Merdeka Rising

by Rory Marron

  Sevkani turned just in time to see movement above him. A pemuda balanced on a wheel arch was poised to spear him He raised his rifle and fired at almost point blank range. His attacker fell at his feet. He saw the face of a boy barely into his teens.

  Finally, the last of the able women and children reached the row of houses. He gave the order, ‘Pull back to the wall!’

  As the soldiers retreated, the baying, triumphant pemuda swarmed over the rear vehicles. Mattresses, suitcases, dead and wounded were flung on to the road. For man, woman or child still alive there was no mercy as the youths ran amok.

  For an hour the Indians kept up a steady fire taking a huge toll. Scores of dead or dying pemuda lay sprawled around the convoy and in the gardens. There was no let up. The mob used the bodies of the fallen and some of the lorries as cover to approach ever nearer. In three years of war, Sevkani had never seen so many dead. He flicked back the bolt-action of his Lee-Enfield rifle to load another round and felt the heat escaping from the overused chamber.

  In disgust they watched a pemuda hack off the legs and then the arms of a wounded and moaning Mahratta. A shot from one of the defenders ended their comrade’s agony. As the butcher fled others fired at him.

  ‘Save your ammo for the next attack!’ Sevkani ordered bitterly.

  Ratra and two wounded drivers worked up the line, handing out ammunition. The chubby Subedar ducked down beside Sevkani, panting and pointing to a half-empty box. ‘This is all we have left. Can we hold them?’

  There was another lengthy burst of defensive firing. Sevkani shook his head. ‘No. The Brens are the heaviest things we’ve got and we’re spread—’ He twisted on the spot to shoot a pemuda charging with a petrol bomb. As the youth fell the bottle smashed on the road, bathing the body in flames. ‘—too wide,’ Sevkani finished.

  ‘Nice shot, Hav!’ quipped one of the Mahrattas. ‘Cremation included in the price!’

  Beyond the abandoned lorries, Sevkani could see squads of militia spreading out through the gardens along the other side of the road. ‘They’re better trained. They’ll work around us and probe for weaknesses,’ he told Ratra. ‘Once it gets dark, well….’

  Hotel Michiels

  Piled sofas, tables and chairs barricaded the hotel entrance. Drivers and cooks stood guard at ground-floor windows, and helped the medics ferrying wounded to the operating theatre set up in the spacious lounge. The stretchers returned loaded, this time with water and scavenged ammunition for the Mahratta unit defending the approach.

  Inside the hotel, the mood was busy and determined. Messengers were moving urgently back and forth between communications and operations centres set up in function rooms. Officers were poring over street maps, trying to locate and plan escape routes for isolated or trapped units.

  Colonel Hughes’s face was grim as he headed for Brigadier Allenby’s office with the latest reports. He knocked and entered at once, interrupting a briefing by Ball on the situation of the internees at Darmo. Allenby and four officers were present.

  ‘Excuse me, Wing Commander,’ said Hughes apologetically. ‘Sir, we’ve had fresh reports from units at Simpang, Ferwerda, the International Bank and the Marine School. They all say the same thing: they face what looks to be thousands of well-armed civilians and hundreds of militia. At two places they’re up against light tanks and armoured cars.’

  ‘Casualties?’ Allenby demanded tersely.

  ‘Fifty-eight dead, ninety-seven missing at the last count,’ Hughes said gravely. ‘But that was several hours ago.’

  There was silence. Allenby paled.

  Hughes consulted his list. ‘We’ve been unable to re-establish contact with two Rajrif platoons that were on patrol in the kampongs this afternoon. Their last reports sounded pretty desperate. A twelve-vehicle internee convoy is also overdue at Darmo.’

  Allenby moved over to a street map. ‘What about Indonesian casualties?’

  ‘Estimated at over eight hundred,’ Hughes replied.

  Allenby looked at him questioningly. Hughes nodded. ‘No exaggeration; all positions report repeated suicidal attacks. Again, these figures are hours old.’

  Allenby let out a long breath and looked around him. ‘Well, there we were worried about a few companies of militia. The entire city has risen against us!’

  Outside a faint whistling grew steadily louder.

  ‘Cover!’ Allenby shouted. The men ducked as the mortar blast shook the windows.

  ‘Any more news from Batavia?’ Ball asked hopefully.

  Allenby nodded. ‘General Chrishaw telephoned Sukarno. Apparently he’s horrified and is coming to negotiate a cease-fire. The General isn’t so sure he holds much sway over the hotheads. They will arrive later this morning.’

  Ball nodded and made to leave. ‘I’d better try and get through to Darmo,’ he said. ‘The internees will be in a terrible state and—’

  ‘No!’ Allenby shook his head. ‘Wait until daylight.’

  Ball made to protest. ‘But—’

  ‘If there is no truce,’ Allenby interrupted him, ‘tomorrow we face the prospect of surrender or annihilation. God knows what will become of the internees. I won’t risk life unnecessarily. We have twelve hundred men against something like sixty thousand. You know Surabaya better than we do and can best help our planners here.’

  Ball saw the sense of it. ‘Yes, yes of course.’

  ‘And in any case,’ Allenby said smiling. ‘I’ll need your car and driver!’

  Mac had spent most of the night helping to carry the wounded to and from the operating theatre. He had been relieved at four and found a bench seat in the hotel lobby. Even though he was exhausted his sleep had been fitful. His mind had been on Meg. He had not seen her for hours and he had heard about an attack at Darmo. His breakfast had been a small plate of tasteless, cold baked beans and soy sausage, followed by a cup of tea. The Indian cooks had boiled water in the kitchen’s huge rice cauldrons then added tea, milk and sugar to the mix, ladling out the sweet brew to the grateful soldiers.

  Ball found him dozing on the bench and tapped him awake. ‘Sorry, Mac! Come on, you’re taking the Brigadier to the airfield to meet General Chrishaw.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Mac said groggily, feeling for the keys to the La Salle 52 saloon that Ball had been assigned the day before.

  Ball grabbed another cup of tea and gave it him. ‘Keep your eyes peeled for snipers!’

  Mac was suddenly wide-awake.

  Krembangan Airfield

  Allenby was not taking any chances with Chrishaw’s safety. At the head of the convoy, in front of the La Salle, was a jeep with a mounted Bren gun. Two Mahratta troop lorries followed behind. His caution proved well founded; halfway to the airfield they came upon a partially built roadblock. Oil drums and crates had been abandoned as the British vehicles approached. There was no sign of the Javanese but the Mahrattas suspected they would find the block completed on their return.

  As they entered the airfield, the two lorries turned off along the perimeter fence. Mac followed the jeep and went on to the control tower where he saw two cars already parked. One was a cream Buick S40 convertible with white-wall tyres. The other was a rather more mundane red Ford station wagon. Both were bedecked in red-and-white nationalist flags. Four Indonesians stood beside them, watching the sky anxiously.

  Nearby, Major Derek Cane was watching his men lay a barrage of three-inch mortar fire against militia encroaching along the airfield’s southern perimeter. Six bound militia prisoners sat glumly under guard on the tarmac.

  ‘Morning, Sir,’ Cane saluted.

  ‘Morning, Derek,’ Allenby replied saluting. ‘Get anything from them?’

  Cane’s expression clouded. ‘They think we’ve got a division of paratroopers coming in… Sukarno’s reception committee are having kittens!’

  A low, increasingly loud drone came from the west. Necks craned looking for the aircraft. Cane saw the Dakota first and pointed. ‘There! Ten o’clock!’

 
; The pilot, warned that the airfield was ‘hot’, was coming in very steeply.

  ‘They’ll be in range for a few seconds, Sir, no more,’ Cane added calmly.

  Bursts of machine-gun fire greeted the Dakota. Seconds later, the Mahratta mortars zeroed in on the source of the line of tracer bullets and silenced the gun. The plane bounced twice as it landed.

  ‘Mr Sukarno’s not a very popular president then?’ Mac ventured.

  Allenby laughed. ‘I won’t be voting for him, that’s for sure!’

  Safely down, the Dakota began to taxi. Allenby jumped back in the car. ‘Come on, let’s get there!’

  Chrishaw and Sukarno were already out on the tarmac as Mac and the escort jeep raced up. The two nationalist cars followed. Both Chrishaw and Sukarno were looking at the Dakota’s tail fin, which had been holed.

  ‘A little extra ventilation, Mr Sukarno,’ Chrishaw said casually. Sukarno, clearly shaken by the bumpy landing and the inadvertent attempt on his life, merely nodded.

  There was little time for ceremony and most of the greetings were lost as another mortar barrage exploded to the south. Sukarno and his two aides were driven to the airfield’s control tower for talks with Chrishaw and Allenby. Mac waited outside, watching the militia’s largely futile attempts to advance while dodging the Mahratta mortars.

  Twenty minutes later the Indonesian president emerged with his aides and drove slowly out of the airfield to the Mahratta front line. He sat calmly, exposed, in the back of the convertible, as one of his aides repeatedly shouted news of his arrival through a megaphone.

  The British watched the two flag-draped cars move slowly down the street. At the first junction flag-waving nationalists and an armoured car met them. The vehicles turned off and disappeared from view.

  ‘Well, so far so good,’ said Chrishaw gruffly, ‘Let’s see what he can deliver.’ He turned to Allenby. ‘Bring me up to date on the way in.’

  Their convoy left the airfield with the six prisoners tied to the bonnets of the jeeps and lorries. As expected, the roadblock had been completed. Earth-filled oil drums were now strung across the road.

  ‘Get our new friends to clear it,’ said Allenby.

  Mahrattas prodded the nervous prisoners forward at bayonet point. They began shouting and waving, pleading with their comrades concealed in the surrounding buildings not to shoot. Half the barrier had been cleared when a hail of gunfire cut down all six. In reply the Bren gun on the leading jeep peppered the windows and doorways.

  ‘Forward!’ Allenby shouted. At his signal, one of the lorries raced ahead, the soldiers in the back firing and hurling grenades at the buildings on both sides of the road. It knocked over the last obstructing drum, clearing the way for the others to follow. The firing ceased. As Mac sped through the gap he caught a glimpse of several fleeing pemuda.

  Two hours later, Sukarno was introduced reverently on Radio Surabaya. He announced an immediate truce and a meeting to discuss a cease-fire the next morning.

  Internee Convoy Seven

  Sevkani watched another burning lorry explode. Orange flames illuminated the ghoulish scene. Between the abandoned vehicles and the garden wall the ground was carpeted with bodies. Dead, dying and wounded Javanese moaned and babbled in a tangle of torsos and limbs. Over twenty-four hours had passed since the ambush. Gunfire and artillery still echoed in central Surabaya, so he knew they were on their own for a second night running.

  He moved forward to the sepoy manning the Bren gun on the overgrown rockery nearest the roadblock, which was now their perimeter. ‘Karam,’ he whispered, ‘how many rounds?’

  The gunner turned and held up five fingers. A few feet away one of the drivers signalled four. It was the same all along the sparse line. Earlier some of the defenders had sneaked forward to take rifles and ammunition from the Javanese dead. It was not enough. Now each of the houses was on its own. Unbidden, the handful of surviving soldiers had long before fixed bayonets.

  Sevkani went back inside the house with a collection of captured daggers under his arm. Women and children were crammed in every room, huddled together. He saw their desperate looks and simply shook his head. There had been no food and no water for hours. The air was fetid.

  Sombrely he placed the weapons in the centre of the room. ‘There’s not much ammunition left,’ he said hoarsely. Blanched, fearful faces stared at him. It was not necessary to spell out the choice they faced.

  A woman untwined herself from her two young children and crawled forward on her hands and knees. She chose a small dagger then went back to her children, hugging them to her, keeping the blade out of their sight. Tears began streaming down her face. One by one others came forward. Sevkani left them.

  Darkness made the attackers bolder. They howled and jeered, scenting victory and—at last—revenge on those who had killed so many of their number.

  Their first target was the house furthest from the roadblock. Sevkani heard no more than eight or nine shots from the defenders before it was overrun. Triumphant roars mingled with desperate, pitiful screams as women were seized.

  Sevkani made his decision. The only chance—for his group at least—was to try and break out. He passed the word along the perimeter and back inside. Soon afterwards two petrol bombs ignited on the roof on the next house in the row. Flames spread quickly illuminating the massed, chanting pemuda nearing the house.

  ‘Now!’ Sevkani bellowed.

  Three sepoys sprang over the garden wall in a bayonet charge for the road. Five startled youths standing by the nearest lorry fled without firing a shot, their cries of alarm lost in the tumult.

  Close behind the soldiers came the internees. The exhausted Indians threw them aboard one after another as if they were sacks. Sevkani looked back to see the second house aflame but also Ratra leading more internees towards them from the fourth house.

  There was a heavy rattle as a lorry engine turned over then fired. Ratra’s men started two more.

  ‘What’s your plan?’ Ratra shouted.

  ‘Simple,’ Sevkani shrugged. ‘Break through and drive. You’re on your own!’

  ‘Good luck!’ Ratra yelled as he raced away.

  Sevkani jumped into the cab as a final roar heralded the end of resistance at the third house. ‘Go!’

  Gears screeched as the driver let out the clutch and the lorry swung out, jolting over the dead lying in the road. Sevkani stared grimly at the last, short-lived, stand at the houses. Enraged, the pemuda descended on them in a wild blood lust. Men, women and children were dragged into the garden. Long, agonized screams punctuated the booming, triumphant chants as the rapes and butchering began. Swords, spears and machetes rose and fell in flickering silhouette against the flames.

  Sevkani turned away. Ahead a barricade loomed in the headlights. Miraculously it was unmanned.

  ‘Ram it!’ Sevkani yelled bracing himself as the wing of the lorry clipped the end of the trunk shattering a headlight but forcing a gap. Three lorries sped away.

  Surabaya Town Hall

  ‘How dare you demand the BKR’s weapons!’ The young, swaggering Javanese wearing a general’s stars folded his arms and glowered. ‘We are the national army of Indonesia!’

  Chrishaw’s face remained calm as the interpreter next to him struggled to keep up. ‘General Sombong,’ Chrishaw began patiently, ‘the proclamation refers to weapons held by unofficial groups. We recognise the BKR. Naturally the confiscation order does not apply to your men.’

  Mollified, Sombong sat down. The meeting had dragged on for two hours. The militia and pemuda leaders were respectful but in no mood to listen to their new president’s pleas for tolerance. Sukarno, desperate for a cease-fire, found himself siding with Chrishaw.

  Sombong, a former militia sergeant who had promoted himself, was the main obstacle. Several even younger ‘captains’ were with him, urging him to resist. Outside in the street, an excited crowd of pemuda, barely restrained by the militia, bellowed for blood.

  Earlier, th
e Javanese had demanded the immediate, unconditional British surrender. Chrishaw had categorically refused, repeating time and again to Sombong that the British were in Indonesia on behalf of the United Nations. There were frequent breaks in the proceedings as the Indonesians argued amongst themselves.

  ‘We all want the fighting to stop—’ Sukarno started to say.

  ‘Why?’ Sombong flared. ‘We are winning! We can drive them into the sea. The Dutch too!’

  ‘For the last time,’ Chrishaw said sternly, ‘there are no Dutch units in Surabaya!’

  The interpreters struggled on, trying to keep up.

  Chrishaw tried again. ‘I suggest that the British control two small zones, namely the docks and the Darmo camps. BKR forces would have authority in the rest of the town but allow us free movement along specific routes between the two zones.

  ‘No! Absolutely not!’ Sombong shouted, jumping to his feet yet again. ‘You are trying to hem us in!’

  Chrishaw and Allenby looked at each other in awe of Sombong’s advanced grasp of tactics. Their only advantage in the negotiations was that the Indonesians did not know how few troops they had. Asking him how fifty thousand could be hemmed in by a thousand was not an option. They were alone, unarmed and in a pemuda-controlled area. All that protected them was a white flag of truce and Sukarno.

  ‘Our troops would be here for only a few days,’ Chrishaw explained, his tone still relaxed. ‘As soon as the internee camps are empty we shall withdraw. No more troops will land. BKR observers could be allowed into the docks to remove any doubts.’

  Sombong paused, pursing his lips. ‘There must be BKR guards at all the camps!’

  ‘Absolutely not!’ Chrishaw said wearily. ‘Frightened women and children are no threat to anyone. They just want to leave!’

  One of the young captains spoke up. ‘There could be Dutch spies and saboteurs among them!’

  Sombong nodded. Sukarno put his head in his hands.

  Three explosions in the street rattled the office windows. Sombong jumped up and ran outside. Two of the militia captains drew their pistols.