Java Ho!

Java ho!: The adventures of four boys amid fire, storm and shipwreck (De Scheepsjongens van Bontekoe) is a juvenile fiction novel by Dutch author Johan Fabricius, first published in 1924.

The book was the basis for a movie of the same name released in 2007. The events in the book are loosely based on the journal (first published 1646) of Dutch captain Willem Bontekoe (1587–1657) and concern three young boys, Hajo, Ralf, and Padde, who have sailed to the Dutch East Indies aboard the Nieuw Hoorn. Due to an accident caused by Padde the ship is wrecked, leaving the boys to fend for themselves in the East.

Fabricius's story was based on the actual logbook of 17th-century captain Willem Bontekoe (Hoorn, 1587–1657), detailing Bontekoe's journey to the Dutch East Indies between 1618 and 1625. During that trip one of the crew dropped a lit candle into a cask of brandy, which caused a fire that ultimately made the powder kegs explode. Fifty-five sailors, including the captain, survived and reached Batavia; Bontekoe managed to get home via China, almost being shipwrecked once more along the way. He returned to Hoorn, which he never left again; his journal became a bestseller.

Fabricius was alerted to Bontekoe's book by his father, Jan, also a writer, and added the three young heroes to the narrative.

Peter Hajo and Padde Kelemeijer, two poor fourteen-year old boys living in Hoorn, make friends with Rolf, who is the nephew of Willem Bontekoe. Hajo's father was a fisherman who drowned, and Hajo works as a blacksmith's apprentice but longs to go to sea. He signs up with Bontekoe, to sail to the East along with Rolf. The ship sails from Texel, but Padde, who has come along to say goodbye, misses the ship home and becomes a sailor as well, apprenticed to the master in charge of food and drink.

Off the Sumatra coast Padde knocks a candle over and starts a fire. The ship explodes, and the survivors manage to reach the coast, where they are waylaid by natives. The three boys, with another sailor, set off to reach the Dutch colony of Batavia.

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