a liquidation that would have been carried out under unfavorable conditions. It was especially necessary for the two brothers to return to Groningen.
Karl Kip was thirty-five years old.3 A good sailor, about to be appointed captain, he was awaiting his promotion and would not be long in obtaining it. Perhaps of a less acute intelligence than his brother, or less of a businessman, less appropriate for directing a commercial firm, he exceeded him in resolve as well as in strength and physical endurance. His greatest disappointment stemmed from the fact that the Kip Company’s financial situation did not permit him to own a ship. Karl Kip would have liked to run his own business of long-distance navigation and trade. But it would have been impossible to divert any funds from the commercial side of the firm, and the elder son’s desire had never been fulfilled.
Karl and Pieter were united in a bond of friendship that no discord had ever diminished, even more deeply linked by affection than by blood.4 Between the siblings, there was no ill feeling, no cloud of jealousy or rivalry. Each remained in his own sphere. The one had his long-range voyages, the emotions and dangers of the sea. The other had his work at the Ambon office and his connection with Groningen. Their family sufficed for them. Neither had ever sought to create a second one, creating new bonds that might have separated them. It was already more than enough that the father was in Holland, Karl navigating at sea, Pieter in the Moluccas. As for the latter, intelligent, having a commercial acumen, he dedicated himself entirely to the business. His associate, also Dutch, applied himself to developing their enterprise. He was confident about increasing the growth of the Kip Company, sparing neither his time nor his zeal.
When Mr. Kip passed away, Karl was in the port of Ambon, aboard a Dutch three-master from Rotterdam, on which he was serving as second in command. The two brothers were grievously stricken by this blow, which deprived them of a father for whom they had a deep affection. And they had not been there to hear his last words, his last sigh!
The two brothers then made this resolution: Pieter would leave the Ambon association and would return to Groningen to direct his father’s business.
But at this time the three-master, Maximus, on which Karl Kip had come to the Moluccas—already old and in poor repair—was declared unfit for the return home. Severely damaged by foul weather during its crossing from Holland, it could only be demolished. So its captain, its officers, and its sailors were to be repatriated to Europe under the charge of the Hopper firm, of Rotterdam, to which it belonged.
Now this repatriation would require, no doubt, a fairly long stopover in Ambon if the crew had to wait for some ship bound for Europe, and the two brothers were in haste to return to Groningen.
So Karl and Pieter Kip decided to take passage on the first boat leaving, either from Ambon, or from Ceram, or from Ternate, other islands in the Moluccan archipelago.
At that time the three-masted schooner Wilhelmina arrived from Rotterdam, but it had only a short stopover. It was a ship of some five hundred tons, which was going to return to its home post, stopping at Wellington, from where its commander, Captain Roebok,5 would set sail to reach the Atlantic by rounding Cape Horn.
If the position of the second in command had not been filled, there was no doubt that Karl Kip might have obtained it. But the crew was complete, and not one of the Maximus sailors could be hired. Karl Kip, not wishing to miss a chance, reserved a passenger cabin on the Wilhelmina.
The three-master put out to sea September 23rd. Its crew included the captain, Mr. Roebok; the second in command, Stourn; two bosuns; and ten sailors, all Dutch by nationality.
The navigation was quite smooth on the stretch across the Arafura Sea,6 so narrowly squeezed in between the northern coast of Australia, the south coast of New Guinea, and the group of Sula Islands,7 to the west, which protect it from the heavy swell of the Indian Ocean. To the east, it offers no way out but the Torres Strait, terminated by Cape York.8
After entering this strait, the ship encountered headwinds, which stalled it for a few days. It was not until October 6th that it managed to wind its way through the numerous reefs and enter the Coral Sea.9
Facing the Wilhelmina lay the vast Pacific as far as Cape Horn, which they would pass after a stopover in Wellington, New Zealand. The route was long, but the Kip brothers had no choice.
On the night of the 19th and 20th of October, all was going well on board, with sailors on watch in the forward part of the ship, when a dreadful accident occurred that the most vigilant watch could not have avoided.
Heavy, dark fog enveloped the sea, absolutely calm, as it almost always is during these atmospheric conditions.
The Wilhelmina carried the standard lights, green on the starboard, red on the port side. But unfortunately they would not have been seen through that thick fog, even at a distance of half a cable.
Suddenly, without any siren being heard, without any lantern being seen, the three-master was struck on the windward side at the height of the crew’s quarters. The frightful shock immediately toppled the mainmast and the mizzenmast.
At the moment when Karl and Pieter Kip rushed from the poop deck, they glimpsed only an enormous mass vomiting smoke and steam, which passed like a bomb after having cut the Wilhelmina in half.
For a half a second a white flame had appeared at the mainstay of the ship. It was a steamer, but that was all they were to know about it.
The Wilhelmina, bow on one side, stern on the other, sank immediately. The two passengers did not have time to rejoin the crew. They could scarcely see a few sailors tangled among the ropes. To use the lifeboats was impossible, for they were submerged. As for the second in command and the captain, no doubt they had been unable to leave their cabins.
The two brothers, half dressed, were already in the water up to their waists. They felt the remains of the Wilhelmina being sucked down into the sea and being dragged into the vortex that swirled about the ship.
“Let’s not get separated!” shouted Pieter.
“Count on me!” replied Karl.
Both were good swimmers. But was there any land nearby? What was the three-master’s position at the moment of collision in this part of the Pacific between Australia and New Zealand, below New Caledonia, which was observed toward the east forty-eight hours before, in the last ship’s log entry of Captain Roebok?
It goes without saying that the colliding steamer was probably far away already, unless it had stopped after the shock. If they had put lifeboats to sea, how, in the middle of a fog, would they find the survivors of this catastrophe?
Karl and Pieter thought they were lost. A profound darkness enveloped the sea. No whistle of machinery or siren indicated the presence of a ship, nor the howl that escaping steam would have emitted if it had remained in the area where the accident occurred. Not a single piece of wreckage was within reach of the two brothers.
For half an hour they tried to support each other, the older brother encouraging the younger, lending him the support of his arm when the younger grew weaker. But the moment approached when both would be at the end of their resources, and after one last clasp, one ultimate good-bye, they would slip down into the abyss …
It was around three in the morning when Karl Kip managed to seize an object floating near him. It was one of the chicken cages from the Wilhelmina.10 They both grabbed onto it.
Dawn finally pierced the yellowish banks of fog. The mist was not long in rising and a clapping of little waves began as the breeze blew harder.
Karl Kip turned his eye toward the horizon.
To the east, an empty sea. In the west there was a fairly high slope of land—that is what he was finally able to see.
That shore was less than three miles away. The current and the wind were going in that direction. There was every hope of reaching it, if the swell of the sea did not grow too strong.
Whatever type of land it was, island or continent, this coast assured the shipwrecked men a means of salvation.