The Emigrants

A brother and sister flee the Thirty Years War in Germany and take ship for New Amsterdam.

The Emigrants

1640

Jan Kreuzner groaned in the dark trying to stifle the nausea in his throat. Adding to his misery was a throbbing pain in his head.  The air of the cabin in which he lay, stank from vomit and the dampness of the sea.   A short black-hairy, bandy legged, fourteen year old with a narrow, pockmarked face, Jan Kreuzner, tried to sleep.  On the bunk below him sprawled his sister, Joanna.  He listened to her groaning and then to the sounds of the other two passengers. Hendrick and Bertha Van Gulden. 

 Hendrik, exhausted by  bouts of vomiting, had fallen into an exhausted sleep.  Bertha huddled on her bunk praying to God for deliverance. Jan  looked up at the cabin’s low ceiling.  Above him he could hear the sea wind howling and the rigging creaking .  The storm was driving him on towards a new world, if they did not drown first.  Trying not to think of the vast ocean depths beneath him, he turned  towards the cabin wall. As he lay in the dark listening to the creaking of the hull and the howling of the wind, thinking that with every dip , the ship would plunge into the ocean’s deep , Jan cursed the company,  the sea and his fate.

       Jan’s earliest memories were of his sister Joanna and of himself, roaming with other camp followers the roads of Central Germany trailing an Hanoverian Regiment. Joanna had told him that a drunken troop of French cavalry had ridden into their farm, taken their animals and food as well as their mother.  When their father tried to stop them they had struck him down.  The two children had fled into the night.  In the morning lost and hungry they had fallen in with the band of followers. There they had found food and shelter. With them they remained as one year moved on into another and then another.  Sometimes they would move south advancing towards Bavaria and Austria.  Sometimes they would retreat north,   Now they were camped in Westphalia living in a small hut built out of scraps of wood and cloth.  In it they had passed the sixth winter with the regiment.

Fleas clinging to a wolf they had followed the Protestant armies,  feeding off them, stealing from them or working for them at anything that would bring them food.  When battles were fought they would wait until the shooting stopped to descend on the dead stripping them looking for anything edible, wearable or saleable.   So the years passed until peace itself became a forgotten dream.

***

Jan stood under an ancient apple tree. His dress seemed to be made up of previous searches  Everything seemed too large, muddy and torn, a dirty blue coat, broken-brimmed hat, soiled shirt and muddy trousers held up by a broad brown belt.

From the tree hung a dozen rotting bodies of deserters dangling like overripe fruit. Ignoring the blackened staring faces of the hanging corpses, and the screeching of crows disturbed in feasting, he pawed through the  dead men’s pockets looking .for anything of use.   The hangmen before him made such a search difficult.  Belts, purses, boots, rings, anything of value had been picked by their experienced hands.  Jan knew this but the hope remained that something had been missed. He frowned upon discovering three pennies.  Shrugging he pocketed them and continued his search.  He could see Joanna approaching, her feet in wooden clogs, ragged brown dress partially covered by a red shawl, a gift from a trooper. 

During the past six years he and Joanna had learned to stay alive by making themselves useful to the regiment. From the beginning,  Joanna had worked as a cook, laundress and seamstress. Jan had made himself useful by gathering wood and running errands.  He had also learned to pick up bits of food when others were not looking.  Sometimes he would be caught and beaten.  Such beatings taught him to be more careful in stealing.  He had also learning that taking from the dead was not considered to be stealing.  So when the chance offered itself, after a battle, or execution Jan would look for anything of value from among the corpses.

Jan had also learned that striking an enemy either someone who threatened or simply had something that he wanted, when that enemy was down was both safer and  more guaranteed of success. Fear whoever was stronger, despise whoever was weaker had served him well.  He had tried the same method with Joanna, cursing  and striking her to  win an argument but with little success.  Joanna was larger and older.  From his earliest days Jan had learned to respect her temper

He frowned at the sight of the red scarf. “The scarf, from a soldier friend?”

“Would you rather it be from a soldier enemy.”

Not wanting to talk about the shawl anymore Jan returned to groping through the dead men’s pockets.

 Joanna  sat down on a moss-stained boulder. “The regiment is falling back again.”

“They’ll return in the spring.”

“No they won’t.  Not without more men and supplies. We should leave” Joanna whispered.. Bearing the same ferret-like features of her brother, framed by long brown hair, and white woollen bonnet, Joanna turned her head to assure herself that no one was listening.  Being alone on the road could make them easy prey.  “Not just here,” she added. “We should leave them.”

Jan also knowing this, thought his sister’s request to be odd. “Who?”

“The regiment. I hear the Dutch border is only three, maybe four days away.”

“So?”  Jan began rummaging through another corpse.

“The recruiters are hunting for soldiers again.  They’ll  take you this time.  Do you want to be like them?” She looked up at the hanging corpses.  “Once you’re a soldier, they never let you leave.”

Jan paused.  He looked up at the face of the corpse.  “So why Holland?”

“The regiment’s not there. The country is rich, fat.  At least, that’s what people say.”

Jan frowned.  As long as he could remember there had always been a war, no matter where they had gone.   When he had been younger he had imagined himself a general leading his own army to glory and booty.  Now, he had rifled through too many dead, too many maimed.  He thought of Hans Forster, once a sergeant, now a legless beggar pulling himself along in a cart..  “Why not? When did you want to go?”

Joanna shrugged.  “Tonight.  Before dawn.”

“What will we do there” he asked.

“Find work.”

That night they slipped out of camp following a road that led west.  Five days later they stood on the banks of the Meuse.  On the other bank was the Dutch city of Maastricht.  That night, hidden by the black spring rain, they stole a rowboat and crossed  the river.   Once on the Dutch shore they found a field to sleep in and waited for the dawn.

They entered the city on a wet, cold, Sunday morning..  As church bells tolled,  they begged for  their breakfast from churchgoers receiving more blows than coins.  They could speak no Dutch and the townspeople had seen too many dirty hungry beggars fleeing from the wars,  They received little except curses and warnings to move on before they were arrested.

“We’ll go west” said Joanna as she and Jan gnawed on stale crusts thrown at them by a housewife.

“Where?”

“Where ever we can find work.”

  For  ten days They wandered, passing through Eindhoven, Tilburg and Breda, until  they reached the port of Rotterdam.   They had followed the Meuse careful to avoid the Spanish territories.   The scars that had been left by passing armies had begun to heal.  Three years before the Dutch had retaken Breda and the war had receded south.  Buildings had been rebuilt, new crops had been sown. Compared to what Joanna and Jan had  known in Germany the land teemed with wealth. Surely they could find jobs and as home here, but in each town and village they were looked upon as dangerous vagabonds.  Move on they were told, move on.  Begging and stealing food, sleeping in fields and empty buildings they wandered west until they reached Rotterdam.

In a tavern along the docks Joanna and Jan finally came across a ytiny reed brick inn.  Under the green sign of a naked woman with a fish tail they saw a man talking to a wagoner. .    The owner of the Green Mermaid was  outside his inn door overseeing the arrival of a wagon load of gin when he noticed the girl and boy standing watching him.  “Thieves” he thought turning back to the wagon.

“Please Mein Herr,” the girl asked.  “Some food, Mein Herr.”

The man paused in his arguing with the wagoner to look back at the two,  “Deutshe?”

Joanna nodded.

The man sighed,  pointed at the inn and then spoke in German.  “Go around to the back door.   Tell the woman there, Helga,  that Gunther says to feed you.” 

Helga, a plump brunette in her late forties, frowned when Joanna gave her Gunther’s message.  Then, shrugging, she told the two to wash their face and hands and then to sit down at the kitchen table.  She served them bowls of beef  stew and chunks of black bread.

A few minutes later Gunther came in. Lighting a clay pipe he sat down at the table next to Jan.

“So, my friends, what are your names?”

Joanna wiped her mouth. “Jan and Joanna Kreuzner.”

“Fust is mine, Gunther Fust.  Fifteen years ago Liesl and I came here from Magdeburg.  “So, Jan and Joanna.  Tell me, what do you know of America?”

Joanna frowned.  Sometimes when sitting around the campfire people would speak of America.

“A land of pagan savages.“

Gunther smiled. “Something like Germany, eh?  So tell me, are you Lutheran or Calvinist?”

“The one that doesn’t kill people” said Joanna.  “Does it matter?”

“To me, no.” Gunther thought for a moment.  “The Dutch are good people.  I’ve done well here, but it’s a small country.  Half of Germany is here and there’s no room for more.  But I do know a man who might be able to do something for you.  You two stay here for a couple of days help out Helga and myself in the tavern.”

Jan would wait until the house was quiet.  As he lay in the bed that he shared with Joanna, he thought about the past day with the Fusts, the cleaning of pots and the work in the stable.  All the time that he had been working Jan had watched Gunther taking in coin from his customers.  Most of the guldens had gone into a small iron box Gunther had kept under the counter in the tavern’s front room.

  Jan considered what he should do.  He would light a  candle and pull on his trousers. Then,  glancing back at his sister to ensure that she was still sleeping he would open the bedroom door and step out into the hallway.  Once had secured the money, he would waken Joanna and they would leave.  Maybe there would be enough to buy passage to the Indies. As he had done so many times in the past he turned and told Joanna his plan.

For a moment she lay in the dark and then she turned away from him. “We don’t steal from friends.” She muttered.

“How do you know he’s a friend?”

“How do you know he’s not?”

Jan frowned.  As long as he could remember Joanna had warned him against trusting strangers.

“You’ve always said we shouldn’t trust strangers.”

“I know but sometimes, what they want is what we want.   We’ll wait,” she said.  “If he’s not a friend then we will leave.  For now, you sleep.”

“Why did he ask us about America?”

“I don’t know?”

“Where is America?”

“Near England, I think.  Go to sleep now.”

England, thought Jan.  You would need a boat to go there then.  He remembered how the scow had rocked as they had crossed the Meuse.  He did not like boats.  He wanted to ask more questions but did not wish to anger Joanna.  He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

***

                 .A man sat In the Green Mermaid at a dirty, knife-marked table. He wore a wide brimmed hat and a long black cloak, his face marked by scars of the pox, bronzed skin, bristling black eyebrows and a goatee.    A scar marked his left cheek.   In his left earlobe he wore a small gold ring, the only trace of colour he seemed to allow himself.  He covered his left hand with his right,  a habit of old.  It covered his two missing fingers.

For thirty of his forty-five years Piet Steyn had been a soldier, sailor and a traveller.  He had fought the Spanish and the Portuguese, losing two fingers to a saber cut. He had sailed to the Spice Islands of the East and the to the Americas.  Now he was about to sail again, perhaps for the last time.  Tomorrow at midnight he would depart for New Amsterdam. For his service to the company he had chosen to retire to an estate of twenty square miles on the Hudson River.  He could live there with his three children and widowed sister enjoying the life of a patroon, but to secure his land it he had promised to bring over fifty families within four years of the grant.  Thirty-two families now lived on his estate, New Utrecht. On this trip he had secured six more, Baptist farms from outside, originally Germans from somewhere in Westphalia. He did not care for Anabaptists, believing that they lacked proper respect for the established, but they were honest, hardworking farmers and would make good tenants.  The older settlers, being Calvinists might not welcome them at first but would probasbly get used to him.  What worried Steyn were the ten labourers that he had secured from  the prison.    Rapists and thieves, most of them. Still, they were all single men, all potential fathers and husbands. Maybe  America would change them.  It had changed others including himself. Now, a letter delivered to his ship from Gunther Fust now promised two more workers.  

Steyn had known Gunther for years.  An honest man, Gunther, for an innkeeper.  The letter had spoken of two possible workers willing to go to New Amsterdam.  He could meet them at the Green Mermaid.  If the two were accepted Fust would receive a couple of florins as commission. 

He offered Gunther two florins.  Gunther waved them aide.“ A favour for an old friend,” the innkeeper told him.   Come tomorrow and talk to them.”

So Steyn had come. He studied the pair that Fust had brought into the tap room.  Debris washed up from the war, he had seen their kind many times before.  Some he had hired for the company. Some he had not.    He thought of the coming voyage to America. The last voyage.  Every sailor had to face it.  He had first gone to sea barely nine years of age, a ship’s boy to avoid starving at home.  Those he had shipped with were all dead now, from disease, from drowning, from war.  By rights he should have died as well, but for reason or other he had lived, climbing through the ranks, becoming an able seaman, officer and finally master.  Now,. owner of an estate on Hendrik Hudson’s River, he would give up the sea.  The ship’s boy had become a patroon.

As he looked at the brother and sister, Steyn wondered if he could put them as a family.  Perhaps. As he looked up at Joanna and Han Steyn uncovered his left hand.  It was then that Joanna noticed the two missing fingers. Heavy, scared hands, they had been bronzed by a sun stronger than any that Joanna had ever known.

“A soldier” she thought.  She had known men like him.  From his bearing, a sergeant, perhaps even a captain.

The two reminded Steyn of a pair of fox cubs, Their eyes divided between fear of a possible enemy and a possible source of food.  He  sat back in his chair. “My name is Piet Steyn, not that you care.  I work for the Dutch West Indian Company.  I  am looking for workers on my land in the New Netherlands. First, you are Protestant?”

“”Yes, Mein Herr.”

“Lutheran, Calvinist, Anabaptist?”

“Lutheran.  At least, my father was.”

Steyn nodded .   “Doesn’t really matter, as long as you’re not Catholic. Are you are interested in going to America?”

 “America?  Why would we want to go there?”

“For the same reason you crossed Germany and  came here. Peace.”

“There is peace here in Rotterdam.”

“For now but the Spanish are only fifty miles away.” Steyn opened a folder and took out a piece of paper.

The man held out a piece of paper. “A contract. Terms of Indenture between you and the West Indian Company.  Can you read?”

Unwilling to admit his ignorance, Jan stared down at the floor.

“What does it say” asked Joanna.

“It’s from the  West Indian Company.  We are looking for workers in New Amsterdam.  You will be bound to the Company for six years.  We will feed you, house you, pay you six florins a month  After six years you will be free.  You will be given land, a house and tools. Put your mark on it. or you stay here. Personally, I don’t care either way.” 

“The Spanish are in America.” Said Joanna.

“Thousands of miles from where we are going.  I leave for New Amsterdam in a week’s time.  If you want I can arrange passage for you and your brother.  You can come as indentured servants.  Work for six years on my land.  That will repay the company for your passage.  After six years you will be free to buy land in the colony.”

Steyn picked up the pen and held it out to her.

“Boats sink” she said.

Steyn nodded.  “Some do. Most don’t.  If you’re afraid of drowning girl, well. You can always find work in some Rotterdam stew, somewhere, if that’s what you’re interested in.  Maybe the Spanish or Austrians will stay away Maybe. Maybe not.”

Steyn held out the pen.

Joanna and Jan looked at one another.  “Why should we believe you?” asked Jan.  “If we sign, then you will change your words.”

The man smiled.  “You think highly of yourself, Jan Kreuzner.  I would go to all this trouble just to

cheat you.  You have my word as a soldier, and as a businessman.  Before the bargain is made, yes, I will try for the best advantage, but once the deal is made, I am bound to it.  I promise you America.  You will go to America. I promise you your freedom. After six years, you will have it..”
                “We want someone to read the paper,” said Joanna.“I can read it or would you rather  have

someone you trust” asked Steyn.  “Tell me, Fraulein Joanna, who would that be?”

Joanna tried to think.  The only person that she trusted was Jan.  Everyone else was a stranger.

Herr Fust.  What did she know of the man.  He and Gertrude could be working for Steyn. “I don’t know.”

“That is a problem, isn’t it? So it all comes down to a question of trust.”  The girl is no fool  thought. Steyn. He  thought for a moment.  Then he removed his hat, revealing a thinning mop of grey-streaked brown  hair. 

He loosened his cloak.  From around his neck he pulled up a strip of black tarred leather at the endof which was a small gold ring.  The ring had once belonged to his wife, Rebecca, who bow lay in a grave on the island of Manhattan. He placed it on the table and pushed it towards Joanna.  There were times in the dark when he still reached for her longing for the warm velvet touch of her skin to find only rough linen.

                “The ring belonged to my wife, Rebecca..  She died of the pox six years ago.  I will give it to you for safekeeping.  In six years’ time,  when you finish your contract and receive land, I will ask for it back.  If the company breaks your contract, you may keep the ring.  Is that understood?”

 Joanna looked down at the ring.  She did not like the man. Soldiers like him she had known to be hard, brutal capable of terrible things. Yet in some of them, perhaps in many there had existed something called honour.  It could take the form of a uniform or of a flag.  Perhaps with Steyn, it was this ring.

 She looked at Jan. The boy nodded. Joanna plucked the pen from Steyn’s hand and made an x on the bottom of the paper.  She then touched the ring and pushed it back towards Steyn.

“I do not need the ring,” she said.  Jan looked up at her. Why would she refuse gold?  He wanted to protest but had sense enough to keep quiet.

***

The square-sailed  Galleon, the Lion, lay moored in Rotterdam harbour. For thirty years it had travelled the oceans, as far as the Moluccas in the east and Aruba in the West.  Now the property of the West Indian Company it made the run between Holland and New Amsterdam.  On a wet rain streaked spring evening two wheeled cart pulled by Gunther Fust stopped in front of the galleon  Behind the cart  were Jan and Joanna.  They looked up at the galleon, its masts and snarling figurehead of a lion towering above them.

“Well, this is it” said Gunther. “Steyn will meet you on the ship.  He’ll tell you where you will sleep.”  He lifted a small box out of the cart.  The cart contain offerings from the Fusts, second hand clothes, sausages, needle and thread and twenty florins.

“I’ll leave you here then.”

“Jan and I, we thank you Herr Fust.”

Gunther shrugged.  “If I were a younger man I would go to Americas, but old men like their comforts.”

As he spoke a horse drawn cart approached the dock.  Next the driver sat a sergeant armed with a musket.  Two other soldiers on horseback followed the cart.

Eight  young men, aged between fourteen and twenty,  shivering from the April cold,  sat in the cart,  The cart stopped in front of the ship.  The sergeant jumped down and went to the back of the cart.

“Out!” he shouted.

 One by one the passengers  got out. Joanna could see that their arms and legs were manacled. manacled.  The last one out, the eldest and largest of the prisoners,  a blond tousle-haired man in his twenties,  brushed back a loose lock of hair.  He smiled as he noticed Joanna staring at him.  He smiled revealing broken, blackened teeth.  Standing over six feet, he towered over both prisoners and guards.

“Move along” said the guard.

The man spat onto the cobbled street.

“On to the ship” said the guard.

As the line of prisoners shuffled towards the ship, Joanna turned to Gunther.

“Who are they?”

“Workers for the company” said Fust.. “Taken from the prison. Thieves, rapists, God knows what else.  Now they belong to the company.  The big fellow at the end, so I hear, is a Swede.  He deserted, took to robbery.  Drifted here. The government would have would have hanged him, but the company thinks they can make better use of him in Americas. Maybe. “

Joanna, Jan and Gunther watched the prisoners file pass.

Above them, Steyn looked on as the eight shuffled onto the deck. He waited until the eight had been securely locked in the hold.  There the workers would remain until the ship was well out of sight of land. He then turn and nodded at the Kreuzners.  

“Welcome aboard” he smiled.  “Your quarters are waiting for you.  They are a bit crowded.  Boats usually are.   Hendrick  Friesen, a cooper from Leyden,  and his wife, Bertha, have the other two bunks.  They’re German so  you should get along.”

He showed the way to their cabin, clambering down the stairs into the hold of ship.  “Even I have to  share my cabin.  “This way.”

He led them down the same stairs that the prisoners had descended. 

“The Friesens are Anabaptists.” Steyn noticed the frowning look in Joanna’s eyes.  I hope that’s not a problem with you.” Then he added in a warning tone. “ I won’t have religious arguments on this ship.”

Joanna shook her head.  “Yes, mein herr.  It’s not a problem.”

Of all the sects dividing Germany Joanna thought of Anabaptists as the strangest.  Disliked by Lutherans, Calvinists and Catholics alike they were reviled for their refusal to accept anyone’s spiritual authority except their own and for their adherence to adult baptism.  Thousands had been slaughtered murdered by Protestants and by Catholics but Baptist remained  clinging to their strange beliefs in defiance of all common sense.

Through a narrow passageway he led them to the door of a cabin.  He rapped on the door.

The door opened. A man and woman looked out..  Hendrick Friesen had a round flat face with a long, brown, chin beard,, small eyes topped by bushy brown eyebrows.   His wife, Bertha, her dull yellow hair covered by a white cap had the solid stocky build of a peasant woman.  Both appeared to be in their twenties.

“Friend Steyn” said Hendrick. “You are welcome.” He spoke in German accented Dutch.

Steyn nodded. “Jan and Joanna Kreuzner.  They’ll be sharing your cabin.”

Hendrick smiled..  “They both are welcome.”

Joanna and Jan frowned at the strange man. 

“I’ll leave you here then,” said Steyn  “Hendrick and Bertha will help you settle in.”

“Come in,” said Hendrick.  He stood aside allowing Joanna and Jan to step into the cabin.  They stepped into the center of the room, its interior squeezed between two bunks rising from the floor to the low ceiling.  Much of the remaining floor space was taken up by a large trunk upon which had been placed a bible, mugs and plates.  The floor space shrank even more when Jan placed his trunk on the floor. The ceiling was so low that  Hendrick could stand upright  only by removing his hat..

“On the Lord’s day we gather with the other families for service” said Hendrick.  “Would you like to join us?”

Jan looked at Joanna.  In his eyes she could see the revulsion for a believe worse than that of the Papists.  She nudged him as a warning for him to behave himself.

 “We are Lutheran,” Joanna told Hendrick, hoping that would be enough to discourage him.  The last mass she and Jan had attended had been held by the regiment had been held the day after the hanging of the deserters.  As they had sung “Ein Festenberg ist Unser Gott” they could not  keep from smelling the dangling corpses.

Hendrick nodded.  “All are welcome.”

Joanna gave a narrow polite smile.  “We’ll think about it.”

That night the galleon slipped away from the dock and turned into the North Sea.  By morning as the ship rolled through the waves Joanna and Jan had already begun to feel ill.  

***

Jan turned as the woman’s fingers touched his skin.  Through his nausea and dizziness he could see the swirling face of Bertha  Friesen.  The woman would be trying to rob him. He tried to kick her but was too weak  “Get away.” He wanted to scream but the words came out in a dry whisper.

At the sound of Jan’s voice, Joanna looked up. “What are you doing to my brother,” she asked.

“Hush, Joanna,” said Gertrude. “You and he have sea sickness. That is what Captain Herr Steyn says.  It will pass.”

She offered Joanna water but the girl shook her head

.“You are not ill?” Joanna croaked.

“Not everyone is.” Gertrude smiled. “ Herr Steyn says that I am a born sailor.”

As she rested Joanna considered the woman beside her. “Wherever you go, what a person believes depends on what his prince believes.  If the prince be Lutheran, you must be Lutheran. Is that not true?”

“So many say.”
                “So why not you?”

“ We must believe what our prince believes, is that what you think?  if the prince’s son becomes a Calvinist or Catholic, the people must therefore follow?  No, Joanna Kruezner.  I do not believe that. Religion is a matter of each person’s soul,. Jesus was a prince of souls, not a prince of land.” Gertrude nodded. “Yes we are few.  Yes, we are poor.   “But is that how you measure a religious belief, Miss Joanna, by whether one is rich or poor, strong or weak? Catholics burned my grandfather. Calvinists burned my father. Yet, we still believe. Perhaps, as you say, we are wrong. I know that there are good Lutherans, good Catholics, good Jews, even good Calvinists.  Who is right, who is wrong, that  is for God to decide. In the New World maybe people can believe what they want to believe. There, we can live in peace.  That is what Herr Steyn promised.”

The Friesens had done  well to have fled Germany, thought Joanna.  There they would have been burnt.  “Peace?” she asked herself  Perhaps but her head ached and her stomach still troubled her.  She would think about it later.

***

For three days since leaving Rotterdam the eight prisoners   huddled  in the dark in a room stinking of their own vomit, excrement and urine. Once a day the cabin door would be unlocked and a bucket  of water and eight loaves of black bread would be pushed inside.   Oskar, as the largest, pushed the smaller ones aside to have first choice to the food and water buckets,.  Only when he had finished helping   himself would they allow the others to fight over what remained.

Four days out of Rotterdam with the Lion well out of sight of land Steyn had the prisoners’ cabin door unlocked.  One by one the eight stumbled onto the open deck of the ship.

Sailors armed with clubs gathered them in front of the stern deck.  Steyn glared  down at them.

“There are those among you who think that in America you just reach down and pick up gold and silver.  It’s not true.  I know. I’ve been there. For some of you the only thing you will find are your graves.  But, if you work. Follow the company rules, in six years you will be free men, better than the prison rats you are now. Now wash your stink off.  Then you can eat.”

The prisoners peeled off their shirts.  Shivering in the cold sea air they washed themselves as sailors poured buckets of salt water over them.

From his perch Steyn looked down at the prisoners, at the six Anabaptist families and at the Kruezners.

“It is a long voyage to America.  Filled with hardships.  I will not have those hardships added to.  Any man who threatens passenger or sailor will be placed in irons until we reach New Amsterdam.” Steyn paused waiting for his words to penetrate their thick minds. “ You people are coming to America for different reasons.  Some come looking for gold, some for adventure.  Some like come seeking freedom.  Some don’t want to come at all. Some  will find nothing but their graves.  But those that survive, that learn to live in the new land they will be different… different from us and from anyone else that we knew.”  He turned to the prisoners.  “ Now go, dry yourselves and eat.  There will be no more irons.”

As he watched the labourers file away  Streyn heard  light steps behind him.  He turned to see Joanna Kruezner.. “Something I can do for you girl?”

“You asked to see me sir.”

Steyn nodded. “Yes, that’s right.  “You, eh, you’ve recovered from your sea sickness?”

“Yes, mein herr.”

“Good.  Very good. You must be excited about going to America?”

“Yes, mein herr.”

“I was too, my first time. Still am. Twenty years ago I thought America meant adventure and wealth.  I was a young man then, with all my fingers.  Young men think only of themselves. Now, now I have my children to think of. America is their home My home. “ He turned to her.  “When we arrive at my land,  New Utrecht,  I will need a kitchen maid.  You can have the job, if you like.”

“Excuse me mein herr but you promised that we would have our own house, our land.”

“You will.”

“What about Jan?”

“Jan?  Your brother? “There’s work enough for two.” said Steyn.

Steyn glanced over at Joanna’s brother standing next to the Swede, Oskar.  The two were looking out over the sea.  They seemed to be joking about something.  Steyn had not liked the Swede from the moment that he had seen him but the man was strong and workers were in short supply in New Amsterdam.  The company had hired him so he had to take him.  If it had been up to him he would  have left the man in prison.

Criminals, land-hungry peasants, dissenters fleeing persecution, disposed orphans, adventurers, such were the cargo he was bringing to the new world. Human hands to work new fields.

Four days of being penned into his cabin had left Jan famished  for fresh air.  Ignoring his sister’s advice to rested he had staggered up onto the deck.  As he leaned over the side staring down at the rolling, black water Jan promised himself that once ashore he would never again step onto a ship.

The blade of Jan’s pocketknife cut into the top of the ship’s gunwhale.  He carved in a few crude lines the outline of a man’s penis thrusting into a woman’s vagina.  As he examined his work  Jan glanced up at Steyn and his sister.  He wondered what they were discussing.  “I wonder what he wants with Joanna?”

“Nice picture” said Oskar.  “Still, if Steyn sees you marking up his ship he’s have you whipped.”

Oskar had noticed young Kruezner loitering about the deck a couple of days before.  His scrawny sister had taken up with the bible-thumpers but Jan seemed to be of a more sensible nature.  Besides making a friend of the boy might allow Oskar to get inside his sister’s belly.

Jan shrugged, then scratched out the picture.  “Women are so stupid” he said.

Oskar grinned “Yeah, well, we really don’t want them to be as smart as us, do you?”

Amused by his own joke Oskar sniggered.  Jan smiled and folded his pocket knife.

Author's Note

Written in Canadian English