The covenant - James A. Michener [75]
And so open warfare between the Hottentots and the Dutch was a-voided. One of the men drafted a report to Amsterdam, explaining that the Cape was uninhabitable, worth positively nothing and incapable of providing the supplies the Compagnie fleets required:
Much better we continue to provision at St. Helena. There is no reason why any future Compagnie ship should enter this dangerous Bay, especially since three separate enemies threaten any establishment, the Strandloopers, the Hottentots and these little savages who live in the bush with their poisoned arrows.
At the moment this man was composing such a report, an officer was walking through the fortress gardens and noticing that with the seeds rescued from the wreck of the Haerlem his special group of gardening men had been able to grow pumpkins, watermelons, cabbages, carrots, radishes, turnips, onions, garlic, while his butchers were passing along to the cooks good supplies of eland, steenbok, hippopotamus, penguins from Robben Island and sheep they had stolen from the Hottentot meadows.
In January the sailors at the fort observed one of the great mysteries of the sea. On 16 September 1647, two splendid Compagnie ships had set sail from Holland, intending to make the long journey to Java and back. This could require as much as two years, counting the time that might be spent on side trips to the Spice Islands or Japan. The White Dove was a small, swift flute, economically handled by a crew of only forty-eight and captained by a man who believed that cleanliness and the avoidance of scurvy were just as important as good navigation. When he arrived at the Cape for provisioning, all his men were healthy, thanks to lemon juice and pickled cabbage, and he was eager to continue his passage to Java.
He told the personnel at the fort that the Lords XVII had them in mind and thanked them especially for their rescue of the peppercorns, which would be of immense value when they finally reached Amsterdam.
'Thanks are appreciated,' the fortress officer growled, 'but when do we get away from here?'
'The Christmas fleet out of Batavia,' the captain said. 'It's sure to pick you up.' He asked if any sailors wished to return with him to Java; none did, but his invitation rankled in Willem's mind.
It was not like before. He did not oscillate between Holland and Java. His whole attention was directed to a more specific question: What could he do now to best ensure his return to this Cape? He was finding that it contained all the attraction of Java, all the responsibility of Holland, plus the solid reality of a new continent to be mastered. It was a challenge of such magnitude that his heart beat like a drum when he visualized what it would be like to establish a post here, to organize a working agreement with the Hottentots, to explore the world of the murderous little San, and most of all, to move eastward beyond the dark blue hills he had seen from the top of Table Mountain. Nowhere could he serve Amsterdam and Batavia more effectively than here.
He found no solution to his problem and was in deep confusion when the White Dove prepared to sail, for he could not judge whether he ought to go with her or not. His attention was diverted when that ship's sister, the towering East Indiaman Princesse Royale, limped into the bay. She was a new ship, grand and imposing, with a poop deck like a castle, and instead of the White Dove's complement of forty-nine, she carried three hundred and sixty-eight. Her captain was a no-nonsense veteran who scorned lemon juice and kegs of sauerkraut: 'I captain a great ship and see her through the storms.' As a consequence, twenty-six of his people were already dead, another seventy were deathly ill, and the tropical half of the voyage still loomed.
When the two captains met with the fortress officers, Willem could see clearly how dissimilar they were: A man who runs a big, pompous ship has to be big and pompous. A man who captains