Enough for one night?
Still no. To complete their night’s work, Zevanck summons Allert Jansz and orders him to go with Cornelis Pietersz to kill Aris Jansz, the under-surgeon and deputy to Frans Jansz, who is in a tent at the far northern end of the island.
For Jeronimus does not trust Aris, and never has. It is not just that his dedication to helping keep Pelsaert alive aboard the Batavia was above and beyond the call of duty – which was inconvenient, under the circumstances – it is that, from the beginning of their time on Batavia’s Graveyard, he has kept to himself. He has not made the remotest approach to join the Mutineers and has a way of carrying himself that denotes independence. He has one small tent to himself, speaks to very few, cooks on his own and is mostly to be found fishing. No, he is not one likely to lead a charge against them, but independence always means danger. And so he, too, must die.
Now, Allert follows the established form. Outside Aris’s tent, he calls, ‘Aris . . . Aris . . . kom naar buiten, come outside. We have to go and search for birds for the Kapitein-Generaal.’
Despite Aris’s fear at being so suddenly summoned, he knows better than to keep this man, a member of Jeronimus’s band, waiting and appears quickly. After all, he can draw some reassurance from the fact it is not particularly surprising that Allert has come for him at night. That is when the mature mutton birds return to their nests, particularly on the southern side of the island, and if you know what you’re doing then it is quite possible to be enjoying tender bird meat and perhaps a fried egg or two for breakfast. And, also, that the Kapitein-Generaal has requested some birds for his table is fairly standard. He frequently assigns all kinds of tasks to people on the island and everyone understands that those tasks must be fulfilled without question . . . even for an independent man like Aris.
So Aris slings his large burlap sack, with which they can carry their catch, over his shoulder and goes down to the beach with a couple of the other Mutineers, where the birds’ nests can be found. At the moment they reach it, however, Allert suddenly stops walking, silently draws his sword and, in a massive blow, strikes Aris across his right shoulder. It is his intention to bring him to the ground and then stab him through the heart.
Yet it does not work out like that. For, though Aris is stunned at the first blow, the sword has not penetrated deeply. He falls but does not stay where he drops and starts to roll away! Allert goes after him, as do the others, who manage to strike some of their own blows with their blunt swords, but in an instant Aris is up on his feet and staggering towards the safety of the darkness.
Others on the island might be as slow as a sunrise after a frostbitten night, but Aris has always been nimble and feels that he can get away. At this point, Cornelis Pietersz, who has been hovering in the shadows as backup, rushes forward and the two pursue Aris together. But, though their sheer bloodlust makes them fast, the sheer terror of Aris makes him faster. Within a few moments, the two Mutineers can hear him splashing ahead of them through the shallows and into deeper water . . . before the sound of the splashing stops. Spreading out, they ensure that Aris has no means of getting back past them from the shallows to the beach, and they wait.
And wait. And wait. And wait.
With their swords drawn, they peer into the darkness and strain their ears, hoping for the smallest sign as to his whereabouts, if, indeed, he is still alive. After 20 minutes with nothing but the rustling wind, the gurgling waves and the distant roar of the surf hitting the reef, Allert reports to Cornelis that he suspects Aris is dead, as he hit him so hard with his sword that he must be bleeding heavily. Cornelis is not so sure, but, after another 15 minutes with still no sign of Aris, he has to agree.
‘Hij heft het wel gehad, he’s had it,’ they say to each other, and they go back to make their report to David Zevanck.
Some 50 yards out from the beach, lying in the shallows to their far right with just his nose out of the water, is Aris. Shocked and bleeding, he tries to comprehend the enormity of his situation, a marked man marooned on a tiny island with 35 men who will kill him the instant they see him. He has escaped this time in the darkness, but what will happen in the morning? He is trapped!
Or is he? Over the previous four weeks, the carpenters have put a great deal of effort into building a sturdy yawl, as opposed to merely a painfully slow raft. It is lying on the beach just up from the shore on the northern side of the island and appears unattended – whereas usually one or two armed Mutineers guard the approaches. Wading, and then almost crawling through the water so as to not make a splash, Aris makes his way towards the shore. Just 45 minutes later, he can see the small boat in the half-hearted moonlight lying ahead of him. With great stealth, he creeps ashore – at any second expecting to hear a cry that will signal he is discovered and his ruse is up.
And, sure enough, he is just heaving the yawl the last yard towards the water when a scream comes from the direction of the women’s camp. Aris’s heart misses a beat. He has been discovered!
Stunned like a rabbit, he instinctively drops to the sand, placing the boat between himself and what he expects to be the direction from which angry men with serious weapons will shortly materialise. However, his terror is replaced with stunned amazement, as there is absolutely no sound of any Mutineers, swords drawn, rushing down the beach towards him.
The screaming continues, and it becomes clear that it has nothing to do with him. With great strength for an exhausted man, he tows the yawl out to where it will float with him inside it. He secures the anchor and begins to row away to the north – north towards the High Islands, north towards safety!
For some reason, the screaming on the island goes on, and on, and on.
And Judick, with her father the Predikant beside her, simply cannot stop screaming. After the dinner, she has come to say goodnight to her mother and siblings, as she does every night – only to find the tent dark and silent. And, once they enter with their lantern, all they can see is blood! On the ground, and splattered all over the walls. Flesh of their flesh, blood of their blood, killed, all of them killed by these monsters! Judick screams and screams and cannot be calmed. These monsters!
CHAPTER EIGHT
Attack!
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Macbeth, William Shakespeare, 1611
22 July 1629, Batavia’s Graveyard
A pall of misery, of unmitigated murder most foul, hangs over the island this morning. The Survivors move about with downcast eyes, going about their chores, not speaking, not greeting anyone. Most know of the terrible things that have happened the night before. None wish to speak of them. It is even possible that some of the Mutineers – like drunkards waking with a dreadful hangover from a bacchanalian feast the night before and wondering just what terrible things they have done – feel some shadow of regret. For they, too, are for the most part moving around tentatively. It is one thing to have done what they have done while filled with wine in the night, yet quite another to see the bloodstains they have wrought on the coral in broad daylight.
The exception is Jan Pelgrom, who on this morning struts about like a madman, a makeshift riding crop tapping a beat on the back of his thigh, shouting, ‘A boxing on the ear? Who wants to be boxed on the ear? I will do it for a tot!’ He waves his whip at the passers-by, while continuing his spiel. ‘Come now, devils, with all the sacraments, where are you? I certainly wish I now saw a devil. And who wants to be stabbed to death? I can do that very beautifully! Who wants to be boxed on the ear? I shall certainly manage it!’
Even though, to Jan Pelgrom’s regret, he did not have a direct part in the killings the night before, he is proud to be one of Jeronimus’s powerful band, and never have they demonstrated themselves to be so fearsome as they have on this occasion.
‘Come, come now, devils, with all the s
acraments, where are you?’ he rambles on. The boy is mad.
In his tent this morning, as Lucretia stares balefully at him, Jeronimus is brooding. The stealing of the skiff by Aris Jansz the night before changes everything. For where else could he have gone but to Wiebbe Hayes and his men on the High Islands? This creates an enormous problem that Jeronimus has only just come to realise.
Because the High Islands lie north-west of Batavia’s Graveyard and are geographically closer along the path of any rescue yacht coming from Batavia, there is every chance that Hayes and his men could make initial contact with any rescue ship before Jeronimus Cornelisz and his men. Possession of one of the Mutineers’ skiffs hugely increases this possibility. If this happens, then all of the Mutineers’ plans of subduing the crew of that yacht, of seizing the vessel and getting away from these islands, of being rich buccaneers and sailing the seven seas would come to nothing. Forewarned, the crew would likely be able to resist them. Worse, given what has happened on Batavia’s Graveyard, their own lives would more than likely be forfeit. The only way forward, thus, is to find a new way to solve the Hayes problem.
22 July 1629, Hayes’s Island
Still they keep coming. Following the arrival of Cornelis Janszoon and the refugees from Seals’ Island a week earlier, Aris Jansz in his wonderfully fast skiff – wonderbaarlijk! – is just one of many newcomers. No fewer than five more groups propel themselves from the islands to their south, either holding on to bits of driftwood and paddling for as long as two days and nights or sailing on home-made rafts launched under cover of darkness. But they all emerge from the water to tell the same story.
They have escaped with their lives. Jeronimus and his Mutineers are murdering at will and rarely bother to pretend it is anything other than exactly that.
As shocking as it all is, Wiebbe Hayes soon realises it means one particularly significant thing. That is, their own situation on these High Islands has drastically changed. They have known for weeks that, given the fact that Commandeur Pelsaert and Skipper Ariaen have failed to return, they have either perished or made an attempt to go on to Batavia. It is obvious in the latter case that, if they succeed, a rescue ship will soon be on her way – in all likelihood a jacht of shallow draft that could be easily manoeuvred through the shallows in these parts. But, from what Cornelis, Aris and all the others are telling them, Jeronimus and his Mutineers surely have plans in place to ambush that rescue yacht once it arrives. This means that Jeronimus cannot take the chance that Hayes and his men will reach the yacht first – a highly likely danger to the Mutineers because the yacht will be coming from the north and therefore will pass Hayes’s Island first.
The upshot? Clearly, Jeronimus will have to send an attacking force to the High Islands to wipe them out, just as Hayes now knows the Onderkoopman did to the Survivors on both Traitors’ Island and Seals’ Island.
To this point, Hayes has looked at the island they are on solely as a means of ensuring their survival, and, despite its initially unpromising appearance, it has been nothing less than extraordinary in what it has given them. Every day, his men drink their fill of water with no rationing whatsoever. And, now understanding more of their environment and how to prosper in it, they daily dine like kings! They have worked out how best to capture the delicious cats; where to find the equally tasty lizards and snakes; how to get birds’ eggs and the birds themselves; how to get the fish and even the weird zoetwaterkreeft, crayfish – the most extraordinary kind of shelled water-beast, which, once boiled and cracked open, some of the more adventurous men like to eat. But being able to live off the land is no longer enough. Now, aware of the high probability of an attack, Wiebbe Hayes must look upon the island as a fortress, a place they will soon have to defend for their very lives.
Clearly, the massive advantage in any battle would lie with Jeronimus and his men. Though the two sides are roughly equal in numbers, the Onderkoopman and his men have vast superiority in weaponry, including the musketry. And yet, Hayes has more than a little confidence that this considerable disadvantage can be overcome, not only by getting his men properly organised to meet the challenge but also through their commitment to exact revenge on Jeronimus and his Mutineers and to ensure that good triumphs over evil.
The one thing in Hayes’s favour, which he intends exploiting, is that he knows there is only one suitable landing site on the whole of the east coast of the island. (A second landing site on the north coast is unknown to the Mutineers.) This important piece of knowledge is the cornerstone of his defence strategy as he can confidently concentrate all his men in the one area overlooking the harbour.
It is time to prepare for war.
Bringing his men together on this sunny morning – from their initial crew of just 20, they are now 50 strong – Wiebbe Hayes sets out his plans. He tells them straight out that Jeronimus and the Mutineers will soon be coming for them, and that time is now of the essence. ‘And this,’ he says softly, ‘is what I want you to do . . .’
In short order, all 50 of them are busy as never before, and the work will go on for days, from sun-up, through the full bloom of the day and into the deep twilight of dusk, with the men frequently gazing to the south-east to check whether the Mutineers are now coming their way. Ten men scour the island for lumps of rock, which they gather in piles on the spots that Wiebbe Hayes has designated, just 20 yards back from the top of the cliff face. Another ten men build the bulk of these rocks up into curved walls, or forts, just over a yard high, behind which, in a battle, the Defenders – the third of the informal groupings that those on the Abrolhos have now been divided up into – will be able to take shelter against whatever musket fire might be flying. Still, they are careful not to use all the rocks, and those of a certain size and weight are put aside for another use . . . which Wiebbe Hayes also explains to them.
Those forts have been specifically built on the island’s best vantage points, so it will be all but impossible for the Mutineers to launch any surprise attacks, unthinkable as it is for them to try to navigate the shoals at night. But, as Hayes tells them, this measure is just the beginning of their defence plan.
They need to be able to neutralise the effect of the invaders’ guns well before they get so close as to be able to do them damage. The stone forts are all very well, and will at least provide some scant protection, but ideally the Defenders need to prevent the Mutineers coming within firing range of their positions. But how can they do it?
Hayes explains. Back when he was a kid in the town of Winschoten in the province of Groningen, he and his brothers delighted in playing a certain kind of war game with slings fashioned from flax or hemp. By whirring the sling around and around their heads and letting go of one end of the rope, they were able to fire their stones a remarkable distance, often with great accuracy. Back then, they used to wish for a real battle in which they could prove themselves, ideally in exactly the way that David had been able to bring down Goliath in that wonderful story from the Bible. And maybe, just maybe, this is Hayes’s and his men’s chance!
And so, on this first day of serious preparation, in the late morning light, Hayes, with Otto Smit by his side, is ready to conduct a series of trials on the edge of the southern cliff overlooking the only suitable landing site on the east coast. Before them are five classic slings made of braided cord, as well as the hides of some of the cats and even cloth – some of the Defenders’ long pants have been sacrificed for the purpose – to test for accuracy and distance. Of course, the shorter the sling, the more accurate the shots. However, it is crucial to propel the chunks of coral at least as far as the beginning of the mudflats below, if not further.
Hayes loads up the diamond-shaped pouch of a short sling with a projectile about as big as an apple. He swings it progressively faster around his head until, with a gentle whoosh, the sling finds sweet release, sending its projectile far over the cliffs and down into the water below. It makes a good 40 yards but just fails to make the tidal flats. Choosing a long
er sling, Hayes lets off another volley. Now, the stone lands comfortably at the beginning of the shallows with a satisfying splash some 50 yards beyond their position.
‘Het is goed, it is good,’ Otto allows, ‘but do you really think it’s a fair counter against men with muskets?’
‘Ja,’ Wiebbe replies with a twinkle, ‘provided those musquetten have been wet through with big splashes from the lumps of coral landing all around them.’
Then Smit understands. If these stones make a direct hit on the invaders, that would be to the good, but that is not the main point. The point is to bombard them with so many stones from so many angles that water is thrown up all around and over them and the powder of their muskets is rendered sodden and useless.
Then, then they would see about a fair fight!
Subsequent trials determine just which kind of sling will be best for the purpose, and then others of the Defenders set about making them, as more and more of them – including Cornelis the once fat trumpeter – are obliged to sacrifice their pants.
Some of the Survivors who have recently joined the Defenders are carpenters, and they are kept particularly busy. Using the longest bits of driftwood that they can find, along with precious 16-inch nails recovered from the wreck, they are able to make pikes – long poles with a spear-like head – ready for action. Still not content, they take some of the barrel hoops from their empty barrels, break them, flatten them, sharpen one side and, by attaching them to small pieces of driftwood, soon have swords!
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