Things Get Real
These small islands offered no fresh water and little protein, aside from sea lions and birds. The captain and a small contingent struck out in a 30-foot longboat in search of Batavia and help. The rest of the survivors were left under the command of Jeronimus Cornelisz, who turned out to be a psychopath.
Cornelisz, the aspiring pirate, consolidated all weapons and food under his personal control. He then dispatched the soldiers in the group led by a man named Wiebbe Hayes in another small boat to nearby islands, ostensibly to find water. His tacit hope was that these 20 or so guys would just die.
With limited resources and a lot of mouths to feed, Cornelisz then directed his subordinates to start killing the survivors. At first, he contrived legal charges against his victims like theft or hoarding. Eventually, however, they began killing for fun. When the dust settled, Cornelisz and his band of cutthroats had murdered 110 men, women and children. A few of the comelier lasses they kept on as sex slaves.
Much to everyone’s surprise, the Hayes expedition did indeed find food and potable water on nearby West Wallabi Island. They communicated this back to the main group via prearranged smoke signals. Now Cornelisz was in a bit of a spot.
Meanwhile, after an arduous 33 days at sea in their small boat, Cpt. Pelsaert actually arrived at Batavia. The local Governor-General, Jan Peterson Coen, immediately gave him command of the ship Sardam. While his mission was to rescue the shipwreck survivors, the good governor also asked that he perhaps bring back all that treasure while he was at it. It took Pelsaert a further 30 days or so to find the right islands again.
At least one survivor of the massacre on Beacon Island made it over to West Wallabi with the horrific news. Hayes and his men had no weapons. They were, however, trained soldiers, so they set about building a fort and fashioning implements of violence from materials that had washed up from the wreck.
By now, Hayes’ troops were relatively well-fed, while those of Cornelis were quite puckish. Despite only one side having access to muskets, Hayes’ men successfully withstood several amphibious assaults. It was, however, quite the iffy thing. Much blood was spilled and in a most brutal fashion.
Hayes eventually took Cornelisz hostage just as the Sardam arrived. With the assistance of the guns and crew of the Sardam, Cornelisz’s mutineers were subdued. Here’s where the real fun began.
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