Batavia Epub

by Pete Fitzsimons

  ‘Judick,’ he shouts across the way, recognising his daughter among them, ‘come across to your father.’

  But the Mutineers standing alongside respond to Judick, ‘If you have any thoughts of going to your father, we will cut you to pieces. It is all the doings of your father that these people have been slaughtered.’

  With heavy heart, the Predikant turns his back on his downcast daughter, trusting her fate to God.

  At this point, it is possible of course that the Mutineers could launch one final attack, but, clearly, the situation is hopeless. Not only do the Defenders have Jeronimus as a hostage, but the Mutineers have tried to make an attack like this twice before, and twice they have failed. None of them really has the stomach to try one more time, after what has just happened.

  2 September 1629, Batavia’s Graveyard

  On Batavia’s Graveyard late that afternoon, those few who have remained can see two yawls returning from far away. Strange, what has happened to the other yawl? They closely follow the vessels’ course as they get closer. Jeronimus always likes to be properly farewelled and greeted on the rare occasions when he sallies forth from Batavia’s Graveyard, and under the circumstances no one dares not be on the beach when he returns. But . . . but . . . where is he?

  From a mile out, it becomes obvious that beyond there being one boat missing – in fact, it is the one used to transport the cloth to Hayes’s Island – there is also no sign of Jeronimus’s familiar black curls and bright-red vestments with gold lace. The word spreads. Now, they all gather on the beach, but for an entirely different reason. Clearly, something momentous has happened, and everyone wants to know what it is.

  ‘Dood . . . een slachting . . . schanddaad . . . dead . . . stabbed . . . infamy,’ Wouter Loos croaks as his first words onshore, as they all crowd around. Refusing to speak another word until he has some water – for he is completely spent and parched after the shock of what has happened, followed by his long and exhausting journey – he slowly relates the story between gulps. From what Loos has seen, he is all but positive that Zevanck and van Huyssen are both dead, while the Kapitein-Generaal is definitely at least a prisoner, and possibly dead too. As to Gijsbert van Welderen, he is not sure but he presumes that he, too, has been mercilessly cut down. The Predikant is alive and with Hayes and his men.

  As one, the Mutineers and the few remaining Survivors step back, trying to comprehend the news and its ramifications. The most significant thing, of course, is that the Kapitein-Generaal is no longer among them, nor his two most vicious henchmen, which entirely changes the power structure on Batavia’s Graveyard. It gives the Survivors a thin hope that things are about to get better, for whatever happens now it can hardly be worse.

  For the Mutineers, too, their entire world has suddenly changed. They will need a new leader, and that leader will have to decide whether or not to continue the attacks on Hayes and his men and try to rescue Jeronimus.

  But is he even still alive? It is the subject of many a hushed discussion on Batavia’s Graveyard, with no one – excepting Lucretia – prepared to acknowledge the hope of many, that the evil one has finally been killed.

  In fact, Jeronimus lives on, but in circumstances certainly not to his liking . . .

  After being taken prisoner, he was first taken back to the island’s main encampment, where a discussion took place as to what to do with this hideous murderer. Kill him outright, as he so clearly deserves? Many were in favour of it, though Wiebbe Hayes reserved the final say for himself. By killing Jeronimus and making his death known – perhaps by putting his head on a pike and planting it in the shallows – they would be forestalling any rescue attempts purely to get him, but on the other hand they would be sacrificing the key hostage they have in any possible future negotiations. In the end, Hayes came up with a solution. Jeronimus will be kept alive, for the moment, and will work as their servant.

  8 September 1629, Batavia’s Graveyard

  Despite how lowly and how quickly Jeronimus has fallen, it is just possible that help will soon be at hand. Back on Batavia’s Graveyard, the first of two key decisions is taken, after the 32 remaining Mutineers vote. The first is that their new leader is not Stonecutter, as some had thought inevitable, but instead . . . Wouter Loos. Somehow, with the passing of the Age of Jeronimus, so too has passed the age of vicious violence for the sake of violence, and the more careful approach of Loos is the one required now. So Loos it is, and on the eighth day of September the remaining Mutineers swear an oath of loyalty to that effect.

  Nevertheless, no sooner has Loos been installed than he personally takes the second decision: they will attack the High Islands once more, as quickly as possible, and attempt to rescue the Kapitein-Generaal if he is still alive, hopefully ridding themselves of the whole Hayes problem in the process.

  Loos’s plan, as he now makes clear to his cohorts, is to launch an all-out attack, throwing into it everything they have, to settle this once and for all. He also makes clear that they simply do not have the luxury of taking their time. They must attack and triumph, for fear that help will soon be at hand for those on the High Islands.

  In their separate tents, meanwhile, both Lucretia and Judick are having a fearful time. Their initial rejoicing at the news that Coenraat has been killed and Jeronimus at the very least captured has given way to great anxiety. What now, for them? Will the new leader, Wouter Loos, impose his attentions on one or both of them? Will they now be thrown into the foetid pool of women for common service, for the surviving Mutineers to take their pleasure with at will?

  The answer is neither. With whatever shreds of decency that remain in him, Wouter Loos gives the order that both women are to be left alone and unmolested, and the order is respected.

  As to Judick’s father, the Predikant, he now lives on the island with Wiebbe Hayes and his men, but so intent is he on avoiding further bloodshed that he even tries to draw up a treaty, whereby both sides agree to remain on their own islands and leave the other alone – a treaty that Wiebbe Hayes says he would be happy to honour.

  Loos feels he has no choice. On Batavia’s Graveyard, notwithstanding the numbers that have been killed, the prediction of Jeronimus is coming true: they are fast running out of water, and their food supply will not hold. They need to attack Wiebbe Hayes and his men: to survive and get their water and food; to prevent them warning any rescue yacht of their plans; and to stop them telling any rescuer what has occurred in the previous months. They must attack.

  Mid-September 1629, aboard the Sardam

  Francisco Pelsaert has never been so frustrated in his life. They have finally managed to drop anchor in the vicinity of the Abrolhos Islands without yet being able to find a way through the 90-mile stretch of shallows, shoals, reefs and low islands to reach the Survivors.

  On 13 September, three hours after sunrise, they come across a series of reefs that looks both promising and familiar. Yet, with the wind blowing hard from the south-south-east, it is difficult to tack their way through the archipelago, which runs broadly north–south. Nevertheless, by taking risks, they manage to get through one layer of them and proceed carefully through the more sheltered waters, taking soundings all the way and watching closely for any more hidden hazards that might open the hull like a split banana.

  At noon, they find themselves at the latitude of exactly 28 degrees, and shortly thereafter they see once more het Zuidland. They have come too far on this run and need to turn back to explore the next lower latitude this side of the reef, but the wind is against them, so they drop anchor for the night in 30 fathoms, within earshot of the roar of the breakers. For Pelsaert, the sound of these breakers is particularly chilling, taking him back, as it does, to the horrors of the pre-dawn of 4 June 1629. As the wind keeps blowing hard from precisely the direction they wish to travel in, though, there is no alternative but to stay there for the next two days and nights, until the abating wind releases the Sardam from its grasp.

  Heading roughly west once
more at a latitude of 27 degrees 54 minutes, they tack all day into the south-south-east wind to get a little further south before dropping anchor on a clear, sandy bottom. On the morning of 16 September, at daybreak, they weigh anchor again and move further to the south, still proceeding gingerly into a now unsympathetic west-south-west wind, which makes the going difficult.

  Sensing that they are close, Pelsaert commands the skipper, Jacob Jacobsz, to thread through the breakers on the northern side of the Abrolhos so as to approach the islands from the east.

  17 September 1629, Abrolhos Islands

  As the sun rises on this sparkling morning, first dancing a merry jig across the Abrolhos’s azure water, drawing countless sparkles from the shimmering surface, it reveals a curious configuration of the ship’s company who survived the shipwreck of the Batavia some 14 weeks earlier. For, whereas on the eve of that shipwreck they were all tightly packed together and all heading in the one direction – towards the capital of the Dutch East Indies, they thought – now, there is much space between them and they are divided in two and ranged directly against each other like night and day.

  At daybreak on their island, Wiebbe Hayes and his Defenders look out from their positions to see that the Mutineers are approaching in force. Led by Wouter Loos, some 30 of them are now wading through the shallows towards them. Clearly, the weeks of skirmishes are over and the day of reckoning has come.

  But wait! What’s this? Suddenly appearing, climbing down from the cliffs like Moses coming down from the Mount, the tails of his cassock flapping in the breeze, is none other than the Predikant, Gijsbert Bastiaensz, who is proffering peace. Clutched in his trembling hand is the ‘peace treaty’ he has been working on. Wouter Loos signals to his trailing troops that they hold off one minute to hear the man out.

  ‘Good morning, dear Predikant. What can I do you for?’ he enquires pleasantly.

  In reply, the Predikant holds out his treaty to the new leader of the Mutineers and mumbles he only wants God’s peace to be spread among them and that they should not do any harm to each other.

  ‘Is that the case, Predikant?’ chuckles Loos, with genuine good humour, before ripping up the treaty before the Predikant’s very eyes. ‘Now be gone!’ he demands, before defiantly waving his men voorwaarts! And forwards they go.

  And so it is on.

  Moving swiftly from position to position, Wiebbe Hayes ensures that his men are ready, that they understand exactly what they have to do and are in the right frame of mind to do it. The key, Hayes knows, is going to be bringing the Mutineers to close quarters, where they can be attacked with pikes and spears before they can take the minute required to reload their muskets. Until then, under no circumstances are the men to expose themselves while within musket range, as otherwise they risk simply being picked off one by one.

  The problem, of course, is that the Mutineers have learned from their previous skirmishes what the tactics of the Defenders will be, and this time they are taking steps to counter them. As Loos’s men trudge through these infernal and eternal muddy shallows that suck the life out of a man’s legs, he stresses to them that they must not come to close quarters with the Defenders under any circumstances. The great advantage of their two muskets – which is all that remains of their original arsenal after the majority were rendered useless by seawater – is that they can wound and even kill at a distance of 100 yards, while the rocks being hurled at them can only hurt them at 30 and 40 yards. Therefore, all they need to do is to spread out, approach carefully and never get closer than 50 yards to the Defenders, and ultimately they will win the day.

  It makes sense. Methodically this time, the Mutineers move forward, pausing only intermittently to bring their muskets to their hips, resting the lower end of the supporting fork in the shallows and firing off shots at whichever Defenders they can see – always resisting the temptation to surge at them as they have done on previous occasions. With each flash of a musket, there is an enormous puff of smoke, giving the curious effect that the whole upper body of the man firing disappears for a couple of seconds, before reappearing.

  In reply to the musket fire, Hayes and his men do the best they can. Recognising this to be a different kind of battle, Hayes orders his men to secrete themselves at all costs. He directs them to have their rocks at the ready and to launch them hard and fast, while presenting as small and briefly exposed a target as possible. Following his orders to the letter, the Defenders keep up a constant volley of stones. And so the battle rages . . .

  Marshalling his forces well, Loos directs his two gun men to pursue alternate firing, so that whenever a Defender shows himself, at least one musket will be on him, while the other musket is moving forward ten yards and being reloaded.

  Fire. Move forward. Fire. Move forward.

  In this fashion, Wiebbe Hayes has no choice but to move his men progressively further back, even while they continue to hurl rocks at the Mutineers from unexpected angles. They have some successes, but so, too, do they suffer from this new kind of warfare, as first one, then two, then three, then four of the Defenders are shot and fearfully wounded.

  Still, Loos does not press the attack, knowing that patience is everything. They have enough musket balls to be able to do this all day if necessary, and he sees no reason why they shouldn’t.

  The battle, beginning at 9 am, rages for the next three hours, with the Defenders being progressively beaten back in the face of the Mutineers’ advances. If the Mutineers should gain a full purchase on the land, then all will be lost for the Defenders – they will have lost all advantage of cliff height, while the invaders will no longer be hampered by being in the water.

  With that in mind, Wiebbe Hayes is now feeling an uncharacteristic surge of desperation, racking his brains for the solution. Have they really held out all these weeks only to succumb now? Can they really go on, falling back and being picked off one by one as the Mutineers keep advancing? Is there no way out?

  And it is just while he is struggling with this very question, even as the Mutineers push forward on the right flank and are threatening to totally overwhelm them, that Otto Smit cries out and points to the east. Hayes follows the line of his arm and gasps, for now he sees it too.

  A sail. A SAIL!

  At last, at last, their ship has come in.

  Some 150 yards away from Wiebbe Hayes and Otto Smit, Wouter Loos and his men see the sail too, but they have a totally different reaction. Certainly, the Mutineers are equally stunned that this yacht has arrived at the very time when they are finally about to effect a great victory, but a ‘rescue yacht’ they know it is not, at least not for them. Rather, unless it can be overcome, this yacht will be bringing them all to a grisly end. For the vessel is an emissary from the outside world, with a devastating cargo, as it brings all the power of the real Company to their own world once more, and a swift meting out of justice will be the likely result.

  In an instant, thus, the situation has changed, and for the most part both sides recognise it immediately. Now, the victor of this day’s great battle will not be the one who possesses the High Islands, for that is no longer relevant. The winner will be the one who can get to the yacht first to either – in the case of the Defenders – warn them of the situation and get them to bring their guns to bear, or – in the case of the Mutineers – attempt to seize control of her. If the Defenders win, Loos and his men will die. If the Mutineers win, they will at last have a means of escape from these infernal climes and terrible times, and have a chance to live out their lives as floating kings of the Indies, complete with their great treasures.

  On the High Islands, out on the right flank, Otto Smit looks to Wiebbe Hayes for his reaction but is amazed. For Wiebbe has already gone. Within seconds of seeing the sail, Hayes grabbed the four men closest to him and is now running along the rough track that leads along the spine of the western high island and down to the beach on the isolated northern side of the isle, undiscovered by the Mutineers. It is here that, many we
eks before, Hayes secreted the precious yawl taken from the Mutineers in a safe place secure from any nightly incursions. In fact, if the very worst had come in the battle with the Mutineers, this boat was to be their last recourse, enabling them to slip away, likely to het Zuidland. A good soldier, with a sound grasp of tactics, Hayes already had an alternative plan in place if the first plan didn’t work. Now, hallelujah, the yawl can be used for a different purpose.

  Wouter Loos’s reaction to the yacht, however, is surprising. At the mere sight of the sail, all the fight seems to go out of him. Of all people, it is Jan Pelgrom who recognises the urgency of the situation and the need for instant action. ‘Come now,’ he says to Loos, ‘won’t we now seize the jacht?’

  ‘No,’ replies Loos, slumping a little and looking wan. ‘I have given up the idea.’

  Well, the other Mutineers have not. Led by Stonecutter, and leaving Loos behind, they do what they can to get quickly back to their own boat, though speed is a problem. While it is less than a mile away, it is a hard mile to travel, through mudflats dotted with tripping rocks and gashing coral shards.

  But Stonecutter ignores all pain and all exhaustion against the need to get himself and the ten men he has taken with him into the fastest boat they have on hand and start rowing towards the yacht, as behind them all vestiges of the battle have entirely stopped.

  They must get there first!

  CHAPTER TEN

  In Justice Reunited

  Everything that has been done is not my fault . . .

  Jeronimus Cornelisz

  What a Godless life it was that has been lived here.

  Francisco Pelsaert

  17 September 1629, just off the High Islands

  On the Sardam, Pelsaert is for a short time feeling as good as he has at any time in the last four months. At last, after four wretched weeks of zigzagging back and forth in the very area Jacobsz reckoned they left in early June, they have not only found the infernal isles where the Batavia went down but are also seeing signs of life! To their south, they suddenly see thin, improbably blue plumes of smoke seared against an impossibly blue sky. As before, for Pelsaert, this can only mean one thing: people! And if some have survived, why not all of them?