To Die a Dry Death: The True Story of the Batavia Shipwreck (39 page)

“Creesje,” he said. “How lovely to look upon you one last time.” His eyes flicked over her body and he smiled.

Drawn and tired he was, his hair matted, face bearded and filthy and yet those strange hazel eyes could still stir her. Shame coursed through her, heating her cheeks.

“You wronged me. What I did with you was against my will,” she snapped.

“True. So true. For twelve days you resisted me.” His lips curved up for a moment. “Such a pity.”

“You are evil, Jeronimus,” she said. “Godless and evil. You turned men into monsters, the Devil’s spawn. But Satan is a liar and you will burn in Hell.”

“There is no Hell. God will judge me, Creesje.” He heaved a sigh. “I care nothing for them.” He jerked his head at his erstwhile followers. “They have their just desserts. I do not ask your forgiveness for I know you cannot give it. But I wish you well, lovely lady.”

She straightened her back. “I want none of your wishes.” She turned to Hayes. “Take him away.”

The condemned men stood together in the shadow of the scaffold, all eyes on Cornelisz.

“Him first,” spat Jan Hendricxsz. “I want to see him die first.”

“This is all your doing,” said Beer. “You brought us to this, you with your honeyed words, your promises of riches.”

“Did I force you?” demanded Cornelisz. “Whose hands held the swords? Were you not stained with blood? I killed no one.”

“You ordered and we carried out your orders,” said van Os.

“You were quick enough to condemn us,” said Jonas. “Quick enough to tell the examiners what you thought they wanted to hear to save your own hide.”

“And are you, all of you, not responsible for your own actions? Did you not drink and celebrate after you disposed of the predikant’s family? Was that my doing?”

“May you rot in hell, Jeronimus,” said Fredricx.

“There is no Hell,” said Cornelisz.

“Enough,” roared Pelsaert. “The predikant is here to give you one final chance to go to God, your sins confessed,” he said to Cornelisz.

Cornelisz sneered. “God will judge me, not you. God’s hand has moved me. I have acted according to his will. And you and your councillors and all of you here who seek to condemn me; I’ll see you all at God’s Judgment Seat, where I will be given the justice denied me here.”

Two soldiers led him then to the low table, where they forced Cornelisz to kneel. His hands were untied. A soldier stood behind him and held him fast while another pulled his right arm out and over the table, fingers up. The man slid a rope over his wrist and held it tight. The carpenter placed the point of the chisel on the pale flesh just above the rope. The mallet swung down.

Cornelisz screamed as blood spurted from the severed artery, spraying over the man holding his arm. The carpenter moved the chisel and struck again. Cornelisz flung his head back and screamed again; and a third time until the severed hand dangled at the end of the rope. Cornelisz sagged, moaning. The soldier shook the rope and the hand dropped, limp and gore-covered, onto the sand, the fingers curled. It seemed to Lucretia almost like a strange, five limbed beast, more like a dead spider than part of a human body.

The soldiers grasped Cornelisz’s left arm, preparing to repeat the process but Pelsaert said, “Stop. I don’t want him to die until we get the noose on his neck.”

They dragged him to his feet and led him, cradling his right arm, to the first noose. Hisses and hoots accompanied each step. Cornelisz held his head high as they bound his arms and then he climbed. One step, two.

“I’ll have my revenge,” he shouted to all. “On judgment day. You’ll see.”

The executioner settled the noose around his neck.

“It’s our revenge,” they shouted back.
Revenge
. The word echoed as the executioner pulled the steps away.

Cornelisz jerked as the rope tightened. Blood still pumped from the stump of his arm and stained the white sand beneath his body. His face darkened, eyes staring and still his body writhed as the jeers and shouts continued. Five minutes or more his spirit still remained in its earthly guise.

A shadow passed across the island. Lucretia started, heart jolting. A cloud, that was all. A fast-moving outrider of a bank gathering in the west.

The watchers sighed, as though a shroud had lifted with Cornelisz’s last breath.

“Next,” said Pelsaert. “Hendricxsz.”

The soldier licked his lips, his face hard. He accepted the preacher’s ministrations and knelt quietly until his hand was hacked off. Even then he grunted and bit his lips, no doubt determined to die like a warrior. The audience cheered and shouted as the noose was pulled around his neck.

Lucretia stood silent. She supposed she ought to feel some sort of satisfaction or jubilation but she did not. Only sadness for those who died here at these men’s hands. Pregnant women, children, Mayken Cardoes and her baby. So few had even had a decent burial. Most were simply cast into the sea like so much offal. Even on the ship they had done better. The bodies of those who had died during the
Batavia’s
voyage at least were wrapped in sail cloth and blessed before they were consigned to the deep.

As soon as the steps were pulled out from under Hendricxsz’s feet, Matthijs Beer was brought to the blood-soaked table to have his hand removed. Lucretia listened, scarcely believing, as Beer confessed before the predikant to four more murders. He hadn’t even known his victim’s names.

At last only Pelgrom remained, sobbing and gasping with fear. Thin, narrow-chested, hardly more than a boy, with a shock of tangled hair and a scrappy beard, he trembled in unconcealed terror.

But Lucretia remembered the ridiculous peacock, parading around in his red coat, brandishing a sword and shouting oaths.
“Who wants their ears boxed? Who wants to be killed? I can do that very beautifully. I wish I saw devils now. Come, all you devils.”
Eighteen he may be but Cornelis Aldersz the net-maker had been ten or twelve.

“Please, please,
Commandeur
. Please,” Pelgrom begged as the soldiers dragged him past two still-twitching bodies to the steps under the last noose. “Please, I don’t want to die. Please let me live just a little longer. Leave me somewhere, sail away, only don’t take my life, I beg you.” He’d wet his pants. The urine left a trail in the dust on his bare legs.

‘As ye sow, so shall ye reap’ thought Lucretia. Easy now to beg forgiveness. Not so long ago he begged Cornelisz to be allowed to kill someone. Anyone. Not so long ago he wept when the sword was snatched from his hand.

Pelsaert raised a hand. “Wait.” He walked over to where the members of the Council stood together in a group.

Surely not. Surely the
commandeur
would not listen to the blandishments of this evil Devil’s pup.

Pelsaert turned to the gathered audience. “We of the Council have conferred and have decided, on account of his youth, to listen to Jan Pelgrom’s pleas and grant him his life. He will be marooned on an island or the South Land, according to the best opportunity.”

Pelgrom collapsed, weeping and blabbering incoherent thanks.

“Put him with the others on
Sardam
,” said Pelsaert.

It was over.

Lucretia walked back to the boats with Judyck and her father. No word was spoken. What more was there to say?

Pelsaert came and sat beside her. He seemed tired and bent, much older than his years. “What now?” she asked him.

“Now, we recover as much of the Company’s assets and we sail for Batavia as soon as may be.”

“When will that be?”

Pelsaert gazed up at the clouds that marched across the sky and at the waves, their tops now frothing in a freshening breeze. “As soon as the weather allows.”

40

Pelsaert raised his quill and waited for the deck to settle. Really, he should have written his journal on the island, where the wind might howl through the tent canvas but at least the ground stayed still. In the lull before the next wave hit he scribbled his notes. Day after day had been the same. Fair weather on the fifth, so they’d raised a brass cannon and then nothing again for days. Even without the infernal wind, the waves on the reef were hollow and dangerous. And all this while, the rest of the scoundrels sat below decks and the survivors of this horrible catastrophe waited, no doubt reminded every day of the dreadful things they had witnessed. What Jan Pieterszoon Coen would have to say, he could not imagine.

The ship heaved again, creaking and groaning.

A pity he could not have brought them all to justice in Batavia. But even now, his ship would bulge with valuables; a sore temptation to Godless men. Heaven only knows what Cornelisz might have achieved, had he still been here to enchant men with his words. If he closed his eyes he could still see Cornelisz’s strange hazel eyes staring at him as the man spoke his final words. Revenge, he’d said. Pelsaert shivered. The fever; only the fever. God, he longed to go home, to Antwerp. But first he must placate the Company, or he would go home a beggar.

Ten money chests they had recovered and in Pelsaert’s own sea chest were stored the Great Cameo and the treasures left behind on Traitors’ Island. Pity about the other money chest, thought Pelsaert as he checked the inventory. But the divers had done well, given the weather and the dangerous conditions. They hadn’t yet found the eleventh chest. The twelfth; oh well. The men had collected those of the coins they could see.

What else? The remaining trade goods—cloth, clothing, mercury, cochineal and so on, and a few boxes of tinsel. Kegs of wine and vinegar. Brass cannon, iron cannon, wood, soiled linen, lead. But would it be enough? He’d sent the boats out to scour all the nearby islets but the incessant inclement weather had impeded the work so often.

He looked up at the sound of steps. Captain Jacopsz stood at the door. “Come in, Captain. Anything more to report?”

“The wind has not abated. Not one jot. But even so, we’ve been to the Cats’ Island and filled our water barrels. We’ve scoured the islands round about. I don’t think there is much more to salvage.” He poured himself a measure of wine. “Some of the men fishing say they saw a small vinegar barrel drifting on the reef. They couldn’t reach it because of the surf. But what’s a barrel of vinegar worth?”

“It must be fetched,” said Pelsaert. “The Company expects us to recover everything we possibly can,” he said in response to Jacopsz’s surprised glance. Coen’s orders rang in his ears:
‘Salvage and save everything you can lay hands on…
’

Jacopsz swallowed his wine. “I’ll go myself, sir, in the morning.”

“Do that. And then search along as far as you can on the small islands along the reef. In these waters goods can be scattered far and wide. So prepare yourself to stay out overnight if necessary.”

A shadow passed across Jacopsz’s face. “It’s dangerous weather for a small boat.”

Pelsaert’s jaw tightened. Must these infernal sailors always wish to contradict his orders? “See to it, Captain.”

*

“Has the
commandeur
said anything to you about when we might leave this awful place?” asked Judyck. “It is so full of memories and sadness. Everywhere we go.”

Lucretia gazed down at the plot where Judyck’s mother and her brothers and sisters lay. Already the endless wind had smoothed the ground, etching away traces of disturbance. Soon, no one would ever guess what lay beneath the parched dirt.

“When I ask he tells me ‘when the job is done’. He means to collect every piece of driftwood and nail that he can find, it seems. Come, let us walk.” Lucretia turned towards the sea. “At least the wind has abated a little.”

“Do you like the captain?” asked Judyck.

Lucretia smiled. “Oh, he’s nice enough. Polite, attentive. But I have had my fill of sailors, I think. And you; what do your think of Wiebbe Hayes, the Company’s latest officer?”

Judyck flushed and a twinkle appeared in her dark eyes. “He is nice.”

“And a hero. Does your father approve?”

“Father is preoccupied with other things.” Judyck chewed at her lip, deep in her own thoughts. “His faith is strong but God has tested him.”

“God has tested us all.”

They walking along the shoreline between Batavia’s Graveyard and the Seals’ Island. Lucretia’s steps faltered. She stared across the choppy waters to the white sand. Not so easy to see the scaffolds now. For the first days they were obvious because of the birds. The majestic eagles gathered for a time but later only the gulls came to feed. A few birds still circled, marking the spot. It seemed some of the bodies had fallen. Or parts of them had.

“Lucretia?”

Judyck’s voice jolted her out her reverie. The girl was frowning, mashing her lips. “Do you think Jeronimus was a demon?” she repeated. “That he enchanted all the others?” She plucked at her skirt. “It’s just… Coenraat was so nice on the ship. And then he became…”

A demon. Lucretia remembered the shadow that passed across the island when Cornelisz died, as if something had left him. His spirit, or something else.

“I don’t know. I confess that sometimes it was as though two people inhabited his body. The one polite, well-spoken, refined and…” she took a breath. Passionate, sensual, a man able to rouse feelings in her she had never experienced before. “And the other…”

They stood together on the wind-blown shore, watching the endless procession of white-crested waves chase each other down the channel.

“I was going to say evil,” said Lucretia. “But Jeronimus was not evil. The Devil is evil. He harms for amusement. He likes to cause pain, watch suffering. I don’t think Jeronimus was like that. He always said that God worked through him; that he did what he did for the good of all.”

Judyck’s jaw dropped. “Good of all? He killed my family for the good of all? How can you say that?”

“It’s not what I believe. It is what he said.”

“He laughed when Matthijs Beer cut off Cornelis’s head. He laughed. And then he stood and looked at the poor boy’s body as he would a dog’s.” Judyck stood with hands on hips, face flushed, furious.

“I do not excuse him, Judyck,” said Lucretia. Cornelisz had looked at the corpse as he would a strange beast, something unusual. Matthijs Beer had been gleeful, full of the joy of killing. Cornelisz had seemed merely… curious. But Judyck would never listen to such words.