Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [113]
Wiebbe Hayes proved equal to the challenge. The soldiers’ leader is a shadow figure in the Batavia journals, remaining out of sight on his own island while the main action develops to the south. Nevertheless he must have been an able and inspiring leader. He and his men had already survived for three weeks on the High Island and its neighbor, and they eventually found the water that Pelsaert’s experienced sailors had missed. Although a private soldier, Wiebbe not only led the original expedition to the islands, but then integrated the various groups of refugees who found their way to him, so that by the middle of July he was in command of a mixed party of almost 50 people. His forces included not only VOC assistants but also company cadets who were nominally his superiors; yet there is no suggestion that any of them ever questioned his fitness to command them. This confidence was justified, for Hayes now directed the construction of makeshift weapons and defenses that gave his men at least a chance against the mutineers.
With Wiebbe to rally and cajole them, the soldiers fashioned pikes from planks, tipping them with wicked sixteen-inch-long nails that had washed ashore with driftwood from the wreck. Like the mutineers, they improvised morning stars, and though swords and muskets were still lacking, there were plenty of fist-sized lumps of coral around, which could be hurled at the heads of any attackers. There is even a reference to the fact that “guns” were assembled on the island. What these were remains a mystery, but, supplied with rope, the soldiers could perhaps have cut branches from the stunted trees that dot the interior and turned them into catapults for larger rocks.
While the soldiers worked, Hayes selected his defensive positions. He recognized that the geography of the archipelago and the pattern of the shallows meant that the mutineers would have to approach his island across the mudflats that guarded the whole southern shoreline. This limited the risk of a surprise attack. A lookout post built midway along the coast, at the apex of a bay, provided him with a forward base and a clear field of observation. With sentries posted at intervals along the coast, it would have made sense to position the bulk of his troops farther inland, close to the wells, where they could rest and feel relatively secure.
With the arrival of the last party of refugees, Hayes found himself in command of 46 men and a boy. Collectively, these Defenders, as they now became known, gave him a significant numerical superiority over the mutineers that offset, at least in part, the inferiority of his weapons. The best troops included a group of Dutch and German soldiers, and Hayes had his two cadets, Allert Jansz and Otto Smit, to help command them. These men could probably be depended on, but the ranks of the Defenders also included a party of half a dozen French troops whose loyalty to the VOC, and thus general reliability, was perhaps more suspect. The balance of Hayes’s men were gunners, sailors, and civilians of limited military experience. It was impossible to say how well these men would fare in the face of a determined attack by well-armed mutineers.
Nevertheless, with his preparations complete, Hayes may have felt a certain optimism. He had numbers on his side; he could hardly be surprised; and his Defenders were well fed and well supplied with water. Morale was relatively high. He and his men also had sheer desperation on their side. It was only too plain, from the descriptions of the refugees, that Cornelisz would come, and that he would kill them all if given the chance. Surrender, even a negotiated peace, were hardly options. They would fight, when they fought,