Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [94]
The under-merchant knew, however, that the situation had changed in one critical respect. Wiebbe might have no swords or guns, but now he did possess two boats. Cornelis Jansz’s little homemade boat and Aris Jansz’s skiff were not a danger in themselves; they could never carry enough men for Hayes to launch a worthwhile attack. But they could make things very difficult for the mutineers if Pelsaert reached his destination and returned to rescue them.
6
Longboat
“We expected nothing else but death.”
ANONYMOUS SAILOR
THE BATAVIA’S LONGBOAT, with Francisco Pelsaert and Ariaen Jacobsz aboard, bobbed in the ocean swells north of the Abrolhos, steering for the South-Land. She was quite a substantial craft—a little more than 30 feet long, with 10 oars and a single mast—but though her sides had been built up with some extra planking there was still not much more than two feet between them and the ocean’s surface. The boat could easily be swamped in heavy seas, and even the short voyage to the mainland over the horizon—which the skipper guessed was only 50 miles away—was not without its dangers.
Pelsaert’s original intention had been to search for water on the nearest stretch of coastline and bring back enough, in barrels, to supply the rest of the survivors for several weeks at least. This, in turn, would make it possible to send a boat north to fetch help. The chief problem with the plan was that the coast of Terra Australis was so poorly mapped that neither the skipper nor the commandeur had any real idea where to search; the VOC’s earlier encounters with the South-Land indicated that a river reached the coast about 360 miles north of their position, but locating supplies any closer than that would require luck as much as judgment, and there was no telling how long it would take to get them back to the Abrolhos.
Lurking at the back of Ariaen Jacobsz’s mind was the thought that if no fresh water could be found they would have to sail the longboat straight to Java, where the Dutch trading settlement of Batavia was the one place they could be sure of finding help. The Indies were nearly 2,000 miles away, however, and even if such a lengthy voyage was possible, it would be at least two months before any survivors in the archipelago could be rescued; by that time it seemed likely that many of them, if not all, would have died of thirst. No doubt others in the skipper’s entourage had reached the same conclusion, for all 48 of the people who had been part of Jacobsz’s party insisted on sailing with him. They took with them all the remaining food and water. In consequence, the longboat, which was designed for no more than 40, was dangerously overloaded.
The only people in the boat who really mattered were the sailors. All the senior officers of the Batavia—the skipper, the three steersmen, and the high boatswain, Evertsz—were on board, and they alone had the experience and skills required to keep a small vessel afloat on the open ocean and navigate to and from the Abrolhos. Of the other 43 passengers and crew, the great majority were surely able seamen; in addition, Jacobsz’s cousin, the bos’n’s mate, and Harman Nannings, the Batavia’s quartermaster, were probably on board. Only six of those who sailed from the Abrolhos—three men, two women, and a child—had no apparent knowledge of the sea. Zwaantie Hendricx was one; Ariaen had kept her close to him ever since the wreck and had no intention of leaving her behind now. Zwaantie was accompanied by a young mother (she is not named in Pelsaert’s journals)