Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [92]
The first men to approach were Zevanck and Hendricxsz, the most brutal of the mutineers. Zevanck crept to the entrance of the tent and called for Wybrecht Claasen. In a second or two the servant girl emerged, walking almost straight onto Hendricxsz’s dagger. The German soldier stabbed her once and left her dying on the shingle. Meanwhile Zevanck forced his way into the tent with the main body of the mutineers. It was so crowded that Pietersz and Jonas, the late arrivals, had to wait outside.
Maria Schepens and her children must have known they were dead the moment they saw the axe in David Zevanck’s hand, but once again the young assistant felt the need to justify his actions. There was an oil lamp hanging in the tent; he took it, lifted it above his head and called out, “Here has been reported hidden goods of the Company that we will search for.” He paused, then added ominously: “And we will get them.” At this, the other mutineers began to hunt through the few possessions in the tent until, after a moment or two, the lamp blew out—Zevanck no doubt extinguished it himself—and in the pitch-black crush the murdering began.
There were 14 people in the tent: 7 of Jeronimus’s men and 7 members of the preacher’s family, one victim to each man. The mutineers laid about themselves with hatchets. Lenert van Os caved in Maria’s skull with several blows, while Mattys Beer bludgeoned Willemijntgie. Wouter Loos pushed Bastiaen to the ground “and has beaten the eldest son underfoot with an adze, until he was dead,” while Zevanck, Van Os, and Beer between them accounted for Pieter, Johannes, and Agnete. The only child not killed or wounded in the initial flurry of blows was the youngest; eight-year-old Roelant was so small that he ducked through the legs of his attacker, Beer, and fled in terror, searching desperately for a way out of the tent. He almost got away; Beer dared not turn and swing at the boy for fear of striking one of his companions. But Zevanck and Cornelis Pietersz were standing close behind him, and one or other of them brought his hatchet down hard upon the child and killed him.
In only a few moments the killing ceased. Then the murderers became aware that one of their victims was still alive, and moaning in pain. It was Maria Schepens, “who was not then quite dead.” Mattys Beer bent over her as she lay prostrate on the ground and finished her off with several more blows to the head. The groans stopped. It was over.
They cleared the tent. Andries Liebent made off with the meat from the dead family’s kettle and took it back to his own quarters. The other murderers dragged the bodies to the pit that had been prepared and hurled them in, so that they lay huddled together in a single bloodstained mass.
It was still only midevening and the mutineers’ blood was up. The group split up and went in search of other prey. Jan Hendricxsz went to the tent of Hendrick Denys, one of the Company bookkeepers, ordered him out onto the shingle, and, when he showed himself, “battered in [his] head, with an adze, in front of his tent, so that he died immediately.” Meanwhile, Zevanck summoned Andries Jonas, who had not yet killed that night. “Go and call Mayken Cardoes out of her tent and cut her throat,” he told him.
Cardoes guessed well enough what was happening when Andries arrived outside her quarters. “Mayken,” Jonas said, “are you asleep? Come, we’ll go for a walk.” It was not a request but an order, and the girl had little choice but to obey. She emerged hesitantly from her tent. “Andries,” she begged him, “will you do me evil?” “No, not at all,” he said, but they had only walked a little way along the shore when he seized her without warning and forced her backward onto the coral. Fumbling for his knife, Jonas crouched over her; he reached down and tried to cut her throat, but she was struggling so violently beneath him that he could not manage it. After a few seconds he abandoned the attempt and