I didn’t stay long in Soerabaja; one evening I was the guest of my former doctor in Malang, Joopie Haak, who now was the directing officer of health and chief of the Hospital and that evening lots of memories from that pleasant time were brought up.From Soerabaja the trip went to Malang, where I stayed the night; after holding a short inspection visited some old aquaintances and travelled on to Blitar, where I paid a visit to the parents of the earlier named sergeant Balkstra. These received me real heartly on their plantation, where they otherwise saw few people due to the great distance from the capital; I arrived here late in the evening and there I met a cousin and namesake of Gerard van Heel, who was working in the oil factories.The next morning I left quite early for Djogjocarta, where I, after arriving immediately paid a visit to my sister in law Anna van Gennep- Polkijn; her husband was not home and so soon enough we sat at the piano to once gain as a memory to Amsterdam played some classical Symphonies as a duet.It was funny when her husband, who didn’t know me, saw his wife sitting at the piano with a strange officer, came home. This didn’t prevent, that I stayed for the rijsttafel with them and their only son, a nice boy of about 7 years.After my visit to Djogjocarta I travelled by steamtram of the N.I.S. to Magelang to hold an inspection there at the Corps engineer troops, to which Major Schade had the command. He had had some trouble with the commander of the 2nd Military Department, general Soeters, who had made an unfavourable note about this at the yearly reviews; it was a real satisfaction to find the situation of the Corps excellent and so later on could scrap that unfavourable note.I was present at many of the excercises, some of which were already new to me; especially in the case of the application of electricity where a great improvement was noticeable.
One evening I was a guest at the Military commander Colonel Otken and met his extended family; Ididn’t have to say much there as Mrs. Otken was talking as good as the whole evening and therefore she had obtained the nickname “the rattling anchorchain”.Further I visited also the newlywed van Erps, who only shortly had produced an heir; of course I had to admire the beautiful sample of a child and report about it to the parents in law.In the beginning of April I was startled by a telegram from Carey, telling that Jos was heavily wounded on patrol from Melaboeh.This was, as could be expected the forerunner of his death as a result of his incurred wounds.On the 6th of that month I received confirmation of this in a personal telegram from General van Heutsz; “as a hero” he wired, “he died in the arms of his wife in the Great Military hospital in Pantej-Perak and the country looses one of it’s best servants”. He also asked what he had to do further with the widow; I answered that of course she was welcome again in her parental home.As a result Carey had to abolish her household and she was assisted with this in the most commendable way by the the Governor’s adjutant, captain H. Colijn, who organised everything in the most economical way and deliverd her on board with her four still young children.It was a sad meeting when I fetched the 24 year old widow from board; luckily she soon burst out into tears and this gave her nerves some distraction; my house was large enough and I could give her immediately the use of the largest 11m long room, where she with her morsels soon felt somewhat happy.Despite this she had a heavy task, especially when the children started to ail with sickness.
Two of her children got a severe typhoid attack and demanded a long and careful treatment under the supervision of the garrison’s doctor Kersbergen. He blamed the illness to the river Liwo, which ran along our house and which carried off all the dirt of the camps in Weltevreden, and sometimes spread around a pestiferous stenge.The children Marietje and Joopie were not better yet when the wedding of Jop and Gerard was planned towards August which nevertheless still was sealed in my house on the 1st of that month.At the wedding dinner Piet and Milly were still present; Piet had made some money as secreatry of the Comcordia and had now requested a 2 year leave to Holland.He had been appointed to captain on the 24th July and left with wife and child on the 4th of August.To prevent infection during Joopie and Marietje’s illness little Miel was staying with family de Voogt, who also now again showed to be real friends and good neighbours.That good friends are worth a lot I had already experienced in previous years after my appointment to colonel; through intervenance of Hein de Vries then I was nominated commissioner of the Ned. Ind. Life insurance and annuity Company, a job for which I had to appear at the meeting only once a month, and for which I received f. 25 vacation money, and only costed me 20 cents for the electric tram, which was not even always the case, since my old chief and co commissioner General Ermeling usually came to pick me up with his carriage; the best of this case however was, that the NILLMY closed off the books every 5 years and paid tthe insurers a Bonus and the administration a generous royalty, which was very welcome to me at the end of 1904.Gerard and Jop had a pleasant honeymoon in the Preanger and after that moved into their nice little house in Kampong Melajoe above Meester Cornelis. We often went to visit them there with the Deeleman carriage, which Carey had bought to use with a nice little horse, which Jos in those days had bought as a pony for her.
So now we had 4 horses in the stable, because apart from the two brown ones for the mylord I also had a large Australian riding horse, which I had received from the cavallery after my appointment to colonel and was named Daisy.In contrary to my earlier riding horses was this although a well trained beast not a nice animal at all, which had to be ridden just about every day in order not to become too difficult; so I did have quite a lot of work with it, though I did get it in my power and often made my morningride with the Army’s commander Boetje.One fine morning after such a ride, I slowed her down when, apparently stung by a botfly, it began to rear up and I fell off with a tremendous shock just in front the monument near the Willemslaan. I was picked up by captain Schutt, who took me inside to his wife, where I soon settled down. I didn’t get a particular injury from it, though still stayed stiff for quite some time and planned not ride this beast which reared up anymore and to ask for another horse, which succeeded.This is the spot for once to especially mention one an the other about my youngest daughter. Had she been a difficult child until now, it is surprising, that neither the housemates, nor the teachers, nor even the treating doctor Dr. Kersbergen had ever noticed, that she in fact was a nervous child.Like she had the peculiarity to put all the burnt matches back in the box, despite this had her been repeatedly forbidden. Further she had, when Carey wanted to close the storeroom whilst Lotje happened to be there, first let herself calmly be locked up, however when the door was not opened soon enough, she had been cross and had jumped straight through the windows of the door, by which she had contracted a rather heavy wound on her leg, which was bandaged by Dr. Kinsbergen, without him finding a reason to point out this strange case to us.
After the marriage of Jop, who before in the evening usually drove to the tennnis court with the mylord, Lotje took this over and then showed great nervousness to get away.We suspected that she had one or the other flirtation going on and this also proved to be the case, as on a certain day Robert Gaade came to ask for her hand and she got engaged to this lieutenant.This was just shortly after the arrival of the with honours discharged lieutenant general van Heutsz, who by Royal Decision since 20th July had been appointed to Governor General and commenced his high employment on the 1st October.The good services which Jos had rendered him caused him to have a special liking for Carey and already had asked her with me to dinner at the palace at his next stay in Weltevreden.At this opportunity he warned me not to let the engagement from Robert Gaade go through because of the health of this officer. Also from other sources I had heard things, though R.G. could show me certificates of Dr. Knoch who had treated him during his illness and also from the chief of the Military Hospital, from which appeared he was perfectly healthy.Meanwhile it seemed he had told Lotje too what happened to him before and she was, after a conversation with Mrs. de Voogt, so frightened, that she suddenly lost her balance. I cannot leave noting that the youngster had acted totally gentleman like and completely in good faith, as proof of which serves that he got married later on with the daughter of my collegue de Vos, who was a brother in law of the named physician Dr. Knoch.Whatever it was, Lotje broke off her engagement which only had lasted 3 weeks and became more and more nervous, sothat we sent her to stay with the van Heels in Kampong Melajoe.When they too couldn’t achieve anything with her, I asked to see the de Graaffs in Buitenzorg, hoping that this change would do her good; they were very sympathetic towards my suggestion, and Lotje stayed there some time.However it didn’t last long or I received a telegram from Tine, in which she asked me to come as soon as possible to Buitenzorg, because she and her husband couldn’t be held responsible any more for lotje’s situation.
Of course I left the next morning and found Lotje in a extremely depressive mood; she had done all kinds of strange tricks and the treating officer of health Chauffepied had called for consultation of the doctor of the lunatic asylum Dr. Simon-Thomas, who had diagnosed serious aberration of the nervous system, and considerd sending her as soon as possible to the Netherlands neccessary.The best would be to send her to Leiden, where she could come under the treatment of Professor Jelgersma. Dr. Chauffepied offered to write to his sister in Leiden to take Lotje in her home, where she would get a good medical treatment from his brother in law Prof. Nolen and the the expenses for me also would not run too high.I accepted the offer thankfully and even before I was ready with the preparations for the journey Dr. Chauffepied told me, that his sister agreed to his suggestion.Now measures had to be taken to obtain the neccessary passage for Lotje with Carey’s baboe Siempen, whilst we also had to look for a famly, who would want to keep a watchful eye on the sick child. We found ltnt. col. and Mrs. Hering willing to do so, whilst the passage was booked on board of S.S. Goentoer, which left in the middle of December for the Netherlands.It was around this time that I received my first bonus from the Nillmy, which turned out remarkably better than expected for the little work that I had done for the company and through which I was able to pay for the neccessary and quite large costs. So then I made my monthly transfers to Holland higher, which I had sent all the time to brother in law de Jongh since the serious illness of tante Joh.To understand these circumstances well I have to go further back in time, when I received a letter from tante Joh in which she pointed out to the heartly way, in which Johan was treated in the Trompstraat and asked me to consider to settle the troubles with our brother in law.
I agreed and wrote a letter to my sister Marie in a reconciling manner to which I received a thankful word with the request from now on not to personally direct my letters to her, but also to her husband, which I then did. It is true that I didn’t get a satisfactory answer to that, but I wanted to put an end to the case, threw sand over it and the peace had returned.Not long after that tante Joh had to undergo a heavy operation and so she could not look after the transferred money and as a result of that I was forced to authorise de Jongh.The good old aunt was lying in the deaconnes hospital Bronovo for a long time under the careful treatment of Dr. Walter, who had cured Jos completely before and now again had briliant success with tante Joh, sothat after that she still lived another 14 years.Whilst she was on her sickbed I had sent her an enlargement for her birthday, which was taken of the family group of me, my daughters and children for which she was very grateful. The enlargement I inherited back later on.Returning to the further happenings in Indie, I have to mention firstly the birth of Marietje van Heel, who on the 18th of February 1905, so much too early, came into the world.Gerard had a buggy with a firy black little horse which always took a leap when it began to draw; the day before Jop was with her husband at our place and the horse made the usual leap when going home; Jop seemed to have gotten a repercussion, at least the next day she delivered a very premature baby girl, which only weighed 2.5 pounds, though apart from that was completely well formed and healthy; for six weeks the little child had to be steamed in an incubator and demanded careful nursing; only once a day it was taken out of the incubator to be bathed and it was scary to see the thin little legs and blue colour of the little worm. Still Dr. Eldering succeeded excellently and later on was very proud of that. Marietje grew strong and was the darling of her parents.
The official news, which in those days I received from Atjeh, made it for me neccessary to hold an inspection over the engineer service in that area and for this I made a suggestion to the Army’s administration, whilst I requested to stay with the civil and millitary Governor v.d. Wijck during my stay in Kota-Radja, one and the other with favourable results.The construction of the tramway on the Northcoast of Atjeh was under command of major J.C.H. Fischer and had already progressed till past Edi and in Langsar a temporary office for construction with neccessary buildings for officers and lesser personnel was set up. In the beginning of 1905 Major Fischer had requested leave to the Netherlands and was replaced by major van Bloemen Waanders. Chief of the exploitation of the network in the Atjeh valley was captain of the engineers Caspersz, who also was charged with the construction of the connection of the mountain track from Selimoen to Gedeh-Breueh.Mid March I left via Singapore to Atjeh, visited my sisters in law at the River-valley-Road and arrived at the arranged time at my host’s v.d. Wijck in Kota-Radja; as adjutant I had taken along the chief of the technical office, captain C.F. de Rochemont, from whom I experienced good services during my inspection.This started with Kota-Radja, where I found a great improvement in the nearly finished drinking water supply, of which the source was lying in the spring of the large capacity in the hills near Kroeng-Raba. Apart from that nothing much had changed in the place and only a few offficer’s houses and civilian buildings had been erected; one and the other gave no rise to particular remarks.The next held inspection of the A.T. also gave all reason to satisfaction and was clear that the exploitation was in good hands with captain Caspersz and that the construction of the connection from Atjeh- and Pedir plains was commanded in an excellent way.It was now also clear to which fickle track the terrain of the water separation of both valleys had lead to and so I had seen it correctly when at the time I had requested a brigade surveyors for the tachiometrical measuring of the whole terrain; at least one could completely avoid the use of tunnels and only construct some high bridges over the ravines.
I was not so satisfied over the track and the construction of the line on the Northcoast; a large part of the track between Segli and Telok-Semaweh namely was dug into rocky ground, which could have been avoided by a small alteration in the track.Though especially on administrative points the management of major Fischer left a lot to wish for; he had worked to the pace, despite I had commanded his chief ltnt.col. v. Steeden some time beforehand to make sure that the costs of several parts had to be kept apart. Clearly major F. had had no chance for that and had gone on leave to Europe without doing anything about the order. So then I found the journals of the sections which were still under construction as good as not filled in and his successor Major v. Bloemen Waanders couldn’t give any information about it.Back in Kota-Radja I let them give me the journals of the sections which were already completed and now it was obvious that they all exsisted from a gathering of figures, without anything about the operations or particularities or notes about the work.Ltnt. col. v. Steeden also had not excercised enough control.Could I not in view of this award last named headofficer with the suitability for Chief of Arms, for major Fischer who stood no 1 for ltnt.col. it was neccessary to nominate him for retirement, since he was offender at administrative cases and earlier on also in Tjimahi already he showed great negligenceat at the handing over of the service.I left Kota-Radja with the plan to see to it as soon as possible upon my arrival in Batavia.
It was already late when we had to go round the South East coast of Poeloe Weh and the passengers as well as the captain had already gone to bed, and I had already fallen asleep when I was startled by a scratching sound as if the steamer ran over gravel.Just like the captain we got up at once and flew to the deck and heard there that the ship had ran upon a coralbank along the coast of Poeloe Weh, got stuck and could not be freed. The 3rd steersman who had the watch with the captain and to whom he had left the steering of the ship, had taken the gauging on the lighthouse North of Koeala Gighen wrongly, which otherwise would be easy enough. The ship was lying with the bow completely in the bush of the island and to avoid a possible capsizing when the tide would turn, it was also attached at the stern to a thick tree..The whole night we remained lying like that and only after sunrise help came as as well from the Paketvaart as from the Navy. It was obvious the ship hadn’t made any water and so they could try with joined force to pull the steamer off the coral reef. This clearly wasn’t that easy, as after 3 days the passengers were invited to move on board of the S.S. Reael, which took us back to Oleh-Leh, to wait there for a new shipping oportunity. As a result of this I didn’t see the harbour of Sabang, which particularly interested me, any more.When I arrived back in Kota-Radja I could not stay with General v.d. Wijck, though I was kindly offered lodging with the major of the infantery v. Kappen in his nearly unfurnished house in Panteh-Perak; we had our meal with Kugelpiet and besides spent our time mainly in the Social Club and I so I was really happy when finally the opportunity came to return to Batavia.It was with an extra boat which didn’t sail via Sabang and Singapore, but made the journey via Palembang.Through this I had the opportunity to hold a short inspection in this place; I found everything in order with captian Redeker, made aquaintance with my later friend Dr. v. Diermen and was guest of the Resident van Rhyn van Alkemade, with whom I spent a very pleasant evening.