Upon arrival in Malang I booked with John in hotel Lapidoth, whose owner belonged to the ugliest of all people; he had strange legs and they told me that he often broke them without falling; this only happened after he broke them, in contrary to normal people.The food at the lodging was good; for me that was useful as I got sick the second day and had to stay in my room for a week.The takeover of the corps command of my collegue Hoffmann was delayed because of it and therefore he send me packages with paperwork to study. I noticed that amongst these pieces I could see no note written by Hoffmann’s hand and not even a single one was signed; it was all the work of adjutant Fisher, whilst he, just like before in Semarang, let things drift.One advantage of my illness was, that H. already had held a sale; when I got better I could move straight away into the house he had cleared out.On the first July Miss ter Meulen commenced the running of the household and some time later the girls came from Batavia; Mere Augustine still suggested that they could stay under cheaper conditions, but because of the above mentioned reason it fell on deaf ears.The girls made the trip under the watchful eye of Mrs. Mollinger; I picked them up with the Miss in Soerabaja, where some stuff was bought for the household and for clothing supplement for the children.It was a cheerful lot these 4 kiddies, who were so glad now they were discharged from their prison.
Everything went fine in the beginning; the children went to a public school, of which the girl’s school was managed by Miss Ovink, who lived just across our house with the widow Sterk and was known as aunt Mina, who with her sister in Malang and kept a milking business from a European cow and through it earned a nice living.Further as neighbours we had the family Struben, blessed with a great amount of children, and the retired resident de Greve with wife and 2 daughters, of whom the eldest had the nickname “snapped lily”; with these neighbours we were soon on good terms.I needed a riding horse for my service and for this I bought a young grey Sandelwood ( sjek ) from a coffee planter in the area. It was only partly broken in; when I when I took this dear animal for the first time to the troops it got such a fright of the shining hoes and shovels that it turned around at one and took off with me; I soon made it stop and with gentle talk I got it back to the original place; with the same kindness and with sugarcane lump rewards it got so calm that ater 3 weeks I could hold the animal with his nose above the tamborine; so it became a good horse for the troops, besides he was also very tame in the stable and could freely walk around the garden.Every morning I took my grey for a ride to conclude an inspection at the practice terrain of the corps, exsiting of the 2nd company, after which I went in the same clothes to the corps’s office in the camp.The horse was taken home on the lead by a caretaker and I usually stayed till 11 o’clock in the camp, afterwards going home on foot.The distance to my house was too large in the end and caused a lot of wasted time, besides I had to pay a lot of visits in the afternoon, so I hired a monthly carriage. For F. 45 a month with a 5 cent tip for the coachman I got the complete usage of a nice tent cariiage and so the children could make a nice ride before I needed the carriage myself; during my 3 year’s stay this carriage has brought us a lot of service and pleasure.
It goes without saying that I, who never served with the troops, wasn’t informed about the internal service and the exercise elements, so for the time being I left the command to both captains Plantenga and Rouveroy van Nieuwaal and only oversaw the excercises; however it didn’t take long before I took over the reins when I immediately stumbled upon the difference in character of both my captains.Plantenga was a more than able chief for his officers, v.Rouveroy didn’t know how to reign other than punishing all the time, so ltnt. Staal, who later on had died in Lombok, came one morning to me with tears in his eyes, telling me that for a small misconduct he had an 8 day arrest and therefore was prevented to appear at my reception.After looking into this it appeared to me that the punishment given to v.d. St. was far too heavy and I deminished that to 1 day arrest; besides I warned captain v. R. to curb himself as far as punishments were concerned since I wished that all officers in my corps were treated the same way and I had the opinion that punishments under officers only belong to extreme exceptions.My receptions were attended heavily, even many young girls came who obvioulsy thought it was nice, because usually the back veranda was cleared and gave opportunity to dance; that’s why they lasted till 9.30 pm.Soon enough I got a few nice friends in Malang, namely the president of the district joint court Mr. Kramers and the Controller Oomen, both nice ombre players, the latter also a good musician; quite soon we had organised a permanent evening and we amused ourselves very well; Oomen often added a music party to his turn and at one of these parties the great pianist Friedenthal was a guest who let us hear a beautiful study about de Martha amongst others, which he performed only using his left hand. Oomen played at that occasion a duet with Dr. Sortenbeker; they perforned the violin concerto of Mendelsshohn. Friedenthal made him a compliment, though added: “Es ist aber kein Pianomusik”, which was a cold shower on him.Soon after our arrival our Jop got sick; she had typhoid fever and her fair hair started to fall out in an alarming way, sothat they had to be cut off on doctor’s orders; although she soon recoverd, she stayed bold for some time, but ended getting back a beautiful white curly head.footnote:Es ist aber kein Pianomusik = it is however not a piano piece
I also want to mention an accident with Johan here; in his free time he was busy with my horse in the stable and often crept on the back of the animal; I found this a rise to let him ride a bit in the garden and took the horse on the lunge; all went well in the beginning, however he got a bit presumptious and hit the grey’s flank, sothat the horse suddenly trotted with the result that the little man lost his balance, fell on the ground and concussed.Thanks to quick medical help and real good nursing of Miss Termeulen, the accident fizzled out; it could also have been different.Through some officers and coffee planters the plan was made in Malang to start a horse racing club and they asked me to accept the presidency of the club. We had great success of our plan; a lot of members were enrolled and we got support of all authorities plus the free use of an excellent piece of government land. Everything ran in one word well and soon enough the first races could be held.These were real festive days, which were opened by the Resident Salmon; one rode beautifully and espeially showed what a wonderful temperament a Sandelwood breed has; one of these little horses won the race, though dropped dead underneath his rider Constant at the end of the race.As President I led the beginning of the yachting drive, though didn’t join in the last part, because my weight was too heavy to run along and I took an example of Mr. Constant, who in fact was also far too heavy for his nobel black horse.After the gallop at the beginning of the race I bowed off to the side, which costed me quite a bit of trouble, since my thoroughbred little horse Pieter wanted to join the race at all cost.The festivities were closed with a large masqued ball in the social club of the organisation. I don’t remember ever to have attended a happier and more pleasant ball, to which I also actively took part.
With gentlemen Kramers, Plantenga and Munnickhuizen I formed a four men half red half black dominos, who intruiged everyone and still were not recognised. Personally I mistyfied ltnt. Schades ( later on director of the Deli-Railway ); he was dressed up as an American, however couldn’t get along with his English; further Mrs. Stoll-Oemboel had to pay, who all the time asked to my intruiges: “But who are you then, that you know so much about me?” The answer to this question was not given until after a great quadrille, when everyone had to demasque.For this quadrille our foursome was supplied with large animal heads and so we formed a strange looking group, who had many onlookers, especially from the crowd of people on the highway in front of the social club, where Miss ter Meulen was watching with the children and where many military made remarks. So I remembered one that a well known Mrs. U. called out: “What Paaschos”.The day before the ball I had put on my animal head ( a wild boar ) at home and our Lotje escaped from fright under the table; she was still frightened for years if she only saw the head lying in the wardrobe.Many jobs could be given to the engineer’s corps, too many to mention them here; besides they have been described in the welknown guide book of Seibert, who as an Infanterist, wrote the book and earned an honourpalm. A few points I’d like to bring to the attention:1. The homing pigeon service. This had just been set up at my arrival under the supervision of Captain v. Rouveroy, who took great care of it, for the purpose had designed cages and took care of regular training; he even wrote a book titled: the Homing lpigeon through which he made some fame.2. The optic telegraphy. This was practised in three ways, namely with flags and torches with positioning and with Mangin appliances; the first method was only used on the practise terrain by 2 parties; from such an excercise I remember, that the officer in charge wanted to send over an engineering rhyme and after the first sentence sounding :”Oh if all people on the other side were wise..”, was cut off with the answer: “then they would signal with torches!”.Footnote:a Mangin apparatus is a French instrument with mirrors to signal with. I did not get a translation for that but could read the meaning in an old book on line.No idea what he means by Paaschos…Paasch might be short for Paaschen which meant Easter.
A report of the delinquent was of course made, however I excused him because of his funny answer.The signalling with structures happens on distances to 15 km. a group signallers therefore went into the mountains and built some lodgings there and erected a structure in the shape like the one on the practise terrain; it was a mast with two spars, in between which four discs could be moved up and down and with which one could indicate the whole alphabet, be it according to the Morse code system, or according to the system of navy ltnt. Vreede, which is easier to learn for the less developed person.To the discs at night 4 carriage lanterns could be attached and one obtained a regular communication like that. The signallers usually stayed away for several days and practised all day. Personally I joined on several trips, also when the Mangin aparatuses were used.With these instruments, which ws an invention of French Captain ( later General ) Mangin, communication could be established up till about 100 km. A lamp was in it, of which the lightbeams were concentrated through binoculars and parallel were sent through to the viewed target; by shorter or longer intermitting with a leaf, Morse code signs could be given.In daytime the lamp’s light was not strong enough for long distances and one made use of the sun; therefore a clock was attached to the instrument which moved a pair of mirrors in such a way, that the beams fell in the viewer’s axle every time; to which in connection with the breadth of the location, the first mirror had to be set in such a way, that the lightbeams would fall in the axel’s viewer; for the remainder the clock took care.Now the problem occurred, that Java lies South of the equator and so the instrument could only be used for locations on the Northern hemisphere; after searching long this problem was solved by screwing a wedge into it with a 10’ corner, on which the clock was placed; now the instruments were useful for the whole of the East Indies.Of course the electric telegraphics, the telephone and especially the radio have pushed optic signalling to the background, the optic telegraphic communication remains a mighty aid, which in an emergency can serve excellently and like that still is practised.
3. Tests with blasting gelignite. In my second chapter I mentioned amongst other things, that with the corps lithofractor as gelignite was used; later on it was replaced by dynamite, which in it’s turn had to make place for blasting gelignite; under my predecessor a committee was appointed, to research in how far this material was useful for the corps. This committee had come to the conclusion that the use was much recommended, however the first stroke cartridges ( primers ), which were added by the manufacturers might as well be replaced by percussion caps with double load fulminate of mercury ( 2 gr ).They had already started the printing of the rules for use and treatment of staff, when I thought to notice that with some explosions, these were not complete. To convince myself of this I let them make a closed cage of sisal walls and in it ignite a cartridge gelignite with a fulminate of mercury, like meant by the committee; the bang was again not particularly heavy and the explosion not been completed, although at the investigation it showed that several pieces gelignite sat unused against the walls of the cage; I repeated the test with a primer of the manufacterer and the explosion was completed, even a part of the large sisal wall of the cage was destroyed.I mentioned this telegraphically to the Chief of War to prevent, that the printing of the rules would be continued. From the new Chief Restner, who had just replaced General v.d. Eb I received an all but appreciative answer, and after some sharp correspondence of this business a new committee was appointed, of which I personally took charge.It showed now from numerous tests that my point of view was the right one and the Chief had to put me on a par; at least I had avoided a fiasco.Every year after the practical excercises the whole corps went to bivouac, under command of the corps’s commander, where all that was learned in the past year was excecuted again in practice.
The first bivouac was set up on the slopes of the Ardjoeno, several kilometers West of Lawang. I had given orders, that the 6 dogs, who were admitted in the camp and usually walked in front at the military marches, this time would be tied up, so we would have no trouble from the mongrels in the bivouac; however, we hadn’t even marched 5 km or these 6 darlings of the minor militaries came running along, ahead of which gallopped an ungly schmauzer, which got the nickname of corps commander; so the animals had to be taken along and enjoyed the large amount of bones, which were available in bivouac.The activities in the bivouac took about one week, in which all mines, fougasses and whatever else was considered for explosions was in readiness to ignite on the last day, being a Sunday. All indigenous notables were invited to this show and the ltnt. col. Bede, local commander of Malang, volunteered to use his music.It was a real party whilst a buffet luncheon was served which was finished with an outdoor ball, to which quite a lot of girls took part and some even lost their little hearts.The next morning bivouac was broken up and we marched homewards. Hardly having left the bivouac, it started to pour in a real tropical fashion; so I sent my adjutant Fisher ahead with a carriage to buy some bottles of gin; we were not even halfway on our return march when he already arrived and in this beastly weather an allowence of gin could be given. As corps commander I took the first glass and a drink had never tasted that good and did so much good. On the troops too, this drink had a beautiful effect; despite the downpour the men marched home, singing in accellerated pace and therefore I can’t agree at all with the push of anti alcoholists.Not long after both my captains were transferred and replaced by captains Berkhout and Hoogeboom; the last one got sick immedialtely, they thought of malaria and liver disease, though not of appendicitis and I now suspect, that this should have been the cause of his illness, at any rate he died of peritonitis in the hospital in Soerabja .
The story went that his widow was not so sad about his death, at home he was a very good pianist, though had started to teach himself the violoncel, though with very little success, sothat he bored his wife every time with his exercises on this instrument, named cryingwood by his wife.In those days there were two social clubs, which separation started by a conflict between the officers and the civilians; the military club named “Insulinde” was located at the bridge over the Brantas just opposite my house and was the usual gathering place of the officers after their morning service; the other, baptised “Society” was visited more in the evenings and there were also more performances and parties given.So, amongst other a children’s performance and ball was organised, in which “Sleeping Beauty in the woods” was put on stage. My three eldest girls were also in the play and didn’t make a bad impression as fairies; they sang sweetly, to which the soprano voice of Milly turned out very nicely, also the acting was great.In the beginning of 1891 the commander of the 3rd mil. dep. colonel de Groot held an inspection of my corps, which finished to satisfaction of both parties; the yearly behaviour criticism handed in by me didn’t give any reason to remarks either; I relevate this because of the huge difference with the next year, about this later.My adjutant Fisher, with whom I could get along very well, was being tranferred; he often came to my house and was very nice to my children and acted as the holy Saint at the St. Nicolaas party; he was replaced by the first ltnt. Fauel, also a happy, cheerful and able officer.The ltnt.col. Bedet too was in the course of the year transferred; however he had asked for overseas leave and was retired in Holland. His replacer as commander of the depot battallion was major Collard, who, although older than I, was later appointed as Major. As a result of this I was in charge of the local military command, which took about 5 months.
Of course I only considered myself a manager in this job and dealt with the business in the same way as ltnt.col. Bedet had done, refraining from all cases regarding the depot battalion; as a result I stayed on good terms with Collard; once he even asked my advice regarding the punishment of one of his officers. I told him that I was proud never to have punished an officer and adviced him to close the case with a sharp reprimand note. Despite that the poor delinquent got 14 days arrest; he was on that point one of those, who tried to show his power by imposing many punishments.Still before the acting of Collard as local commander a duel took place of one of my officers, ltnt. Mollinger with senior captain engineer’s officer de Voogt; as corps commander I had the duty to investigate this; since I had heard that de Voogt was wounded, I send him a small letter requesting if possible to come for a minute in my camp, in order to check some changes to the local buildings. De Voogt came almost immediately; he looked well and I only noticed that he held his right hand between the buttons of his uniform jacket; so the injury couldn’t have been serious and I felt responsible not to take any notice of it.After the acting of Collard already the second races took place; apart from the ordinary trot and gallop numbers, this time also a race was run for the indigenous chiefs on Javanese horses, which was very amusing; they also held a so called dressage competition, of which ltnt. de Waal obtained the price for the best riding horse and Mr. Elink-Schuurman the one for the the most beautiful and best dressed horse and buggy. I never saw a more beautiful gait than of this grey horse.Just before the end of the last race all the onlookers saw the civil servant of the law Dijkstra drive away with Nora Struben in his buggy and their engagement was a public secret. Mrs. Struben was really happy with her daughters, the prettiest Cor was already married before with the brother of the mentioned Mr. Dijkstra, whilst the third one, nicknamed “La vie Parisienne”, soon followed suit and only the eldest Jon was left over, but that one evidently was not attractive.footnote:La vie Parisienne – the Paris life