The covenant - James A. Michener [62]
As the sixteen servants passed along the table, each guest heaped edibles around his rice until the plate resembled a volcano rising high above the sea. But this was not all, for when these servants retired, others appeared with flagons of translucent gin, from which copious draughts were poured. Thus reinforced, the diners started on their meal, calling back the thirty-two little dishes from time to time lest the plate appear empty. This was 'the sixteen-boy rice table of Java,' and it accounted in some measure for the fact that many men and women who had lived rather circumscribed lives in Calvinistic Holland were reluctant to go home, once they knew Batavia.
Nevertheless, twice each year Dutch merchant ships trading throughout the East convened at Batavia in preparation for the long journey back to Amsterdam; each fleet would be at sea for half a year, rolling and dipping with the long swells of the Indian Ocean, sailing close-hauled into the storms of the Atlantic. On occasion a third of the fleet would be lost, but whenever a ship seemed doomed, it would hoist a panic flag, whereupon others would cluster around, wait for clearing weather, and transfer its cargo into their holds, and in this way the precious spices continued their homeward journey.
The first fleet sailed around Christmas; the second, waiting just long enough to obtain the monsoon cargoes from Japan and China. The holiday sailing was especially popular with the Java Dutch, for just about this time of year they began to be homesick for the wintry canals, and to see the great fleet waiting at anchor was a sore temptation. In 1646 there was no exception; an immense fleet gathered off Batavia under the command of an admiral, and on the morning of December 22 it hoisted sail.
At the last minute three ships whose smaller size and trimmer rigging would enable them to move more swiftly than the others were detached and ordered to wait for three weeks to serve as the after-fleet to carry important last-minute messages and any Compagnie officials who wished to depart after the Christmas celebrations. Haerlem, Schiedam and Olifant were the ships, and they tied up so that their sailors could roister ashore, and large fights broke out because sailors from the first two ships, which bore honorable names, began to tease those from the Olifant, Dutch for elephant.
Christmas that year was a noisy time, but at the spacious home of Mevrouw van Doorn it exhibited a lovely Dutch grace. Her musicians were dressed in batiks from Jokjakarta, her serving men in sarongs from Bali. There was dancing, and long harangues from minor officials serving in the Spice Islands, but as the day wore on, with enormous quantities of food being consumed and gallons of beer and arrack, the governor-general found occasion to take Mevrouw van Doorn aside to give her advice concerning her sons.
'They both should sail with the after-fleet,' he said quietly as his assistants snored away their beer and vittles.
'Deprive me of my staunchest support?' she asked, directing the slaves with the fans how best to move the air.
'Your sons are no more staunch in their support of you than I,' the governor said, bowing in his chair. When she acknowledged the compliment, he continued: 'Karel was born in Holland, and this is a permanent advantage. But he has never served there and the Lords XVII are not acquainted with his talents.'
'Karel will prosper wherever he's put,' his mother