title: The Night Ship by: Kidd, Jess published: 2022-10-04 read: 2022-10 preview

The night ship by Jess Kidd caught my attention because of it describing the sailing and sinking of the Batavia, a famous, nay infamous Dutch ship of our golden ages.  The book tells two stories: one of a girl sailing on the Batavia in the 17th century, and one of a boy visiting the island where the ship stranded, off the coast in western Australia, 400 years later.  They flip chapter by chapter, and while I found the Batavia story more fascinating in the beginning, the darkness of the second one quickly matches the first.  Language use switches between languages, giving it an easy going.

The Batavia sails. Some days she’s alive to the wave and the wind and cuts through the water, keel sharp and wide belly balanced, canvas taut and lines humming. They could go faster, Holdfast tells Mayken, but the rest of the fleet cannot match the Batavia’s speed. This sticks in skipper Jacobsz’s craw more than sharing the journey with Pelsaert – he must slow a swift ship when he could be hurtling on to the spice islands. But the distant gleam of another craft’s stern light in the deep dark night is reassurance to many on board. So the Batavia flies, but not too fast, and the souls on board make plans for when they land. On good days, their destination feels closer. On other days, when the wind abandons them and the sea is begrudging and the ship wallows and toils, the hours lie heavy and they feel every weariness of their five months at sea.

and

Gil trains Dutch’s binoculars on the sight unfolding: the carrier boat docked alongside the main jetty, unloading mothers, grannies and children. They arrive with clamour and baggage. They gabble and squabble along the jetty. Gil immediately hates them all, especially the kids. He checks on Enkidu, opening the sports bag to peer in. The tortoise looks fine, pissed off, but fine.

Both sides of the story focus on murder, rape, and such.  Of course, one of the two stories is historical – of the 200 or so survivors systematically killing each other – and the other credible fiction, where a boy living today, and visiting his uncle on a small island, who is being terrorised by other islanders up to an extreme level.

If you want to know the story of that ship, google ‘Batavia ship’, read up, and be stunned. The book is nice enough, but sometimes I felt I’d preferred to have more focus on the story of the girl on the Batavia.

Islanders don’t have an easy time in books, I tell you. It reminds me of this other islanders book, this time in the Hebrides, Tamsin Calid, I am an island. Which was even more unfair to islanders, as it is a bit of a true story.

Anyway, be that as it may: the underlying story of the Batavia is so fascinating, that it makes the book worth a read. I’m sure there are other, good sources to get informed and entertained about the murderous bunch on such ships. But this is at least as good as any other one.