Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [69]
The climate in the islands, which can be stifling in summer, is generally mild throughout the winter, which is the rainy season. The monthly rainfall from June until August is roughly four inches, but from September this figure drops to less than half an inch a month. Even when it rains, moreover, the water hardly ever pools on the ground in the Abrolhos. It trickles through the coral and back into the sea, leaving all but a handful of the 200 islets in the group quite dry and lifeless.
Batavia’s Graveyard, which lies in the northernmost part of the archipelago, is like this. It is a barren strip of coral rubble, 500 yards long, less than 300 yards across, and roughly triangular in shape. Its widest part stretches almost north to south along the edge of the deep-water passage discovered by Ariaen Jacobsz on the morning of the wreck; from there, the island tapers rapidly and almost to a point as it runs southeast. It is low and flat and featureless and can be crossed from side to side in less than 3 minutes, or circumnavigated in a little under 20. There are no hills, no trees, no caves, and little undergrowth; the highest point is only six feet above sea level; and though there are two small beaches on the western side, and some sand has found its way inland, this soil is nowhere more than two feet deep. Most of the ground is nothing more than shingle, slick in places with deposits of guano and treacherous to walk on. Although it is home to thousands of seabirds and several colonies of sea lions, Batavia’s Graveyard has no pools or wells, and thus no native land animals. It is dead, desolate, and utterly unwelcoming.
When the first of the Batavia’s men came ashore in the archipelago, they found no sign of any human habitation. The Abrolhos were too far from the Australian coast, almost 50 miles, to have been visited by Aborigines; nor had any Europeans landed there prior to 1629. Nevertheless, nearly 300 of the 322 people who were on board the retourschip when she ran aground had survived the stranding of the ship—a remarkably high proportion in the circumstances—and by the evening of 5 June, the ragged beginnings of a settlement had been established in the islands.
By now it was nearly two days since their ship had run onto the reef, but the survivors were still split into three groups. The majority, about 180 men, women, and children, had been put ashore on Batavia’s Graveyard. A further 70 men, including Jeronimus Cornelisz, remained stranded on the wreck, and the skipper had based 50 sailors and both the boats on his little islet close to the wreck. Ariaen’s party included not only Pelsaert but all of the Batavia’s senior officers. Between them, they controlled most of the food and water and all of the charts and navigational instruments that had been salvaged from the ship.
These dispositions were no accident. Jacobsz had displayed a good deal of bravery in the aftermath of the wreck, risking his life repeatedly to save the people on the ship. But he also understood with perfect clarity that none of them would ever see the Netherlands again if the boats could not reach Java to fetch help. He and his officers had the skills to sail them there; the people on Batavia’s Graveyard did not. In his own mind, therefore, Ariaen felt justified in doing what he could to improve his own chances of survival.
The survivors on Batavia’s Graveyard thus found themselves with neither leadership nor adequate supplies. The great majority—at least 100—were common soldiers and sailors of the VOC, and another score were either petty officers or idlers such as coopers, carpenters, and smiths. Creesje Jans was there, with about 20 other women, almost all of whom were wives of members of the crew; and of the remaining 50, more than half were youths and children. Most of these were cabin boys aged 14 or 15, but several were even younger than that, and one or two were babes in arms who had actually been born on board Batavia. Fewer than two dozen members of