The Covenant: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  His stay at the village was a revelation. The Hottentots were infinitely lower in the scale of civilization than the Javanese, or the wealthy merchants of the Spice Islands, and to compare them with the organized Chinese was ridiculous. But they were equally far removed from the primitive Strandloopers who foraged at the beach, for they had orderly systems for raising sheep and cows and they lived in substantial kraals. True, they were mostly naked, but their food was of high quality.

  Living among the little people for five days encouraged Willem to think that perhaps a permanent settlement might be practical, with Dutch farmers growing the vegetables required by the passing fleets of the Compagnie and subsisting on the sheep and cattle raised by the Hottentots; this possibility he discussed with Jack.

  ‘You grow more cattle, maybe?’

  ‘No. We have plenty.’

  ‘But if we wanted to trade? You give us many cattle?’

  ‘No. We have just enough.’

  ‘But if we needed them? You saw the English ship. Poor food. No meat.’

  ‘Then English grow sheep. English grow cattle.’

  He got nowhere with the Hottentots, but when he returned to the fort and told the officers of the wealth lying inland, they grew hungry for beef and organized an expedition to capture some of the cattle. Van Doorn argued that to do this might embitter relations with the brown people, but the other sailors agreed with the officers: if cattle existed out there toward the hills, they should be eaten.

  The argument was resolved in early August when Jack led some fifty Hottentots to the fort, bringing not only sheep but also three fine bullocks which they found they could spare. ‘See,’ Van Doorn said when the deal was completed, ‘we’ve won our point without warfare,’ but when the officers commanded Jack to deliver cattle on a regular basis, he demurred.

  ‘Not enough.’

  The officers thought he meant that the goods they had offered were not enough and tried to explain that with the wreck of the Haerlem they had lost their normal trade goods and had only spices and precious fabrics at the fort. Jack looked at them askance, as if he could not decipher what they were saying, so one of the officers procured a boat, and with six Hottentots and Van Doorn, went out to the disintegrating hulk to let the little men see for themselves, and to pick up any stray bits of material they might want in trade for their cattle.

  It was a futile trip. All that remained aboard the creaking wreck were the heavy guns and anchors and the broken woodwork, and these had no appeal to the Hottentots, who had been taught by Coree after his return from London, ‘Wood nothing, brass everything.’ The brass had long since vanished.

  But as the others climbed back into the boat, Willem chanced to find a hidden drawer containing an item of inestimable value. Hearing the officer coming down the gangway to hail him, he slammed the drawer shut and followed the Hottentots ashore.

  That night when others were asleep he told the watch, ‘I want to inspect the Haerlem again,’ and silently he rowed out to the ship, which had now settled nine feet into the sand. Fastening his line to a stud, he climbed aboard, going quickly to the captain’s quarters, where he opened the drawer. And there it was, with thick brass corner fittings and center clasps.

  Carefully opening the brass locks, he turned back the cover and saw the extraordinary words: ‘Biblia: The Holy Scripture translated into Dutch. Henrick Laurentsz, Bookseller, Amsterdam, 1630.’ This was a printing of the very Bible his mother had cherished and he knew it would be most improper to allow a book so sacred to sink at sea, so covering it with his shirt, he carried it back to the fort, where he hid it among his few possessions. Occasionally in the days ahead, when no one was watching, he gingerly opened his Bible, reading here and there from the sacred Word. It was his book, and at the New Year he borrowed a pen and wrote on the first line of the page reserved for family records: ‘Willem van Doorn, his book, 1 January, 1648.’

  The Dutch sailors at Table Bay were not forgotten. During the twelve months they stayed, nearly a hundred Dutch ships engaged in the Java trade passed back and forth between Amsterdam and Batavia, standing far out to sea as they rounded the Cape. Some English ships actually sailed into the bay, offering help as needed, and in August three Compagnie ships anchored near the fort, providing mail, information and tools.

  The captain of the Tiger, leader of the flotilla, caused Willem serious trouble, because on the evening prior to his departure for Java, he announced at the fort that any sailors who wished to return to that island for an additional tour of duty were welcome, and three volunteered. ‘We sail at noon tomorrow,’ the captain said, and all that night Willem wrestled with the problem. Intuitively, with a force he would always remember in later years, he shied away from going on to Holland, a land he did not know and to which he felt no attachment. But if he failed to join the Tiger, right now, the next fleet would be Europe bound, and he might never see Java again.

  Toward midnight he woke the fort commander and said, ‘Sir, my whole heart pulls me toward Java.’

  ‘And mine,’ the officer responded, and with swift phrases he explained how any man of character who had once seen the Spice Islands would never want to work elsewhere: ‘It’s a man’s world. It’s a world of blazing sunsets. Java, Formosa! My God, I’ll die if I don’t get back.’

  ‘My mother argued—’

  ‘Son, if I weren’t commander of this fort, I’d ship aboard the Tiger like that!’ And he snapped his fingers.

  ‘My mother says that no Dutchman has a chance with Jan Compagnie if he’s born in Java—unless he gets back home for education and proper church training.’

  ‘Well, now!’ the commander said in the dim candlelight. ‘Well, now, Mevrouw van Doorn is the smartest woman in the islands, and if she says …’ In some irritation he banged his fist on the table, causing the candle to flicker. ‘She’s right, goddamnit, she’s right. Jan Compagnie has no respect but for Amsterdam trading gentlemen. I’m from Groningen and might just as well be cattle.’ Mention of this word diverted him, and he gave Willem no more guidance, for in the darkness he intended to send a troop of gunners out to fetch those Hottentot cattle.

  When dawn illuminated Table Mountain, young Willem van Doorn made his decision: the Tiger would sail without him; he would obey his mother’s orders and sail on to Holland with the March fleet—but as the Tiger was about to hoist anchor he set up a great shouting, ‘Captain! Captain!’ until the commander thought he had changed his mind and now wished passage to Java.

  Not at all. He was running to the post-office stone under which he had buried the six letters addressed to Java. Puffing, he ran to the Tiger’s longboat, and the documents were on their way.

  When the ship pulled away he felt little regret, for as it went he had the curious sensation that he was intended for neither Amsterdam nor Batavia: What I’d like is to stay here. To see what’s behind those mountains. That night he read long in his Bible, the sweet Dutch phrases burning themselves into his memory:

  And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said unto them … go up into the mountain and see the land … and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many; and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad …

  And as he studied other texts dealing with the reactions of the Israelites to the new land into which they had been ordered to move, he felt himself to be of that exploring group; he had gone up into the mountain to spy out the land; he had journeyed inland to see how the people lived and whether the land was good or barren. It was ordained that he should be part of that majestic land beyond the mountains; and when three days later the swift little flute Noordmunster left to overtake the two slower vessels bound for Java, he saw it go with no regret. But how he might manage to stay at the Cape he did not know, for the Dutch were determined to abandon it as soon as a homeward fleet arrived.

  In the empty days that followed, Van Doorn occupied himself with routine life at the fort. On a field nearby
he shot a rhinoceros. In a stream inland he shot a hippo. He went aboard the English ship Sun to deliver mail, which the captain would forward from London, then helped two sick Dutch sailors aboard for the long trip home. Of great interest, he headed a hunting party to nearby Robben Island, where the men shot some two hundred penguins; he himself found the flesh of these birds much too fishy, but the others averred that it tasted better than the bacon of Holland. And twice he led parties that climbed Table Mountain.

  Only one unusual event occurred during these quiet days. One afternoon, at about dusk, a small group of Hottentots approached the fort from the east, leading cattle, and when the sailors saw the fresh meat coming their way—animals much larger than those at home—they cheered, but the trading was not going to be easy, because Jack was in charge, and in broken English, said, ‘Not sell. We live in fort. With you.’

  The officers could not believe that these savages were actually proposing that they move into the fort, and when Willem insisted that this was precisely what Jack was suggesting, they broke into laughter. ‘We can’t have wild men living with us. You tell them to leave the cattle and go.’

  But Jack had a broader vision, which he tried to explain to the Dutchmen: ‘You need us. We work. We grow cattle for you. We make vegetables. You give us cloth … brass … all we need. We work together.’

  It was the first proposal, seriously made, that natives and whites work together to develop this marvelous tip of the continent; Jack knew how this might be accomplished, but was brusquely repelled: ‘Tell him to leave those damned cattle and begone!’

  Van Doorn alone, among the white men, understood what was being suggested, and he had the courage to argue with his officers: ‘He says we could work together.’

  ‘Together?’ the officers exploded, as if with one voice they spoke for all of Holland. ‘What could they do to help us?’ And one of them pointed grandiloquently to the Dutch guns, the ladders, the wooden boxes and other accouterments of a superior culture.

  Van Doorn suggested, ‘Sir, they could help us raise cattle.’

  ‘Tell them we wish only to deal with them for the beasts.’

  But when the officers proposed to start the bartering, they found that Jack and his little people refused to trade: ‘We come. Live with you. Help you. We give you these cattle. Many more. But no more trade.’

  This was incomprehensible, that a band of primitives should be laying down terms, and the officers would tolerate no such nonsense. At Banda Island east of Java when the sultan opposed them over the matter of cloves, the entire population of fifteen thousand had been slaughtered. When the Lords XVII heard of this they demurred, but old Jan Pieterszoon Coen had explained firmly, in letters which reached Amsterdam four years after the event: ‘In Holland you suggest what we should do. In Java we do what’s necessary.’ When the sultan on another island refused to cooperate, he and ten thousand of his people were forcibly resettled on Amboyna. If the Compagnie did not tolerate opposition from Spice Islanders, who, after all, were semi-civilized even if they did follow Muhammad, it was certainly not going to allow these primitives to dictate trading terms.

  ‘Take the cattle,’ the officers said, but at this, young Van Doorn had to protest: ‘In the villages beyond the hills are many Hottentots. If we start trouble …’

  ‘He’s starting the trouble. Tell him to take his damned cattle, and if he ever comes back here, he’ll be shot. Get out!’

  The officers would permit no further negotiation, and the Hottentots were dismissed. Slowly, sadly, they herded their fat cattle and started back across the flats, unable to comprehend why their sensible proposal had been rejected.

  Willem saw Jack again under pitiful conditions. A group of six sailors applied for permission to hunt the area well north of the fort for eight or nine days, and since barter with the Hottentots was no longer possible and meat was needed, they were encouraged to see if they could find a hippopotamus or a rhinoceros, both of which provided excellent eating. Because the land they were exploring was more arid than that to the south and east, they had to go far, so that they were absent much longer than intended, and when they returned, there were only five.

  ‘We were attacked by Hottentots, and Van Loon was killed by a poisoned arrow.’ They had the arrow, a remarkable thing made in three sections bound together by tight collars of sinew, and so made that when the poisoned tip entered the body, the rest broke away, making it impossible to pull out the projectile.

  ‘We cut it out,’ the men explained. ‘And he lived for three days, always getting weaker till he died.’

  The officers were outraged and swore revenge on the Hottentots, but Van Doorn recalled something Jack had told him during his stay at the village: ‘We don’t ever hunt north. The San … that’s their land.’ That’s all he could remember; it had been a warning which he had overlooked, and now his companion was dead.

  He suggested that he go east to discuss this tragedy with Jack, and although the officers ridiculed the idea at first, upon reflection they saw that it would be unwise to engage in open warfare with the little brown men if the latter enjoyed superior numbers and a weapon so frightening. So they gave consent, and with two armed companions Van Doorn set out to talk with Jack, taking the arrow with him.

  As soon as the Hottentots saw it they showed their fear: ‘San. The little ones who live in bush. You must never go their land.’ They showed how the arrow worked and explained that they themselves were terrified of these little men who had no cattle, no sheep, no kraals: ‘They are terrible enemies if we go their land. If we stay our land, they let us alone.’

  It was amusing to Willem to hear the Hottentots speak of this vague enemy as ‘the little ones,’ but Jack convinced him that the San were truly much smaller: ‘We keep our cattle toward the ocean. More difficult for little ones to creep in.’

  And so open warfare between the Hottentots and the Dutch was avoided. 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 a swift little flute can afford to be alert and eager. He was not surprised next morning when the White Dove hauled anchor early, as if it wished to avoid further contact with the poorly run Princesse Royale, nor was he surprised when he found that the White Dove had taken with it a healthy portion of the available fresh vegetables and fresh meat. After sixty-eight steaming-hot days the flute would land in Java without having lost a man.