[The following takes place during the Batavia mutiny. A bit of context: In 1628, the Dutch Republic merchant vessel Batavia was shipwrecked on her maiden voyage, on a small group of barren and uninhabited Abrolhos Islands. Jeronimus Cornelisz, the ship’s under-merchant, had been planning a bloody mutiny during the voyage and, after the shipwreck and subsequent departure of much of the ship’s leadership to seek rescue, he set about following through with his mutiny. He planned to gather a large enough following amongst the nearly 200 survivors to overwhelm any rescue vessel, to commandeer said vessel, and to take the Batavia’s treasure, turning to a short life of piracy in the Indies before retiring to a life of luxury. Here, Cornelisz hard ordered so many murders on the islands, that both he and his men had started showing signs of becoming almost literally addicted to murdering. To this end, the mutineers, having nearly run out of innocent people to slaughter on the island, chose a large family that had, until now, been spared the violence. Having slaughtered them, though, they were still not satisfied, and began randomly butchering people in the camps as they found them, for fun.]
It was still only midevening and the mutineers’ blood was up. The group split up and went in search of other prey. Jan Hendricxdz went to the tent of Hendreck Denys, one of the Company bookkeepers, ordered him out onto the shingle, and, when he showed himself, “battered in [his] head, with an adze, in front of his tent, so that he died immediately.” Meanwhile, Zevanck summoned Andries Jonas, who had not yet killed that night. “Go and call Mayken Cardoes out of her tent and cut her throat,” he told him.
Cardoes guessed well enough what was happening when Andries arrived outside her quarters. “Mayken,” Jonas said, “are you asleep? Come, we’ll go for a walk.” It was not a request but an order, and the girl had little choice but to obey. She emerged hesitantly from her tent. “Andries,” she begged him, “will you do me evil?”
”No, not at all,” he said, but they had only gone a little way along the shore when he seized her without warning and forced her backward onto the coral. Fumbling for his knife, Jonas crouched over her; he reached down and tried to cut her throat, but she was struggling so violently beneath him that he could not manage it. After a few seconds he abandoned the attempt and instead leaned back, pinning her down with one hand while he made to stab her with the knife held in the other. Desperately, Mayken thrust out an arm and tried to seize the weapon as it descended. She caught the tip of it, but the knife was traveling with such force that the blade sliced straight through the palm and emerged from the back of her hand, wedging itself firmly between the bones.
Jonas tugged hard at the haft, but the knife was stuck fast and he could not remove it. He could feel the unfortunate girl still thrashing about beneath him, attempting to free herself with her one good hand, so he let go of the knife and tried to strangle her instead. Even then he could not subdue her, but the sound of their struggles had alerted Wouter Loos, and he ran to Jonas’s aid. Exhausted, wounded, and pinned against the coral, Cardoes had no chance against two soldiers. Loos stoved her skull in with an ax and they hurled the corpse into the pit that had been dug for the bodies of the minister’s family.
It was little more than a day since they had murdered the girl’s child.
Source:
Dash, Mike. “The Tiger.” Batavia's Graveyard. Three Rivers Press, 2003. 187-88. Print.
Further Reading:
Batavia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batavia_(ship)
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