To Die a Dry Death: The True Story of the Batavia Shipwreck (21 page)

The children gathered around something in the water, poking with a stick, talking in low voices. It wasn’t natural. Children should be running, laughing, not jumping at shadows.

Judyck looked tired, with deep shadows under her eyes, so different from the sparkling girl of only a few weeks ago.

“How is it with you?” asked Lucretia.

Tears welled and were instantly dashed away. “Well enough.”

“Coenraat?”

“As attentive as ever. He’s talking about marriage. But we couldn’t be engaged without his family’s approval, anyway.” She fiddled with a fold in her skirt.

“Do you want to marry him?”

“After what’s happened here? What do you think?” She sighed. “Things have changed so much, Creesje. At first people went away and everyone was pleased. With fewer mouths to feed there was more to go around. But now… I wonder what really happened to some of those people who went away to other islands.” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. “Everyone is afraid. You never know who will be next. You hear sounds in the night, lanterns passing. People disappear. Next day you walk around to see who is missing.”

“I know,” said Lucretia. Her mind went back to last night, as she and Cornelisz ate together. Zevanck had come. Cornelisz had not been pleased at the interruption, scowling as he went outside. Their voices had been loud enough for her to hear.

“
Jacop Drayer
,” Zevanck had said. “
He’s a good carpenter, we should keep him.”

And Cornelisz‟s impatient reply. “
He’s a turner, not a carpenter. Besides, he’s lame. Get rid of him.
”

And he’d come back inside, smiling, apologising for the intrusion.

“How are you getting on with Jeronimus?” asked Judyck. Her eyes were bright, intense as she searched Lucretia’s face.

“He’s… made no demands. He’s always a gentleman and treats me well.” She wondered where the question had come from. “And you? Has Coenraat made demands?”

Judyck’s eyes dropped. “He’s made it clear what he wants.” She hugged herself, arms wound around her body as if to protect herself from harm. “I don’t like him to touch me.”

Lucretia understood, all too well. She stood as the predikant approached, his wife on his arm. She’d still not forgiven the man’s weakness. A quick greeting, a few polite words about the weather and she retreated back towards her tent.

When Andries de Vries suddenly appeared in front of her Lucretia thought her heart would stop. The lad looked terrible, pale, dishevelled with dark brown stains on his wrists and sleeves. And his eyes—his eyes must have gazed upon the very pits of hell itself.

“Andries?”

“They did it again. Made me come here.” He gestured behind him, into a tent. “I killed them. Cut their throats. The blood flowed down. You can still see it, there on the ground.”

His head swivelled in alarm at a shout of his name.

Two men charged towards them from Cornelisz’s tent, swords in hand. Fear clutching at her throat, Lucretia remembered Cornelisz’s order.
You must not talk to her. Ever again.
Cornelisz himself stood, legs apart, hand on hips as Lenert van Os and Rutger Fredricxsz came on, death in their eyes, remorseless as the hounds of the Wild Hunt.

De Vries fled.

Hand to her breast, Lucretia urged him on.
Run, Andries, run
. Even as she said the words in her head, she knew it was useless. As well to tell the chicken to run with a fox in the coop. Run to where?

He ran for the ocean, spraying arcs of water as he leapt through the shallows past the predikant’s children, his pursuers at his heels. They lunged after him, swords raised.

De Vries had no chance. He went down with little more than a cry, a sword thrust in his back. They hacked once, twice, three times. Van Os thrust the body into deeper water with the point of his sword. A dissipating swirl of blood followed.

Lucretia remembered to breathe. Behind her closed eyes the pursuit played again and this time she saw the wide-eyed children, mouths agape, as the murderers sprang past them and death came to Andries de Vries.

“I told him not to talk you.” Cornelisz’s voice echoed from a great distance. He stood beside her, frowning. “There will be no more of this. Jan will move your belongings to my tent.”

“Your tent?” She gaped, she knew, like a fish. What did he intend? Or perhaps that was obvious.

“Yes. From now on, you stay with me.”

Thoughts crowded in her mind. Could she refuse? Should she refuse? Her own words to Judyck resounded.
They kill anyone of no value to them
. “As you wish.”

Jan Pelgrom met her at the entrance to her tent. “Should I take everything, my lady?”

He spoke respectfully but his eyes gleamed. Almost triumphant, as though she’d capitulated. Well, that might happen in time but she would resist. For as long as she could. And she would certainly not display any fear or confusion to a cabin boy.

She caught Pelgrom’s eye and held his stare until he looked down. “I have some personal items. You may take the dresses. And my mattress if you please.”

He blinked. “Your mattress?”

She sailed into the tent, Pelgrom trailing in her wake. “My mattress.”

Her treasures were in the corner, in a silver box that Boudewijn had given her for her birthday. She lifted it carefully and opened the lid while Pelgrom collected her dresses and carried them away. A tiny bracelet, a pink ribbon and a carved wooden soldier. All she had left of her three children, resting on a cushion of blue silk. She swallowed her pain and, closing the lid, went to join Cornelisz.

Pelgrom held her mattress. “Where should I put this?” he asked Cornelisz.

Lucretia lifted her chin and met Cornelisz’s eyes. Her heart battered in her chest. It would be so easy for him to have it tossed outside. The silence lengthened.

“Behind the curtain,” said Cornelisz, waving a hand. “Next to mine.”

Lucretia inclined her head in elegant acknowledgement while her knees threatened collapse. Time. He’d given her time.

21

A bare expanse of rock, worn and weathered by the sea and the wind. Barren as a desert in the centre of the island. Who would have thought? The soldier lifted the flat plane of rock aside and threw the barrel with its rope handle into the fissure below. The splash came back almost immediately and Hayes smiled. He still couldn’t believe their good fortune. If Matts hadn’t slipped on that rock and fallen flat on his face they would never have known about the cistern. Matts had sworn a lot, clutched at his knee and looked into the hole the slab had covered. They’d celebrated that night.

The man pulled up the bucket and took it, sloshing slightly, over to the camp site in the lee of some larger bushes, Hayes walking behind. The sea glittered, a vast, empty expanse. A few small islands—little more than sand dunes—lay to the east and beyond them, maybe four miles away over reef flats, the long island hid Batavia’s Graveyard.

Still no sign of anybody. They’d lit the three fires, as agreed. That must have been a week ago. He would have expected people to be here… oh, immediately. He wondered again what might have happened. Something must have. Maybe they were all dead of some disease or some monster had crept from the sea in the night and devoured them all. Here, six miles or so away, they’d have no way of knowing.

His men gathered around the bucket, drinking their fill. He’d not bothered rationing. They had plenty—though they still collected any rain that fell. He dipped his cup into the barrel and scooped out his share. The lads had done well with what driftwood they’d found, whittling cups and bowls; even wooden shoes for those whose leather shoes had given out on the coarse coral and rock.

He took a piece of cold meat from a platter. As good as any meat he’d ever tasted and that included venison. It was nicer hot from the fire but at least now the juice didn’t dribble into his beard.

“Wiebbe! Wiebbe look. Rafts!”

They all stared. Yes, two small rafts, advancing over the reef flats. Hayes frowned. No one had ever come that way before. They’d always come around the Seals’ Island and to the High Island and then across the causeway.

“They must be coming from the Seals’ Island,” said someone.

Hayes strolled to the shore, still chewing on his piece of meat as the newcomers poled the rafts across the shallows. They jumped off, eight men, four on each raft, all scrawny and drawn, splashing through the shallow water to the shore.

“Well met and welcome,” said Hayes. “We were beginning to think no one was left alive.”

“We’re lucky to be alive ourselves,” said one man. “I’m Cornelis. Which one of you is Wiebbe?”

“I am,” said Hayes.

Cornelis shook as with a fever. Shock. Hayes had seen it in the field before, in men who braved an attack and went to pieces. Cornelis wasn’t the only one. A couple of the others had collapsed on the beach. One was sobbing like a girl.

Without being told, men fetched food and water for the new arrivals. Of them all, Cornelis seemed to be in the best state. Hayes led the man a little way aside and urged him to sit and drink the water brought to him. Cornelis sipped, then gulped, throat muscles working as he drained the whole cup.

“Thank the Lord, that was so good. You really have water?”

“Yes. Plenty. And food. What’s happened, Cornelis?”

Cornelis sat with his arms clasped around bent knees. “Murder. Murder, Wiebbe.” Tears sprang to his eyes and he wiped them away. “A boatload of men came to our Seals’ Island from Batavia’s Graveyard. Seven of them, in a yawl they’d built. They jumped out onto the shore, carrying knives, swords and… and weapons I’d never seen before. A round thing on the end of a stick, bristling with points.”

“Morning stars,” murmured Hayes. “Go on.”

“They raced into our camp, amongst our tents and just… just attacked anyone in their way. Stabbing and slashing. I saw them kill the corporal. One stabbed him with a sword and when he fell, another one slashed his throat with a knife. They just left him and carried on.”

“Did you try to stop them?”

Cornelis was rocking backwards and forwards now. “Some did.” He moistened his lips. “The corporal tried to protect his wife. She was screaming, yelling at them to stop.”

“Did they kill her?”

A shake of the head. “Not when I started to run. One came towards me, swinging the morning star thing. I bolted. As fast as my legs could carry me and ran for the rafts.”

“How many are dead?”

“I don’t know.” Cornelis buried his head in his hands. “I don’t know. We pushed the rafts out as fast as we could. They were behind us, shouting. Any minute I expected a knife in my back. When I dared to look over my shoulder they were gone. I could still hear shouting and screaming.”

Hayes sat beside him, unwilling to leave him to his misery. Why? Why would they come across the channel to murder? “Can you eat?” he asked. “You should. It will help.”

He beckoned a soldier over and had him bring a piece of the cold cat’s meat. As with the water, Cornelis started reluctantly, then his eyes lit up and he tore the meat eagerly with his teeth. “This is good.”

When he’d finished, Hayes started again. “Why did they attack you?”

Cornelis thought for a while, head tilted. “I think we were supposed to die,” he said. “When the corporal came and told us we could go over to the Seals’ Island, that they’d found water, we were… oh… so happy. So happy. For the first week it was fine. We had water in the barrels, we could kill seals, birds. Fish from the shore. But there wasn’t any water. Some marshy places, yes, with bright green plants. But it was a salt marsh.” He swallowed. “After we’d been there ten or eleven days, we started to realise they wouldn’t bring us water or food. We saw the rafts go to Traitors’ Island but they never came to us. We were lucky. It rained. Not much, but enough to keep us going.”

“They did the same to us,” said Hayes. “But why didn’t you leave? You had rafts.”

“We didn’t. Not then. It wasn’t so bad. It was better than Batavia’s Graveyard.” He stopped and pushed a hand through tangled hair. “And then we saw what happened to the people on Traitors’ Island.”

Hayes jolted. What was this? “Tell me.”

“You lit three fires here, yes?”

“Yes, the agreed signal.”

“All the people there got onto rafts they’d built and started along the channel. They had two rafts, each with two men rowing at the back. You know?”

“Yes, I see. Then what happened?”

“A boat came from Batavia’s Graveyard and a couple of armed men jumped on each raft. A few men jumped into the sea. I… Some drowned. They turned the rafts back to Batavia’s Graveyard. We could see all this. It’s not far, you know? But we couldn’t hear anything. And then they just… killed everybody. Hacked into them with swords and pikes.” He swallowed and his eyes seemed to be looking at something only he could see. “Except the women. They loaded them into the boat, took them into the deepest part of the channel and just threw them overboard.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “They drowned,” he whispered. “The men just rowed away. They even pushed one of the women away with an oar when she tried to get back to the boat. We heard them screaming for help but it was too far, too late.”

Cornelis sucked in a deep breath. “That’s when we realised they’d probably attack us, that we had to get away and come here. The corporal didn’t think so. He thought we were stupid. They’d ignored us. Why take any notice now? We started building rafts in secret. But we had to be careful. We didn’t want anyone to see.”

“How long ago were the people from Traitors’ killed?” asked Hayes. How many had been there? Ten? No, fifteen. Killed. But why? Was there a reason, or would it be the one that sprang to mind?

“Six days ago.”

“And you don’t know why? Why these people were killed?”

“No. The corporal thought it was for the food. That way they didn’t have to supply the Traitors’ Island group. Makes sense in a sort of way. But why kill us? They weren’t feeding us anyway.”

“What we need is someone who can tell us what was happening over on Batavia’s Graveyard,” muttered Hayes, almost to himself.