Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [131]
“On a certain night when some other Men were murdered, the Boy, out of fear and because he was ill, came creeping on his hands and feet into their tent, which Jacop Pietersz Cosyn*48 had seen, [and said], ‘Andries, you must help to put the boy out of the way.’ Whereon he had gone outside, dragged the Boy out of the tent, and cut his throat with his knife.”
The other condemned mutineers—Jan Hendricxsz, Lenert van Os, Allert Janssen, and Rutger Fredricx, who had between them bludgeoned, drowned, or stabbed almost 40 of the Batavia survivors—went to their deaths more quietly, though all, in Pelsaert’s view, “died also very Godless and unrepentant.” The one exception was Jan Pelgrom, the half-mad cabin boy, who was only 18 years old and could not reconcile himself to death. On his way to the scaffold he succumbed to hysteria, “weeping and wailing and begging for grace, and that one should put him on an Island and let him live a little longer.” Remarkably, given the boy’s awful record, the commandeur gave way to Pelgrom’s pleas, agreeing to spare him on account of his age. At the foot of the gallows Jan’s death sentence was commuted to marooning “on an island or the continent, according to occasion occurring,” and he was returned to the temporary prison.
Nothing is said in the Batavia journals as to what happened to the corpses of the other prisoners, but it was usual, in the Netherlands, for the bodies of executed prisoners to remain on view as a warning to others. In Haarlem condemned men from throughout North Holland were hung just outside the city walls and their remains were not cut down until the scaffold was required again. Even then the corpses would be strapped to wooden poles arranged nearby so that they remained on display. In the Abrolhos, therefore, the bodies of Cornelisz and his men were in all likelihood left dangling from the gallows when the execution party rowed back to the Sardam.
The next day there was a violent gale. By this time it was spring in the archipelago; thousands of mutton birds had returned to the islands to fill the night with their unearthly wailing, and high winds frequently interfered with Pelsaert’s salvage operations. The storm persisted until 4 October; then there was one day of fair weather, during which a brass cannon on the wreck was brought back to Batavia’s Graveyard. After that the weather closed in with a vengeance, and for two weeks the monsoons prevented much work being done out on the reef. Even after that, the weather was only good enough for salvage “one day in 15 to 20,” in the opinion of the Sardam’s council.
In the circumstances, Pelsaert’s Dutch and Gujerati divers did well to salvage as much as they did. Working without any protective gear in intensely dangerous waters, and with the ever-present danger of being dashed to pieces against the reef, the six men brought up seven of the Company’s lost money chests, quantities of loose coin, and a good deal of Pelsaert’s silverware, together with some boxes of tinsel. Three more chests were recovered later, but the other two had to be left in the Abrolhos “with heart’s regret.” One was located, sitting on the bottom, but it could not be salvaged because one of the heavy guns had fallen onto it and pinned it to the reef.
While this salvage work was under way, the commandeur set parties of sailors and Defenders to work on the islands of the archipelago, scouring the ground for anything of value to the VOC. Cornelisz’s stores of purloined jewels and clothing were recovered, together with the remaining rations and some trade goods,