The Intrepid Abel Vanderland

Abel Vanderland is sailing the seas. He leans on his knee on the bow of the ship, shading his eyes with his hand, searching the blue vastness before him. His brow furrows as wind blows his chestnut locks back across his shoulders. A gust catches his neckerchief and it pops like a whip in the wind. He knows his crew is watching him, he can see them out of the corner of his eye.

Abel Vanderland admires his arms. They are well tanned. His veins cast shadows on his taught forearms. His muscles are thick and well defined. He looks at the arms of the other men. They are puny compared to his. He imagines what his arms would look like if they were connected to their torsos. Their knees would buckle and strain from the sheer weight of his arms. They wouldn’t even be able to lift them off the ground.

As a child he often broke eggs between his thumb and forefinger, the long way. The other boys were all held in amazement, and were jealous of his strength. Abel Vanderland broke so many eggs that by the time he was fifteen years of age his thumb and forefinger were the size of a knockwurst and a bratwurst respectively. He can now crush an empty wine bottle in his vice grip (which he does frequently as a spectacle before his incredulous crew).

But now Abel Vanderland is thinking. He is thinking about what he should name the new island. It doesn’t seem like it should be this hard. It is after all the twohundredandeightysomethingth island he has documented. But this one...this one is different.

Abel Vanderland was the first to note a faint hint of green in the distance. He was the first blue-eyed man to gaze upon that vegetated bough of sand that hung in the vastness of the great Pacific. And it was truly a fruited wonder to behold. Even as the island grew in the horizon, the green hump of that ancient volcano rising up, ever higher, like a green bottle floating upon the waves, Abel Vanderland could feel the intimating radiation pulling at the stern of the Overawe. Leading him, desperate, to its shores.

So before the bosun had hollered ‘ho,’ Abel Vanderland was prepared for what this island held enveloped behind its jade veil of foliage. He would force this island to submit itself, in the name of the Queen.

Thompson’s Island perhaps?, thinks Abel Vanderland. Thompson was a good man, and a good first officer. They had been through so much together, he and Thompson. Through the jungle muck of New Westmark, to the parched sands of Northern Island. Once, in Indonesia Thompson put down a rampaging Javan rhino, just after it had punctured the helmsman through the sternum. It was a comical sight to see the helmsman’s shocked face as he was thrashed about on the beast’s beak, a horn protruding just below his jacket pocket, and Abel Vanderland laughed aloud. But Thompson brought sobriety to the moment. Using his first shot on the helmsman, he put him down civilly, then he cocked and fired another salvo directly into the beast’s brain, dropping it where it stood.

Later the entire crew agreed it was quite a clever shot. And a gentlemanly maneuver too, to maintain the helmsman’s dignity, and end his shameful display in such a fashion. Even Abel Vanderland himself was impressed.

But Thompson had some weaknesses. For one, he let himself be impaled by the head of a native’s poisoned spear tip on this new island. He was therefore the first man to die on the island, and Abel Vanderland was ashamed. Most disgraceful were Thompson’s pleading eyes, which stared up from the blood blackened sand. “I grant your reprisal will be stern my captain,” Thompson had whispered.

Abel Vanderland looked down at the helpless cadaver that was slowly leaking Thompson’s soul. The cadaver began to spasm feebly. “Your failings will be noted in my log,” Abel Vanderland responded. “And yes of course there will be stern reprisals for these simple brutes. They have put a spear through my first man. That means hours of paperwork for me, and a new first mate, which I will have to nominate and train. This all takes hours of time, you see Thompson, hours of time I don‘t have.”

Thompson did not hear this because he was dead.

No, this will never be Thompson’s Island. Besides, he already has a bay named after him. But what to name it? This name must be perfect. This one gravid word must include in it all the glory and honor that suits the Overawe. This single, portentous utterance should subdue the tongues of weaklings, and force them to quiver in fear and awe. This word must be great and greatness together. But what shall it be?



Many men died suppressing the savages on that lonely sand. Thompson’s death inspired an all out war, and the crew was turned to a small inland village. The grass homes were perfect tinder. The simple savages hadn’t even the knowledge to build their homes from the sturdy palm, or channel running water through the encampment for drinking and fire control. The grass huts burnt, and the villagers dropped to the ground in front of the crew’s smoking rifles, with meaty thuds, scarcely putting up a fight.

The crew was quite jovial about dispatching them and made a sort of drinking game of it. Whenever, upon being shot, one of the brutes dropped dead, that was one drink; whenever the brute was wounded without being killed completely, that was two drinks; and if the shot was a miss entirely the crewmate had to skull the bottle and smash it across his teeth.

After less than an hour the village was emptied of its primitive inhabitants, and all the crew was thoroughly intoxicated and relaxed in the razed village, until it was discovered that the devious warriors, the island-men of the tribe returned to the encampment after hearing the gunfire. The warriors, discovering the tottering and guffawing crew of the Overawe hovering above the charred remains of their homes and the carcasses of their families, grew distressed and shot through the necks three men of the Overawe before any had yet drawn their firearms. Only Abel Vanderland reacted. With a shot from his pistol and a hunting dagger thrown, two warriors died. The others scattered, whooping and gibbering, into the bush.

The contemptuous brutes were stealthy and deliberate. They hid in the bush, firing their poisoned arrows at random. But they stood no chance against the well trained and well armed crew. After nearly a full day of fighting the few brown-skinned warriors who remained alive were either captured, or retreated far away, to the slopes of the ancient volcano, the home of their pagan gods.

In all, seven of the crew lay buried in the sand. But the island is claimed. The island’s virginal ground is penetrated by the rigid flag pole, which bares a proudly waving flag. New land for the Empire. The two captured natives sit, broken in the belly of the ship. They will make exemplary specimens for Her Majesty’s collection. And with this island aft, only one thing remains. The name.

Abel Vanderland thinks of the radiant face of his queen. When the tall sails of the Overawe peak above the horizon, and the first sea wife waves her kerchief, there will be parades assembled. They will be waiting for Abel Vanderland, lined up behind the port plank, with the finest wines, and a carriage with a crested driver perched above white horses. The women will sigh as Abel Vanderland steps down the plank. He imagines their sighs giving way to moans.

“It’s so simple!” shouts Abel Vanderland suddenly, and he exclaims aloud, “Queensland! I shall name it Queensland, in the name of her Majesty the Queen!”

His crew watches his exclamation, but can not hear him through the wind and the sea. It appears he is shouting madness at the silvery blue expanse before them. Some of the men imagine he is cursing the natives for what they did to Thompson, some of the men try not to think of anything, lest they disrespect their captain, even in their thoughts.

Abel Vanderland turns from the bow and walks purposefully toward his cabin to write in his journal. The island is a tiny dot on the horizon behind the ship now, an emerald on a sapphire sea. Abel Vanderland is returning home.