Mrs. v. Dapperen spoke a little English and so could get along with Ch. Her maiden name was Jetje Polkijn and her father was retired ltnt. colonel of the Administration of the Navy, who after his dismissal had obtained a good job at the My. Nederland.
In Amsterdam she and her sisters were friends with my niece Betsy Kerlen, who naturally was often mentioned in a conversation.
Little could I guess in which close relationship later on I would be to the family.
Captain Derks, who’se wife was our co passenger on the journey to Tjilatjap was transferred and replaced by Captain Schneider, who was married with the already mentioned Mrs. van Thiel. This marriage was not a happy one; he was an Adonis before but had become and alcoholic and we often witnessed the fierce quarrels with his wife. So our conversation was restricted to the first visit.
He performed his service quite weak and left the renovation of the coast battery, which had to happen in consultation with the Artillery commander, all to me.
The renovations exsisted mainly in the furnishing of the Zuidwal to be used for the 24cm heavy artillery.
He didn’t look at it in the least, which would break him in the end, as will be clear soon.
Life in Tj. was quite nice on the whole and we also often had guests for instance the detached Ltnt. of the Artillery of the Dutch Army Vinkhuizen, who like he called it, loved to rest his legs franco under our table en listen to our music. Ch. loved cosyness and every day went to visit or take long walks. This she kept doing during her pregnancy till the end, without people noticing much on her.
She hadn’t been bothered by malaria much and so the birth of our first daughter in the night of 25th to 26th of December, although several days early, went very smoothly, whilst little Milly, according to the doctor, gave a good sign of life letting us hear a firm canonshot upon arrival.
I will never forget the happy face of Ch. when the little baby washed and dressed was put next to her.
For us it was a real Christmas and with a few friends we sealed it with a glass of champaign.
footnote:
Milly born on 25th December 1878, Tjilatjap, Borneo.
In the beginning the little one grew very well, looked after by her mother and a young and excellent servant, who carried the child around the yard in the morning and evening. In that yard we also kept a monkey which was attached to a bamboo stick in the ground, above which was a box; this animal was extremely jealous of the baby and sometimes broke loose, which was becoming dangerous.
The sailing ship the Kosmopiliet III coincidentally wasin the streets and we had the commander Dienske as a guest; I asked him if he would like to have our monkey and he took the animal with him on board after dinner; who could guess our amazement when we saw the funny thing sitting in his box the next morning. He had simply jumped overboard and had swum back to the shore; brought back and tied up he made the journey to Holland with Dienske and the story doesn’t mention anything else about this pseudo-human.
In the beginning of 1879 the 24cm canons for the coast battery had arrived in Tjilatjap and one of them had to be transported to Babakan only for shooting excercises; this costed quite a lot of time and effort; the roads were too weak, the bridges not strong enough and the raft across the Serajoe river totally useless; the care for the supply of one and the other had been charged to the Dep. v. B.B.; the engineers were only to look after a large hardstone spill coushion, which had been designed in one piece by colonel Ermeling; it was round with a diameter of about 1.90m and about 50cm thick.
To transport this monsterpiece of stone, it had to be first completely cut to size in the quarry of the engineers on the island of Noesah-Tembangan, this succeeded and when the stone was ready it was put on it’s side, however it suddenly started to roll because of carelessness of the workers and killed a chainworker, who was standing in the way.
The stone arrived without trouble in Babakan, however here the able Ermeling had miscalculated; after a few shots the spill coushion was clearly useless because the stone was busted in several places.
On one of my weekly visits I witnessed and noticed how many unable aimers the Atillery counts. To eliminate mistakes
one gets told to always aim in the same direction at the trials and it was a coincidence this happened to be my former guest v. Dapperen.
I asked if I could check out the direction with my good billiard eyes and established then, that if the cannon was good, the bullet would at any rate land right under the large disc whilst v. D. of course had aimed at the center; we took a bet with a fine bottle of wine and I won my bet radiantly.
A few days later the chief of Artillery Arms, colonel Peyer im Hoff, arrived in Tjilatjap to hold an inspection; it was quickly clear to him, that captain Schneyder was not capable to inform him properly about the technical business referring the coast battery; he asked me via his adjutant to look him up in the hotel to discuss one or the other.
The hotel was next to the Social club and I arrived through the side veranda, which the colonel used as his room; I jumped then, to save time, off the side veranda and was so unfortunate to twist my right ankle, so that the colonel came outside to help me get up. I had twisted this ankle before at the K.M.A. and was in hospital with it for 3 weeks, something of course which I left out to mention in chapter I.
Of course I was afraid I was not going to be able to be of service to the colonel and I tried to inform him as much as possible in the hotel, whilst I arranged, if at all possible still to come to the coast battery the next morning.
After taken home in a small carriage, Ch. bandaged my foot and the next morning I was able to check and discuss all business at location and the neccessity was clear to make a change in colonel Ermeling’s project to manipulate the ammunition of the 24cm cannons. Colonel P.i.H. was very grateful to me, but had a spite against captain Schneyder, whom he telegraphically recommended to be sacked from the service, which happened a few days later.
Meanwhile on the 4th April 1879 colonel Ermeling had been honourably discharged from the militairy service on his request and he was given the title rank of General Major. An honourable farewell is given to him here! He certainly was the most capable engineer who had been at the head of the Engineering Arms and I am honoured to have remained in a friendly correspondence with him till his later years.
Colonel Ermeling was succeeded as chief of the arms by colonel v. Kappen, whilst the colonel above him Pfeiffer was promoted to General Major and became chief of the IInd department of War.
Shortly after these personnel changeovers a commission of defence was started, to which I was added for Tjilatjap and surroundings.
President of the commission was captain Pompe v. Meerdervoort, second in charge Swart; of the rest of the members under whom also 2 navy officers, I cannot remember the names.
We criss crossed Noesah-Kembangan in all directions, visited the S.E. part of the Preanger regency and the Kinderzee with the wellknown polehouses, opposite which lies a cave, containing the grave of Nabi Jacob according to the tradition of the locals.
Further we made a trip on horseback along the entire Schildpaddenbaai, when we had to stay the night with the Wedono of Ariredjo. Here we were visited by the same little creatures, who had poisoned my honeymoon in Poengoel so badly; after half an hour the whole commission was sitting outside on lazy chairs.
One morning Ch. and I were sitting on the cane chairs we had brought with us from Singapore, when she suddenly got a fright, whilst I felt I was getting sick; we saw the baboe with the baby quickly fleeing out of the house calling Liendoe Liendoe! It was a heavy earthquake and so we also flew in to the yard; the trees in the Canarylane were swaying heavily and our house was thundering on it’s foundations. All residents went only first back to their houses after an old and respected man of the village, Mr. Duperron adviced it.
Soon after Charlotte began to suffer malaria and her situation was getting slowly so bad, that the doctor thought evacuation was certainly necessary, whilst she was not allowed to be travelling over land.
So, whilst handing over a certificate of a doctor I then requested the Army management for a tranfer, but that was not granted. There was nothing left to do but send Ch. by boat to her family and therefore I asked one month domestic leave to Batavia.
This leave was granted and I only had to wait till the 17th August, the departure date of the Batavia boat.
Now we could not count on financial help from my father in law as he was retired since a few months and had to move into a smaller house. For the costs involved I had to withdraw 1000 guilders, which I borrowed from the agent of the Factory, Mr. v. Hovens-Greve. This was the beginning of the financial difficulties which I had to endure during my captain’s rank.
Some time before I had the 2nd ltnt v. Rouveroy v. Nieuwaal under my command; he was a rather indolent youngster, from whom I got little help; he was a lover of Wagner music, though didn’t mix a lot with his mates; on the other hand I found him several times in the company of sub officers and even found him lying stretched out on top of a table in my front veranda in conversation with my paymaster; he was very indignant with me when I critized him.
In the clothing shed white ants had now caused considerable damage and we quickly had to do the neccessary repairs to it.
The way to do that was for the local commander to make some funds available for the time being and acting on this, he asked under consideration of the budgeted costs to get permission as soon as possible from authorities.
I had ordered R.v.W. to make this simple budget, for which at the most 2 hrs work was needed, ready as soon as possible, however I could not get it out of his hands.
Before I would take my leave I had planned once again to inspect the batteries on Noesah-Kembangan; R.v.W., who knew about this plan, asked if he could accompany me, originally I agreed to that, but on second thoughts I let him know that I let his coming with me depend on the finishing of the budget in question; this didn’t get ready and so he didn’t come along.
He had complained that the captain in this case was very heavy on hand, but even the next afternoon, when I returned from the island he still had not completed the order, sothat Ihad to do the work myself.
So we left for Batavia on 17th after Ch. had been carried aboard. We had wonderful weather and therefore a good journey, so Ch. started to feel a better straight away, sothat it didn’t cost much effort in the street of Batavia to bring her on the boat to Singapore, which almost immediately departed after her arrival; I handed her over to the commander, the old navy officer de Hart, who according to later received news, had looked after her famously.
Now I had nearly 4 weeks holidays and stayed during that time with my friends Millius and Houtzager, who were joined owners of the town’s pharmacy and lived in the large series of annexes of the building of the Natural Science Company at the Koningsplein. They were very hospitable and I truly have spent the time in a pleasant way.
One evening I was at the opera and there I met retired General Ermeling, who asked me how it was going with the manupilation of the ammunition of the 24cm cannons in Tjilatjap; I answered that after the visit of the Chief of the Artillery a small change was made. “That is because the stupids don’t understand the setup”, he said, to which I replied:”Excuse me General, the stupid was me.” Curtain!
The time after my return to Tjilatjap was of course for me all but pleasant although it was also relieved by a looting party by the Regent, through which I was irritated by the terrible way, in which the freed tigers were killed, and by my first billiard competition.
In this I had already for sure won the first prize, when a teacher, whom I had already beaten and was, because of the uneven amount of remainders, re drawn on the last evening again, had to camp against me again, the camp happened in the company of the ladies of the members and each player was therefore in evening jacket; the teacher, Veen was his name, appeared in a lustre housejacket and took the prize nicely from me, sothat I was also annoyed at this occasion.
However, nearly every day I received lovely letters from Charlotte, whose health regained swiftly and gave me such pleasant news about our darling baby Milly. So beside my service I spent hours replying her welcome epistles.
When she left Tj. she was 2 months pregnant and after the improvements started she felt sound and strong to expect no. 2.
For the rest very little has happened after my return in Tjilatjap; only to mention that the Assistant Resident was replaced by his collegue Voet, a calm and respectful person, with whom I could get along well; one of his daughters married the later general of health service, Wyckerheld-Bisdom.
After all my lonliness would not last much longer, since in the beginning of 1880 I learnt that I was going to be transferred soon.
The case was that the eldest and already repeated times passed captain of war was a brother of the chief of the IInd section of the Dept. of War, Pfeiffer.
The last one had known to get done that his brother would be given the possibility, for a short time, to show his capability for the major’s rank. He was in Soerabaja in garrison, was hastly transferred by road to Tjilatjap and had to replace me. I had been ordered to inform him as much as possible in all areas and when he knew enough I had to go to Semarang in the same way in a hurry, where I had to act as a senior.
Mr. A.M.Pfeiffer descended at the hotel, also social club and from there let me know, that he had arrived.
I went there immediately and suggested to go to the office, to start the discussions about the business in relation to the required haste. However he didn’t want to know anything about that, drank several bitters and kept me talking; he would be at the office the next morning and make a start with the service transfer.
Of course I was present at 8 am, but Pf. didn’t appear until half past 9. We discussed several cases and at each subject he interrupted the conversation, saying that he knew enough about that; about the rigorous checking of the state of unfinished service papers he didn’t want to hear and by half past 10 he said: “Come on let us now go to the pub now.”
He left and I let him go alone since I still had to do a bit of work and on top of that had to organise some personal matters.
The next morning it was the same story; he didn’t even want to join me to the coast battery to visit the local interesting works there and to talk about them and declared I could take my jouney whenever I wanted and he would sign the official report of the service transfer.
I still stayed for 3 days, had organised the sale of our goods on the 3rd day; he came during those days only to the office to sign the official papers.
The proceeds of the sale weren’t very succesful and came to less than I had paid for the goods originally; after paying my debts to Mr. Hovens-Greve there would hardly be any left to pay for the upcoming delivery and the return trip of Charlotte.
The authorities in Batavia had little success with the trial of their favourite; shortly after my arrival in Semarang I read in the paper that he had been honourably discharged from the country’s service and was retired.
My departure from Tjilatjap was settled on the 12th of Februari 1880 and the evening prior to that I was the guest of the Military Pharmacist Hisgen who gave a farewell party in my honour. We played at ombre for the last time and towards the end of the evening I got on the forehand 4 matadors 6th in the spades with King, Queen and Jack of clubs; I announced of course Vole Declare, to which one of the opposite players my queen 5th showed.
It was the German Dr. Ross, who asked me:”Herr Kapitain kann Ihnen dan kwad?” It gave me a roegie of 4 capitals and this was my last bad luck in this malaria land.
The next morning I left alredy at sunrise, to be able to reach Poerworadja the same day; still a large amount of residents stood at my carriage and I drove away from the hotel under three times hurray.
I had requested to join at the rijsttafel with the Assistent Resident in Keboemen and arrived there at noon after a trip with few mishaps; I was received very charmingly, still had to travel on quickly to the capital of the Residence Bagalen, where I got off at 6 o’clock at the hotel and from where I left again the next morning and so I have not been able to see anything of that place ( Kedong-Kebo ). Therefore I was able to stay a little longer in Magelang, my next stop.
Then I passed the border between Bagelen and Kedoe, where two beautiful border and memorial posts were built at the height from where one had a lovely view at both Residencies.
One could also clearly notice here and along the road, how densely populated this part of Java is, since the indigenous in the dark blue indigo clothes with a load on the back were passing all the time whilst on their way to nearby lying markets.
In Magelang I had the opportunity to look at the new camp which was being built under management of the excecuter Major de Bloemen and again I was in full admiration of my former chief, who had projected this beautiful camp and thereby had brought a turn around as it were in the building method of the engineers.
Well, I did go against my liking to Semarang, as it were from one malarialand to another, later on I did appreciate this city because of the pleasant association with these aquaintances and the nice tone which was heard at the different authorities.
A week after my arrival Hoffmann held a sale and there I could buy things I needed immediately to move into my home as soon as possible. It was called a captain’s house, but in fact had the space of a head officer, sothat the furnishing of it wasn’t easy at all, especially since I had to purchase a carriage and horses for my service, will talk about this later on.
The house was situated on the corner of Pontjol and the Genielaan ( also called murder lane ) and had the advantage that my office was built right next to it with a seperate exit to the Genielaan. Behind the house, though seperated by an open water supply was the engineer’s nursery, planted with a lot of mango trees, whilst the workplaces of the engineers at some distance across the road on the glacis of the fort Prins v. Oranje were situated, all for the service very convenient.
Besides, in the city itself was also a seperate workplace.
One of the fist visits I made was with Hermen’s sister, who was married with the tradesman Liebeschutz and there I was received very friendly and quite soon, according to English custom I was asked for dinner. There I met the neighbours, family Kaiser as well as family Ader; all of them clearly loved music, however they were more concentrated on the cello and I also played a joke. Ader then knew to talk me round in becoming a member of the Caecilia music group, in which I, according to him, with some practice would be able to fill the second part of a duet.
On 25the March 1880 I received a telegram from Papa Baumgarten with the message that Ch. had brought a second daughter into the world, which message was confirmed by Ch. herself 10 days later, in which she wrote that all ended well and that the baby as it were had jumped into the world with her legs first; she had the child baptised Wilhelmina Caroline.
This was for me very happy news and from then on I started to improve my furniture and to finish it of, so as to receive her and the children and her sister and guest Emily properly, for which I also purchased a very large collection with flowers in pots, mainly Begonias.
I had brought my piano with me from Tjilatjap and I had set up one of the rooms next to the front veranda for it, sothat the sisters could practise in peace.
In view of the arrival of Emily I had taken over quite a large mylord with frontbench from the engineer’s storekeeper Schmitz and two not too small horses from Savoe I bought in a sale, which did me good service during my entire stay in S.
When I came back from the city in the afternoon I often took one or two mates to Pontjol, consequently this gave the carriage the nickname Pontjol’s omnibus.
Time was approaching quickly when I could see my family back and at the end of May the mailboat came with them to the street; when the anchor was dropped I flew up the stairs but on deck only found a Klingalese baboe with a very fat child; a moment later Emily came on deck, which after saying hello, asked me: ”Do you not greet your eldest daughter?” I really was flabbergasted, because I didn’t know that our darling Milly had become that fat, Ch. had not written about that.
The hearty meeting of me with the little baby and Ch. I do not have to describe, enough being said, that with fine weather we soon steamed to the wharf, where our own horse and carriage was waiting whith which we arrived in a short time at our home in Pontjol.
We now had a few wonderful months, in which I introduced Ch. and her sister to all the aquaintences and also enjoyed whatever the place offered for entertainment, whilst our 2 children grew fast.
Unfortunately Ch. suddenly got another malaria attack and she was sick for some time, sothat our doctor Vechtman considered evactuation to Oengarang neccessary.
With a large travel carriage the entire family left for Oengarang and I took a quiet room for Ch. and for Emily and the children a large room in the hotel, which was managed by a certain Mr. Eb, borther of the then ltnt. col. of the Engineers; I left the same afternoon, back to Semarang.