It looks like there is going to be a battle royal: evil and guns hard up against goodness and rocks. God will see them right, Hayes feels sure.
23 July 1629, on the approaches to Hayes’s Island
Divide et impera.
It worked very well initially, so why not again? The more Jeronimus thinks about it, and he does so constantly, it seems to him that his best chance to destroy Wiebbe Hayes and his men is to turn them against each other.
It is with this in mind that on this day the young cadet and Mutineer Daniel Cornelisz – he who boasted that his sword was so sharp it went through Warner Dircxsz ‘as if he was butter’ – is being rowed across to Hayes’s Island. The firm, if not so precise, instructions of Jeronimus ring in young Daniel’s ears. Divide et impera, divide et impera. Once landed, he is to find a way to make contact with the French soldiers, who Jeronimus reasons will be less faithful to Hayes than his Dutch compatriots. Daniel is to pass them in secret a letter that Jeronimus has penned . . .
The closer that Cornelisz gets to the island, the more nervous he becomes. Just how, exactly, is he going to make contact with the six Frenchmen without alerting Wiebbe Hayes and the rest of his men? As a matter of fact, he realises as he is dropped in the shallows of the east coast’s only suitable landing spot and has to wade the rest of the way to the shore, he doesn’t know where to begin his search to find even one of Hayes’s men, let alone the Frenchmen.
He needn’t have worried.
For on Hayes’s Island a cry has just gone up from one of the lookouts whom Hayes has placed on his south-eastern shores. An approaching boatload of men has been spotted, the distant splash from their oars sparkling in the bright sunshine, the straining figures above those oars all curiously dressed in red.
No sooner does Cornelisz arrive on the island and climb the small cliff face to breast the plateau than he finds himself surrounded by six men with rough swords and sharp pikes, all pointed at him! What was Jeronimus, the brilliant strategist, thinking to have him landed on the island like this?
Just minutes later, the captive is frogmarched up to Wiebbe Hayes, who looks him over and commands that he be searched. It is Otto Smit who finds the letter secreted in the folds of Cornelisz’s cloak. Far from being seduced by it, the French soldiers are highly amused by it, as they translate it for Hayes, even mimicking Jeronimus’s sometimes lisping Friesan ‘accthent’.
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Oh, how they laugh! A secret compass? Really? So they ‘can go secretly with the little boat to the high land’ – het Zuidland – that lies to their east? Now, why would anyone want to do that, when they have more than they can possibly eat and drink right here? Jeronimus, clearly, has no idea, and they are all amazed at this ludicrous ploy to turn them from brothers to enemies.
In their skiff anchored in deep water just off the shallows that surround Hayes’s Island, the two Mutineers who have brought Daniel Cornelisz sit and wait, hoping for the smallest sign that the young man might be returning to them, might have accomplished his mission. As the hours pass and the sun begins to wane and then even to set, they are forced to the reluctant conclusion that something has gone wrong. Perhaps Daniel has been captured; fallen over in the mudflats and drowned; been bitten by a poisonous lizard; collapsed from exhaustion? Whatever the explanation, there is no doubt as to their course of action – they must set off back to Batavia’s Graveyard to report to the Kapitein-Generaal, leaving Daniel Cornelisz to his fate.
24 July 1629, Seals’ Island
And now it is time to do the final tidy-up of Seals’ Island. Jeronimus instructs Stonecutter – who, with the Kapitein-Generaal’s blessing, has now promoted himself all the way up to being a Lieutenant-General and insists on being so addressed – and three minor Mutineers who need ‘blooding’ to row the yawl across to the island and finish them off.
This time, the hunt is a little different. The island is narrow, it is broad daylight and, by starting at the southern end and systematically combing in a line towards the other, the four murderers efficiently flush out the three boys, who are found cowering together in spindly bushes on the northern tip. Instead of killing them outright, however, Lieutenant-General Stonecutter and the others laughingly capture them, truss them up and put them on the yawl, seemingly to come back to Batavia’s Graveyard. Then, mid-channel, he gives one of the three weeping lads, Claas Harmansz – the very boy who was spotted by Jeronimus searching for molluscs – an opportunity to save himself in the now time-honoured fashion. If he is untied, will he agree to throw his two companions overboard and then join them as a Mutineer? The wild-eyed Claas agrees to do exactly that and is as good as his word. Within two minutes, he has been untied and has pushed his two former friends to their watery graves. They disappear over the sides of the boat, their faces upturned to the light and the air that Claas still enjoys above, even as they sink to the depths. Though troubled, the youngster, Claas, arrives on the shores of Batavia’s Graveyard alive, as a fully fledged Mutineer, for he has killed in cold blood.
As it happens, Harmansz has joined the Mutineers at the very time that it is obvious to Jeronimus they are going to need more killers. Certainly, the best part of the killing on Batavia’s Graveyard, Seals’ Island and Traitors’ Island has been accomplished, but the fact that Daniel Cornelisz has not returned from Hayes’s Island – and has presumably been captured or killed – has highlighted just how critical that situation has become.
It is now urgent, thus, that the Hayes problem be eliminated, and as the last days of July begin to dribble away the way sand used to in the hourglass on the Batavia, Jeronimus and his most trusted lieutenants turn their attention to this very project.
25 July 1629, Batavia’s Graveyard
First things first, however. Eliminating those on Hayes’s Island might well be difficult. Getting rid of the weak on this island is much easier. And, on this morning, Jeronimus is bored. Having the power of life and death over people offers no satisfaction unless it is constantly exercised, and it has now been days since anyone has been killed on Batavia’s Graveyard itself. Thus, arriving unannounced at the tent of his long-time servant Rogier Decker – who is frying some fish – he commands him to come hither, upon which he offers the 17-year-old a glass of his finest wine and then hands him a gleaming silver dagger. ‘Go outside,’ he commands imperiously, ‘en steek Hendrick Jansz door het hart, and stab Hendrick Jansz in the heart.’
No more than two minutes later, the innocent carpenter Hendrick Jansz lies dead at Rogier’s feet, the pool of blood beneath him already beginning to congeal. Jansz was walking with Salomon Deschamps at the time. Though profoundly shocked, Deschamps did nothing to save his friend and does not protest afterwards. Jeronimus is enormously satisfied. This is not such a boring day after all.
Meanwhile, who is the lonely figure down by the beach, sitting there day after day and barely moving? It is either the Predikant or the man who once was the Predikant, depending on the way you look at it. A shattered, cripplingly lonely man with now only his daughter Judick surviving from his former family of nine, on bad days he can even curse the fact that he has survived at all. The Mutineers have kept him alive to tend to their rafts and boats whenever they launch from the beach or return to the shore. Occasionally, he can hear mutterings that they will ‘let him live a little longer, as we might make use of him to persuade the folk on the other island to come over to us’. The main thing for the moment, they tell him, is that he must not weep, that he must ‘be stil, silent, or you go the same way’.
There are only two occasions when the Predikant does not feel completely desolate. The first is when he reads his Bible – searching for solace among the tear-stained passages – and the second is when he manages to talk to Judick.
Father and daughter contrive to meet once a day for a short time, usually when Coenraat van Huyssen is off somewhere intimidating people. When they do dare to meet, though they try to present to each other as brave a front as possible, usually th
e fair facade crumbles quickly to reveal the devastation within.
‘Judick, my only child,’ often laments the Predikant, ‘you must look tomorrow to see whether I have been murdered.’
And though Judick shakes her head and sobs, not wanting it to ever be true, she knows in her heart it is every bit possible. The fact that he is Coenraat van Huyssen’s de facto father-in-law will not save him, any more than it saved the rest of her family.
That afternoon on Batavia’s Graveyard, all is not right in the world of Jeronimus, despite the morning’s satisfying killing. Yes, he is now the master of the island, unchallenged in his total authority over all those living upon it. And he is enjoying all the privileges of power, from the fawning he receives from his subjects to the wealth that lies in his tent, to his access to the finest wines and foods that the stricken Batavia had to offer – and he particularly enjoys wearing only the finest silks, with a new outfit every day. But something is missing, something that continues to gnaw at him.
It is Lucretia. In his bed. Despite all of his charm, all of his most earnest supplications, she has completely resisted him. Nothing will sway her to his view that her proper place is not just in his tent but right by his side, or beneath him and holding him close. Nothing!
Finally, on this bright, shining day, while he and David Zevanck are walking, preening themselves in their fine red coats as they roam around their domain – it takes 20 minutes to promenade around the whole island and they do it regularly – he confides his angst and his supreme frustration to the younger man.
Zevanck, bemused that Jeronimus could agonise over a problem that can be solved so very, very easily, replies, ‘And don’t you know how to manage that? I’ll soon make her do it.’
That very afternoon, thus, Zevanck walks to Jeronimus’s tent and, without preamble, pushes his way in to confront Lucretia. ‘I hear complaints about you,’ he says, lightly.
‘On what account?’ she replies.
‘Because you do not comply with the Kapitein-Generaal’s wishes in kindness. Now, however, you will have to make up your mind. Either you will go the same way as Wybrecht Claas or you will do that for which we have kept the women.’
With the words ‘the same way as Wybrecht Claas’, Zevanck slyly pulls back his cassock to reveal the well-seasoned haft of his dagger, so his meaning is unmistakable. As to ‘that for which we have kept the women’, it is already more than obvious what that means.
And so it is that that very night, Lucretia finally succumbs to Jeronimus’s appalling attentions, albeit only in the manner of a cold and sick seal. Her body is present, but her mind and spirit are entirely absent.
26 July 1629, Batavia’s Graveyard
It is a typically overcast and windswept dawn . . . struggling to turn into anything other than a smudge of light on the distant horizon, let alone full sunshine. For the Mutineers, however, this is not just another day. Rather, this is a day when Jeronimus is extremely angry, and homicidally intent on expressing that anger.
No more Mr Nice Guy.
He gathers 20 of his best Mutineers outside his tent to deliver a speech that simply pours without pause out of him. As they know, their emissary, Daniel Cornelisz, has been taken by Hayes and his 40 traitors. No doubt because of Cornelisz’s incompetence, the previous plan to sow the seeds of treachery among the French ranks of the Defenders has failed, and there is therefore no recourse but to launch an all-out attack. And he knows what he wants with that attack: ‘Maak ze allemaal dood! Kill them all!’
Having concluded, he solemnly nods towards his second in command to take care of the practical matters.
With this, Zevanck reiterates the Kapitein-Generaal’s exhortations and prepares to equip these most loyal men with all the weaponry they have available, including limited musketry. Laying out the battle strategy, he orders the men with musquetten to be in the vanguard of the attack, followed by those brothers armed with their trusty swords and daggers. Gravely, he calls the names of the chosen ones, and each man, with head bowed, approaches the front of the line.
Watching from a silently disgusted distance, the Predikant reflects that it is almost as though they are partaking of communion, but instead of getting bread and wine, representing the body and blood of Christ, they step away holding instruments designed to draw real blood from the real bodies of real men.
Those Mutineers holding the standard-issue VOC muskets are privileged but burdened, for they are extremely heavy. No matter, each musket is supported by a vertical fork, and by planting the bottom end of the fork on the ground they will easily be able to fire from the shoulder. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that with these modern VOC muskets, they can be ready to fire again in as little as two minutes!
So it is that, in the late morning, these 20 Mutineers, led by Zevanck and van Huyssen, set off from Batavia’s Graveyard and begin poling and paddling their way to the north. Most look with interest as the islands loom larger before them, as to this point most of them have yet to set foot on either island. They steer broadly towards the direction that they have seen smoke coming from.
26 July 1629, Hayes’s Island
Early that afternoon, Wiebbe Hayes is up by the wells when Otto Smit nudges him and points to the two small vessels that can be seen about four miles away, just off the northern end of Seals’ Island and heading their way.
‘Daar komen ze, they’re coming,’ Otto Smit says simply. There is no panic in his voice, no rush, just a simple recognition that the event they have all been expecting and busily preparing for is now on the point of occurring. ‘Op jullie plaatsen, take up your positions,’ he tells his men.
They do so, though there is no particular hurry as they have plenty of time before the Mutineers arrive. Also, there is no doubt from which direction the attack will come.
Getting nearer now . . .
All of the Mutineers are surprised by how forbidding the High Islands look from up close. True, from the far perspective of Batavia’s Graveyard, the islands have always looked rather brooding, distantly disapproving of what is happening around Jeronimus. But, up close, they suddenly have real menace about them, an effect exacerbated by the fact that the Mutineers have no idea just where the Defenders are situated on the island.
Somehow, they imagined that once the enemy was on the run they would be able to see exactly where he was, and so be able to frame an attack on that spot. In fact, however, there is no sign of any life at all – no smoke, no tents, no construction of any sort visible atop the cliffs. Thus, the Mutineers simply navigate towards the most obvious spot, which is the closest point of land. The excited chatter on the journey now dies away as they come ever closer to the shore, looking for the tiniest sign of Wiebbe Hayes and his men. Where are they?
Lying flat on his belly at the top of those cliffs and peering carefully through the branches, Wiebbe Hayes watches the approach with some satisfaction. Though the Mutineers are not yet close enough for him to determine who exactly is in the boats – he is hoping to see Jeronimus in all his finery, as has been described to him – he can already roughly determine their number and affirm that they will indeed be landing on the shores exactly where he wants them to. To the left and right of him he has a total of 30 of his men, equally prone, and as ingeniously armed as possible. Behind him, another 20 of his men are keeping low and out of sight, armed with their own missiles and weaponry and ready to come forward at his signal. He keeps watching carefully, estimating that within 50 yards the attackers will . . .
Hit the bottom.
The rough plan of attack formulated by Zevanck and van Huyssen to this point is no more detailed than their typical modus operandi – landing and then hunting down and killing all the unarmed men with their muskets and swords. As it turns out, however, even before they arrive, things become difficult. A good mile from the island, the boats indeed hit the shallows, and there proves to be no way forward or around. Reluctantly, they come to the conclusion that they will have to wade the rest of th
e way . . . and there, too, is a problem. The sandy bottom sucks at their feet, making their clogs sink deep with every step, and it is exhausting to suck them out again to take the next step, let alone advance with any speed. And then the sea floor be comes rocky and treacherous. Sometimes, when they step on a rock, it gives way, and they are lucky if they do not fall into the sea, rendering their muskets useless.
Still they continue, grimly determined to do the job that Jeronimus has set for them. With the always aggressive Zevanck in the lead, they approach to within the shadow of the westernmost island.
Strangely, however, there still appears to be not the slightest sign of life, as all the smoke has gone and . . .
And, literally out of a clear blue sky, there is a sudden strange sound, an odd whoooooshing. (And for once, for once, this is a legitimate case of ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’.) The Mutineers all look up, just as the first of many stones nearly takes Coenraat’s head off, whizzing past his right ear so closely that he can hear its whistle.
Behind Coenraat, a split second later, Stonecutter takes that same stone on his right shoulder, and then another coral missile hits Lenart van Os, so that his musket is knocked out of his hands and is now lying completely useless in the water. On inspection, his right hand now sports a deep gash, from which pours forth gouts of blood. Using teeth and his good hand, he tears a length of material from his tattered cassock and quickly binds tight the wound.
And now, dozens of stones are raining down upon them. They are under attack! While the first wave is composed of larger rocks being hurled by the now whirring slings, the next wave is made up of much smaller rocks, and they seem to be coming from a spot unknown. At this point, the Mutineers have not actually seen a single person on the island – only the hail of stones coming from it. Worse, like fat cows stuck in the mud, it is difficult for them to dodge out of the way of even the stones they can see coming, and it is all they can do to twist their bodies at the last instant – resulting in more of the extremely heavy muskets being accidentally dropped and some abandoned.
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