Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [97]
A good captain—and William Bligh, for all his faults, was a fine one in this respect at least—also understands that men facing the likelihood of death need hope as much as they need water. Studies of shipwreck survivors have shown that men who do have hope outlive those who may be physically as strong or stronger but give way to despair. A stubborn determination to make land, perhaps see a wife or family again, has helped many sailors to survive long periods in open boats. Religion is another comfort; even the most agnostic man tends to turn to prayer in the middle of the ocean. Nevertheless, it is leadership—provided by a man who displays competence, remains confident, and tries to keep up the spirits of his men—that most often means the difference between life and death for sailors cast adrift. There were two such potential leaders in the Batavia’s longboat, the skipper and the commandeur; but from what we know of the two men—Pelsaert no sailor and still ill, Jacobsz not only an excellent seaman but loud and assertive—it seems certain that it was the skipper who performed this vital function in the longboat.
Thus Ariaen found some measure of redemption on the Timor Sea. Whether he still planned to mutiny is difficult to say. Jacobsz had no idea he was suspected of plotting against the Company, and without Jeronimus at his side the resolution he had displayed in the Southern Ocean may well have drained away. Cornelisz, as we have seen, retained some faith in him and hoped the skipper would murder Pelsaert during the voyage north, tip his body over the side, and then sail to Malacca for assistance. But though the Portuguese might indeed have supplied a rescue ship, when they heard about the VOC money chests waiting in the Abrolhos, it seems unlikely that Jacobsz could have disposed of the commandeur even if he had wanted to. There were, perhaps, half a dozen mutineers in the longboat; but they must have been heavily outnumbered by the loyalists. The three steersmen, for example, had never been part of Jacobsz’s conspiracy and were unlikely to stand by while Pelsaert was murdered and the boat diverted to the Malay coast. Besides, it would have been impossible, in the crowded longboat, to kill the merchant without being detected, and a struggle might have tipped the boat, and its passengers, into the sea. Frightened, thirsty sailors seldom make good material for mutiny, and as they neared the Indies the chances are that Jacobsz and Jan Evertsz spent more time husbanding their remaining stores than scheming against the commandeur.
The voyage from the North-West Cape had taken them 11 days—long enough for the remaining stocks of food and water to run dangerously low. Most of the bread had been tipped overboard during the storm, and what was left must have been severely rationed; the people in the boat would have endured severe hunger pangs at first, and then the dull feeling of emptiness that marks the onset of starvation. Rain fell on three occasions while they were at sea, marginally reducing their dependence on the water casks, but they were forced to cut the water ration even so. Thirst tormented everyone on board, but the knowledge that the boat was making rapid progress—they were sailing up to 90 miles a day—must have helped to sustain morale during the voyage.
The Javan coast was sighted on the afternoon of 27 June. They had completed the crossing only just in time; when the longboat made its landfall, only one kannen of water (less than two pints) remained of the 70 they had scooped up from the rock pools of the North-West Cape. Some caution was still required