The Triangle and The Mountain: A Bermuda Triangle Adventure (17 page)

The forecastle crew barely had time to get the anchor down
to the sandy bottom of Table Bay before a boat came alongside. It contained the
aide-de-camp of the castle.  The company official had letters. Van Rijkhoff
excused himself and opened his post. Apart from a letter from the governor,
detailing his accommodation arrangements, there were two letters from the
company. Lastly, there were letters from his wife, one addressed from Cape Town
and one from Amsterdam. In the Amsterdam letter she said that she, the two
children and even the two slaves had made it safely to port. For a moment the
family man in him came alive.

There were expectant glances when he returned to the poop
deck after locking all the correspondence in his desk.

“We will sail as soon as the Batavia portion of the fleet is
in a position to do so. Repairs must start without delay, which means today.”

Within hours the bay became a very busy place as longboats
plied their trade. First, the sick were transported, headed for the roomy
hospital in the gardens. There were many. Some ships had less than half their
company left. Most had died from scurvy during the last phase of the journey.

Van Rijkhoff watched from his usual spot on the poop deck.
He sneezed and his ears hurt. Gun smoke was drifting across the bay from the
frequent cannonades. First, a cannon high up on the slopes of the mountain
announced them while they were still too far off to see the town. As they
closed in on the settlement, a greeting from cannons on the castle boomed over
the waves, which the flagship answered with its own guns. Since then, the guns
on the castle walls belched fire and smoke at irregular intervals, sending code
that was not meant for them.

At the appointed time commodore Van Rijkhoff stepped into
the pinnace of the ship and set out for the shore. He looked behind to see his
broad pennant being lowered.

Commanders from all ships followed suit, having looked out
for his signal for some hours now. They converged on the jetty, where a mass of
people were waiting. It appeared as if all of Cape Town was assembled, each in
his best suit or dress. The moment Van Rijkhoff’s feet touched down on the
steps of the jetty, the guns on the castle opened up with yet another
cannonade, a twenty one shot salute. The visitors formed up, commodore,
commanders, their senior officers and high ranking passengers, to be gawked at
by a solid phalanx of locals, all looking for a sign of the exotic, since they
were from colourful Batavia. They picked up on Van Rijkhoff’s sallow colour,
correctly surmising its cause and giggled at the stumbling feet of officers and
passengers, unused to solid land. For a moment the city forgot that it was in
the grip of the biggest epidemic of its history as it celebrated one of the
highlights of the year – the arrival of the return fleet.

The only sour note was the pox. Despite the joy of making
land, the next few weeks became for Van Rijkhoff Batavia all over. The mourning
was everywhere and it spoiled an otherwise pleasant sojourn. To escape the
misery he made a trip into the countryside and visited hamlets and farms all
the way to Stellenbosch and then even deeper into the hinterland where he
visited a region called
Vergelegen
, which was established by governor
Van der Schoon, now succeeded by the present incumbent.  He was somewhat awed
by the impenetrable appearance of the Great Mountains and saw the road to
Eland’s Pass. They told him it led to the land of the
Hottentotten
.

There were a few events organised by the governor that he
had to attend, including another grand parade, for which all the dignitaries
travelling with the fleet dressed up in their finest once more. Mrs Vis greeted
him very formally this time. She had heard that his family was alive. Otherwise
he kept himself confined to his quarters. There he went through the Books of
Consumption of every ship in detail, including the Galle contingent. Nobody was
going to eat the company into a loss under his watch.

Then the weather changed. It was nothing special in a place
where you often experienced all four seasons in one day. What caught the
attention of one of the commanders was that the watchers of the castle started
putting sandbags on the seaward wall. He climbed up to enquire.

“What is this about?” he asked. Do we expect attack?”

“No sire. This is just experience. We expect a storm. The
old-timers amongst us can feel the violence on the wind.” He put up a finger to
test the northwester that had sprung up only that afternoon. “It will hit us
with its full force tonight. Then the water will be right up to here.” They
pointed at the broad expanse of Strand Street, which separated the castle from
the beach.

“My good man, but this is impossible. We are a hundred feet
above the sea.”

“Not if the storm is very strong and not if it coincides
with the high tide. Have you noticed that there is a gate on this side of the
castle which is permanently closed up? This was once the main gate but then we
had some big storms here before, when the water washed right into the castle.
We know this sea. We look at it every day.”

“What about the ships?”

“Sire, these ships are in danger. We recommend you get them
to the lee of Robben Island. Even so, you have to get the advice of the local
pilots. The currents inside the Bay work in a strange way when there is a
violent storm.”

The commander looked at the placid sea, lapping at the
bottom of a steep but wide beach, felt the gentle breeze on his face and said
to himself that the people at the Cape are known story tellers. He did not know
that a mere fifty kilometres away, far above the sheltered Bay, a full-strength
north-westerly gale was already blasting a mountain they called the Kamberg. It
howled like ten thousand banshees through its scraggy peaks that took up all
that energy and vibrated deep into their basalt core like the prongs on a giant
pitchfork.

Only later did the commander repeat the story to his
colleagues. By then the wind had changed character. It was suddenly blowing at
least half a gale and the sea had changed too, from a pleasant blue-green into
the colour of slate, with a rising chop. Commanders despatched officers with
instructions as to where to anchor. They all came back, reporting that all of a
sudden the sea was so rough that it would be suicide to attempt to reach the
ships. The officers and crews on board had to fend for themselves. In the
ship’s box in his cabin each commander had detailed sailing instructions, which
also explained exactly where to anchor in Table Bay in case of a north-westerly
gale. The instructions used Robben Island as the point of reference. Were the
officers on board able to read the signs of the weather and were they reading
the sailing instructions?

Commanders who had envisaged spending the evening in a
pleasant pub with rum and schnapps suddenly found themselves pacing the seaward
wall of the castle where borrowed spy glasses went from hand to hand.

“Ah, they are putting on some sail and lifting anchor. Now
just get in the right position!” instructed a relieved commander.

“Wake up men, please!” entreated another, where the masts
were still bare. “Soon it will be too late to move.”

He was right. The wind was getting stronger. A commander
lost his wig, his thin hair streaming behind him after it. A soldier in the
courtyard picked it up, identified the wigless but ostentatiously dressed
gentleman on the wall and brought it up. On some of the ships the decision to
move or stay where they were was not an easy one, once they sensed the uptick
in the wind velocity. Was it not better to hold on to what you had? Here and
there sails were rolled up again. A few of the ships that were moving toward a
better spot gave up the battle, hove to and put down anchors once more. A small
handful were in a better position to start off with and with the wind abeam and
waves splashing white on deck sailed where their masters on the walls willed
them to go.

Only at this time did commander Schouten ask where the
commodore was. It seemed that he might not have been notified, or was he out of
town? He got down to the courtyard and enquired of the lackey at the door of
the apartment where the governor kept his high-ranking visitors – right where
he could monitor every move they made. The commodore was in.

“I did not notice the change in the weather,” he said.
“These walls are so thick that you don’t know what is happening on the outside,
although now that you mention it, it has become dark quite early. I will be
there at once.”

“Better put on your seaman’s coat, commodore” said the
commander. “It will be very wet soon.”

“Well, hopefully it won’t get worse,” he said when he joined
the commander of his flagship on the wall ten minutes later.

“You might be right,” said Schouten, “but the watchers are
convinced that we are going to see a big one.”

Commodore van Rijkhoff noticed that the space on the wall
was already thick with people. He counted twelve commanders. Three, he knew,
were in hospital. That meant that no commander was on his ship. If the crisis
was as grave as he was led to believe, then all of them were caught unawares.

“I see the
Engelenburg
is still here, right in
front.”

“She is. There are better places to anchor. I’ve briefed my
officers on it. The problem is that the seas have risen so high that it might
be foolhardy to lift anchor, lest the ship gets swept away by the current and
ends up on a beach.”

“Who is in charge?”

“It should be the second mate but I’m not sure. Watches are
organised by the first mate. Ah, here he is.”

“How now, first mate? Why is our ship not moving?”

“There were too few hands on board for a quick start and now
the gusts are simply too strong. She might broach to in the waves and ship
water.”

“Are the anchors well set?”

“I believe they are. There is good sand where she is but who
knows what will happen if conditions get more foul,” said the first mate.

“As I just said to the commodore, the locals predict it
will.”

“Is that why they put sandbags on the ramparts?”

“Unbelievable, isn’t it, but yes, that is why. It’s for the
spray, they say, because everybody inside gets wet otherwise.”

“What is the point in that? It rains anyway.”

“The spray flies horizontally,” said the captain of the
watch, who joined them. “It messes up windows and gets onto doors. Commodore,
sir, we expect the rain to come down any minute now. When that happens,
together with the spray, it will get very wet and slippery up here and so do the
steps. I recommend you wait out the storm below.”

“Thank you for the warning, captain, but I will stay here a
while longer with my officers.”

“We’ve had cases where the wind blew people off the wall,”
said the captain. “With all respect, it’s not safe up here.”

“We will keep a hold on the commodore, captain,” said the
commander. “But he has a point,” he continued, as the captain of the watch
moved away. “For us sea dogs, this is nothing. It’s like standing on the
quarter deck of a ship, but you are not a sailor. Perhaps you should go down
now, sir.”

“I will stay,” said Van Rijkhoff. Since the captain of the
watch spoke, he began to appreciate the gravity of the situation even more. The
watchers honestly believed that something horrible was coming.

“What if the conditions deteriorate and the anchors of these
ships start to slip?” he asked.

“Then some ships might be lost, sir,” said the first mate.
“If only my men and I could get to the ship in time!”

“What
can
be done?”

 “The man in charge of the ship must make his own
decisions,” said the commander bitterly. “We cannot make them for him, but I
would have taken the chance to get out of there. If I could just get into the
mind of my second mate!”

“What if he takes the chance and the ship founders? It will
be end of him,” said the commodore.

“Many of the junior officers on these ships are right now
faced with the same dilemma. You might be damned if you do but damned if you
don’t as well. I’m afraid I see a disaster coming.”

“All that is left is to hope that the watchers have got it
wrong,” said Van Rijkhoff.

“You are not a sea dog, commodore. I am. I know they are not
wrong. I sense trouble coming. Just look at these waves. The highest ones are
already rolling up to the top of the beach.”

“And this is not a small beach either,” said the first mate.
“It’s pretty steep. What we are looking at is a twelve foot difference. When I
left the jetty just now, it was smashing against the top planks. If the seas
rise any further the jetty will be gone tomorrow.”

“Where are the boats?” asked the commander.

“We pulled them up far from the beach and tied them to
stakes as an extra precaution.

“Good man. Let’s hope there is still some use for them
tomorrow.”

Just then an extra high wave smashed into the land below
their feet. Broiling water stormed up the beach and covered the green seam of
shrub that separated Strand Street from the sand of the beach. No water got
into the street but it was not far away.  Calls of dismay rose from the crowd on
the wall.

“That was a thirty footer,” called someone.

“Thirty five,” said another.

Nobody was leaving. Commanders ordered their sea coats and
fought against the wind which came in ever more powerful gusts. Over the bay
the first dark curtains of rain moved in, obscuring the ships further out.
Ship’s lanterns started flickering from the masts. Now the watchers could even
better observe the up and down movements of their ships as the seas rolled in.

“Look!” said one. “Those lanterns completely disappeared
into the trough!” It was clear that there were massive waves out there. Another
sea rolled up the beach and touched the edge of Strand Street.