When it was my turn to be banker I put the 2 guilders in the pot which we had organised before and I was lucky to see this run higher and after the 3 departed ships even to 1500 guilders, which became mine. Under the contents of the pot were several iow’s from players who couldn’t pay their input, and looking at the anxious faces one could see how they coped with their loss.
This gave me a reason to bungle nearly all the profits again, whilst I swore myself never to play any hazardous cardgame again, not even in a round game with the ladies.
Upon arrival in Kota Radja ( new name for the Kraton ) I was asked to stay with my collegue Plantenga, who lived in a barrack in Pendeti and arrived just in time to join the rijsttafel; when we were seated two shots were fired all the time at Pendeti, this happened every day at this hour and the shooters therefore got the name: the two brothers.
We then discussed a plan to play the brothers a trick; after dinner we went to the location where the buggers sat every day, made a 25kg mine explosive under a bamboo doeri bush and connected this electrically with our barrack, taking care all fresh earth to carefully cover with grasspods.
The next day at the same hour the two brothers appeared again, I turned the handle of our instrument, the mine eploded and the two guys certainly would hve flown into the air and got wounded or killed; at our investigation on the spot however we didn’t find them back; never the less they never returned.
In the morning that day I had reported with the Governor of Atjeh enz. of whom I learnt that the reason why I was telegraphically transferred already long ceased to exist and so I could return to Medan by returning mailboat; so I had only been there two full days and as a result of the bureaucratic conception of ltnt.col. Perelaer the Government had a lot to pay quite a lot for this fruitless journey. whilst I could visit my family 4 times; and Ch. and I were only three weeks separated.
During my absence the service had to be temporarily filled by an infantry officer; I had asked the ltnt.col. to appoint ltnt. Wiersma, a man who at the conversation table in the social club always was critisising the engineers. So when I returned I found practically no single piece had been finished and so our taunty friend had to aknowledge that the service wasn’t really that easy, and I was as pleased as Punch.
Our children were slowly growing up and getting more noisy especially in the afternoon hours in which Ch. needed her siesta so badly; especially the two elder ones could not be kept in bed; therefore I had put down a lazy chair in which I had my siesta. In the beginning this was helping, however quite soon the toddlers didn’t take any notice of the sleeping father and looked for fun in the garden and preferably in the waterapple tree, of which they still ate the for the gut harmful and forbidden fruit.
Sometimes I pretended to sleep and noticed that in this Carey was the culprit; first I saw her peep under the flynet and then crawl over the bed bars, calling Soesi Papa soedah tidor! I suddenly jumped up and they both ran to their beds.
The social life in Medan was very pleasant but it made life very expensive; parties and receptions were at the order of the day; on one of these receptions of the Assistent Resident Michielsen, who himself always was highly talkative arose the question, around which point 2 screws would turn when both screws were working with the same power in opposite direction; I contradicted the statement of M. that this would be around a point lying between both screws, and brought up that this on mathematical grounds and according what I saw in practice had to be around the center of gravity of the ship.
Soesi Papa soedah tidor = it’s ok, dad is already asleep.
M. kept contradicting me with large words to indignition of a lot of Deliplanters, towards whom M. acted all the time as a pope; I ended the discussion announcing, that I would send my book about the higher mathematics the next morning to support my argument. I sent the book and marked with blue pencil the axima bit, in which is said that an area under the influence of a couple will turn around it’s center of gravity. M. should have felt convinced, at least he thanked me in writing.
I still made many trips during that time to the Tamiang district and amongst those also to Pengkallan-Siata where the Mr. Gribling’s timber reserve was situated from whom I ordered the neccessary timber for carpentry; the estate was guarded by a detachment of Infantry, under command of ltnt. Westerbeen-Schmidt, who was married to Miss Borel, sister of Jeanne who was married with the German Blumer, who had left to the Dutch East Indies at the same time but on another ship as I.
She told me Blumer had died and during the last period of his life speculated badly, had gambled away all his money and even had sold the certificate of his life insurance, so that his wife was left behind without a cent.
She now asked me for my suppport to find a job in Medan for her sister by commencing a kindergarten. At my return I succeeded quite soon to get the neccessary funding together to have Jean come over, to purchase the neccessary schoolneeds and to rent a suitable classroom above my friend Roegler’s storage shed.
The school started with about 20 children, under which also our 2 eldest girls. It seemed that the large eyes of Jeanne frightened the littlelies so much that the eduction didn’t get on at all and especially our girls came home in tears; in the end help was asked of Mrs. Westerbaen-Schmid who with her sweet manner could calm the children and since then the business ran well.
In May 1885 our Lotje got seriously ill, apparently she had swallowed a hair of the baboe and since she was a weak creature she could not fight the gastro enteritis bout which followed consequently and passed away in the same month.
Charlotte then found comfort in her Anglican prayerbook; was she in the beginning of our marriage very religious and every night said her prayers kneeling down, slowly this was left out and we never discussed religion. With the death of her little child the feelings of her youth came back and seemed to really provide support because since then she complained very little.
The regional Militairy Commander Perelaer had been replaced in those days by ltnt. col. v.d. Pol to whom as adjutant the 1st Ltnt. J.B. van Heutsz was added.
Ltnt col v.d. Pol had to agree with me however in virtue of his power he made seperate funding for repairs available.Now that for the time being the building of permanent officer’s houses was cancelled, the officers stayed in the temporary buildings for which they were charged a lower cathegory of rent, which pleased them.
To avoid the rotting of the temporary materials I had given the order that no ivy or other parasitic plants were to be grown against the houses. At an inspection I noticed that in the house of lieutenant Hekking several ropes were pulled and I made a remark about it; H. then showed me laughing that the ropes at the underside ended in deep ditches and on each a bottle of beer was attached to keep it cool; every day the bottles were replaced. From this it was clear that H. had an extraordinairy taste for alcohol, which was also generally known.
H. however was a jolly customer, who appeared to have particularly fun at teasing the editor of the Deli newspaper, Mr. Jaques Deen; like he told him: Mr. you are not called Jaques but Jakkes, at which he was not cross and even asked H. to come and eat snert with him. “Thanks, but I don’t like snert with chicken”, was the answer.
So H. had most laughers in his hand, although besides he was also very popular because of his excellent bass voice. I cannot remember hearing “Die Zwei Grenadiere” from Schuman better performed than by him.
But he should not have had too much to drink, and since at my home also sometimes a musical party was held and at which his presence was wanted, I took the precaution to also ask him for dinner, gave him only 2 bitters, whilst I didn’t pour any wine at the table.
On one of those evernings H. gave as an encore a revue at the manner of the welknown march of Dunkler, titled “Turf in je ransel “.
He was greatly applauded and after the quiet which followed one suddenly heard a call of the 2 year old Johan:”Minta lagie”; the boy had been listening till midnight.
Jakkes = yuk.
Minta lagi = more please
I made a note on the copy which was sent to me saying I was not aware of his imputation and would always keep showing diligence like was the case till now; as a reply I received that from me one would not expect any different.Nothing remarkable happened further until Charlotte brought our second Lotje into the world; she was being assisted by Dr. Fischer, who had replaced our good Cohn; Ch. couldn’t stand the man and was not satisfied by his treatment, in such a way, that she called out:” That doctor murers me!”
Two days later, like already several other ladies, she got puerperal fever. I called my brother in law v. Beuningen as soon as possible, who then did come over immediately with Emily from Leboe-Dalam and in tried everything in vain to save Ch.
In the morning of the 7th June I came into the small back room, to where Ch. had been transported, and felt that she was much cooler; I thought improvement had set in, but how great was my disillusion when v.B. told me, that this was precisely the contrary since a collapse had set in, something which was not known to me before; so the thermometer then showed 43 degrees and in the afternoon my dear wife, who always was a faithful leader for me and a loving mother for the children, passed away.
The funeral took place in the afternoon of the 8th; during this time the children were accommodated at the engineer’s lieutenant, however they have seen the procession pass by at the highway.
Ltnt col. v.d. Pol was not in town, of which captain v.d. Hout took advantage to place the military music at the corner of the camp at the head of the procession to accompany it with funeral marches; it is unique that a woman will be burried with military honours, however v.d. Hout exceeded his orders and for that he received a reprimand.
So I send my request for a 2 year leave straight away and added a letter to the just arrived new Chief of Arms v.d. Eb asking to inform me how this was going in connection with my possible promotion in connection with the notes of his predecessor.
Even before the answer of the Government came the Chief wrote, that there was nothing to worry about and I could leave for Holland with peace of mind, keeping the right to promotion.With the birth of Lotje Ch. couldn’t help her and I bought a Bengal cow to feed the child; the baby couldn’t tolerate this milk and after 7 days we had to change to the Swiss canned milk, which always was willingly drunk by the older children.
With Lotje this also had good results as after 2 days she did have proper stools again. The situation was even so good, that 14 days later she could be transported to Singapore, where the children under guidance of their aunt Willy would depart to stay there with Opa until the sailing of the French mail, with which transport I had booked the journey.
Emily v. Beuningen joined her sister, so as to supply more help, though returned soon again to Deli.
Under my last work belonged the building of an iron bridge on screw posts across the Deli river; the exsisting wooden bridge was damaged by floods every time, sothat by pedestrians lately a lot of use was made by the described trallice bridge; so the building of an iron bridge then was not a luxury and the assitent Resident promised me that he would christen that bridge later on as Kerlen’s bridge, a promise which he seemingly not has fulfilled; although I have never heard anything about it.
By G.B. of 26th June 1886 Nr. II the by me requested leave was granted, however I first had to wait for my successor, for which again my collegue Kuyl had been appointed, who clearly followed my footsteps like a shadow.
Awaiting my departure I now had to organise my personel affaires. Agent of the Orphan and personal Estate was the Chinese interpreter B. Moetink, with whom I had been in touch for different cases and he had told me, that for the estate of my wife I had nothing else to do than to have a description of our estate made up; I would then hear in Holland through interaction of the v. Hoboken company in Rotterdam what I further had to do; so he then sent a clerk, who wrote down all I possessed and I must say didn’t valuate too high. But regretfully I did notice later on, that he forgot to include the liabilities of the estate. The total was estimated at 2200 guilders.
In the middle of July Kuyl arrived and the service takeover began, which went smoothly, whilst I could also hold a sale.
Kuyl bought most of my furniture and a few deliplanters offered quite a high amount to reassure my conscience, though forcing up the prices they didn’t and the sale hardly came to 4000 guilders. If you take in account that I often gave free advice, yes, even for the Amsterdam-Deli Company I had made a complete project for a new office and further had drafted and built the new Social Club then the stingeness of the rich planters could not be praised; from the Semarang people in those days I received a piano as a gift.
The Delians send me about my business with a diploma as honorable member of the social club, which I of course never used.
A very favourable exception to this made my friend Riegler; he, indignant about the bad result of my sale and hearing of my plan to return as soon as possible to the Dutch East Indies, adviced me against the last. He thought it neccessary for my health, for as long as it possibly would go I should stay in Euope and offered me financial support, for which he would in lend me interest free the neccessary funds, if I would repay the money with 60 guilders a month after I had returned.
I gratefully accepted the offer and it brought quite some changes in my plans, whilst for the time being a lot of worries were taken from my head. I left in the last week of July 1886.
Under these passengers was also on a 2 year leave to Holland, col. v.Zyll de Jongh; the man who refused to listen to Bas Mekern in Babakan, because he was not wearing a uniform. Faithful to his priciples one could see him already coming in the distance along the wharf, shining from the new shoulder coverings and tassles, gazed upon by the countless indigenous public at the wharf..
I was already taking it easy in my civilian clothes for the journey and greeted him like that; the next morning he expressed his amazement to me, that I was not in uniform at my arrival, everyone could then straight away see who and what you were; I couldn’t resist to reply that a gentleman didn’t need a signboard. Although polite, the colonel has during the journey been haughtily towards me, although he was quite nice to my children.
Another typical co-passenger was the retired Resident of Riouw, Blokzeyl, who was married for the second time and had a large amount of children in his company. I found him despite his age and experience a clumsy person, of which I later on did got the convincing proof. Otherwise he did have a healthy body, if you imagine that he is still alive at the moment I am typing this, and so is enjoying a pension for 40 years already.
When we arrived in Colombo, I took a drive in a large tentcarriage with the children and came back on board just in time for the little ones’ dinnertime, at which the parents had to be present in order to keep an eye on them.
A new lady with 4 children was added; it was the wife of a coffee planter from Malang, who was on her way to Deventer for the education of the youth.
Mrs. v. Lennep, as she was called, had boarded in Batavia on one of the boats of the Rotterdam Lloyd, though had the misfortune that her little son broke his leg through the swaying of the ship, consequently she had to stay behind in Colombo for 6 weeks.
Our circumstances came more or less close to each other’s and that’s why we decided after a few days to travel together, especially the one over land. She had a baboe and I had a boy, sothat these as it were completed each other.
On board were few entertainments, only some dancing in the evening, at which I then usually played the piano which had been dragged on deck.