Shipwrecked and at the mercy of sadistic gang The way we were

IMAGINE you are one of more than 300 people aboard the Batavia, a VOC merchantman bound for Java. It’s June 1629 and you last saw land six weeks ago when seven Dutch ships put into Table Bay. There is bad blood between the Batavia’s senior merchant and her skipper, and you hear disturbing whispers of mutiny.

The ship is carrying Company officials, common soldiers and passengers, including women, children and servants. There’s even a predikant (Dutch Reformed Church minister) and his wife and family, but this doesn’t prevent the skipper from trying to seduce the beautiful Lucretia van der Mijlen, who is on her way to join her husband. When she resists, he makes out with her maid Zwaantje Hendrix instead.

You’re asleep when the ship hits a reef off the coast of an unexplored continent (Australia), and chaos ensues for the next few days. Some people drown and the rest reach a few desolate islets. They salvage two small boats and limited supplies of food and water but their prospects are bleak.

Your quarrelsome leaders and some of the ship’s company seize the longboat to search for water on the mainland and don’t come back. Leadership devolves on the under-merchant, Jeronimus Cornelisz, a merciless former apothecary who fantasises about salvaging the ship’s treasure and turning pirate.

He commandeers all supplies and weapons and is in a position to decide who lives (his cronies) and dies (his opponents). Most of the women are raped indiscriminately, but he keeps Lucretia van der Mijlen for himself. The first deaths are ascribed to thirst.

Cornelisz regards loyal VOC soldiers as rivals, so he sends you and your mates to a larger spot of land to scout for water and abandons you to perish, unaware that the island has a spring and enough wildlife to prevent starvation. He then initiates a vicious killing spree during which his followers strangle, stab, hack, bludgeon and drown adults and children at will.

Some victims flee and warn your leader (a decent soldier named Wiebbe Hayes) of the slaughter. Hayes decides to fortify West Wallabi Island against the murderous gang and withstands several vicious attacks during the next seven weeks. He even manages to capture Cornelisz, but his evil henchman Wouter Loos continues the carnage.

When the rescue ship Saardam arrives on September 17, 1629, the two factions race to be first aboard. Your comrades are desperate to warn the skipper that the mutineers plan to take over his ship.

Hayes gets there first and prevents a catastrophe. The rebels are captured, interrogated and tried for the murder of 125 innocent castaways. Cornelisz’s arms are chopped off and he is hanged with several others on Long Island. The rest are taken to Batavia for punishment, except for Wouter Loos and Jan de Bye, who are marooned on the Australian mainland.