On the 5th June I saw the first light.
This worldly event happened, according to my elder sisters, in the small office next to the shop on the Nieuwstad in Zutphen, where my father kept a rather flourishing shoeshop.
The house stood quite close to the bridge over the Berkel, next to which the French school of Mr. de Vos was situated, which was separated from our house by a small boutique.
At the rear we had a vew to oilmills of Mr. Resink, which were driven by the Berkel, the street which lead to the entrance of the Madhouse and the Primary school of Mr. Semmelink.
I can recall little from my early childhood, even the face of my mother, whose oilpainted portrait I have in my possession, I cannot clearly imagine. She must have been a real sweet woman, who loved me dearly.
Unfortunatelt she died when I was about 2.5 years old and I must have played up terribly when I saw her body been driven away from our neighbour’s window across the road.
The sight of that funeral has made such an impression on me that it is the only memory of my mother I have.
I do however still remember that my father had a small stable on the Beek-een street at which the office where I was born looked out, where he kept a small goat and I was allowed to go with him when milking the animal.
As a friend I had Henk de Vos with whom I played in his father’s school when empty. Whilst playing with him we were attacked by a dog, who bit me in the groin; whilst standing on a table I was bandaged. This is just about everything I know until the death of my beloved mother.
Just like his three sons later on, my father couldn’t be without a wife for too long. Quite soon the children learnt, that he was engaged to Miss Suzanna Brusse in ’s-Gravenhage, who was in a companionship with a certain Miss Janssen running a materialshop, which was supported by Mr. Diepenheim, who later on was director of Finance in the Dutch East Indies.
I vaguely remember I must have been staying with my stepmother to be. This I know because there or the first time I saw gaslamps being ignited, causing a bang, which seemed to have made an impression on me. The gaslights had not been introduced in Zutphen at that time.
When I was three years old my eldest brother Gerrit got engaged with Cornelie de Thouars ( marquise and at the same time shopkeeper in her religion ). My father, an ambitious man decided then to pass on his business to him in order to start a new one himself, which he took over from Mr. Heystek in the Snijdersstraat in Nijmegen, where we moved to quite soon after.
My father meanwhile remarried although I cannot remember anything of that wedding either, neither of the one of my brother, which must have taken place at about the same time.
The journey from Zutphen to Nijmegen took place in an open tentcar, in which event my mother got a swollen face after having been stung by a wasp. ( In future I will not speak of stepmother since the good woman didn’t in the least deserve that name, which often is associated with stepmother.
I don’t know anything to tell about my first period in Nijmegen other than that I was sent to primary school on the Klokkenberg when I was not even 6 years old.
At this christian school which had a strange habit to teach young children soon in the German language, I apparently grew up to a real mischief; I very often got punished, also because I played truant, in one word I seemed to have been a difficult boy.
The end of the story was they thought I wasn’t worth the christian education and my parents had to look for another school for me.
The final straw was in fact the following: For punishment I had to stay after school when a certain Groesas ordered me to stand on top of a schooldesk with my slate above my head; of course I was getting tired very soon and let the slate down a bit. Groesas then gave me a hard whack with a sharp ruler on my fingers, which made me so mad, that I hit the slate in pieces on top or the guy’s head by which he got the wooden frame like a collar around his neck. I was chased away, not to return.
Meanwhile my fahter’s business had improved, so he was able to move his shop and workplace to a better suburb in the Broerstraat.
He even could establish a branch in the Ketelstraat in Arnhem, for which my sister Cato and second brother Anton had been given the management.
Also the family had been expanded by five children in this second marriage, of which one had passed away at a very young age; the eldest son Bernard was a nice playmate for me, who unfortunately also passed away at the age of five as a result to a huge boil on his leg.
My parent’s plan was to give me an education at the gymnasium and awaiting that they had sent me to an affordable but strict boardingschool; a good establishment was found at Mr. Nierhof’s along the Dedemsvaart, under the township of Avereest and soon they executed this plan.
My father himself took me there and we made the trip from Nijmegen to Katerveer in a small radar steamboat named “de Valk”. We had to stay the night in Zwolle in order to reach our destiny the next day by draft barge.
For the first time my father offered me a light, so called lady’s cigar in Zwolle; this could perhaps be the cause I became such a heavy smoker later on. In any case I rather liked this little cigar and it hadn’t made me sick in the least.
The journey by draft barge along the boring Dedemsvaart took a whole 7 hours and I must have arrived rather sleepy as I cannot remember anything of the reception or whatever else happened in the first few days of my stay.
I rather liked my time at the boardingschool which took nearly two years. There were about 30 boarding students and many more day students from the neighbourhood and of course also the neccessary teachers. Every other day we had to speak French or German and I believe this is the reason that I had so little trouble later on with these two languages.
I had been back to my parent’s home only during the summer schoolholidays, Christmas holidays were spent at the institution because travel per steamboat during the largest part of winter was stopped.
During one of the last mentioned holidays I was invited to stay with the parents of one of my co-interns, the boy Hulsebos. At that time his father was a director of the penal colony Ommerschans, about three hours walk away from our school. Both of us boys walked and we were lucky to find an amount of silver coins lying around on the road, which of course we took and later on devided when the announcements in several provincial papers didn’t give any results.
The stay at the family Hulsebos for me was a dorado; the director’s home was beautifully spacious and the beds downy soft, like I had never slept in one before, the food was lovely and pour comble us children had a large ramdrawn cart, with which we we went sightseeing around in the lovely winter weather.
I have kept happy memories from this stay, though I never heard anymore of what happened to this family.
Even before the two years had passed I was called back to Nijmegen by my parents in order to take part in the exams for the Gymnasium, which of course I did and as result I achieved no.2 and started to follow the lessons at the commencement of the new course.
The first months at the gymnasium for me were all but happy. Lessons in Latin and Greek as they were given by the co-lecturer Mr. v.d. Kloes, a rather irrespectable man, who immediately seemed to have a parti pris against me, didn’t interest me.
Apart from that my parents wanted me to get a preacher’s education for which they would be receiving a scholarship even though I always had something against this prefession.
Therefore I began to protest and after a while my parents agreed and I was transferred to section B, which was about equal to the H.B.S. nowadays.
My illusion was to become an officer of health, but my father didn’t want to know anything about that because of the free studies which were connected to it, so it was decided I would be educated at the K.M.A. in Breda.
Whatever reasons lead to the change in my father’s business I don’t know; however it was a fact that the branche in Arnhem was cleared, the rented shop in the Broerstraat vacated and the business brought back further to their own house in the Shijderstraat. This was handed over to my brother Anton with Cato as help in the household, whilst my parents and the other children moved to The Hague where a new business was established.
I suspect that the weddingplans of my brother Anton, who was engaged to Cato Giesing in Hees, were the decision makers.
I stayed behind for my study at the B side in Nijmegen.
That study was more to my liking than that of the old languages. I became a favourite of Mr. Jurriens, my maths teacher , whilst the course in physics from the well known Piet v.d. Burgh remains a happy memory.
Still, I did not stay for long at the Gymnasium. My father feared, and probably rightly so, that due to the often more or less free studies I would not soon enough be ready in time and wanted me under his own supervision so he could get me enrolled on the strict school of Mr. Neuman ( successor of late Mr. Burnier ).
This has surely been seen correctly; here we had to work hard; school hours were from 8 – 12, 2 to 4 and 5.30 – 8, so not a piece of cake.
On top of that came some homework and 6 times the walk between school and home.
The school building was located on the Veerkade and has been demolished nowadays and the terrain is nowadays used as depot for busses to Rijswijk and Delft.
Our house stood in the Oude Molstraat on the corner of the Annastraat (small Lapstraat ) diagonally oposite the Vette Hen and is broken up for traffic, but temporarily (?) rebuild by the council by taking over the Bonnetrie building.
Earlier on the house was new and very comfortable with a nice view from the living room to the long and narrow Oude Molstraat.
It seems I did very well at Neuman’s, I especially took advantage in maths from Mr. Buckman, who allways smoked Manilla cigars whilst teaching. I am also not allowed to forget to mention Mr. Therie, the English teacher, who tried with angel’s patience to teach us the pronounciation, particularly of the difficult “th” .
Neuman’s school was one of the best in our country and it would have been a big sacrifice to pay for the in those days high school fees; my mother in particular has excercised a special influence here, for which I cannot be thankful enough.
I was just 13 years old when I entered Neuman’s, next year I was promoted to the highest class and in May 1865 according to the teachers feelings I had been prepared enough to sit for the adspirant’s exam for Breda.
Only the school’s principal thought I was still too young and playfull and made it clear to my father, that he did not want to take the responsibility for my exam. My father didn’t take any notice of this unfavourable advice and requested Mr. Neuman to take me under his guidance with the other candidates of his school and so it happened.
In Breda we stayed at the accommodation the Kroon, where we had a lovely meal and a very good stay.
After having been submitted to a medical examination in the hospital, the exam of which I still remember a few particulars, commenced:
3 Captains attended in the commission to mention:
Firstly Hartog for maths who tried to catch the candidates all the time with questions about how clocks run; however the boys from the Hague had been informed by Buckman.
Secondly Kempees for geometry; this man examened in a very pleasant fashion, he only didn’t tolerate the candidates who, according to his saying, used one of the many pencils, which he had in front of him, for picking their noses, mouth or ears.
Thirdly was geniecaptain G.v.d.Hoeven, a real Bredaman nicknamed Govert for short, who examined algebra and where I had to appear in the last hour of the second day, when the exam was nearly finished.
It seemed all the examinators were pleased in my little personality, although at my algebra exam they were standing in a circle behind Govert and me;
G went on and on with the questions, much further than the programme stated and when I finally replied that I didn’t know the questions because I had never learnt this I heard his reaction: that doesn’t matter little man, when you join the genie you will learn a lot more than you know now. That was encouraging.
Before I change the exam subject I still have to tell quickly that Professor Lindo asked me especially who had taught me the English pronounciation; I named Mr. Therie en when I arrived back in the Hague I mentioned this conversatiion to him, who was clearly very pleased with that.
Of course I had this summer a sunny vacation and I was allowed to stay a few days with our cousin Benninck in Schiedam, who was managing the Musis Sacrum; I really liked it, was giving lovely food and learned from him how to play pool for the first time, first with a small shovel then with a queue.
There I also played in an amateur theatre group for the first time. I had to take the place of someone else who had become sick and had to pretend to be a shy little boy, which went very well considering I hadn’t learnt anything of the script.
At this occasion I met a nice girl, named Anna Kooper, which I saw back 15 years later with her husband for the first time in Semarang when they stayed at our place.
Meanwhile the day 4th September 1865, when I had to appear at the K.M.A. was approaching very fast; when the results of the entrance examinations were made known I was lost and they found me seesawing on the iron chains of the gateworks in front of the Waalse Kerk in the Noordeinde.
I was number 8 from the 275 candidates who had reached the general ranklist and was like Govert had predicted been placed with the Genie O.I.L. ( Oost Indisch Leger ).
This would not have happened if number 2, Dirk Grok, also had required a placing for the Genie; he became tillerist, yet changed over to B.O.W. later on and passed away in 1925. Even less chance I would have had if my schoolmate Pierson had taken the exams for which he was a year too young, at the same time as me. He had always been the best of our class and achieved the following year number 1 on the general list, he was indeed what you call a real whizz.
Neuman was so pleased with the result, he had the list of his pupils, who had passed the K.M.A. and Willemsoord framed, whilst on this painting the name of Pierson was in golden letters, whilst I was honoured with a silver name.
N. clearly had forgotten last year’s advice.
Under guidance of my father I left on the 3rd of September for Breda; our journey was done by H.S.M. to Rotterdam, from here to Moerdijk by steamboat and further by S.S. We stayed again in de Kroon and the next morning to het Kasteel, the building of the K.M.A.
Here we were welcomed by one of the officers of police and he told me that I was classified under to the 4th company, who was under the command of the earlier mentioned captain Govert.
Whilst my father was waiting in the reception room I was taken by one of the sub officers to the for me designated bedroom. I had to completely undress and they dressed me in military gear. I was not to keep one piece of my civil clothes; it was put together in a bundle and I could take it with me when returning to the hotel.
When I was completely dressed in a blue pair of pants and sleeved jacket the sergeant still put a red hanky under the jacket, put the policecap on my head and so I could leave with my father till half past eight in the evening, when I would be billeted for ever.
In town I had a lot of lookers, it seemed they had never seen such a small freshman with such a big head. Admittingly I did have noticable abnormalities as far as lenght and headcircumference conserned; the first one was 1.42m and the latter 59cm. Because of this they had told my father I was accepted under the restriction that I should quickly grow taller.
I was present at the specific hour in the evening; in the centrecourt all the cadets were gathered and the newcomers were placed in formation and the lot marched to the diningroom, where we were placed in rows around the tables.
Next one of the cadet-sergeants then said the evening prayer and we sat down at the for us designated tables to use our first supper, which consisted of bread and balls ( warm beefmince ) and beer.
Parents and interested in the meantime were admitted to the hallways to witness this feeding of the animals, like the cadets mockingly called it.
Afterwards the guests took off and the born ( newcomers ) were guided to their dormetries, the genieboys were put together with some infanteryboys in a small bedroom, where about 18 beds were standing, two by two seperated by a wooden screen. These screens were attached to the wall and at the front tops connected with a black board; so in each of the compartments two young noblemen ( title with wich the cadets were spoken to by the sub officers ) slept.
The supervision on the dorm was done by the cadet sergeant Count v. Limburg-Stirum and the cadet corperal Nobleman Six. Firstmentioned put us straight to work to roll up our socks, which I did fastest so I was lauded by him, of which I was rather proud.
Before going to bed I was ordered to hang by my toes on the boards above the screens so I would promote to soon grow taller; this excercise I had to repeat during my whole first year.
Anyhow, I don’t remember much about the first days, only want to say that I didn’t like the freshman’s life at all; everything you were ordered by a cadet of an earlier year you had to execute at once otherwise a whack around the ears or ringing ear would follow. This would have been tolerable but it was much worse. Here are some examples.
Firstly because I didn’t have a folded piece of paper for a dirty purpose in my pocket, I was pulled along by 2nd year’s cadet Otken to a certain place, where he turned my arms around so he could bash them non stop with his fists, so badly I could not move them anymore. Lucky for him, nobody had noticed.
Secondly, in our own excercise room I was ordered by cadet sergeant Ridder v. Rappard to write an as loyal as possible poem about his collegue de La Parra; I asked him if I was also allowed to mention that d.l.P. was Jewish. He answered affirmative and I filled the instruction as best I could.
When d.L.P. read the poem he exploded in anger and wanted to punish me gravely. I referred to my commander, who then claimed he never ordered to be so jovial-cheeky; going against him didn’t help any further and d.L.P. came to the dorm to deliver the 20 lashes on my bottom as punishment. I had to bend over in my undies and with a wooden buttonstick I was whacked along my buttocks until these were bleeding and I could not sit properly after.
Thirdly. In the excercise hall I mentioned, two seats ahead from me the 3rd year cadet C.v.d.Wijck was sitting, who didn’t like me having a straighter nose than my neighbour with a crooked nose, so he repeatedly hit my nosebone with a medicine bottle, somtimes until it was bleeding.
You can understand that in my later life I completely ignored the three knightly personalities, of whom the in sub 2 mentioned even had been minister of war, because I despised them. Don’t mix the sub 1 mentioned Oken with his brother, the later Inf. colonel in Magelang, whom I much respected.
It is clear that many more abuses and unjustifiable actions took place and in the end they could not remain unnoticed.
They came to light completely during the Mestingh case, which will come later.
Us newcomers had very little distractions. Sundays we were allowed to walk in town from 12 – 2, although we received a pass for that, which could be checked by under officers at any tick of the clock.
Once every three weeks we were allowed to stay out till 8 in the evening, but you needed an invitation of a family member in one of the surrounding villages for that.
My parents had absolutely no friends in Breda and so I could not profit from an outing till 8 pm; later on this improved when some collegues introduced me to their friends.
So the outing defined itself usually to a short walk and the secretly entering of a bakershop where a cake or sometimes a drop could be used.
The first 6 weeks were mainly taken up by excercise of the Inf.
Two by two we were drilled by a cadet of the highest study year and after several free excercises we were given a needle ( gun ). Mine was because of my length much smaller and lighter than the rest of the preloading guns; of course we did our very best with this innstructor knowing that otherwise a punishment would follow after the excercise.
Shortly after we were joined under the command of one of the sub officers and so got to know the parade culture of those days.
Fire on four files against the Cavalry and the so called contra marching were amongst these particularly characteristics.
Of course we had finished the excercises in the therefore designated time, of which the last excercises were lead by an extremely tall sub officer with a stentorian voice and who used to be known in the whole army; his nickname was Pitjoh.
When we were finished we started with the daily drawing lessons, the excercises were for us engineers more sporadic and defined themselves to a military march on Wednesday, which in the beginning I had great difficulty to keep up with due to my small body. Nevertheless I did enjoy this walk as we were at least outside our prison, the way I always kept looking at this square building of the K.M.A., whilst we could see a bit of nature and people; besides the cadets of the music corporation always came along and gave the excercise a particular cheerfulness.
My collegue Hoffman was straight away incorporated with the music, because he could play the German flute very well. Since special advantages were attached to being a member of the music corporation I was of course jealous of H. but I didn’t envy the ugly fluteface he pulled when playing.
Soon too started the fencing and dancing lessons which last mentioned may be brought a little into memory; they all were under management of the old dance teacher Spiets, who with his stiff legs and a violin in his hand taught us to dance and especially the waltz and was so lucky that all my year students later on became excellent dancers.
Rather regretfully I also remember how us rascals had greased his violin ( I mean the bow ) with fat so he had to wrap up his gear in a silken hanky and sadly went home.
his costed us an hour of excercise for punishment mainly excisting in an excercise in walking pace with a gun over the shoulder; we sure were buggered afterwards and I never again had to udergo such punishment, it clearly had made an big impression on me.
The devisions of the day were as follows: 6 am reveille, 6.20 am rollcall, 6.30 am your own excercise; 7.30 am breakfast; 8 am commencement of lessons; 12 noon washing, freshen up and second breakfast; 1 pm continuation of lessons; 4.30 pm, afternoon rollcall and dinner, after which free time till 5 pm; 5 pm lessons; 7 pm your own excercises; 9.30 pm evening rollcall and supper, after that to bed.
The food was generally good, only the second breakfast consisted of a dry breadroll with beer and it din’t appeal to anyone due to the lack of butter.
In our free time after dinner the cadets were allowed to walk and smoke outside the building, however the freshmen were not allowed to walk on the walls opposite the Valkenberg; they were even worried to be called over there by the older ones because some teasing usually followed then.
Apart from Malay I got well ahead with the lessons and was so succesful that I got exemption from the promotion exam for the math subjects and English.
Malay was my nightmare; professor de Hollander couldn’t explain the rules of the causative and transative verbs nor the additives Ka, Pe and An to me and so I failed the exam grossly and had to do a re-examination after the summer holidays.
From the time of my leave I cannot remember much; my parents couldn’t afford a uniform for wearing outside, but I did get a sabre from someone or rather. I can cannot remember the name of this good friend ( or girl friend ).
I was being critisised over my small appearance by the youth in the streets of the Hague; when I once was walking with my eldest sister Joh. we suddenly heard: look, a long French roll and a small cadet! Well the latter, in the family quite known and loved tante Joh was a rather tall and stately woman, and so the comparason by the streetrascal was certainly to the point.
One of the first days of September I had to be back in Breda to take my re-exam and the result was that I failed again. Prof. de Hollander called me aside the next day and told me that he had suggested the commissioner of exam to still promote me to the next year in view of the other achieved points.
He expected I would be better prepared next year as then he would not be so considerate. Thankfully I have taken these warnings to heart.
My second study year was rather boisterous; straight away a considerable swell through the in passing mentioned case Mestingh.
M. was in our year no 1 in the admission exam and likewise no 1 of the engineers for the Dutch Army; he was particularly smart, though extremely nervous, two characteristics which the older ones took as target for their bullying; hence he had a lot to endure and it really affected him so much, he was not looking forward to start the second year, despite he knew that in the second year they would still bully, but that disputing would be tolerated and one even could pull up a fist. He was in one word a weak guy and by committing suicide he finished his life.
The investigation which immediately took place at the request of the parents resulted that the Governer General v. Overstraten and Commander Lt. Col. Kuyck soon were discharged from their jobs.
They were respectively replaced by Colonel Schonstadt and Major Gerlach; the first one held a speech when inaugurated by which he said: With an energetic hand I will pull the K.M.A.out from the deep decay in which it has sunk.
This energy soon came to light in the distribution of very heavy punishments for the pettiest wrong doings; he threw as it were with detention and guardroom, so that a serious drive for resistance was growing under the cadets.
I myself was very soon victim of the new regime, had in the algebra lessons of Ltnt Krantz been reading a nonregulated ( meaning a novel in pocket format, e.g. Le Juif errant from Egene Sue ) which did not come from the library. For this serious fact I received the not so futile punishment of 4 days in detention.