The production of the new factory was more than enough for the need, also for the ships and the officers could use as much ice as they wanted for a civil price, whilst the factory still made a small profit.
In these days captain de Haan was transferred, without immediately appointing a replacer; I asked the Chief if I could keep him till his replacer came and I did this mainly on instignation of de Haan himself; however a negative answer came and he left for Java.
He seems to have spoken about the Chief in an unfavourable way, at any rate not long after his departure I got a trusted letter from colonel Resner, in which he wrote to have heard along the grapevine that I didn’t give enough attention to the business; I answered this writing with the question how this was possible, since all the istructions were executed in an accommodating way and I thus suspected that the chief had been informed wrongly.
Later on it was clear to me that de Haan who only achieved something in administrative matters, in this had been the gossiper and so had answered my good action.
A month later his replacer came, being captain de Voogt, an able, technical and very educated man, from whom I have had a lot of help and with whom I have always remained friends.
The reinforcement at Telok-Semaweh meanwhile was completed and occupied by the natives of which as curiosity has to be mentioned that within three weeks the new wooden buildings were completely infested by bugs, which the good little Javanese had brought with them.
Next came the building of the establishment in Sabang, but it was now clear, that Marcella had omitted to level out the location which was chosen by him; because of the sloping of the terrain the buildings couldn’t be constructed without stairs; I mentioned this through intervention of the Governor to my chief with the information, that the solution with the stairs didn’t satisfy me.
For this General Deykerhoff received an order from the Army adninistration: “Stop with it” and at receiving the telegram about this case, called me around.
With theatrecal voice he recited: “I will now appont a commission existing of different service chiefs, some navy officers and the chief of Staff; this commission then has to fight out the business. ” My answer was: “General, if you wish that the case will take another year you certainly have to do this; however if you however send me alone then you will have a new project within three weeks.” Then he became a bit more amiable and said: “If you promise that then go ahead and do it!”
I left to Poeloeweh, found a young ltnt. for some days to take notes and levels and had the satisfaction to finish the project within the promised time, which they then followed when building the establishment.
During my stay in Sabang I stayed with the controller Leon, a verfent lover of ombre games, with his wife Suze Bodde I also played duettes. They were friendly and hospitable people and I couldn’t have guessed that after my retirement I would be in a close relation with the widow of Leon as aunt Suze, a known figure in our family.
As was known Toekoe Oemar had surrendered and knew from General Deykerhoff how to get possession of a large amount of guns to arm his enforcement troops who were coming. In fact an action began to start a second position line, of which Tjot-Goe was the first reinforcement. In those days he tried to become amiable with the officers; he had a beautiful house built for him in the IV moekims and came repeatedly in my office to ask for tiles to put on the veranda floors of his house; however I was not allowed to fulfil his demands.
The ladies in Kota Radja were invited by his wife Tjoet-Na-Din, which visit was encouraged by general Deykerhoff. Miss Agnes Naessens and Milly were also present, but felt rather uncomfortable with this clearly hostile woman.
footnote:
moekims are moslim quarters in a village where mosques are built.
As sample of the relation between the administration and the Achenese the following will serve:
The maintenance of the road of the Atjeh tram was taken on by a Chinese, who on orders of the chief of the exploitation, had dug away some ground next to the rails for the repairs of the tramway in the line to Ketapang-Doewa.
Because of this an Achenese complained to the Assistent Resident Kroesen, explaining that a grave from one of his family members had been damaged. Kroesen put the Chinese in jail and therefore I immediately complained to the Governor, who promised me to organise that the Chinese would be freed from prison; however he had the opinion that the Chinese had to pay a small fine, which I didn’t agree with, since he had acted according to the orders of captain Zon and thus that the fine should be paid by the State.
The next day the Chinese was discharged from prison but came crying to my office to announce that he was charged a heavy fine of $ 500. In company of the Chinese I went back to the General, who refused to amend the given fine; I then asked him to telegraphically apply for my resignation of the job, since I could not continue my service like that.
Now the little General became pale and asked me: “Kerlen would it be good enough if I pay the $ 500 fine myself?” thus not to committing himself. He sent a note to the paymaster and then gave me the bag with dollars, which in his presence I handed over to the Chinese.
Through the firm de Lange & Co was at the same time as the building of the establishment in Sabang a coal station started; that firm had handed in a request for the delivering of drinking water for the Navy for the price of the civilians of 50 cents per 100 liters; the Governor gave that request to me to work things out.
I wrote a report about it, in which I demonstrated that when half of the demanded price is given to the firm she would have a very simple installation for free in 2 years and apart from that would still make 40% of her money.
The General shook my hand and thanked me for the interesting report. I didn’t hear anything further about this case until some months later I was visiting the secretary v. Schmidt Auf Altenstadt and mentioned it in a conversation and learnt that the General had followed my advice, although he thourght it was reasonable to pay out the asked price. Comments are not neccessary here.
Intermezzo.
It is now more than a year ago that I am using my Remington, since I wil be admitted to hospital tomorrow to undergo the now urgent operation of my eyes, and so the typer like I hope will be stopped for the time being, I need to say thank you once again to my children for the present the gave me on my 75th birthday.
The machine proved to have given me a big service, as I really wouldn’t have known hown how to spend the long evenings. When my eyes are better I still will remain faithful to my Remington and will try to bring my memories to a good end.
So be it!
The Hague, 7th June 1925.
The water supply of the Civil and Military establishment was quite a bit more complicated than the one of the Achenese association, because the establishement is located on a hill, which lies quite a bit higher than the level of the freshwater lake ( Anak-Laut ), that had to serve as water source. In a discharge creek nearby the lake a stone reservoir was cemented and this was by a pipeline connected to another reservoir, which was lying about 7meters above the location of the machine to lift the water, a so called waterram.
This instrument is with a 10cm wide drop pipe connected with the last mentioned water reservoir, whilst on the other side a 1inch tube pipe connects it with the approximately 30m highter lying sharing reservoir in the reinforcement on the hill. When all installations are put to work the air kettle then fills gradually up from the ram and pushes the water which has been gathered in it to the sharing reservoir; it causes a certain amount of water loss in the instrument, which every time will be filled up by the drop pipe and and creates an automatic movement of the water; hence the name waterram. When all of it works well the sharing reservoir overflows early in the morning andcs there was enough water for the whole day.
In the beginning the regular working actually had some problems and I had ordered the local engineer chief, 1st litnt. Clignett to first find the reason for the repeated working problems of the rams, before we would follow up his wish to transfer him to Kota Radja. Apart from the good working of the waterram the establishment was as good as ready and the openeing of the coal harbour Sabang would be festively done by Generaal Deykerhoff, who had given the necessary funding to ltnt. Clignett for the erection of a suitalble obelisk.
At one of my last visits I found that obelisk already ready, but Don Pedro ( Clignett ) told me in tears, that he had not found the mistake in the watersupply. I then got the enlightened idea, that the mistake in question had to lay in the drop pipe, which was supplied with a large tap to put the installation to work.
After lunch when everyone was having siesta I went to the engineer’s workplace and asked the workman Smid who was there, if he saw a chance to take the bothering tap out of the drop pipe in a short time. This was possible and so that happened whilst an outside closure of the drop pipe was installed; the success was perfect; when the little ram was put into action it automaticly kept working quietly.
I returned to the reinforcement, changed and sat down in the bandstand, which sreved as social club and where gradually all Europeans came and sat down. One could hear the regular working and it was amusing to see how Don Pedro’s nose was curling when this was pointed out by his mates. It was a beautiful outlook for him to be able to spread his musical wings in Kota Radja.
He stayed another week in Sabang and so he was also present at the festive opening of the harbour and the unveiling of the obelisk which he had made. In the obelisk was a lead chest with a beautiful calligrafated deed cemented and of the festivities quite a large photograph was taken, of which a copy was sent to one of the Dutch magazines, I think Eigen Haard; so the case has been saved from oblivion, although the later governor Van Heutsz had the whole obelisk demolished after my leave from Atjeh. Whatever reason lead him to do so is not known to me; but he sure has made a poor impression with this action.
I had taken my mate sandelwood Piet along from Malang to Atjeh, though by the many activities attached to the navy regulation I was all the time on board of one or the other ship and my Pieter stood mostly in the stable and I only rode him on some occasions; this was amongst others also the case during the capture of Kaloet and I had the command of all transportation sent from Lam Reng to the captured reinforcement with the aid of Toekoe Oemar.
I muddled with my Pieter between all the trains from the A/T with which I or rather my horse roused the admiration of commander van Lam Baroe, ltnt col. Siervers, who were charged with the command of it all and simply called my Piet a railway horse.
Already in the evening of the same day I received a letter from him in which he suggested to sell my horse for f. 400 ; I agreed and my faithful mate left his stable. If I have ever been sorry for something then it was this sale; Sievers proved to be a very bad rider and through his roughness he saw the chance to ruin the horse in three weeks and then was neccessary to sell the animal to an Achenese, who put it in front of his little carriage and wore it out.
The period from the middle of 1894 till 1895 doesn’t stand clearly in my mind to serve a regular story about it; so I will just define to mention some points, which to me are important.
So they continued with the founding of a second temporary posting line, with which I had relatively little to do and this concerned only the supplies of the temporarry materials and which were performed by the chief of the exploitation; he seemed to have done the job remarkably well, since General Deykerhoff nominated him for a Royal decoration.
When I had to deliver the Honourable mention for it to Captain Zon, it was impossible for me to mention the facts from which he had earned the decoration; that this also was the case with the public was clear from an alphabet which became known and of which the last two lines sounded:
Y is the diligence, demonstrated by everyone
Z is the Zon crowned by mistake
The setting up of the 2nd posting line nevertheless caused me still quite a lot of work, since I had the order to make projects for all these new postings in a permanent style, to which the matter was pressed to a speedy completion.
Outside my normal service hours I therefore spent considerable time of my afternoons and evenings on the project and estimations, which later on clearly showed it had been monkish work.
In those days a pleasant atmosphere was prevalent in private life in Atheh, various clubs for officers were established, also for the Navy which performed theatre shows and did mainly parodies to the classics; in this way successively Sassafras, Julius Ceasar and Hamlet were performed, the last one in Oleh-Leh.
The children often liked these and sang and copied the plays, which even lead to an accident in my house.
One evening mine played with some other children little Sassafras and my 11 year old son had the lead in it, which he imagined so realistically, that he stabbed himself in the thigh with a sharp breadknife which had to represent a sabre and wich appeared again above his knee. Thankfully medical help was at once at hand and Dr. Volleman could straight away put a bandage on, sothat the boy got off well.
In 1895 the son and heir began to run off the rails more and more and I had to punish him repeatedly and I then locked him up in one of the annexes; however he knew how to break out by escaping in between the roofing tiles; this went beyond all bounds, then when one evening he had escaped again, I found him after long searching in the military cantine in the middle of a large amount of soldiers.
I took him home and gave him a decent whack on his bum wit a square ruler, someting which he certainly would have remembered, but of which later on I still was sorry.
From that moment on I began to look out for an opportunity to send him to Europe and for this I went to my friend Slot in Penang, who gave me the neccessary tips and information.
Kota Radja in those days was a dorado for teenage girls and my eldest girls have profited a great deal from that; taking walks along the Wester Ringdijk was their preferred outing and a lot of flirting went on there; in this place our Milly found her Pieter Hendriks and gave him her “yes” word.
I was really amazed when the 16 year old told me this and I replied that she first had to go to boarding school; however Agnes pleaded her case and soon enough I agreed as the sending away of 2 children would be a financial objection; besides Milly had grown up a lot and it would certainly be a few years before it would come to a marriage.
So Piet for the time being was taken on as a member of the family and the young folk took a permanent seat on one of the sofa’s at the back veranda, on which the known woven mat was lying, of which one of our old poets would sing: “Oh, if that little mat could speak it would mention a lot of cuddling”.
That Milly looked well after her future husband was clear one evening when we didn’t get enough dinner at the table and after checking we found that Milly had served the largest part in Piet’s food carrier and had sent it to the head watch, where Piet had the command that evening.
At the end of the year 1895 the suggestions of General Deykerhoff to build the 2nd permanent line were already received in Batavia; the Government however didn’t react to it immediately, but send Ltnt. General Vetter as a government’s commisioner to hold a local investigation. The morning after his arrival I received an order to accompany the government’s commissioner by horse on his visit to the posting line.
We started with Kota-Pohama and followed in Southerly direction and at every post I was asked the question by general Vetter which repairs lately had been performed. This lasted 3 days and when we left Lam-djamoe the 3rd day, General V. called me beside him and wished me good luck, that he found that all posts were very well maintained.
When I answered that this was no more than a sample of my duty he told me, that General Deykerhoff had reported that all the posts of the 1st line had rotten away and had used that as the main argument to build the 2nd line. If the situation was not as favourable I would certainly have been called to account.
Meanwhile the time appoached that Johan would leave for Holland; Piet and I took the boy on board of the Maetsuycker, which transported him to Penang, from where he was collected by Mr. Slot; he stayed 6 days with this hospitable man, who took him aboard the Ocean Steamer Ajax after that and left him under the care of the Commander.
According to later received news this commander must have given the boy too much freedom, however the result was, that he arrived in IJmuiden safe and well, where aunt Joh who had been telegraphically notified, came to pick him up.
It would have been funy to see the old aunt climb upon the Ajax against the storm ladder, because the proper stairs had been swept away in bad weather.
This feat she performed on the 29th March 1896, just on the day of the defection of Toekoe Oemar.
This bugger ( I was so right before calling him that ) had known to obtrude himself upon General Deykerhoff to obtain a large amount of guns together with the therefore needed ammunition, and knew further to get him so far that one of the riding horses which was used by the engineers was sold to him, obviously to act like a General on it; his attempt to also get the use of mountain artillery thankfully failed.
On March the 30th Oemar’s troops jointly with ours would undertake an attack against the capital of the resistance Lam-krak. Already before sunrise the controller of Oleh-Leh warned the Governor, that Oemar had treason in mind and wanted to attack our troops as soon as they would be outside the concentrated line. Controller Gizolf gave the option in the most urgent manner not to let our troops pull out but leave no stone unturned to get ready for self defence.
The General agreed and already at 7 o’clock I was called in the office and received the order to get all the outworks of Kota Radja ready defence state with all available expedients.
When one and the other were known it created a real panic especially under the ladies in the outworks; each made her bundle of clothes and precious things ready to be able to flee inside the stone ringwall. My children and Agnes had also done that and it took me quite some effort to proof them this was unneccessary. As long as the general still had that many batallions to his disposal no fear for a raid was needed, wasn’t it?; I also had told this the general, however I got as reply that this was none of my business and I only had to follow his orders, which then happened in a ridiculous way.
