Reading your Post the circumstances would make for a great a Twilight Zone or X-Files episode. The survivors just disappeared as if they were kidnapped by aliens not long as the officer set off to Batavia to get a rescue ship. It would have made sense if the survivors left a message scrawled on a rock or board to their direction or whereabouts knowing full well that a ship will return to rescue the survivors.
The only reason would that the survivors were accosted by surprise without time to leave a message. What do you think Keptin?.