The Blue-Eyed Aborigine

by Rosemary Hayes

  As Wouter had predicted, there were hardly any people left alive and the survivors were in no state to put up a fight. Roaring and whooping, the soldiers struck down any soul who showed a sign of life.

  Jan looked around desperately. The soldiers were doing it all. There would be no one left for him to kill.

  And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a tiny movement behind a bush. It could have been a bird – or it could be another of the traitors. His head still fuddled with wine, Jan tried to focus. The soldiers had overtaken him by now and gone ahead, making a systematic search of the island.

  If this was another traitor, they had missed him – or her. Even in his drunken state, Jan hoped it was not a woman. Whoever it was, would be weakened by thirst and starvation, for there was even less vegetation on this barren island than on the one they had just come from. Jan ran towards the bush, the wine giving him courage.

  But when he reached the place, he hesitated. Nothing moved. Maybe there was no one there. Maybe it had just been the flutter of a seabird.

  He walked forward cautiously, his dagger clutched in his hand, and peered behind the bush.

  Then he jumped back. There was someone there! And it was someone he recognised – but only just. It was one of his fellow cabin boys from Batavia. Now the lad was nothing but skin and bone, his exposed flesh blistered and his eyes closed. But he was still breathing.

  Jan closed his mind to everything but the command he’d been given. He raised his dagger.

  The boy moaned and tried to open his eyes.

  Jan hesitated. Then suddenly he remembered that this boy had been one of those who’d taunted him for his pockmarked skin and stinking breath.

  With an angry strength, Jan drove his dagger into the boy’s chest.

  There was a ghastly noise. Not so much a scream – for the boy’s throat was so parched that he couldn’t scream; rather a convulsive gurgle. Just for a moment he looked at Jan, then his head lolled on to the ground, his body twitched and was still.

  Jan pulled out the dagger and plunged it in the ground to clean it. He turned and ran back to the shore. Then he vomited into the waves.

  Well, he was a man now. He had killed for Corneliez. It was easy. He could kill again.

  Back on their own island, the landing party reported to Corneliez that every person on Seals’ Island was now dead from lack of food and water, or had been murdered.

  ‘Every one?’

  Jan looked at the soldiers and wondered whether they would tell Corneliez what they’d learnt. Apparently, one of the men on Seals’ Island, the one who had put up most resistance, had yelled at them as they struck him down: ‘You won’t kill us all, you murderers. Some of us have escaped to be with Hayes and his men.’

  Jan watched as the soldiers glanced at one another.

  ‘Every one?’ repeated Corneliez.

  ‘It seems that a few have escaped from the island. They made a boat from driftwood,’ said a Lance Corporal.

  ‘Pah!’ spat Corneliez. ‘They won’t have got far. They will have drowned.’

  Corneliez was full of praise for Jan when he heard about the cabin boy.

  ‘Now you are bloodied, Jan,’ said Corneliez, giving him a goblet of wine. “Now you are indeed my man – my Chief Assistant.’

  Jan looked at his feet. He couldn’t forget the look in the cabin boy’s eyes as the dagger struck him.

  But when he had gulped down the wine, he felt braver. Brave enough to run round the island threatening to kill anyone who annoyed him. And brave enough to go and seek out that young girl he had seen with her mother when he had gone to tell them of the Under Merchant’s plans for unprotected women and girls.

  He lurched into their tent, his dagger drawn, and looked about him.

  There was no sign of the girl. ‘Where is she?’ he shouted at her mother, slurring his words. ‘I want your daughter – where is she?’

  The mother slowly rose to her feet, her eyes on Jan’s dagger.

  ‘She is not here,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I can see that,’ yelled Jan. ‘Where is she?’

  The woman looked straight into Jan’s eyes.

  ‘Take me, boy,’ she said, her voice steady, though her whole body trembled. ‘I can quench your passion.’

  For a moment Jan was speechless. He stared at the woman through blurred eyes. Although she was not as pretty as her daughter, she was not that old, and she was good-looking.

  She came up to him and stroked his face. Jan didn’t see the disgust in her eyes. He was conscious of her body close to his and of the shape of her breasts under her tattered dress.

  His grip loosened on the dagger and it fell to the ground.

  Chapter Six

  The only people left now were either with Jan and the others on one island, or with Wiebbe Hayes on High Island.

  The remaining passengers were cowed and terrified. They dared say nothing to Corneliez or his supporters so they kept silent. And they looked at Jan differently, with eyes full of fear. No one mocked him now.

  Jan closed his ears and his eyes to much of what went on around him. People disappeared. A sick boy was murdered one night – he’d overheard Corneliez order the killing. And a baby had been strangled for crying and disturbing the Under Merchant’s sleep. Sometimes, as he watched the Under Merchant, Jan wondered that he could be in such good spirits after each killing. Yet he himself never did any killing.

  Jan knew that he must never show any sign of weakening; he’d seen what happened to others who faltered in their loyalty. Often Corneliez said to him, ‘We must be strong, Jan. Our band must be strong. We must get rid of the weak ones.’

  Jan still lusted after the preacher’s daughter, Judith, but she was now beyond his reach. She had moved into the tent of one of the Council members and he appeared to treat her well.

  But the preacher himself was a broken man. Jan observed him as he shuffled round the island with his holy books, muttering prayers.

  Jan would sometimes go to the preacher’s tent and play with the baby boy. Although the toddler always welcomed Jan and stretched out his arms to him, the rest of the family looked at him with suspicion. But at least the older children didn’t taunt him, as they had in the past. They were too afraid.

  ‘Our preacher is a sad sight, is he not?’ said Corneliez one day, as he observed the man walking away from the tents, his head bowed.

  ‘Aye, sir,’ said Jan.

  Corneliez smiled. He seemed amused by the powerlessness of this once-influential man.

  ‘We’ll cheer him up, then, shall we Jan?’ he said. ‘We’ll invite him to dine with us tonight.’

  Jan looked up. ‘Shall I go and tell him?’

  ‘Yes, Jan. Tell him to come, and we’ll get that lovely daughter of his here, too.’

  The preacher looked horrified when Jan told him that he and Judith were summoned to eat with Corneliez, but he could not refuse.

  ‘Am I to bring my wife, too?’

  ‘No,’ said Jan. He says just you and your eldest daughter.’

  For the rest of the day, Jan was kept busy preparing what food he could muster for the evening meal. Corneliez and the Council members had the best of what was left of the stores from Batavia, but there was little enough and Jan had to cook seal meat to go with the salt pork and pickled vegetables.

  When the preacher and Judith arrived, Corneliez was in high spirits. He opened a new barrel of wine and told Jan to offer it to the guests.

  ‘No, no,’ said the preacher, waving his hand and dismissing Jan, but Corneliez, still smiling, said. ‘Give the preacher wine, Jan.’ He paused. ‘And see that he drinks it.’

  The preacher was about to protest again, but Judith looked over at him and shook her head. Jan filled the goblet.

  ‘Drink, Preacher!’ said Corneliez, and the preacher nervously raised the goblet to his lips.

  ‘Drain it, man!’ said Corneliez. The preacher obeyed, though Jan could see that he was hardly able to swall
ow.

  ‘Refill the preacher’s goblet, Jan,’ said Corneliez.

  Judith looked over at her father and then at Corneliez. ‘Please,’ she said quietly. ‘Let him be.’

  ‘Nonsense, girl,’ said Corneliez. ‘Wine will improve his spirits.’

  Again and again Jan was instructed to refill the preacher’s goblet. And again and again Corneliez forced him to drain it. It was only when the man was almost insensible that Corneliez seemed to tire of this amusement.

  When the meal was nearly over, Jan went outside to sluice down some dishes in sea water and as he stood there, wiping the plates, thinking of Judith and wishing she could have been his, his reverie was shattered.

  A terrible scream came from the tent of the preacher’s family. Jan froze, hugging a dish to his chest. There was another scream, and another and another, followed by the sound of men thumping and grunting. Then a horrible silence, worse even than the screaming.

  Jan continued to stand rooted to the spot, until he saw a party of soldiers emerging from the preacher’s tent – a party that included Wouter Looes. It was only then that he forced himself to go back inside the Under Merchant’s tent.

  The preacher had heard nothing; he was slumped unconscious on the ground. But Judith had certainly heard, and she sat by her father’s side, her hands held over her ears, moaning and rocking to and fro.

  Later that evening, when the preacher had staggered away and Judith had been taken back to the tent of her protector, Wouter Looes came to report to Corneliez.

  ‘Are they all dead, Wouter?’

  ‘Aye, sir. Every one.’

  Jan couldn’t sleep that night. He kept imagining the preacher when he finally reached his tent and discovered that his family had been slaughtered while he was at table with the Under Merchant.

  He thought that nothing more could shock him until the next day he saw Judith, white-faced and sobbing, clinging to her father, who seemed to have become an old man overnight.

  Jan went looking for Wouter, and when he found him, he asked, ‘Was the baby boy killed, too?’

  Wouter nodded. ‘Skull smashed,’ he said gruffly. He wouldn’t meet Jan’s eye.

  Jan turned away, remembering the happy little boy who had smiled at him on Batavia. Then he straightened his shoulders. Corneliez was their leader. He knew what he was doing. He had told Jan that they had to get rid of any who were weak, any who would be a drain on their diminishing resources. His words still echoed in Jan’s head. ‘You wait, Jan,’ he’d said. ‘My loyal band and I will have a high time when we are away from here and living in the Indies.’

  ‘A high time,’ repeated Jan to himself. And he tried to forget the face of that smiling child.

  Meanwhile, the smoke on High Island continued to rise and taunt Corneliez, and his fury mounted. When he could stand it no longer, he appointed one of his councillors to lead an attack on High Island. So a few days later, when all the weapons had been gathered and prepared, a group of soldiers set off.

  Corneliez did not go with them but stayed back at base, pacing up and down the shore. Jan was beside him.

  ‘We shall defeat the traitors, Jan, then everyone on these islands will be loyal to me. I shall force them to sign an oath.’

  Jan shaded his eyes and looked towards High Island, but it was too far away to detect any movement. All he could see was the smoke still rising from the fires there.

  For a moment, Jan remembered the kindness shown to him by Wiebbe Hayes, but he quickly put the memory out of his head. Corneliez had told everyone that Wiebbe was a traitor. And Jan was Corneliez’s loyal follower, his Assistant. He had killed for him – not just the cabin boy on Seals’ Island: he had helped kill two others as well. And he would kill again, whenever he was asked.

  All day they waited for the boats to return. It was early evening before the first of them rounded the point and, as soon as they were in sight, Corneliez waded out into the water. Jan watched him.

  ‘What news? Are they defeated?’ shouted Corneliez.

  ‘Sir, they are armed!’ said the first man out of the boat. ‘Weibbe Hayes has armed his men.’

  ‘Armed?’ shouted Corneliez. ‘What with, man? They had no weapons when they left.’

  ‘They have now,’ said the man. ‘They have catapults and pikes and other weapons they have made from driftwood and barrel hoop-iron. We could not overcome them. They are too strong. They are well-fed and healthy. There are wild beasts and mutton birds on the island, and plenty of water.’

  Corneliez’s face twisted with rage.

  ‘Could you not defeat Hayes and a handful of soldiers? And you call yourselves men?’

  ‘There are over forty men with Hayes,’ said a Lance Corporal.

  ‘Forty!’ exploded Corneliez. ‘But he left with only twenty-four.’

  ‘Aye, but many have joined him – from Seals’ Island – and the carpenters and sailors from here.’

  ‘Traitors!’ spat out Corneliez.

  ‘What would you have us do now?’ asked the Lance Corporal. ‘Shall we try again?’

  ‘Let me think on it,’ said Corneliez, and he turned and walked back to his tent.

  A week later, they tried again, and this time Corneliez went with them, watching from a boat on the water. But again, they were repelled by Hayes.

  During the next few weeks, Corneliez was in a vile mood. His temper was becoming increasingly short and Jan kept out of his way, serving him as unobtrusively as he could and never speaking unless spoken to.

  Then one day Corneliez’s temper improved. He slapped Jan on the shoulders.

  ‘Today, Jan, each man shall sign an oath of allegience to me. Go and round them up and bring them here to my tent. Every one of them, mind.’

  Although they grumbled, no one dared disobey. Even the preacher signed the oath. Jan watched as his pen wavered over the piece of parchment, and saw him glance in the direction of the tent where Judith stayed as, finally, he put his name to the document.

  After the preacher had signed, Corneliez took him aside. Jan had been throwing sand on each signature to dry it, and he overheard their conversation.

  ‘It is good that you have sworn loyalty to me, Preacher, for I have a special job for you,’ he said.

  Jan looked up and saw the preacher’s drained, anxious face as Corneliez went on. ‘You, of all the men here, are the one whom those traitors will trust, so tomorrow you shall go to High Island to negotiate peace with Hayes and his men.’

  ‘Peace?’ whispered the preacher, a flicker of hope in his eyes.

  ‘Aye,’ said Corneliez. ‘Peace.’ And he walked off, smiling. Then he turned and spoke quietly to Jan. ‘You shall go with him, Jan. You shall be my eyes and ears.’

  Jan didn’t want to go, but he was proud to be trusted by the Under Merchant.

  Later that day, when Jan was looking for shellfish to cook, he saw the preacher at his prayers on the far side of the island, tears running down his pale cheeks. Again Jan remembered the little boy. He turned away and went to another part of the island.

  The next day, a boatload of soldiers and sailors rowed Jan and the preacher to High Island.

  Jan was expecting to stay in the boat, but the preacher asked him to go with him. Nervously, they walked together up from the beach.

  ‘No wonder Hayes and his men have survived here,’ said the preacher, looking about him as they headed inland.

  Jan nodded. The terrain here looked different. There were rocks and much more vegetation.

  They were hardly out of sight of the boat when they heard someone call, ‘Are you alone, Preacher?’

  It was Hayes!

  The preacher cleared his throat. ‘I have Jan Pelgrom with me.’ He paused. ‘Jan Pelgrom the cabin boy.’

  Jan’s mouth was dry and his legs would not obey him. He could see that the preacher, too, was shaking. At last, Wiebbe showed himself and waited for them, leaning against a rock. Behind him, Jan noticed a roughly constructed wall offering protection
from attack. They were clearly organised, these men of Wiebbe’s.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, man,’ said Wiebbe to the preacher, as they drew closer. ‘I know that you are no murderer.’

  At first, the preacher was too scared to do anything except shake his head, but at last he found his voice.

  ‘I have been sent to negotiate peace with you and your men, Wiebbe,’ he said.

  ‘On what terms?’

  ‘Corneliez has offered to bring wine and blankets for you and your soldiers in exchange for your boat.’

  For a long time Wiebbe didn’t reply. Then, at last, he spoke again and, as he did, he looked at Jan and smiled. Jan had missed that smile!

  ‘Very well. Tell the Under Merchant that I will meet him on the shore tomorrow. He is to bring the promised goods himself and in exchange, I shall let him take our boat.’ He smiled. ‘We have plenty of carpenters here to make another.’

  Then he looked at Jan. ‘Did you look out for the smoke rising from our island, Jan, as I said?’

  Jan looked up and met his eyes. ‘Aye, Wiebbe,’ he said. ‘And I was glad for you.’

  Wiebbe put his hand briefly on Jan’s arm, then turned and strode away. Jan felt tears coming to his eyes, but he wiped them away angrily. He must remember that Weibbe was a traitor!

  Relieved to have delivered the message and still frightened that they would be attacked, Jan and the preacher made their way quickly back to the boat over the uneven ground.

  When they reported back to Corneliez, he received the information thoughtfully. To the preacher he said, ‘Well done, man. Now we shall have some peace.’

  But later, he gathered some of the soldiers to his tent and Jan heard him giving them instructions.

  ‘As soon as I land with the goods tomorrow, attack again. They won’t be expecting it. We shall have them this time,’ he said, and he rubbed his hands together until the knuckles cracked.

  The next day, Jan watched as the boats were loaded with wine and blankets before they set off again for High Island. This time, Corneliez was on board and Jan was left behind.