Читать книгу Watchandi Man - Robert Hallsworth - Страница 4

It’s almost midday; two young men stand on a beach of golden sand beneath a clear blue sky and warming sun.

Their gaze is fixed on a sailing ship which, with anchor won and sails unfurling is leaving them to their fate. The land at their backs is in fact, a continent of almost three million square miles, and they are about to become its first white, European inhabitants.

At this point in time, however, these things are still unknown to the world, and it will be hundreds of years before they become recognized facts, but at this moment nothing could be further from their minds as they stand, one either side of the small, makeshift boat which has brought them to this shore.

The boat, a schouw, although Pelsaert had called it a sampan, was put together by carpenters on the island from scraps of timber from the wreck and it held all they possessed in this world. Somehow, they had managed to reach the beach through the pounding surf, more by good luck than judgement, for neither of them was a seaman. They had then dragged the boat up onto the sandbar that guarded the mouth of the small river.

The effort, physical as well as mental, of being cast adrift from the ‘Sardam’ as she lay at anchor in the shallow bay, negotiating the surf and reaching the relative safety of the beach, had exhausted them. Drawing in deep breaths, they watched as the Sardam, her sails filling with the freshening south-westerly breeze, slipped away to the north, taking with her their last connection with civilization, left to their fate on a hostile and unknown shore.

They had been marooned by the Commander, Francisco Pelsaert, for the part they had played in the mutiny and massacres on the Abrolhos Islands that had followed the wreck of the Batavia, almost five months previously.

The taller man, Wouter Loos, at twenty-four, is the older of the two, tall, lean and muscular, a shock of fair hair and bushy beard frame a broad face, a long aquiline nose, craggy brow and deep-set blue eyes that convey the impression of a tough, physical character, attributes his current situation will have great need of.

He glances at his companion and wonders again, why he was chosen to share a challenge such as this with this half-crazed youth.

Jan Pelgrom De Bye is just eighteen, and it’s this tender age that has saved him from the gallows, fellow countrymen and shipmates they may be, but that is where the similarity ends.

Pelgrom is short and scrawny, a shock of flaming red hair, crown a narrow face, a beak-like nose separates a pair of wild grey-green eyes, which continuously flicker from side to side, like an animal in a cage. The expression reflects this young man’s character; his entire short life has been spent running and hiding, surviving by graft and cunning.

An unlikely pair, chosen by destiny to carve a niche in histories pages, their thoughts are not of fate or history at this moment, however, more a cocktail of emotion, relief, fear, horror, desolation.

Relief at having escaped the corporal punishment meted out to most of the other mutineers, who had been tortured horrendously in an attempt to seek out the truth, then, after having hands chopped off, hung from temporary scaffolds, erected for the purpose on the island.

Fear and horror at the events they had witnessed and participated in during the months since the shipwreck and finally, desolation, from the sure and certain knowledge that there was no way back, no way out.

With the words of their Commander, Pelsaert, still ringing in their ears, the Sardam finally disappeared over the horizon, taking with it their last hope, except perhaps, for the barely perceptible nod from one of the seamen gathered on the deck to witness the sentence, being carried out.

It seemed to have been directed at the younger of the two, Jan Pelgrom, who responded in like manner. Wouter Loos had noticed it and glanced sharply at his companion, but then dismissed the gestures as a simple farewell, and yet…

With the ship now out of sight, first one then the other sank to their knees in the soft, warm sand, their heads falling as well, each engrossed in his thoughts, neither willing to break the silence, what was there to say. Their spirits sank into the sand with their bodies, each drifting off into his own reverie.

The bay where they had landed contained the mouth of a river which ran back inland through high sandhills, a small natural harbour. It could have been a pretty place, but for these two miscreants, spared the gallows, but cast up on an unknown shore, it meant only hopelessness and desolation, a harbour, yes, but for Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom, it was desolation's harbour.

Wouter Loos had been a soldier in the private army of the VOC, travelling with the rest of his troop to Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East Indies and the place that had given their ship its name.

Their role was to protect the citadel the Dutch had built, for conflict with the local Sultans armies was ongoing. They would have plenty to do once they reached their destination, but for the duration of the voyage from Holland, there was little to do but survive in the stinking, stifling conditions below decks. Confined to a hellish place, not helped by the constant, sometimes violent movement of the ship and the detritus which rained down on them from the decks above.

Loos had not been drawn into the mutiny plans on the ship, he had heard the whispers, the rumours that go on regularly amongst men confined to life between decks, and his soldiers, disciplined mind had dismissed them as just gossip. Then, when the time came, a disastrous error of seamanship had changed the whole world for all of them, in an instant.

The skipper, Ariaen Jacobsz was an outstanding navigator of his time, and he would prove that again later in sailing the ships open boat from the Abrolhos to Java to seek help. That ability had been the reason he had been chosen to skipper the Batavia, pride of the VOC, on her maiden voyage.

In the early part of the seventeenth century, the ability to measure Longitude had not been mastered, therefore they were never quite sure how far east or west they were.

That, plus the strong prevailing winds, is the reason why so many sailing ships came to grief on the coast of the great unknown southland, prompting the VOC to issue stern warnings to its Captains to avoid getting too close to this dangerous and unknown shore.

Jacobsz would have been well aware of this and, it seems hard to fathom that he could have been 500 miles closer to land than he thought, with only one lookout and apparently no one at the masthead.

When the surf on the reef was sighted dead ahead, he dismissed it as,

‘Moonlight on the water’.

It was Jacobsz who had conspired with the under merchant Jeronimus Cornelisz, to mutiny, well before they had struck Morning Reef on the outer edge of Houtman’s Abrolhos almost forty miles from the mainland. Plans for the mutiny were already well advanced by then, with Jacobsz deliberately separating Batavia from the rest of the VOC fleet, of which she was the flagship, during a bad storm in the southern Indian Ocean.

Together, the pair had begun to recruit disgruntled seamen, of which there was no shortage, to their cause.

Francisco Pelsaert carried the honorary title of Commander of the whole fleet, and as such was responsible for the precious cargoes they carried, he, therefore, represented the authority of the VOC., the Dutch East Indies Company.

But although he was the symbol of power, he certainly wasn’t the image of it. Unlike Cornelisz, who was tall and charismatic, and Jacobsz, who was the hard-brutish sea captain, Pelsaert was a small man, bedevilled by the after effects of Malaria, caught on a previous visit to the Indies, he spent much of his time in his cabin.

Sailing the ship was Jacobsz responsibility, while Cornelizs, as an assistant to Pelsaert, was responsible for its cargo, together, Jacobsz and Cornelizs had plotted to overthrow Pelsaert and take over the ship and its treasures and become privateers.

Their plans would come to grief however, on Houtman’s Abrolhos.

Loos had been born in Maastricht in southern Holland when it was governed by the Spanish. Not over smart, but no fool either, strong of mind and body, he was a practical man, not given to dreams or religious beliefs, good soldier material, he could kill if necessary and not lose too much sleep over it. He had fought with the Dutch republican forces against the Spanish oppressors, not because he was a patriot in particular, but simply because it had to be done. Joining the VOC was a diversion rather than ambition and who knows, perhaps a better life in a warmer clime was also an attraction.

But conditions on board ship were indeed not a better life, and he was starting to have second thoughts when, on that fateful night, Batavia drove herself onto Morning Reef and into the annals of history.

Wouter Loos was ready to do whatever needed to be done, and in the frightful chaos that ensued, he did just that, trying his best to help people reach the small island inside the reef, salvaging what could be saved, especially food and water. Unlike many of his colleagues who, when it became clear that the ship could not be saved panicked and raided the liquor store to numb their minds against the certainty of approaching death.

As the nightmare unfolded in the days and weeks that followed, Loos would find himself following his pragmatic nature to adjust and cope with the developing sequence of events.

Lack of drinking water and food and the inability of nearby islands to show any promise of sustenance was demoralizing. When Pelsaert and Jacobsz had sailed off in the only seaworthy boat, to find water, coming close to returning and then at the last moment, turning around and sailing away, it had seemed to the survivors, an act of betrayal.

When Pelsaert and Jacobsz had sailed away in the ship’s boat to find water and had not been successful, they had decided to try for Batavia to seek help. Pelsaert had wanted to return to the islands to tell the people of their plan, but at the last moment, Jacobsz had intervened, fearing a riot that could have cost them the boat and any chance of rescue.

There are times when a word, a single action or decision can have enormous consequences. It can seal the fate of many lives and even change the course of history.

Pelsaerts decision to go with Jacobsz to search for water was, perhaps one of those moments.

The two most senior members leaving the group to fend for themselves?

Surely Pelsaert should have remained to organise the survivors on the island, sending Jacobsz, the seaman to do the searching. Did he not trust him to return? Perhaps he had already got wind of the plot to overthrow him. He could have abandoned them all and sailed away to Java, reporting the ship lost with all hands.

Jacobsz physical strength and authority as Skipper had overridden Pelsaerts frail condition and turned the boat away at the last moment.

Had Pelsaert been strong enough to stand up to Jacobsz, had he stayed with the survivors, the outcome, and this story may well have been very different.

Eventually, the survivors would find water on a neighbouring island and fresh meat too in the form of the rock Wallaby’s that inhabited it. Seafood and seabird eggs were plentiful, survival was possible, just a decision away. As it was, two hundred and seventy-five desperate, despairing, disorganized souls were left to die of hunger and thirst, until the madman Cornelisz assumed control with a solution of callous inhumanity. The problem, as he saw it, was too many people, the answer, simple, reduce the numbers. They could not all survive, only a select few; it was survival of the fittest. Someone had to decide who would survive and that someone was Jeronimus Cornelisz.

When Pelsaert and Jacobsz had turned and sailed away north, the survivors believed they were being abandoned and cursed them as traitors. Cornelisz, as the sole remaining VOC official was looked to as a leader and so began his systematic ‘final solution’.

Loos, although not a part of the original gang of mutineers, was drawn into the plot, seeing it as the lesser of two evils and the only hope of survival, albeit for a small minority. He had not enjoyed the subsequent slaughter, but a soldier’s job was to kill, and this was just another job.

When the group of soldiers under Webbie Hayes, who had previously been tricked into being marooned on another island without their weapons, managed to capture Cornelizs, Loos had found himself in charge of the mutineers, and the killings had stopped immediately.

Later, when Pelsaert had returned unexpectedly, in the Sardam, Loos had wanted no part in the abortive attempt to seize the ship and dispose of its crew. Perhaps these things had influenced Pelsaert when he had decided to commute their death sentences to marooning.

With Pelgrom, it had been his age, how could he hang an eighteen-year-old boy, there had been enough killing. Pelsaert was sickened by it, and to maroon the boy alone was just as bad. So, he had chosen the one man from this bunch of cutthroats who had shown any form of humanity and ability, Wouter Loos, to be the boy’s companion in this vast unknown land. Pelsaert had even provided them with generous supplies, and instructions to try to get on with the natives.

“I have ordered the two sentenced delinquents to sail to the land in a champan, provided with all supplies, God grant that it may stretch to the service of the Company and may God grant them a good outcome in order to know, once and for certain, what happens in this land”. Francisco Pelsaert. 16th November 1629.

Thus, were they consigned, with neither knowledge nor intent, to become the first Europeans to live in the Great South Land.

All these things churned through the mind of Wouter Loos as he sat in the warm sand on that fateful day, contemplating his fate.

‘How had it come to this’ he thought. Life had not exactly been easy fighting the Spanish, he had hoped that the VOC might offer something better, but the sea voyage had been terrible, and things only got worse, shipwreck, mutiny, his part in the murders, the reprisals and finally this, castaway on the edge of the world with a crazy kid for a companion.

As the afternoon wore on into the evening and neither could find a word for the other, he grabbed a blanket from the boat and wrapping it around him, curled up in the meager shelter of the boat’s side.

Pelsaert had been generous with the supplies he had provided, backing up his plea,

‘and may God provide them with a good outcome.’

It was almost as if he wanted them to survive. His words came back again to Loos through the clamor of all that had happened as he watched the Sun’s golden orb sink slowly into the sea, bringing to an end a day of far-reaching significance.

The heavy rollers that had tossed them up on to this beach earlier in the day had quieted, and he lay back and let the gentle crunch and hiss of their progress soothe his troubled mind and lull him to sleep.

When he awoke the next morning, the sun had just risen again above the low hills behind him. He sat up and watched its early morning light casting long shadows along the beach; the sea was a metallic blue/grey which blended into the still dark blue of sea and sky on the western horizon, while in the East it was ascending into a cloudless blue.

It was springtime on this unknown shore, and despite his unenviable position Wouter Loos grudgingly had to admit, it was the start of a beautiful morning.

Perhaps it was this, a good night’s sleep or a combination of both, but he slowly came to realize a sense of calm and peace such as he hadn’t felt for months, years, perhaps even, never before.

Despite the hopelessness of his situation, a tiny spark flickered deep inside him, the flame fanned by the beauty of his surroundings and fed by the confidence he had in his ability. He was young, active, pragmatic, the horrors he had endured and survived had given him the strength and courage to face this new challenge, the challenge to survive and he realized now that Pelsaerts intent was clear.

The case against him in the trials on the island had been inconclusive, his part in the death of the Cardoes woman could almost be seen as a mercy killing, Andries Jonas had made such a botch of it.

Pelsaerts instructions to them had been to try to establish contact with the natives,

‘man finds his fortune in strange places,’

And,

‘may God grant them a good outcome.’

Clearly, these words were not, a death sentence.

In the event, Pelsaert would never know the outcome of his decision; he himself would be dead before another year had passed.

Wouter Loos stood and stretched, breathing in deeply, the crisp, clear air.

He knew that acceptance of his fate was the first step, this beautiful morning seemed to be inviting him to take it.

As he stood gazing at the empty horizon, a tousled redhead appeared with a grunt on the other side of the boat and looked at him with a scowl.

‘So’ Loos said, a simple word, yet it held a wealth of expression which seemed to sum up their situation.

‘Is that all you can say’ retorted Pelgrom sourly.

‘Well I could offer you a prayer of thanks for being alive’ said Loos, ‘that is if I were religious, which I am not, particularly, but then we are going to need all the help we can get if we are going to survive here for long’.

‘We only have to survive long enough for them to get back’ muttered Pelgrom, shifting his gaze towards the sea.

‘What’ said Loos, ‘you must be crazy if you think that, you will never see them again’?

‘We will see about that’ said Pelgrom.

Loos jumped to his feet and grabbing the younger man by the arm, swung him round to face him,

‘ Look at me ‘, he shouted, ‘look at my face, this is the last white face you will ever see, Jan Pelgrom, so you had better get used to it’.

Pelgrom glowered back at him and shook his arm free.

‘Bullshit to that, Loos, you can die here for all I care, but I won’t, I will get away from this God-forsaken place, and I will have my revenge on those bastards’.

Loos took a step backwards, momentarily shocked by the ferocity of the response.

‘And just how do you propose doing that then’ he retorted.

‘You’ll see’ he said ‘You will see’. And the look in his cold, grey, green eyes made Loos stop and think where he had seen it before and then he remembered the madman, Cornelizs and a shiver went up his spine.

Unlike Loos, Pelgrom had reveled in the blood lust on the islands; he had become a devotee of Cornelizs, displaying the same destructive tendencies; indeed he had thrown a violent tantrum when Cornelizs had decided he was too young to take a critical role in one of the murders. Ironically it was the same reasoning, he was too young, that had influenced Pelsaert to spare him the corporal punishment meted out to the rest of Cornelizs’s gang.

As a child, growing up in the back streets of Amsterdam, Jan Pelgrom had learnt to survive at the expense of others in a dog eat dog world. Hanging around taverns, he had listened to the talk of seamen and petty criminals, artists and free thinkers and it had shaped his young, impressionable mind to a degree where it was primed to receive the heretical and revolutionary views of Cornelizs.

When the opportunity came to join the VOC, he had seized it readily, wide-eyed with dreams of adventure and romance on the high seas and in the Spice Islands. When he was sent to join the Batavia on her maiden voyage, he was elated to think it would be his and the ships, first voyage, never dreaming for a moment that it would also be the last for both of them.

Part of his on-board duties was to act as a steward in the great cabin, serving meals and wine to the officers and certain passengers. His own mess deck was forward with the crew and other boys, both places affording him ample opportunity to listen in to adult conversation from differing viewpoints. But it was the radical views of the under merchant Jeronimus Cornelizs, that drew his attention most of all.

Cornelizs was a follower of the views expressed by the great Dutch painter, Johannes Van Beeck, otherwise known as, Torrentius.

Torrentius had been branded a heretic, arrested and tortured and only escaping execution through the patronage of King Charles I of England. His views, gathered from several different groups of radical free thinkers who were challenging the established dogma of the Roman Catholic Church in 17th century Europe. They denied the existence of hell and believed the pursuit of happiness to be the only intrinsic good!

Cornelizs was even heard to say,

‘All I do, God gave the same unto my heart’, implying that he was incapable of sin.

This philosophy, it seemed he took to be justification enough for the bloody massacre he would instigate on the islands. His ideas nourished the already twisted mind of the young Jan Pelgrom, and he hung on every word that spilt from the evil mouth of Cornelizs, taking them back to his own mess to share with some of the other young and impressionable seamen. Some were reserved, hostile even to it, while others listened with interest.

One such was Pieter Arentzs, of similar age to Pelgrom; he was, nevertheless, a boy seaman in the tough, seamen’s world of the VOC. But he was a fast learner and was well on the way to becoming a first-class seaman until the time his hunger had overcome his discipline, and he had stolen a loaf of bread from the galley, and it had cost him a flogging.

The pain and humiliation had chastened his behavior, but it had also left him bitter and resentful, with a surly attitude to authority, which he struggled to hide. He too found comfort in the rebellious and hedonistic doctrine of Cornelizs.

Pieter shared this similar outlook with Jan, and they became friends, a relationship which was strengthened after Pieter’s flogging when Jan had been the only one to offer him help and comfort.

Despite this however, when the mutiny came on the islands, it was the memory of his punishment that held him back from joining in with Cornelizs’s gang and it was his stealth and cunning as well as his physical prowess, he was an excellent swimmer, that had enabled him to avoid becoming a victim himself.

It was this swimming ability that had made him one of the first choices when Pelsaert had returned and formed a team to attempt to recover the treasure and cargo that lay scattered about on the reef after the Batavia had been wrecked.

It was also his knowledge of what was left, unrecovered, that had formed the basis of yet another plot, the one to rescue his friend Jan and recover the remains of the treasure.

For it was Pieter who had given the nod to Jan Pelgrom that Wouter Loos had noticed, just before they were cast adrift in their little boat.

After Pelsaert had returned to the Abrolhos in the Sardam and exacted such terrible justice on the perpetrators, Jan had been rounded up with the rest of them, while Pieter was free. At night he would use his stealth to sneak up on the makeshift compound where the prisoners were held, seeking out his friend, Jan.

They would talk in whispers of their desperate plans, he told him of the treasure that still lay waiting, unrecovered on the reef. When Pelsaert had announced that, he had commuted Pelgroms death sentence to one of being marooned on the mainland, Pieter had vowed to return and rescue him. A plot was hatched, Pieter would go on with Pelsaert to Batavia, and there he would seek out a Javanese fisherman or diver with a boat and offer him a share of the treasure. They would then return, rescue Jan, dive on the reef and recover as much as they could and then set themselves up as privateers in the Indies.

With a boat of their own, they would prey on the ships and storehouses of the VOC and have their revenge. Such were the plans that danced around in Jan Pelgroms head as he sat on the beach with Wouter Loos, it was these thoughts that had caused the outburst that had unsettled Loos so much. Finally, he now addressed his companion,

‘I don’t know what crazy thoughts you have in that addled brain of yours, but right now we need to move’.

‘First, I suggest we pull the boat up the beach as far as we can, secure it and then go for a walk up that creek, see if we can find a place to camp and hopefully, freshwater.’

Together they went, and it wasn’t long before they found both. The water in the creek was salty at first, but as they moved upstream, it became quite drinkable, which was a great relief to them both. Then as they moved further along, they came to a sandy beach with small shady trees with spiky leaves, a bit like pine. The dead, dried leaves which had fallen to the ground formed a carpet which was pleasant to walk on; overall, it offered promise as a campsite.

‘This doesn’t look too bad’ said Wouter, ‘What do you think’? Jan just shrugged his shoulders, noncommittally,

‘Let’s go back to the boat and bring some rope and canvas’.

Jan was reluctant to be told what to do by the older man, but he had to admit it was the best plan, and grudgingly went along with it. They trudged back through the soft sand and brought back as much as they could carry.

‘I don’t like the idea of leaving the boat on the beach where we can’t see it’ said Wouter, ‘Let’s see if we can drag it over the sandbar and into the creek’.

‘I don’t think it’s worth the effort’ retorted Jan ‘it’s not much of a boat, anyway, just a makeshift thing, Pelsaert called it a Sampan, what’s that supposed to mean anyway?’.

‘It the Asian name for a Schouw,’ replied Wouter,’ just a flat-bottomed thing, for use in rivers mainly, not much use in the sea, we were lucky to get ashore in it actually.’

‘So, what’s the point in keeping it’ said Jan

‘Because it just might be useful in this creek, fool!’ retorted Wouter,

‘and, I heard them talking about a much bigger river north of here too. It may not be much, but it’s all we’ve got, so come on!’

Jan pulled a face and mumbled under his breath, but reluctantly set too, to help.

It was hard work dragging the boat across that sandbar, but eventually, by removing the more substantial items and carrying them across first, they managed it and paddled off upstream to their camp.

Drawing the boat up on the bank, they started to unload some of the gear, they spread their bedrolls on the carpet of leaves and a piece of canvas tied between branches for a cover.

Gathering up brushwood, of which there was no shortage, and using their flints, they soon had a fire going on the sandy bank and prepared a meal.

Their supply of dried pork, fish and peas was meagre fare, but then no worse than the shipboard allowance and at least they had a plentiful supply of freshwater to wash it down with, there was even a bottle of Genever gin which was a welcome surprise.

Sitting around the fire afterwards, puffing on their clay pipes, they gazed at the star-filled night and contemplated their future.

Even this was an improvement on shipboard life, which was one of constant movement, of being wet and cold from the ingress of the sea, and, being confined, for much of the voyage, to the lower decks, taking the brunt of the rubbish and sewage that drained through from above.

Added to that were the shipwreck and the horrors on the islands, after all that, this peace and tranquility were welcome indeed. Not that any of it had troubled Wouter greatly, he was a soldier, a hard nut who had witnessed the horrors of war first hand on several occasions, fighting for the Republic against the Spanish oppressors.

It had been a brutal, dog eat dog affair, where civilians also got dragged into the slaughter. But it had prepared him, better than most for what transpired on the Abrolhos.

He had been involved in the killings, believing that Cornelizs strategy of survival of the fittest was the only way any of them could survive, especially after it appeared that Pelsaert had abandoned them to their fate, taking with him the only seagoing boat.

It had seemed like treachery at the time and no one had expected Pelsaert to return as he did.

Wouter thought now of the terrible killings, to him it had been a necessary part of the plan, and he had taken no pleasure from it, unlike many of the others who seemed to relish in the bloodletting, even the boy, Pelgrom, his companion, had pleaded to be allowed to take part.

Wouter looked at him now, across the fire with ill-concealed contempt, Jan sensed the look and returned it, retorting,

‘What are you staring at’,

‘I am not sure’ replied Wouter, ‘just a stupid boy, I am thinking, lucky to be alive too’.

‘What’s that supposed to mean’ said Jan, sulkily.

Ignoring the question, Wouter asked,

‘Why did you ever get involved with Cornelizs and all the killings?’

‘You were no different’ Jan retorted ‘ask yourself that question’.

Wouter slowly shook his head,

‘No’ he said ‘it was different for me, I am a soldier, and a soldier’s job is to kill or be killed. You were just a cabin boy; you didn’t have to get involved with the killings, you could have got away with just being Cornelizs servant, his lapdog. When Pelsaert returned, you might have even escaped punishment altogether!’

Jan dropped his head and looked away, into the fire. ‘I wanted more than that’ he said in a lowered voice,

‘I believed in Cornelizs, he had a vision, not like the rest of the mob in Amsterdam, money-grabbing merchants, religious cranks, the rest in the gutter like me’.

‘Or madmen like Torrentius and Cornelizs’ added Wouter.

‘Maybe, but at least he had a plan’ retorted Jan ‘You know as well as I do we could never have all survived with the food and water we had, and no one believed Pelsaert would come back.’

‘Well’ said Wouter ‘if he had followed up on Webbie Hayes signal to say he had found water on the long island, it may have been possible’.

‘It was already too late by then’ retorted Jan ‘the killings had already started, the cull, Cornelizs called it, and Hayes knew it, there was no going back’.

There was silence for a while, until Wouter finally spoke,

‘What would your parents think of you now, if they knew?’ he asked slowly.

‘Ha’ snorted Jan ‘what parents? they both got sick and died, I was a child of about eight, I think, I hardly knew them’.

‘In Amsterdam?’ asked Wouter,

‘No, Bemmel’ he replied.

‘What happened then’ asked Wouter. Jan glanced up at him and then back at the fire,

‘My older sister looked after me, she decided there was nothing for us in Bemmel, and so she took me down to Amsterdam, but there was nothing for us there either, we lived like rats in the streets eating scraps, until she went to work in a brothel. She was a good looker and had no shortage of customers, at least it was a roof over our heads and a regular meal.

I had to earn my keep though, odd jobs, fetching wood and coal for the fires, emptying piss pots, running messages, and I learned to pick up people’s clothes and hang them up, checking through the pockets at the same time.

Got caught a couple of times and copped a hiding’, Jan fingered the scar on his cheek, ruefully.

‘Then the old Madam would chase me with a poker, making out to the client that she had nothing to do with it. But after they had all gone she would grab me by the ear and stick her toothless old face into mine her breath reeking of gin; she’d demand to know how much I’d got that day,

‘Cos half of its mine, and don’t you forget it’.

‘But then she’d stick a bowl of watery soup and a lump of black bread under my nose, before bundling me off to a corner of the coal shed with a moth-eaten blanket. I’d go to sleep and dream of becoming a pirate and steal from all these rich bastards who seemed to own the world, while the likes of me had nothing’.

Wouter watched him through narrowed eyes and listened without comment.

He had never heard him talk so much. Maybe it was the mug of Genever he had given him to go with the meagre dinner, but whatever it was he was beginning to understand a bit more about this crazy kid’s character.

‘So, what happened’ he said ‘how come you joined the VOC.’

‘Why, what do you want to know for?’ Jan was back on the defensive, glaring at Wouter from the corners of his eyes, suspiciously.

Wouter didn’t want to reveal this new-found interest in his companion, so he blustered,

‘Suit yourself. I don’t care really, just passing the time’.

He sat back and took another puff from his pipe, blowing a long stream of white smoke that mingled with that of the campfires and drifted lazily into the still night sky.

Jan watched him for a moment or two; then, his gaze followed the smoke upwards.

‘My sister died’ he said flatly, dispassionately, as if it were a commonplace occurrence, which it probably was.

‘Syphilis’ again flatly, as if he were describing a flower garden that had died from want of attention.

‘What did you do then’ asked Wouter, his voice had a softer edge to it now,

‘They kicked me out of the brothel to fend for myself, but I had learned a few tricks by then, and I managed to survive, with an eye for an unlatched door or window. The markets were always good pickings if you were sharp. I used to like to hang around the taverns too, doing odd jobs for the landlords, supping the dregs of ale in leftover pots, chewing on scraps. There were plenty of stories to be heard too if you kept your ears open.

That’s where I first heard about Torrentius and his ideas.

Some called it heresy and the Church authorities would bring him down, but I had no time for the Church, any of them, what had they done for me, Cornelizs shared his views as well, that’s what drew me to him.’

‘Yes, and Torrentius views almost did cost him his life, he should have stuck to painting, he was good at that, at least’ replied Wouter who had a rough idea of Cornelizs radical views, had even heard him utter the words,

‘All I do, God gave unto my heart’, implying that he could do no wrong.

He had denied the existence of heaven or hell, choosing instead to follow the Epicurean philosophy of,

‘true happiness is only to be found in the pursuit of pleasure’.

And no debt is to be incurred by its prosecution, even the misuse of others, to the extent of rape and murder, survival of the fittest was all that mattered.

Wouter could see how someone with such a brutal upbringing as Jan Pelgrom, could be drawn to these philosophies, in search of a better life.

Jan stared into the fire for a few more minutes and then, without another word, crawled into his bedroll, turning his back on Wouter, who sat for a while longer gazing across its dying embers at the huddled body of his young companion.

He was a savage beast with a troubled soul, and trouble, Wouter knew, would accompany him, all the days of his life.

Day dawned, crisp and fair, it was spring in these climes and a chilly morning could often be the herald of a glorious day, and this one promised to be no exception. The sun peaked over the low hills in the east to illumine a scene of great significance, which would go unnoticed and unrecorded by its unlikely cast of participants, for this would be the first full day of residence by white Europeans on the mainland of Terra Australis.

As the sun’s rays grew stronger, it drew them slowly back from their dream world. For an instant, the sensation of awakening to warmth and stillness was pleasing and comfortable in a way Wouter hadn’t felt in a long time. He lay still for a few moments, savoring the peace, the quiet, only disturbed by the distant sound of surf pounding on the beach and the occasional cry of a seabird.

A flicker of contentment crossed his mind for a second or two before the plight of their situation returned to bring him back to reality with a jolt. He rolled from his bed to stretch and yawn before wandering off into the scrub to relieve himself and gather dry kindling.

Returning, he found his companion sitting up gazing across the creek, his face devoid of expression.

Wouter poked and blew on the fire’s embers until the kindling he had gathered caught on, he glanced then, at Jan, but there was still no reaction from him, so in an effort to rouse him from his lethargy, he said, jokingly,

‘You look as if you are lost, just been marooned or something’ Jan glanced at him then and retorted with a sneer,

‘You think that’s funny, do you.’

Wouter shrugged and gave a grin,

‘Well, we have to stay positive, don’t we? look on the bright side, we could be dead, here now, come on, fetch that bag of groats from the boat and I will make us some porridge for breakfast, we may as well eat it while it lasts’.

Wouter fetched some water from the creek and poured it into an iron pot on the fire, ‘pour a handful into that’ Jan opened the bag, grabbed a handful and looked hard at it, ‘weevils’ he said,

‘don’t worry’ replied Wouter ‘beggars can’t be choosers, chuck it in any way and keep stirring, now, didn’t I see a jar of blackjack treacle’ he went to the boat, rummaged around among their supplies and found it, returning with a grin he declared

‘This’ll make the critters easier to eat. After we have eaten, I am going to go for a walk, a bit of a reconnoiter, see what I can see, you stay here and watch the gear.’

‘I don’t want to stay here on my own; I’ll come too.’

‘No, if the natives come along and steal our gear, what will we do?’

‘If they come when I am here on my own what can I do to stop them, anyway?’

‘Left all your bravado on the islands, did you? You were full of it there, running around with a knife threatening everybody. Not so bold without your precious master, Cornelizs behind you, eh?’

Finishing his porridge, Wouter went down to the creek and rinsed his bowl, returning, he donned his hat, stuck a knife in his belt and grabbed a flask of water. Turning back to Jan he remonstrated with his finger pointing to the ground,

‘Stay here, they probably won’t come near anyway, but if they do, stay calm, try to talk to them, remember what Pelsaert said, besides we need them’.

Jan’s only response was a surly look from beneath hooded eyes.

Wouter walked away, calling back,

‘I shouldn’t be too long, just a short recce to start with’, and with that, he was gone.

Jan looked around himself furtively, he drew his knees up to his chest in a subconscious symbol of self-protection, his thoughts drifting to his friend Pieter, now sailing to Java on the Sardam.

Peter, who had promised to come back and rescue him. ‘Hurry Pieter’ he thought, ‘Please hurry.’