To Die a Dry Death: The True Story of the Batavia Shipwreck

by Greta van Der Rol

  Coen gestured to a padded chair and sat in another. Pelsaert accepted a glass of wine from a silver platter, brought noiselessly by a slave.

  “An ordeal indeed, Lord Governor. I would not wish this experience on anyone and I thank the good Lord that I have lived to tell the tale.”

  “And I am as pleased as you—though saddened, of course, by the loss of lives and a fine ship. Please—tell me your story.”

  “The ship ran aground on the fourth of June, before dawn. The captain assured me that we were far from land and I took his word, of course. I am no sailor. The watch was his when the accident happened. I asked if he had not seen the white water but he said he had mistaken it for moonlight on the waves.

  “A reef, he explained, hoping that we could float the ship off with the rising tide. But alas, as the tide began to ebb, we realised we had struck at high tide. I gave orders to fling all the heaviest items over the side—the cannons in particular, but all to no avail. And then the weather turned, bringing high seas and rain.

  “The captain persuaded me to allow him to fell the mast, saying the ship, so lightened, may float off the reef into the deeper water to stern. So with some misgivings, I allowed the action to be taken. But the mast, thus cut through, fell to the port side of the vessel and did even more damage.” He was silent for a moment, for dramatic effect. “At this point, I knew the ship was finished and we must do what we could to bring the people and the Company’s goods to safety.”

  He sipped his wine. Coen seemed to be taking his news well enough. Certainly his wasn’t the first ship to run aground near the South Land. Coen himself had been on Wappen van Hoorn, which had landed men on that hostile coast.

  “I had sent the captain to search for land as soon as dawn had come. He found we were wrecked on the edge of a group of small islands surrounded by reef and I ordered him to take off as many people from the ship as he could. At the same time, I stacked the jewels the ship carried into a cask and had that, also, taken to the island. But some of the soldiers and sailors on the ship went mad and broke into the stores in the poop, where they stole wine and spirits. Drunk, they opposed their masters and betters and we could no longer salvage the Company’s goods from the hold. So I know that the twelve cases of silver will still be in the ship, at no great depth. Along with much other merchandise that might be salvaged.”

  That went down fairly well. No need for him to know the contents of one case were scattered on the tide. Coen shifted position in his chair and fingered his beard.

  “What about the people?” he asked.

  “With the two boats, we transferred nearly two hundred people to the larger of two small islands, with what water and bread we could save from the ship. Some who threw themselves into the water in an attempt to swim, perished in the sea; seventy others remained on the Batavia, but although we tried time and again to reach them, in the end the sea was too rough and we had no choice but to pray the good Lord would help them to save themselves.”

  That raised some questions. Pelsaert explained the shallow reef waters and the possibility of building rafts from the ship timbers.

  “These islands are probably the ones Frederik de Houtman encountered ten years ago,” said Coen.

  “Yes, I think so,” said Pelsaert. “That was what Captain Jacobsz thought. But the islands were not on his charts.”

  “And then you left the people,” said Coen. The two lines between his eyebrows deepened.

  “I had no choice, my Lord,” answered Pelsaert. “We had little water for so many, so I ordered that the captain and the other people on the smaller island—we numbered thirty-eight—should seek water at the other nearby islands.”

  “Thirty-eight,” said Coen. “And yet forty-eight arrived here in Batavia?”

  “We were ready to leave when the small boat from Batavia, carrying ten sailors, arrived at the same place we were in, also seeking water. I deemed it appropriate that we should take both boats and bring water back to our poor colleagues as soon as may be. We had some hope, too. It had rained on the day of the wreck and it is winter in those latitudes. Rain could be expected.” Pelsaert wished he could wipe the sweat away from his face. Coen must feel as uncomfortable as he, surely.

  Coen grunted and waved a hand, riffling the lace cuffs at his wrist. “Where did you go?”

  “The South Land. But it was barren and waterless.” Here, Coen nodded. “We were fortunate to find a small store of water to replenish our casks. But we were now so far from the islands that I determined that our best course of action was to sail for Batavia and bring help back to them.”

  “It is clear that the captain is an admirable sailor. An amazing feat of seamanship, to cross these uncharted waters in a small, overcrowded boat.”

  “Oh, an able enough sailor,” said Pelsaert.

  Coen raised an eyebrow. “You seem… less than impressed?”

  “The man is a drunken sot and a lecher.”

  “Are you suggesting he was drunk at his station when the ship struck the reef?”

  Oh, it was tempting. But no, he couldn’t live with that. Besides, there were people enough to disagree. “No. But his behaviour was most unseemly on more than one occasion on the voyage.

  “I must also regretfully tell you about an assault carried out on the person of a lady of quality who was a passenger on our ship. Lucretia Jansdochter is the wife of Boudewijn van de Mijlen, who you would know.”

  Coen’s eyes narrowed. “She was not expected.”

  “No. She told me her decision was sudden and her husband would not have been aware. She sent a letter but it may well not have reached here yet.”

  “An assault?” prompted Coen.

  “Yes. Perhaps it would be best if I explain the circumstances. Lucretia—I don’t know if you have met her?” It seemed not. “She is a very lovely woman. Very lovely. She came on board with a maid and we gave her accommodation as befitted her status. She attracted the attentions of the captain, who tried from the very first to have his way with her. But Lucretia is a chaste, dutiful wife and she refused his advances. The captain was much put out at her refusal and his ardour turned to dislike, even, dare I say hatred.” He hesitated. Maybe he exaggerated a little. They all had to share the table, after all, but conversation was strained, even after he took up with Zwaantie. “In the end, he consoled himself with Lucretia’s maid, a dissolute girl who granted him his every wish.”

  “What of this attack?”

  “I’m coming to that. Some weeks after we had left Table Bay, a group of masked men set upon the Lady Lucretia close to the steersman’s station, after she had left table from the evening meal. They assaulted her, hustled her away, disarranged her gown and smeared her body with tar and filth. She was left in the gallery to be found by the officer of the watch.”

  Coen stiffened, his face white with rage. “Who did this?”

  “We held an investigation, of course. As I said, the lady told us her assailants all had their faces covered so she could not recognise any of them. But one spoke and she is certain that man was the Batavia’s high boatswain, Jan Evertsz. There can be no doubt that an officer was involved. How else could men have approached the lady in the stern apartments, where they are forbidden to go?”

  He drank a little more wine. His throat hurt. He’d done more talking in the last half hour than he had since the longboat left the islands. No need for Coen to know he’d pushed Lucretia for a name, any name.

  The slave refilled the glasses. A trickle of perspiration slid down Pelsaert’s breastbone.

  “And what punishment did you deliver?” demanded Coen, eyes glittering.

  “None, My Lord.”

  “None?” The Governor’s hands balled into fists.

  “Not… not at that time, no. We…” Pelsaert licked his lips. “I deemed that since we were so close to Batavia that it would be best to leave punishment until after our arrival. My Lord would know how difficult discipline can become towards the end of a voyage. The hi
gh boatswain was popular with the crew. He is one of the men who came in the longboat and then sailed to Batavia aboard the Sardam.”

  Coen relaxed, just a little. “So he is here. He will be examined for this outrage,” he said. “I will not tolerate licentious behaviour of any sort and an attack upon the person of a lady of quality is unconscionable.”

  “There is one other reason I did not deem it wise to mete out punishment,” Pelsaert said. “The high boatswain is a particular friend of the captain. I believe at the very least Jan Evertsz carried out the attack to punish the lady for rejecting the captain’s advances. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Captain Jacobsz had not encouraged his friend to do so.”

  The silence lengthened.

  “It seems a long leap from one to the other,” said Coen at last, lips pursed. “Tell me a little more about why you are displeased with this captain.”

  Pelsaert could have added the unsaid words. The Company would not give command of its biggest and newest ship to a fool. “As I have said, he is intemperate in all he does. On this voyage, when we stopped at Table Bay, I went ashore to arrange provisions for the trip. In my absence, Captain Jacobsz persuaded the under merchant—his name is Jeronimus Cornelisz—to go on a drinking spree on the other ships—the Assendelft and Buren. He took the maid, his mistress, with them. The captain became quite drunk and picked a fight with men on the Buren. It was disgusting and quite unseemly. What is more, he took one of the ship’s boats without my permission. Reports of his behaviour came to me on Batavia from the other ships and I had no choice but to rebuke him severely.”

  “Quite right, too,” said Coen.

  Pelsaert remembered it well, Jacobsz bleary-eyed and hung over but unrepentant. Just as he had been in Surat two years before, when the insults he’d thrown at Pelsaert in the presence of the other merchants on the Dordrecht had earned him a dressing-down from Commandeur Grijph.

  Coen fingered his beard. Pelsaert wondered what was going through his head. The interview had proceeded well enough until he’d mentioned he hadn’t punished the people who had attacked Lucretia. But surely the Governor would understand the problem.

  “Well then,” Coen said. “We must make shift to see what we can do to rescue these people and to recover the Company’s goods.” He stared at the windows, where muslin curtains stirred in a damp breeze. Rain fell, hard and steady, in the courtyard outside. “You have this cask of jewels you mentioned?”

  “No. The captain deliberately left it behind.”

  “Deliberately?”

  “Yes. He said we needed bread more than jewels, that the cask would still be there when we returned.” He scowled in recollection. Jacobsz had almost mocked him.

  The Governor frowned, his disapproval evident. “And you allowed this to happen?”

  “Allowed, no. The captain tricked me. He put the cask in the boat and later removed it when my attention was elsewhere.” Pelsaert unclenched his fist. This wasn’t going well. Coen thought he was weak; he could see it in the man’s eyes. “If the jewels are lost… it will be on his account and he should be made to pay. I hope for his sake that he is right and that the cask is found.”

  Coen grunted. “Let us hope so. This has happened at a bad time for us, Pelsaert. The city has been besieged by a local ruler. He calls himself Sushunan.” Coen’s voice dripped contempt. “Huh. It means ‘he to whom everything is subject’. He came with ten thousand soldiers in August last year. I was forced to withdraw the people to the fortress and burn the country beyond the city walls to deny him supply. He has gone—he left when his army ran out of food in December. But he will return, I am sure of it. In the meanwhile, we need trade goods and perhaps more urgently, the soldiers your ship carried.”

  “I am sorry,” said Pelsaert. What more could he say? He’d already opened his heart to Raembruch on the Frederick Hendrick as the ship sailed the short distance from the Sunda Strait to Batavia. If only. Perhaps he should have stayed. But if he had, what then? He wondered how they fared, two-thousand miles away. His eyes sagged and he rubbed his face with a weary hand.

  Coen’s voice interrupted his reverie. “I must discuss this with the Council tomorrow. You will be called. For now, you need rest and food.” He hesitated, his fingers tapping the carved wood of the chair. “Before you go, however, there is one thing you should know.”

  18

  Forty-five on the Seals’ Island. Twenty on the High Island. Fifteen on Traitors’ Island. And nine more dead. Cornelisz totted up the numbers in his head. Eighty-nine people out of the way. Things were progressing nicely. All he needed was regular excuses to sentence people to death and for Zevanck and van Huyssen to arrange a few more covert disappearances.

  He wandered through the little tent town, exchanging greetings with various people as they went about the business of staying alive. The sisters nodded a respectful hello, no doubt touting for business. Not he. He could wait. Lucretia dined with him every evening now and he walked her back to her tent. He was sure she’d let him hold her hand for a moment at the table last night. He’d hoped a little extra wine would have helped but she refused, gently and politely, as always. He was beginning to understand Jacobsz’s frustration.

  Cornelisz strolled on, past the Harden’s tent, and caught a glimpse of Anneke, arms folded around herself. But then again, there hadn’t been much time for private considerations. No sooner had Hans Harden and his wife returned to their own tent after having supper with him and Lucretia, there had been all that fuss when they found their child missing. Anneke hadn’t been happy, dissolving into floods of tears and screaming and shouting loudly enough to wake the dead. Cornelisz smiled at his little joke. By the time Hans had calmed his wife down, Lucretia was long gone. Hans had accepted the loss with good enough grace. But then he would, wouldn’t he? He could always conceive another child but not if he was dead himself—and he knew the choice. The mother could be another matter, though. It seemed to him that Hans was forced to keep her quiet. Zevanck reported in the morning that Jan Hendricxsz seemed to have quite enjoyed strangling the brat. They’d tossed the body out into the current.

  That reminded him. He’d have to do something about Davidt’s lame puppy, de Vries. Easy enough to pledge allegiance with a knife at your throat. Or all tied up and ready for the water in his case.

  A gust of wind caught the brim of his hat and sent it cart-wheeling away. He whirled to rescue it but Jansz the barber was already dusting it off.

  “Beautiful hat and useful against this bright sun,” said the barber, handing the hat back. “Would you be good enough to make me up some more medicine for Olivier?”

  “Yes, of course. How many sick do we have now?” said Cornelisz, replacing the hat on his head.

  “Ten in the sick tent. All with fever or scurvy. There’s not much I can do for them.”

  “I’ll send Jan Pelgrom with your medicine later today,” said Cornelisz.

  Jansz sketched a bow and walked away.

  It would be something to do, thought Cornelisz, to use his apothecary skills. Ten sick people.

  A cry from the shore startled him out of his thoughts.

  “Look. There’s another one.”

  People emerged from their tents. Judyck and Lucretia; The predikant’s maid with the two younger children; the predikant and his wife. In fact just about everyone who wasn’t off fishing or ill pressed towards the water’s edge.

  Cornelisz joined Zevanck, Pietersz and van Huyssen to gaze across the water to the High Island just in time to see a third column of smoke rise into the air.

  “Water. They must have found water,” somebody cried.

  Damnation. How could this happen, thought Cornelisz. They’d been there for weeks without food or water. They should have been dead. They should all be dead, damn them. Van Huyssen, Pietersz and Zevanck all stared at him.

  “That’s wonderful, isn’t it,” he managed to choke out. “It means more for all of us.”

  “The Lord be praised,”
said Bastiaensz, raising both hands to heaven. “We can send more people there.”

  “Indeed we can,” said Cornelisz. “Indeed, we can.” He shared a smile with Zevanck.

  “Jeronimus.” Van Huyssen clutched his arm and pointed. On Traitors’ Island, not half a mile away, figures stepped onto rafts held steady at the beach. Pieter Jansz and his wife and child, two other women and another child. And then the rest of the men.

  “They’ll be going to the High Islands,” said Pietersz.

  Of course they were, raged Cornelisz. They’d seen the signal fires too, and the provost knew what they meant. He couldn’t have this. It could not be allowed. He had not given permission. It was mutiny. Mutiny against the council. Against him. He turned to van Huyssen and Zevanck. “Stop them.”

  *

  “What are they doing?” breathed Judyck.

  Van Huyssen and Zevanck peeled away from the crowd and rushed past, towards the beach where the boats were kept, calling for their friends as they went.

  “Maybe they’re going to help?” said Lucretia. Cornelisz had given them some order but she hadn’t heard what he’d said. He stood on the shore, hands on his hips, Pietersz towering at his side. The ostrich feather on his hat fluttered in the breeze.

  The little boat grated across the sand and splashed into the water. One of their number held it steady as the other six climbed in and set the oars and then they were off, rowing hard to cross the space to where the rafts drifted in the channel, propelled by two long oars set on each stern. The yawl caught up quickly. Shouts were exchanged but the watchers on the island were too far away to make out the words. Three men leapt from the boat onto each of the rafts, causing them to rock violently. Lucretia put her hand to her mouth. If anyone should fall into the sea... But no. The new arrivals pointed at Batavia’s Graveyard and the rafts changed direction, heading towards them.

  “Stay here.” Zevanck shouted the order as he jumped from the boat and ran to Cornelisz. A few words and he ran back, drawing his sword as he did so.