Watchandi Man. Robert Hallsworth
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