Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [88]
The initial attack had left at least four men and six boys dead. Half a dozen more were badly wounded and now lay sprawled on the coral, no longer able to defend themselves. Zevanck and his friends dragged these men into the sea and held their heads under the water until they drowned. Four pregnant women—one of them Laurentia Thomas, the corporal’s wife—were found among the tents but spared in compliance with Jeronimus’s orders; and once the under-merchant’s men had satisfied themselves that there were no other rafts on which the few survivors could escape, the remaining youths were also left to be dealt with another day. The mutineers returned to Batavia’s Graveyard pleased with their day’s work, having reduced the population of the nearby cay by nearly half. The boy Gerritsz went with them, another recruit to the under-merchant’s cause.
Jeronimus wasted little time in resolving the problem of the fleeing cabin boys. A few days later he dispatched a second party to Seals’ Island, on this occasion waiting until after dark to be certain of catching the surviving members of the corporal’s party in their tents. Once again the mutineers were led by David Zevanck, but this time there were eight of them, including Mattys Beer, Gsbert van Welderen, and a youth from the small town of Bommel named Jan Pelgrom. The killers landed close to the camp without being seen and crept silently toward the tents, spreading out as they went so as to be able to enter each of them simultaneously. Then, at the assistant’s signal, they attacked.
One of Zevanck’s men that night was Andries Jonas, the old soldier from Luyck:*33
“On the 18 July, Andries Jonas has been ordered by Jeronimus to go, together with David Zevanck and another [six] men, with the little yawl to Seals’ Island, in order to kill there the remaining four women and about 15 boys who had not been killed on the previous murder of 15 July.
“Therefore Zevanck has asked whether he had a knife; Andries Jonas answered that he had a knife but it was not very sharp. Whereupon Zevanck handed him his own knife, saying, ‘Cut the throats of the women.’
“So willingly, without objection, Andries has gone to Mayken Soers, who was heavily pregnant, has taken her by the hand and led her a little to one side and said to her, ‘Mayken, love, you must die,’ and thrown her underfoot and cut her throat; that being done, he saw that Jan van Bommel was trying to kill Janneken Gist (the wife of Jan Hendricx from The Hague); therefore he went to help . . . and stabbed Janneken to death with his knife; the other two women were killed by the others.”
While this was going on, Van Welderen and Beer had crept into the tents with three or four of the other mutineers and caught the surviving cabin boys asleep. The mutineers set upon the youths with daggers and clubs, bludgeoning and stabbing them where they lay. A dozen of the boys were killed outright, or mortally wounded and dragged down to the sea to drown, but three managed to escape. Dodging their assailants’ blows, they ran into the darkness and disappeared along the ridge.
These boys survived until 24 July, when they foolishly emerged within sight of Batavia’s Graveyard. Cornelisz noticed them, and sent Stone-Cutter Pietersz with three men to flush them from their hiding places. This time the youths did not escape; the lance corporal captured them alive and herded them into his yawl. On the way back