For those who had been deserted on board there was only one way to salvation; they must try to put out the fire or be killed. Under personal command of their captain they set to work and pumped and pumped and pumped. But the fire had reached several barrels of oil, and there was a dense smoke. It was impossible to throw 310 barrels of powder overboard in the suffocating atmosphere of the hold, yet the men tried to do it. They worked with desperate spe ed, but before the sixth part of the dangerous cargo was in the waters of the ocean the fire reached the forward part, where the powder was stored. A few moments later one hundred and ninety men were blown skyward, together with pieces of the masts and pi eces of the ship and heavy iron bars and pieces of sail and everything that belongs to a well-equipped vessel. "And I, Captain Willem Ysbrantsz Bontekoe, commander of the ship, also flew through the sky, and I thought that my end had come. So I stretched my hands and arms toward heaven and said: 'O dear Lord, there I go! Please have pity upon this miserable sinner!' because I thought that now the next moment I must be dead; but all the time I was flying through the air I kept my mind clear, and I found that there was happiness in my heart; yes, I even found that I was quite gay, and so came down again, and landed in the water between pieces of the ship which had been blown into little scraps."
This is the captain's own minute account of the psychology of being blown up. He continues:
"And when I was now once in the water of the sea, I felt my courage return in such a way that it was as if I had become a new man. And when I looked around I found a piece of the mainmast floating at my side, and so I climbed on top of it, and looking over the scene around me, I said, 'O Lord, so hath this fine ship been destroyed even as Sodom and Gomorrah.'"
For a short while the skipper floated and contemplated upon his mast, and then he noticed that he was no longer alone. A young German who had been on board as a common sailor came swimming to the wreckage. He climbed on the only piece of the ship's stern t hat was afloat, and pulling the captain's mast nearer to him with a long stick which he had fished out of the water, he helped our good Bontekoe to pull himself on board his wreckage. There they were together on the lonely ocean on a few boards and with n o prospect of rescue. Both the boats were far away, and showed themselves only as small black dots upon the distant horizon. Bontekoe told his comrade to pray with him. For a long time they whispered their supplications to heaven. Then they looked once more to see what the boats were doing. And behold! their prayer had been answered. The boats came rowing back as fast as they could. When they saw the two men they tried to reach the wreckage; but they did not dare to come too near for their heavily loaded bo ats ran the risk of being thrown against the remains of the hulk. In that case they would have been swamped. Bontekoe had felt very happy as long as he had been up in the air. Now, however, he began to notice that he had hurt his back badly and that he ha d been wounded in the head. He did not dare to swim to the boats, but the bugler of the ship, who was in the first boat, swam back to the wreckage, fastened a rope around Bontekoe's waist, and in this fashion the commander was pulled safely on board, where he was made as comfortable as could be. During the night the two boats remained near the place of the misfortune because they hoped that they might find a few things to eat in the morning. They had only a little bread and no water at all.
Meanwhile the exhausted skipper slept, and when in the morning his men told him that they had nothing to eat he was very angry, for the day before the sea around his mast had been full of all sorts of boxes and barrels and there had been enough to eat for everybody. Du ring the night, however, the boats had been blown away from the wreckage by the wind. There was no chance to get anything at all. Eight pounds of bread made up the total amount of provisions for seventy strong men. Of these there were forty-six in one and twenty-six in the second boat. Part of that bread was used by the ship's doctor to make a plaster for Bontekoe's wounds. With the help of a pillow which had been found in the locker of the biggest boat and which he wore around his head, Bontekoe was then partly restored to life, and he took command of his squadron and decided what ought to be done. There were masts in the boat, but the sails had been forgotten. Therefore he ordered the men to give up their shirts. Out of these, two large sails were made. They were primitive sails, but they caught the breeze, and with the help of the western wind Bontekoe hoped to reach the coast of Sumatra, which, according to the best guess of all those on board, must be seventy miles to the east. All those who had the map of that part of India fairly well in their heads were consulted, and upon a piece of wood a chart of the coast of Sumatra, the Sunda Islands, and the west coast of Java was neatly engraved with the help of a nail and a pocket-knife. A few simple instrume nts were cut out of old planks, and the curious expedition was ready to navigate further eastward.
Fortunately it rained very hard during the first night. The sails made out of shirts were used to catch the rain, and the water was carefully saved in two small empty barrels which had been found in one of the two boats. A drinking-cup was cut out of a wooden stopper, and each of the sailors in turn got a few drops of water. For many hours they sailed, and they became dreadfully hungry. Again a merciful He aven came to their assistance. A number of sea-gulls came flying around the boats, and many of them ventured so near that they seemed to say "Please catch us." Of course they were caught and killed, and although there was no way of cooking them, they were eaten by the hungry men as fast as they came. But a sea-gull is not a very fat bird, and again there was hunger, and not yet any sight of land. The big boat was a good sailor, but the small one could not keep up with her. Therefore the men in the small boa t asked that they might be taken on board the big one, so that they might either perish together or all be saved. The sailors in the large boat did not like the idea. They feared that their boat could not hold all of the seventy-six men. After a while, ho wever, they gave in. The men from the small boat were taken on board. Out of the extra oars a sort of deck was rigged up on top of the boat, and under this a number of the men were allowed to sleep while the others sat on top and looked for land or prayed for food and water.
No further sea-gulls came to feed this forlorn expedition, but just when they were so hungry that they could not stand it any longer, large shoals of flying-fish suddenly jumped out of the water into the boats. Again the men were saved. The two little barrels of water had been emptied by this time. For the second time the men expected that they would all perish. They sailed eastward, but they saw no land, and finally they got so hungry and thirsty that they talked about killing the ca bin boy and eating him. Bontekoe asked them please not to do it, and he prayed the good Lord not to allow this horrible thing to happen. The men, however, said that they were very hungry and must have something to eat. Then he asked that they should wait just three days more. If no land was seen after three days, they might eat the cabin boy.
On the thirteenth day after the explosion there was a severe thunder-storm, and the barrels were filled with fresh water. Most of the men then crept under the little cover to be out of the rain, and only one of the mates was left on deck. It was very hazy, but when the fog parted for a moment he saw land very near the boat. The next morning the survivors reached an uninhabited island, where there was no fresh water, but an abundance of cocoanut-trees. The men attacked these cocoanuts with such greedy hunger and they drank the sap with such haste that on the succeeding day they were all very ill, with great pains and a feeling that they might explode at any moment just as their ship had done.
From the presence of this island Bontekoe argued that the coast of Sumatra must be about fifteen miles distant. He filled the boat with many cocoanuts, a wonderful fruit because it is food and drink at the same time, and sailed fart her eastward. After seventy hours he actually reached Sumatra, but the surf did not allow him to land at once. It took an entire day before his men managed to row through that terrible surf, and then only at the cost of a swamped boat. At last, however, they did reach the shore, bailed out their boat, and m
ade a fire to dry their clothes and to rest from the fatigue of this terrible experience. Some of the sailors meanwhile explored the country near by, and to their great astonishment they found the ashes of an old fire and near it some tobacco. This was very welcome, for the men had not smoked for many weeks. They also found some beans. These they ate so greedily that they were all ill, and in the middle of the night, when they lay around groaning and moaning, they were suddenly attacked by the natives of the island. They had no arms, but they defended themselves as well as possible with sticks and pieces of burning wood which they picked up out of the fire. The natives fled, and the next morning sent three messengers to have a talk with the shipwrecked Hollanders. They wanted to know why he and his men had come to their island. They were told the story of the burning ship and the explosion which had killed many of the other sailors. Bontekoe said that he wa s a peaceful traveler, and would pay for everything he bought. The natives believed this story, and came back with chickens and rice and all sorts of eatables, for which Bontekoe paid with money. The natives then told him that this land was Sumatra and that Java was a little farther to the east. They even knew the name of the governor-general, and Bontekoe now felt certain that he was on the right road to a Dutch harbor.
Before he left he made a little trip up the river to buy more food, for he counted upon a long voyage in the small boat. This visit almost cost him his life. One day he had bought a carabao. He had paid for the animal, and told the four sailors who were with him to bring it to the camp; but the carabao was so wild that they could not manage it. The four sailors decided to spend the night in the village and try their luck once more the next morning. Bontekoe thought that this was too dangerous, and when his men refused to return to join the others, he hired two natives to paddle him back in t heir own canoe. The natives told him the price for which they would row him back to the camp, and he gave them the required sum; but when they were out in the middle of the river they threatened to kill Bontekoe unless he gave them more money. Bontekoe sai d a short prayer and felt very uncomfortable. Then he heard a voice inside himself tell him to sing a funny song. This he did. He sang so loud that the noise resounded through the quiet forests on both sides of the river. The two natives thought that this was the funniest thing that they had ever heard, and they laughed so uproariously that they forgot all about their plan to kill the white man, and Bontekoe came safely back to his own people.
The next morning a number of natives appeared with a carabao, but Bontekoe saw at once that it was not the same one that he had bought the day before. He asked about it, and wanted to know where his men were. "Oh," the natives said, "they are lazy and they will come a little later." This looked suspicious, but whatever happened, Bontekoe must have his carabao to be eaten on the trip across the Strait of Sunda. Therefore he tried to kill the animal, but when they saw this the natives suddenly began to call him names and they shrieked until several hundred others came running from the bushes and attacked the Hollanders. These fled back to their boat, but before they could reach it eleven men had been killed. Of those who scrambled on board one had been hit in the stomach with a poisoned arrow. Bontekoe performed an op eration, trying to cut away the flesh around the wound, but he did not succeed in saving the life of the poor fellow. There were now only fifty-six men left.
With only eight chickens for so many men Bontekoe did not dare to cross the strait. The next morning, armed, he went on shore, and, having gathered a lot of clams and filled the small barrels with fresh water, sailed away for the coast of Java. They sailed all day long, but at night there came so violent a wind that the sails had to be taken down, and the boat drifted whither it pleased the good Lord to send it. It pleased Him to bring it the next morning near three small islands densely covered with palm-trees. Out of the bamboo which grew near the shore several water-barrels were improvised. There was still some food, but not much. Therefore the discovery of these islands did not bring much relief to the poor shipwrecked people. Bontekoe wandered about in a despondent mood, and when he saw a small hill he climbed to the top of it to be alone and to pray to the good Lord for his divine counsel. He prayed for a long time, and when at last he opened his eyes he saw that the clouds on the horizon had parted an d that there was more land in the distance, and out of this he saw two bluish-looking mountains lifting their peaks. Suddenly he remembered that his friend, Captain Schouten, who had been in those parts of India, had often told him of two strange blue mountains which he had often seen in Java. He had sailed across the sea which separated Sumatra from Java, and the island on which he and his men now were was a little island off the coast of Java. He knew his way now, and he ordered his men to row as fast as they could. A boy was told to climb the mast and keep watch. And, behold! the next day the sailors suddenly saw a large Dutch fleet of twenty-three ships, under Frederik Houtman, who had left Texel with Bontekoe and was on his way to Batavia. He took all the men on board his ships. He fed them, gave them clothes, and carried them to Batavia, the newly founded capital of the Dutch East Indies, where the governor general, one Jan Pieterszoon Coen, received them very kindly, and appointed Bontekoe to be captain of a new ship, of thirty-two guns, which plied between the different colonies and carried provisions and supplies of war from Java to the other colonies. It also brought to Java the granite which was necessary to build the strong fort where the government of the colony was to reside. Later on Bontekoe was made captain of another ship called the Groningen, and he visited China, where the Dutch company tried to capture the Portuguese colony in Macao and to build a fort on one of the Pescadores Islands to protect their Chinese trade.
After two years of this work Bontekoe wanted to return home, and he asked to be given the command of a ship that was about to leave for Holland. He was given command of the Hollandia, which with two other ships left Batavia on the sixth of February of the year of our Lord 1625. But Bontekoe's bad luck had not yet come to an end. This patient man, who never lost his temper and accepted everything that happened to him with devout resignation, once more became the victim of all sorts of unfortunate occurrences. On the nineteenth of March his ship was attacked by a terrible storm, and soon the waves threatened to swamp the vessel. Bontekoe ordered the men to work the pumps as hard as they could. Then the pepper stowed away in the hold broke loose, got into the pumps and clogged them. Finally baskets were placed about the lower part of the pumps to keep the pernicious pepper out of them, and the Hollandia was saved.
Of the other two ships, one, the Gouda, had disappeared when the morning came, and the other, the Middelburg, had suffered much. Her masts were broken, and they had no spare the Atlantic. Finally the Middelburg left part of his spare yards for masts, and then he sailed with all possible haste for Madagascar to repair his own damage. He reached the island inside a week, and cut himself a mast out of a tree. He repaired his ship and spent a month on the island, where he was well received by the natives, who flocked from all over to see how the Hollanders made a new ship out of the wreck which they had saved from the storm. Here Bontekoe waited for the other ships. But the Gouda had sunk, and the other, the Middelburg, reached Madagascar much later, and spent several months in the bay of Antongil. Most of her people were ill and among those who died on the island was the commander of the ship, Willem Schouten, who with Le Maire had discovered the new route between the Pacific and the Atlantic. Finally the Middleburg left Madagascar and sailed to St. Helena. There she got into a fight with two Portuguese vessels, and that is the last word we have ever received of her. As for Bontekoe, he, too, reached St. Helena, where he wanted to take in fresh water. But a Spanish ship had landed troops, and he was not allowed to come on shore. So he went farther on, and at last reached Kinsale in Ireland. This time the joys of life on land almost finished the brave captain who so often had escaped the anger of the waves. His sailors went on shore, and after the long voyage they appreciated the hospitality of the Irish inns so well that they refused to come back on board. They stayed on shore unt
il the mayor of the city, at the request of Bontekoe, forbade the owners of ale-houses to give the Hollanders more than seven shillings' credit apiece. As soon as this was known the men, many of whom had spent much more than that, hastened back to their ship. Crowds of furious innkeepers and their wives, crying aloud for their money, followed them.
The Golden Book of the Dutch Navigators Page 12
