East India Read online

  JONKERS they called them; they were just boys for the most part, some of them didn't even have beards on their chins, young men from good families sent out to the East by the Company to learn the trade as naval ensigns or junior assistants, their only assets good breeding and a sense of superiority. Whatever breeding was, Christiaan thought; another word for unjustified arrogance perhaps.

  The only one old enough to call a man was Theunis Quick, and he was the same age as his father. He wondered what he was doing as a cadet. Spent his inheritance, he supposed, and now he needed desperately money from somewhere.

  He saw one of the young ones, Joost van der Linde, staring up at Secor on the poop. A golden child this one, hair like a lion's mane, a neatly trimmed beard, glacial blue eyes, and the easy way that fine appearance lends a young man.

  Shallow as paint.

  He leaned on the rail beside him. “Thinking that you will be up there one day?” he said to him.

  “If God wills it,” Joost said.

  “Well, I suppose it does no harm to dream.”

  “They say Sinjeur Secor rose from a clerk to commandeur in just ten years.”

  “Yes but his brother-in-law is an Admiral with the Company.”

  Joost didn't know that, his expression said as much.

  “You really think Secor got to be in his position through hard work?”

  “The Company needs young men like us.”

  “Of course they do. There's a high attrition rate in the colonies. Eight men out of ten do not survive five years in Batavia. Forget all they have told you about bare-breasted women and coconut palms. It is a death pit, rife with flux and fever.”

  “Then why are you going there?”

  “A good question, Joost. Still, I have studied at university, I have French and Latin and I am skilled at apothecary. The chance of rapid advancement is worth the risk.” He left the rest unsaid: I’ll be all right, you they'll bury and they won't even notice you're gone.

  The young man looked shaken. They never told them what Batavia was really like before they got on the ship or many of them wouldn't go. “Your family has a proud name in Holland. Even I have heard of the van der Lindes, and I lived a long way away in in Haarlem. It's a pity the way things turn out. Here you are being ordered about by sailors and clerks. You were meant for better things, Joost.”

  “Like what?”

  “I think in your heart you have already imagined what,” Christiaan said. And he smiled and moved away.

  ***

  That night they ran into a gale. The Utrecht pitched violently, running before the wind with just her to’gallants flying. The passengers were crammed below decks, groaning in their bunks, the fug down there was acrid with vomit.

  Cornelia fought her way onto the deck, desperate for fresh air. She no longer cared about being washed overboard. It would be a mercy. She retched again but there was nothing left in her stomach but green bile. The deck heaved as another great wave rolled beneath the keel. The bosun screamed at the watch, chasing the sailors up the ratlines to reef more sail.

  “It will get better,” someone said beside her.

  She looked up; he was braced under the lantern at the carved poop rail, a big ugly fellow with corn-coloured hair. He seemed as cheerful as if he was out taking the morning air along the canals at home. She recognized him; he was one of the VOC soldiers, their sergeant.

  “When you find your sea legs, you'll be all right.”

  Another spasm shook her and she heaved.

  Just get away from me, she thought. Let me die here in peace.

  “Just hold on,” he said. “You'll be all right.”

  She was too weak to even curse at him. She closed her eyes and curled up on the deck. A drift of spray cooled her burning cheeks.

  Just let me die. Let the seas wash over me and let me die.

  She was vaguely aware of the soldier standing guard over her. She was too sick to be afraid and when she realised he meant her no harm she was actually grateful for him. He was there for a long time and then she heard the skipper order him and the other soldiers back down below.

  “You’ll be alright!’ he said, and then he was gone.

  She would have liked to have called him back. She felt somehow safer and less miserable with him around, even though he was just a soldier.

  Chapter 5

  THEY endured two weeks of gales and high seas. Finally the weather broke and this morning they were under full sail, running fast before the wind. The silhouettes of the Beschermer and the Zandaam stood against the land, the rest of the fleet scattered by the storms of the past weeks. They sailed under a sky of broken cloud, the sea calmer.

  Ambroise stood at the poop rail. He never came up on deck during the skipper's watch, tried to avoid him best he could. Jacob Schellinger was a good skipper but as arrogant a man as God ever put upon the earth.

  He heard someone climb up the companionway from the Council Room; it was Christiaan.

  “Where are we?”

  “The skipper says we have rounded Cape Finisterre. We are off the coast of Lusitania, around thirty-six degrees north of the Equator.”

  Christiaan leaned on the rail. “Better seas at last.”

  “Yes, God be praised. Where is the skipper?”

  “Asleep in is cabin. The understeersman has the watch.” He stared at the sea, something on his mind. “If I may say so, Commandeur, I don’t think you like him very well.”

  “He’s a good skipper.”

  “Is there bad blood between you?”

  “You have not heard about it? Everyone else seems to know of it.”

  “I am new to the Company.”

  Ambroise sighed. The story never got easier in the re-telling. “Last year, when I returned from Surat in India, he skippered the vessel that I sailed on. There was some unpleasantness.” He hesitated, unsure how much he should tell him. “He was trading under the lap, carrying trade goods over that allowed by the Company. I had need to reproach him. He was reprimanded and lost several months’ pay.”

  “And the Company still saw fit to put the two of you together again for this voyage?”

  “We shall make the best of it.”

  “The skipper is a difficult man.”

  “A mild summation of his character.”

  “Still, certain other passengers compensate for what he lacks in charm.”

  “You are referring to Cornelia Noorstrandt?”

  “A fascinating woman, would you agree?”

  He didn’t like the direction the conversation was headed. He could be a strange one, the undermerchant. “What brings you to the Indies, Heer van Sant?”

  “I look to better myself as we all do.”

  “You are a man of some learning, I believe.”

  “I have some knowledge of Latin and French. I earned my living as an apothecary for many years.”

  “You should do well, then.”

  “If God wishes it.”

  Cornelia Noorstrandt emerged from below decks and he saw Christiaan look her way. He reprimanded him with a glance. The undermerchant had the decency to look abashed at being caught out.

  That damned woman was going to be trouble; he knew it in his water right from the first.

  ***

  She had finally found what the commandeur called her sea legs, was accustomed now to the rolling of the great ship. She spent more time on the quarterdeck, along with some of the other passengers. The women had thrown up awnings to shield themselves from the sun, which was growing hotter day by day.

  “Feeling better?”

  She looked around. It was the big fellow with the corn-coloured hair, the soldier she had wanted to murder when she was seasick. On closer inspection he was not such a bad looking fellow as she had first thought. A little rough at the edges.

  “It's a terrible feeling, the seasickness. I used to suffer from it when I first went under sail. But after a while you get used to it. You look pale. Have you been eating?”

/>   “As well as I can. The food is not...not what I am accustomed to.”

  “The captain’s table will be better than what they feed us. I wouldn't give it to the pigs at home. But it's like the seasickness. You get used to it.”

  He had a nerve, talking to her like this, him just a common soldier. But she was grateful to him for looking out for her, and he didn’t seem a bad sort. “I just want to get off this ship,” she said, ‘eat some decent food. I'd give anything to crunch into an apple right now. take a bath, eat a proper meal.”

  “You must live a grand life,” he said.

  She supposed she did. A soldier's life could not be an easy one, he must consider her privations small suffering compared with what he had been through in his life.

  “Have you been to the Indies before?”

  “Just once, fighting in the service of the Company. That's when I found my sea legs.”

  “And you chose to come back?”

  “It's good money and it's what I know.”

  She stared into the water foaming alongside the painted hull. “I am missing Holland already.”

  “Just think of the warm tropic nights and the coconut palms.”

  She turned and looked up at him and smiled. He smiled back.

  Then she remembered herself, felt her cheeks blush hot and hurried away.

  Chapter 6

  ONLY two months out and already Cornelia felt she would go mad. The endless monotony of the days was relieved only by the tolling of the ship's bell as the helmsman called the hour from the sand in the glass. She even found herself looking forward to meal times, though the food was pitiful; breakfast and supper was a gruel mixed with prunes, lunch was peas or beans with salted pork or smoked herring. They had brought live pigs and chickens with them, but these were almost all slaughtered and eaten now, and there were maggots in the pork now, even if they did eat it off silver plates.

  But as the soldier had pointed out, she was better off than most. She had her own cabin at the stern, even had use of one of the two privies with wooden seats projecting over the stern. A long rope descended into the sea; it had a frayed end, and it was with this that a lady was supposed to clean herself. The rope was then tossed back through the privy into the ocean below to wash in the sea for the next person to use.

  Still, even this was a luxury of sorts. The other passengers shared the gun deck and two privies among almost three hundred, as well as two hundred sailors and soldiers, packed like herring in the orlop. The stink coming from below was appalling.

  At least the weather had improved and the days were mild. Occasionally they glimpsed the coasts of the Sierra Leone, and there was the promise of fruit and heat on the breath of the sea.

  She bowed her head and began to write.

  “We have been aboard the ship just two months though it seems much longer. The diet is unremitting, salt pork or beef, though the cook does try to flavour it with some dried prunes. Occasionally there is some Gouda but this is considered a delicacy.

  The commandeur, Ambroise Secor, is quite charming and is on his way to becoming a member of the Council of India and a very important man. In just ten years he has risen from a clerk in the Company's employ, and fame and fortune seem to be his for the taking.

  He has spent many years in India at the court of the mogul Jahan, and tells us tales of the romantic East, filling the young men's heads with all sorts of romantic dreams. If only the voyage were not so long, it might be undertaken with greater anticipation.

  I long to be in my husband's arms again, and not to feel these uncertainties. In Holland I think I knew and understood myself better...”

  She stared at what she had just written and scratched out the last two lines. What had made her write that?

  She wished now that she had travelled to Batavia with Boudewyn, for the sake of her soul. But there had been family and business affairs to attend to, and he had no head for finance. All he knew of money was how to spend it. She had married an overgrown boy.

  But her duty was with him now, in the East. What else was to be done?

  ***

  Cornelia watched the soldiers exercising on the quarterdeck, their faces shadowed by the lanterns; the soldier with the corn-coloured hair caught her eye and she quickly looked away. A brute of a man, like the rest of them down there, but he had been gentle with her that night of the storm. She felt a curiosity about him that she couldn’t explain.

  She glanced back and he was still looking.

  She heard the skipper yelling instructions to the men on the top mast yards. One of them had fallen from the to’gallant a few days ago, when she closed her eyes at night she could still hear the sound he made when his body hit the deck. He had shuddered and died quickly and the rest of the watch had gone on with their work as if nothing had happened. Stitched him in a sheet, the pastor said a few words from the good book, and then he went over the side. The skipper didn’t even leave the wheel.

  “It is an astounding thing to watch him at his work, is it not?”

  She looked around. The undermerchant stood close by her right shoulder; she hadn't even heard him come up on deck.

  “The men down there on the whipstaff move the rudder, but ships like this are so big they are steered mainly by the mizzen and sprit sails. It requires great skill on the part of the ship's master.”

  “For all his unpleasant ways, he seems capable enough.”

  “The finest skipper in the whole VOC fleet, they say. His arrogance is not misplaced.”

  “Just unwelcome.”

  “As you say.” He smoothed down his hair in the wind, a gesture almost feminine in its vanity. “To think we can travel to the end of the world and think nothing of it. For the commandeur it is his second journey in as many years. Amazing to live in such times.”

  “I would have rather stayed in Holland.”

  “Do you not long to see your husband again?”

  “Of course,” she said, but she knew that her face had rather given her away. She felt these past days that everyone on the ship could see into her troubled soul. “I should go below,” she said. “I am tired.”

  “Good night to you, vrouwe,” he said.

  “Good night, Heer Undermerchant.” She slipped away, down the companionway to her quarters. She felt him staring after her. There were eyes everywhere. It was like even the timbers were watching her.

  Chapter 7

  THE days grew hot; it was stinking down below. The sailors were crammed between the cannon on the gun deck, their hammocks slung between the thwarts and their sea chests stowed wherever they could. It was even worse for the soldiers on the orlop, it was airless down there, black as hell and barely room for a man to stand. Ambroise did not know how they endured it day after day.

  In Holland it would be winter; there would be snow in the fields and ice on the rivers. Hard to imagine, when there was sweat running inside your ruffed collar and the sun baked the back of your neck.

  Cornelia Noorstrandt had made it a habit to come up on the deck and pass the morning in conversation with him. He could have avoided her; he chose not to.

  This morning she wore an uncut bodice, cream velvet bordered with grey. Her natural grace was in stark contrast to the blatant flirting of her maid, following along behind her and doing all she could to inflame the sailors. It was a wonder they didn't fall out of the ratlines when the little trollop came on deck, the way she wiggled her behind at them.

  “Another hot day,” Cornelia said.

  “Indeed.”

  She must be lonely, he thought. There were no other women of her class on the ship. He was perhaps the only other person of her age and education and status. They talked for a while about Batavia, and what it was like there, and he tried to explain to her about the seasons, which were nothing like Holland.

  They started talking about their families. He expected that she came from some rich family on the Heerenstraat, and was surprised to discover that her origins were as humble as his ow
n.

  “I never knew my father,” she told him. “He died the year I was born. He was a cloth merchant.”

  “A rich one, by the sounds of it.”

  “No, we lived in a house on the Nieuwendijk. Not poor, but not very wealthy either. A year after he died my mother married again, the captain of a man o' war. I don't remember him very well either; he was at sea most of the time. It was one of my mother's uncles who had the money. When he died he left it all to my mother. We sold the house in Nieuwendijk and went to a big house on the Leleistraat.”

  “It must have made your stepfather the richest sea captain in Amsterdam.”

  “My mother persuaded him to resign his commission. She'd lost one husband, she did not wish to lose another.” Cornelia stared at the sea. “I loved her; she was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. And she had the gentlest voice, like an angel. She died when I was eleven years old. I think I cried for a whole week. I still miss her.”

  Ambroise thought about his own mother, an old lady now in Amsterdam.

  “My father went back to sea. He died the next year, in a skirmish with a Spanish raider in the Americas. I'm sure it's how he wanted it.”

  “So you were an orphan?” he said, surprised. Her life had been far different from the pampered upbringing he had imagined.

  “My sister and I became wards of the state. As soon as I was old enough my guardian decided that my money should be wedded to a good family.”

  “How old were you?”

  “I was eighteen. We are married nine years now.”

  “And no children?”

  “God has not seen fit.” He saw pain in her eyes. Because she wanted children, or because the opportunities to create them had been so bleak?

  “It is not always possible to understand the divine,” he said. To put it mildly.

  “There are many things it is not possible to understand.”

  “And your husband?”

  “He would like children of course. What is the point of a good family if you do not have sons to take your name?”