Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [85]
Having disposed of the sick, Jeronimus turned his attention back to the stronger survivors. On the evening of 12 July the under-merchant sent his favorite killer, Hendricxsz, out to rid him of Passchier van den Ende, a gunner, and Jacop Hendricxen Drayer,*31 who was a carpenter. These men were to be confronted by the old allegation that they had stolen something from the stores.
It was, it seems, a typically blustery Abrolhos night, for the shrieking of the wind and the snap and crack of canvas walls masked the sound of Hendricxsz’s approach. Van den Ende and Drayer only realized he was there when the flaps of their tent were suddenly thrown back and the German soldier emerged from the darkness like a vengeful angel, flanked by Zevanck, Van Os, and Lucas Gellisz.
The sailors realized at once that their lives were forfeit:
“[Jan] went into their tent and asked Passchier if he had any goods hidden there . . . . He answered weepingly, ‘No,’ and begged that he might be allowed to say his prayers, because he thought that it would cost him his life. But Zevanck said, ‘Get on with it.’ Thus Jan Hendricxsz threw him to the ground and cut his throat.
“The other one, Jacop Hendricxen Drayer, begged bitterly for his life, whereupon Zevanck and the others went to Jeronimus and said that Jacop was a good carpenter and should he not be spared. But Jeronimus answered, ‘Not at all, he is only a turner and furthermore he is half-lame. He must also go. He might become a babbler now or later.’ ”
With that, the murderers returned to Drayer’s tent. Remarkably, the hapless turner was still there, waiting for them. Perhaps his injured leg made it useless for him to attempt to flee; perhaps he genuinely hoped for mercy. If so, one glance into Hendricxsz’s blank eyes would have informed him of his error.
Disposing of a crippled man should not have taken long, but for all his disability, Drayer proved almost impossible to kill. Hendricxsz pushed him to the ground, and Van Os sat astride the turner’s hips while his friend stabbed him repeatedly in the chest. The dancing flame of Zevanck’s lantern set a shadow play of murder flickering against the canvas walls, but even with the benefit of light the German could not find Jacop’s heart. First one knife hit a rib and snapped in two, then a second broke uselessly in half. Hendricxsz seized another pair of daggers and drove them deep into his victim’s neck, but anger had made him careless and his thrusts missed Drayer’s windpipe, arteries, and veins. The two knives sliced through muscle and struck bone; their blades splintered on the turner’s spinal column and the mutineer found himself holding another pair of useless hafts. Jacop was still alive, and Hendricxsz, breathing heavily, had to thrust slippery fingers into the spreading pool of blood beneath the body, fumbling for a sliver of broken knife with which to slit his victim’s throat.
For Jeronimus’s mutineers, the glut of killings in the first half of July substantially improved conditions on Batavia’s Graveyard. By the 14th of the month, they had disposed of almost 50 men, women, and children, almost a third of whom had been too ill to put up any sort of fight. These deaths had reduced the population of Batavia’s Graveyard to about 90 people, of whom almost half were either active mutineers or hangers-on who had pledged loyalty to Cornelisz in the hope of saving their own lives.
By now, the mutineers’ chief enemy was boredom. The Batavia journals