To Die a Dry Death: The True Story of the Batavia Shipwreck Read Online Free

the surf. “Two more, only two more.”
    More than that and the overloaded boat would swamp. The sailors held a couple of frantic men off with their oars. Timing, timing was the thing. “Cast off.”
    The longboat swept out with the next wave, drawn back along the line of the reef. “Row, lads.”
    A few fools floundered in the water, foiled in their attempt to get into the boat.
    “Throw out a line aft,” yelled Jacobsz. If they could catch a ride, God speed. But he couldn’t afford to stop and the boat was overloaded anyway. He caught sight of the yawl coming alongside the ship to pick up more people and prayed his sailors could keep control of the struggling mob on the deck.
    “ Haai !” somebody shrieked.
    The boat wobbled as some passengers shrank away from the edges and others craned their necks to see.
    “Yes, sharks,” said Jacobsz. “You get them in oceans. Stay calm or you’ll meet them up close.”
    That was all he needed with an overloaded boat full of panicked people. He watched the triangular fins. Leisurely for now. Just nosing around the line astern where five men clung. Please, God, keep them safe. One of them let go and thrashed back towards the Batavia . He disappeared in a brief flurry of fins and grey backs and a tinge of red stained the water. On the longboat a child’s frightened crying joined the creak of oars, the grunts of labouring sailors.
    No time to mourn, or even think about one man’s fate. “Come on, lads. Get your backs into it,” said Jacobsz. “Down the channel to the island.”
    They beat into the wind and rain, while to starboard the reef formed a brief waterfall until the next wave struck. Jacobsz gazed at Batavia , lashed by waves. Her back was broken. Her stern—the poop deck and the quarter deck—still stood beyond the reach of even the highest wave. On the reef itself, a plume of foam spurted up around her crumpled prow, and hid the proud red lion’s snarl.
    *
    Startled from his cabin by a thundering roar, Jeronimus Cornelisz braced himself against the doorway to the quarterdeck as the ship shuddered. He’d kept himself out of the way, let the officers do their jobs. But now the mast, the central mast, lay across the deck and floundered in the water. The whole ship listed to the left, into the waves. The sea flooded across the shattered rail. The ship was sinking. It had to be. Fear clutched his chest as he sucked air into constricted lungs. As in a nightmare he remembered the ice on the canal collapsing beneath him all those years ago, the filthy water, cold as death, filling his mouth, the cruel laughter as he struggled… He couldn’t swim. He’d drown.
    A squall of rain struck him, cold and sharp as pins. What to do? The predikant and his family stood there with the serving folk and the lovely Lucretia, her corn-gold hair water-darkened, hanging lank around her face. Should he join them? Further along, towards the front of the ship, a mass of people jostled, their shouts audible above the wind and the surf. But the sea swirled and sucked. Another roller burst against the hull, sending salt spray to mix with the rain. The ship rolled, helpless, and the mob on the foredeck rolled with it. He clutched the door-jamb and wrestled with his fear.
    Voices drifted up from behind him, coming from the poop. Laughter; raucous, unfettered laughter. No panic there. Relief turned his legs to water. Best to join them; best to wait for the sea to become calm.
    Cornelisz stepped through the splintered doorway into Pelsaert’s cabin in time to see a sailor breaking open the Upper Merchant’s sea chest. The man straightened up and glared, challenging him with bleary, bloodshot eyes. Drunk. No doubt about it. The other six men stiffened, tightening their grip on the knives in their hands. A gunner and three sailors in their distinctive baggy breeches, tied at the knee. One even had a knife tucked into his hat. The other two he knew—military cadets of good family, young men