Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [9]
Jacobsz told Francisco Pelsaert this, and he also warned the merchant that he could no longer expect the men to obey his every order. In situations such as this, those who had the skills to save themselves would do so—at the expense of others if need be. It was unrealistic to expect the rough-hewn sailors of the VOC to be exceptions to this rule, and they were unlikely to volunteer to help their comrades to the north if there was any chance the people there might damage one of the boats. “They will keep you there, and you will regret it,” the skipper warned Pelsaert. “Secondly, there is no-one who will sail with you.”
To the sailors’ surprise, the upper-merchant persisted, and at length the high boatswain, Jan Evertsz, and six men were persuaded to take him to the larger island in the yawl. The sailors remained wary, though, and insisted that they would row away if Pelsaert went ashore and was held against his will. But it did not come to this; as they approached Batavia’s Graveyard they saw such a crowd of people gathered on the beach that Evertsz grew apprehensive. When the merchant made as if to leap into the shallows with his barrel, the high boatswain hauled him back into the yawl, and the men rowed rapidly away, with the cries of those they left behind still ringing in their ears.
This unpleasant incident robbed Francisco Pelsaert of resolve. Next morning, rather than renewing his attempts to resupply the island, he accompanied some seamen who were going in the yawl to search for water elsewhere in the archipelago. This time they sailed several miles to the north, to two big islands the merchant had first noticed from the wreck. They dug for water in several places but discovered nothing more than a little brackish rainwater in hollows by the shore. For Pelsaert and for Jacobsz, their last real hope was gone. It now seemed certain there was no fresh water anywhere nearby. Moreover, the storms that had plagued them on the night of the wreck had blown themselves out and there was no prospect of more rain.
Next morning they began to build up their longboat’s sides in preparation for a lengthy ocean voyage. While they were working, the Batavia’s yawl, which Pelsaert had sent over to the wreck, appeared on the horizon. Eleven men were on board, led by an officer named Gillis Fransz, but the longboat was a much more substantial craft than the little yawl and could hold 40 people in reasonable comfort. Fransz and his men were expert sailors, and when they asked to join the crew of the larger boat, their request was eagerly accepted.
Pelsaert and Jacobsz sailed four days after the Batavia had hit the reef, leaving nearly 200 frantic, thirsty people on Batavia’s Graveyard, and another 70 stranded on the wreck. A braver commander, and a better leader of men, might have insisted that his place was with the bulk of the survivors. Pelsaert, by his own account, did wish to stay and help those whom he now left behind: “It was better and more honest to die with them if we could not find water than to stay alive with deep grief of heart,” he wrote. But the sailors were determined to leave the archipelago, and in the end the upper-merchant chose to save himself. On the morning of 8 June he joined the sailors and the favored passengers in the Batavia’s longboat. There were 48 of them, including two women and a babe in arms. Towing the yawl, they set sail and headed slowly north.
As he went, Francisco Pelsaert glanced back toward the crescent of white water that marked the reef, and the battered hulk that had once been his command. On board were several dozen