikant will not be a problem after all, which may well assure his survival. The main thing is that the Predikant’s services have now been entirely shut down. For things have to change.

  Jeronimus is now fully intent on establishing, if not heaven on earth, then certainly his own kind of hell. Back in the day, Torrentius could only dream of having the opportunity he has now, of establishing an entire society without the fetters of God placing restrictions on behaviour. Already, he has encouraged blaspheming among the Mutineers as a way of liberating them and has talked extensively of his ideas that there is nothing they can do that God hasn’t first put in their hearts; the banning of all religious manifestations is the next step in the transformation. No longer will he have the Predikant talking of God, when it runs directly contrary to what he is endeavouring to create. On this island, at this time, the Kapitein-Generaal is determined that there is to be no God but ‘I, Jeronimus’.

  Yes, Jeronimus is now a modern-day Caesar – his every word is law, and, if he chooses, de dood, death. Never in his life has he known power remotely like it, and he finds he adores every moment of it. But, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s – does he not need, at the very least, a comely concubine?

  He does. And there can be only one choice. If Lucretia Jans, wife of Boudewijn van der Mijlen, thinks her own nightmare cannot get any worse, she is sadly mistaken. On this day, she is led to the Kapitein-Generaal’s tent by Coenraat van Huyssen and advised that, by order of Jeronimus, this is where she will be residing from this point.

  ‘Madam,’ Jeronimus essays to justify his actions to her, ‘after what happened to you on the Batavia, I simply cannot allow such a beautiful woman as you to remain unprotected among so many dangerous ruffians.’ In response to Lucretia’s sullen stare, he continues. ‘It is only in here, under my care, that you will be safe,’ he coos. ‘I urge you to avail yourself of my hospitality.’

  Jeronimus’s words might sound like an invitation, but his henchmen have already made it absolutely clear that she has no choice. It is in this tent that she is to stay.

  There were just 20 women originally on the Batavia, and between deaths and those who have been put on Seals’ Island and Traitors’ Island there are only a handful of them left on Batavia’s Graveyard, in the company of scores more men who have, for the most part, been without sex for over eight months. Lucretia believes it is no coincidence that, generally, it is the older wives whom Jeronimus has placed on the other islands, while the younger and fairer have remained here. It is also the reason why Jeronimus was so insistent that gunner Jan Carstenz accompany Wiebbe Hayes to the High Islands, thus leaving his beautiful wife, Anneken Bosschieters, alone and unprotected.

  Already, many of the men, particularly those dressed in red velvet, hover around Anneken, as if she is a bitch in heat and they are sex-starved dogs. No matter that Anneken has made it very clear she wants nothing to do with them, still they circle closely, leering and making suggestive comments. For her own protection, Anneken washes herself only at night, wading into the waters, and even then she remains fully clothed.

  Tryntgien and Zuss
ie Fredericxs have been less successful in fighting off their attentions, as their former protector, Tryntgien’s husband, Claas the upper-trumpeter, has been long gone with the skipper and the Commandeur in the longboat and may never return. With so many men on the island and so few women, something had to give, and, among other things, that has been their chastity. Together with another woman from the lower deck by the name of Marretje Louijs, they have become, by force, ‘algemene dienst’, women for common service, and they must satisfy the sexual needs of some of the leading Mutineers.

  As to Anneken Hardens, it doesn’t even make any difference that her husband, Hans, is right there among them and that they have a six-year-old daughter, Hilletje, always at her mother’s skirts. Still, many of the red velvets hang close. All the pretty, blonde Anneken – she with the long plaits always elegantly tied with red ribbons – can do is to try to get her husband, Hans, to calm himself and assure him that they will be fine.

  The Predikant’s fair daughter, Judick, has been in a similar position, as the strutting Coenraat van Huyssen has acted with a threateningly proprietorial air towards her, notwithstanding the fact that the young woman wants nothing more than to be with her family.

  And yet, though the presumption of the other women is that Lucretia has also totally succumbed to the threatening atmosphere that surrounds them all, that is not the case. She refuses to sleep in Jeronimus’s bed, preferring the discomfort of a mat beside it. In response, Jeronimus actually tries to woo her with his charms, proposing that she could play empress to his emperor – all of which moves her not a jot. When wooing fails, he tries anger, berating her for her supreme ingratitude to him, after he has done so much for her! How can she deny him, after he, the ruler of this island, the Company’s most highly esteemed official, has especially selected her to be with him for her own protection, has taken her from her small hovel to install her in his magnificent tent and offer her the only genuine bed on the island, no less, with real sheets and pillows (all of it salvaged from the Commandeur’s cabin)?

  Alas, nothing seems to impress her. She sits still in his tent, barely speaking, not bothering to argue, refusing to engage with the silken-tongued beast and only staring bleakly outside, almost as if the only thing that keeps her sane is the thought she might one day be out there again, reunited with her real husband, and not in here with the disgusting Jeronimus.

  The Kapitein-Generaal is at his wits’ end to know what to do. Rape her? He is too proud for that. Have her killed, then? Well, yes, but that would rather defeat the purpose, and the truth remains that she is such a beauty, even after everything she has been through, she is the only woman on the island fit to be his consort.

  Coenraat van Huyssen, at this point, feels free to follow Jeronimus’s lead. If Lucretia is the prize beauty on the island, reserved for the Kapitein-Generaal, then the second prize is the Predikant’s oldest daughter, and he now moves to take her. Though demure in her dress, and her approach – with her eyes either looking up to God in the skies or down to the ground, where her essential shyness can find solace – there is a young and voluptuous womanliness about young Judick that van Huyssen cannot ignore. And nor does he care that his every approach has been firmly rebuffed by her, or that her two oldest brothers, Bastiaen and Pieter, and her father glare at him whenever he tries to talk to her.

  Such rebuffs might have put an end to the matter in Amsterdam, but it is not the end of it here. For van Huyssen is keenly aware that, alongside Zevanck and Stonecutter, he is one of the most powerful men on the island after Jeronimus. Nee, he will not be denied the woman of his choice.

  When Judick makes it absolutely clear that she would sooner die than be with a man out of holy matrimony, Coenraat’s confreres make it clear to her that this is no problem – and their behaviour in the last few days gives that threat some force. To soften it for her, Coenraat says he would be very happy to marry her at the first opportunity that they are off these islands, and would do so legally and before all the world as his witness. However, he does not think it fair that he should have to wait to be with her until such time as they could be so conjoined, and so insists that she move into his tent immediately and that their betrothal be consummated forthwith.

  Such is the sense of malevolence now abroad on the island, and so powerful have Jeronimus and his red-velveted henchmen become, that after much but hurried family debate it becomes clear to all of them old enough to discuss it that she really has no choice. At least if she is with Coenraat, she will have protection from all the others and won’t have to become a woman for common service. Though deeply upset, both the Predikant and his wife understand that Coenraat is indeed their daughter’s best option. The Predikant asks only one thing of the henchmen – that his daughter Judick have just one more night with her family, in their family tent, before she goes to Coenraat’s tent the next day.

  Permission denied. Only ten minutes after the Predikant puts this request to Coenraat via an intermediary, a posse of gold-laced and red-velveted armed Mutineers arrive outside the Predikant’s tent. Judick must accompany them to Coenraat’s tent on the instant, for he is waiting, or face the consequences. Those consequences are not strictly spelled out, but they would clearly involve violence of some description.

  Tearfully, Judick understands that, for the safety of herself and her family, she must go with the Mutineers to Coenraat’s tent. But, please, give her at least a minute. The Mutineers grant their rough assent, and the flap of the tent is closed. For one last, precious minute the virginal Judick is embraced by all of her family, by her father and mother, by her strong adult brothers, Bastiaen and Pieter, by her young brothers, Johannes and Roelant, and by her two young sisters, Willemyntgien and Agnete.

  Agnete, just 11 years old, cannot quite understand why everyone is weeping so, but she knows her adored oldest sister is about to leave them and will not be sleeping in their tent that night, and that is enough for her to soon lead the howling.

  Shortly thereafter, one of the Mutineers, uninvited, opens the flap and the light floods in. It is time. Judick slowly disengages herself from her family’s embrace and goes with the Mutineers towards Coenraat’s tent . . .

  8 July 1629, Batavia citadel

  It is no small thing to look through a window and regard a fine view that first formed in your mind many years before, a dream that you have personally made reality by the power of your personality and the sheer force of your will. And, as is nearly always the case, Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen is feeling well satisfied on this morning as he looks through the enormous bay window overlooking Batavia’s harbour, his gaze transfixed by a group of hard-working stevedores unloading yet more spices from the bond store three floors beneath him and loading them into the small boats that will take them out to yet another retourschip, soon to be on her way back to Amsterdam.

  This year, as every year – and notwithstanding the terrible battle they underwent to beat back the forces of the Sultan of Mataram seven months earlier – Batavia is on track for a new record in terms of the amount of spices sent back, and the Company will be well pleased. The only thing that does not please him on this fine morning is the vision of the Frederick Hendrick, anchored just beyond the retourschip and bobbing gently in the sheltered waters. She arrived the afternoon before, and he was not long in hearing that she bears ill tidings, a terrible saga that has befallen the Batavia, though the details are still sketchy. And on that subject . . .

  A knock on the door alerts him that he is shortly to have company.

  ‘Your Excellency,’ an aide breathes respectfully, after gliding to his side, ‘Commandeur Pelsaert, of the Batavia, has arrived and requests an audience.’

  Coen nods, and takes his place. Sitting behind his huge oak desk, made from the finest timbers of Germany by the finest carpenters of the Dutch Republic, Governor-General Coen bids Pelsaert to enter with a languid hand of come-hither but does not rise from his desk, let alone offer him a handshake in welcome. The two men
appraise each other in a few moments, one with trepidation bordering on outright fear, the other with the same cool disdain with which he greets most of his underlings, and indeed even some of his nominal superiors.

  From the moment of meeting the Governor-General, Pelsaert is disconcerted by his eyes. It is not that they are cold, glassy and unseeing, for that by comparison would be relatively easy to bear. It is that they seem to see too much, focusing with barely a blink at a point that appears to be about two yards behind his interlocutor. It is as if he is looking right into the other man’s soul, ferreting for weakness, or, better still if he could find it, falsehood.

  ‘Uwe Excellentie, Your Excellency,’ Pelsaert begins, using the standard form of obsequiousness to far superior officers that the VOC in general, and Coen in particular, values so dearly. ‘It is a great honour to be in your august presence.’

  Another man, under such circumstances as these, might have waved away such formalities and quickly asked him to get to the essence of the story, but not Coen. Coen always takes overt sycophancy as his due, the more thickly laid on the better, and never rushes anybody when they are in full flight. At last, though, there is simply nowhere else to go, and Pelsaert begins his formal report.

  ‘I only wish that I had better news to impart,’ he begins hesitantly. ‘In fact, I bring the most grave and unfortunate tidings of our voyage.’

  Coen raises a disingenuous eyebrow and bids him continue, which Pelsaert does.