In the canal of Moeara Bahroe two of those darling little animals had their permanent residence and towards 2 pm they came to bask in the sun on the muddy outskirts of the canal.
So I agreed with the manager of the General engineer’s shed, captian Freriks to shoot both boajas ( crocodiles ) at the mentioned hour and run each a bullet through the body; this happened, each of us took one for his account and we fired at the same time; both monsters flew high in the air and fled in the mud to the direction of the sea; we never saw them again.
It was a real busy time for me: in the morning at 6 am with the last tram back; my lunch I usually took in the Nieuwstade inn, where it wasn’t all that expensive, though the public not particularly nice as it mainly excisted out of sailors. Upon arriving home I usually was so tired that I didn’t even think of going out and after my evening meal I was soon lying in bed.
The heavy service on the coast luckily didn’t last long and when that was finished I was surprised by my nomination for 1st Lieutenant on the first on March 1871, so not even a year and a half after my first appoinment.
With capt. Frederiks and my housemate Beekman we madly painted the town in honour of this event in the toko of the in those days famous Jacob van Gelder, who always provided credit to the officers. Of this credit I had profited in such a way that when going home I fell asleep in the tram and only got woken up by the conductor at the Kramat station.
On Monday after my nomination I had to be presented to the Commandor of the Army, General Kroesen at 8 am according the custom; at half past 7 it started to pour with rain, I quickly sent my houseboy to the wagon leaser to order a carriage; he came back just in time with the message: Tida ada karetta ( there is no carriage ). I still had to go through the rain with my white pants but unfortunately came too late, the show had already started.
The next day they had me on the mat with the local commander and I was being punished with 4 days arrest, without being allowed to defend myself, the only punishment I had to receive during my service.
A week later I had to see the Army commander again, who without hearing me he pushed on “if I had known you would have come too late at my show, I would have had you wait a year for your promotion”.
Nowadays one is not been treated so badly in the military.
When I left Willem I my collegue v. Haeften had given me a parcel to take to his father, who was manager of the property Struiswijk, owned by the family de Pauli and their children. During my visit to the old man on the cool and old fashioned villa, it was evident to me that I already was known by this family; they had been informed beforehand by Mr. Diepenheim whom I already mentioned the neccessary things about in my first chapter.
Through his introduction I came to meet two prominent families with whom I spent many pleasant evenings in their hospitable homes and where I as a good dancer also was quite popular.
I also got to know Stientje Fokker, who’s son Daan later married my eldest granddaughter.
It was rather lucky that many evenings I was occupied in a decent manner as going to the social club or theatre was too expensive and would put me in more financial problems; from my meagre income went besides the delegation of 40 guilders another third part to the used loan, so only a tiny bit was left over and to compensate for it I had to share accommodation with one or two mates.
So on the in and outer veranda’s partitions were made and likewise we ran the cheapest possible household; the rent indemnity of the housemates then helped the household costs.
My first housemate was lieutenant quartermaster Beekman; he was a happy customer, still very thoughtless and used all the time more than he could pay for. Like one evening he came home very late bringing with him a cart loaded with drinks and food, which he in a mad mood had bought on credit at Jacob van Gelder; several happy evenings and nghts followed and our friend didn’t know how to stop and began without our knowledge ( my collegue Kuyl meanwhile had become the second housemate ) to slowly use his official cash.
This was soon noticed by his chief and at a certain moment followed cash takings and it showed there was a short of more than 500 guilders. They told him that the money should be in the register the next day and for the time being they gave him a notification for arrest.
Kuyl and I now went out to get the needed money loan and after a lot of difficulty we succeeded with the innkeeper of the Concordia, Scheerder, a real usurer who demanded 20% interest and security. Beekman, who had been called to the martial court had been aquitted, had hand in his resignation later on following the verdict of the coumcil of investigations; he immediately had moved into a small boarding house and to his honour I have to say he completely paid off his debt to the inn keeper and so we had no trouble with that security!
As third tenant of the hovel D.24 acted now ltnt. Stokhekker and we came with our small wages nearly clear and profited as much as we could. Kuyl and I, both good billiard players, had become members of the Harmonie and many evenings we went there to play pool with success as we quite often came home with some money; we shared the profit and the loss like brothers.
Under capt. Dozy I was charged with the common maintenance of all buildings in Weltevreden and Rijswijk; this could not properly be inspected without transporation and I so I asked for an advance for the purchase of a riding horse and bought for this purpose a small bandy with a small horse, from which I had a lot of pleasure myself..
It was during these days that in Willlem I the Ltnt. Hagen in fact had committed insubordination and by the highest authority at the High Court had been sentenced to death with the bullet. Awaiting his sentence he was in jail in Weltevreden; I visited him there often and lend him a huge work namely the book of Industry, Trade and Factories; I never got that book back; Hagen was sent under surveillance of a captain to Willem I, but knew how to escape the watchful eye of his surveillor with the aid of his academy friends, 14 days they knew how to keep him in hiding and he had during several days been hiding in a wardrobe of my friend collegue Staal, without anyone, even a commissioner of investigation, noticing; the wardrobe was half hanging and half shelved space and the door of the lastmentioned half stood open.
Hagen was finally put aboard a little Chinese steamer and fled to the Straits Settlements and there became an army chief in one of the Malaysian states; in one of the many wars, which this small state fought with it’s neighbour he was surrounded by the enemy and died a hero’s death.
During that time I also befriended a certain Ltnt. v. Stappershoef, nicknamed the squint-eyed ; we were chatting away one evening and the conversation came to the Hague, where he said he had a boring brother in law; he mentioned several characteristics of his brother in law and they gradually began to resemble those of my own brother in law Benard; so we soon came to the conclusion that we had the same person in the family.
For Sint Nicolaas I received from him a large basked filled with paddy syrup, under which a very small streetdog was lying; the animal was adopted with pity and baptised the Squinter. Did I own a beautiful dog before who had been run over by a simple cart and got killed, the Squinter was tougher, got ran over by a vis-a-vis carrying four ladies Rhede van Oudshoorn; the streetdog cried a bit and came skipping home again.
Van Stappershoef was not a strong man and soon already had to repatriate due to ill health; he passed away in the Gasthuis in Amsterdam, probably of the same disease as his sister.
Besides the regular maintenance of the military buildings I was also charged with office work and had to sign and do budgets. The engineer’s office in Kebon Saior was a retangular building with verandas all round and contained four rooms, who were each separated by double doors, who were always open; so Kees ( v. Goens ) who on the westside had his office and whose doors were usually closed, when he opened these he could see immediately if I was walking up and down in my room.
This had happened several times and in the end I got a surprising reprimand, against which I did not say anything.
The next morning I asked if I could speak to him and asked if he wasn’t satisfied with my work; he was however very happy and thus I asked him not to take notice that I got up every now and then and at a certain moment was pacing up and down, as was my habit.
Since then he had no more remarks and he began to appreciate me particularly. This also came out when he stood down and he was followed by major van Kappen, to whom he gave very good informations about me.
Otherwise Kees had in general been hated because of his peevishness, witnessing that there was nobody besides me who send him off at his departure for the Netherlands, of which he was really very sensitive.
It was very pleasant to serve under major v. Kappen; he went through a lot of work, nevertheless appreciated good work and assisted his subordinates by word and deed. To his suggestion at Meester Cornelis a first attendanceship of the engineers was created and I was appointed on 22nd Janury 1873 to first office bearer.
I moved in with the local military pharmacist, who because of the space he needed for his pharmacy had been appointed to a captain’s house and he still had one room left over. The pharmacist was Dirk Pey and from this time on our friendship da
My stay at Mr.C. was not long, because already on 27th February I was transferred back to Batavia and replaced by Kuyl; I had namely been appointed to take part in the expedition against Atjeh and had to help with the preparations for that.
Pey was also destined to take part in the expedition by the staff, in order to take on the testing of drinking water.
So the household at the Waterlooplein D no. 24 was completely disassembled and therefore I put up at the Java Hotel for 110 guilders a month with the generally known mother Spaanderman, with whom it was very nice, although for a very short time; the expedition actually left on 22nd March.
Of the preparations and going there I can remember very little; the only thing in my mind is the goodbyes at the Boom, when the Governor General held a speech, which was replied to by the Chief of the expedition General Kohler with the words: Excellency we will do our duty.
For transport of the whole army several steamships of the Ned. Ind. Stoomboot Maatschappij were appointed, which each had a sailingboat on tow; the staff of the expedition was staying on the William Maccannon. These consisted of Gen. Kohler, the second in command v.Daalen, the chief of staff Egter van Wissekerke ( my chief of arms ) the officer in charge Hofstede, lieutenant colonel of the engineers service Reiche and my immediate chief, captain Leers.
The remainder of the officers of staff came aboard on the Koningin Sophie; we travelled via Singapore and stayed there one night.
After arrival in Atjeh we first had to do a surveillance, during which I was ordered to get the prao rafts ready for landing; the landing of the first troops at the height of Olek-leh, under command of captain Lanzing was excecuted with boats, behind which the rafts followed; the whole disembarkment was under supervision of navy Ltnt. Tadema to whom I had been added.
Then from one of the rafts I have observed the first fight; it was fierce and the enemy, who was approaching along the beach in the flank, against the not yet burnished breachloading guns by along the beach streaming marineships, was harassed, suffered enormous losses.
With artillery and horses manned rafts we came a few hours later ashore and witnessed the burial of around 90 enemies in one hole; if you consider the Atjeh people usually drag their dead and wounded along, you can imagine how large the losses have been.
Before the first night’s camp everyone had to fix his own bed for the night and went through a very restless one, couldn’t undress and were continuesly alerted.
The next morning we commenced at once building the most needed barracks from much of the unloaded engineer materials, and with the gradual improvements and outhouses of these I have been busy all the time so I have not been further than Oleh-leh.
For the staff we built quite a large barrack with mess, kitchen and storage shed; in that one was also the housing for Pey and me and we also took part of the household, which was managed by the officer in charge Hofstede.
The result was that we have had nice food and drinks during the whole excursion; we only had to ask the quartermaster wat we would like to eat and he even supplied fruit in juice.
