White Rajah

by Nigel Barley

  ‘Their votaries,’ said the Rajah, ‘are always wild on the occasion. It is a passionate fruit and must be loved or hated.’ A mixture of ambrosia and cream, tainted with the aroma of ancient pigsties and garlic, was beyond the capacities of the novices; but the plates of yellow pips extracted from their rough envelopes, pouring forth fresh perfume every time the fork ran into them, were irresistible to the veterans. With many jokes and much laughter the spoil was seized upon, although the indulgence carried a retribution with it. After this it was a relief to get out of doors into the fresh air and upon the water … After a renovating bath and white jacket toilet, the correct thing in Sarawak, unless a very wet day or special occasion calls for European costume, the royal household, then composed wholly of bachelors, awaited the arrival of the Bishop’s family, and with pleasure, except where conscience had made cowards of durian eaters. On assembling for dinner some little banter followed but, ‘Never mind,’ cried the Rajah, ‘I’ll make them all eat durian before we let them off this evening;’ and after receiving his guests he led the way to the dining room. When lighted up for the evening the house looked more Oriental than in the daylight. The windows opening into the veranda served as the framework for several half-lengths of Dayak chiefs, who, their approach to their sovereign being one of gradation and delay, would stand without for hours until invited to enter. Their fine figures, some in brilliant jackets of satin or gold embroidery, displaying their broad sinewy chests, others covered with an infinity of brass rings and chains, their earrings being circlets of brass frequently depending from the ear to the shoulder, made a magnificent setting to the picture; while their great black eyes, as they cast admiring looks upon their lord and his guests, or flashed telegraphic glances to each other, were more suggestive than reassuring to the stranger.

  Dinner proceeded until a discussion arose, which the Rajah cut short by exclaiming, ‘Do help the pudding that is waiting – that is the one which the ladies will prefer;’ and, that which was before him being in a glory of flame, while the other looked deliciously cool, all took the hint. The pudding was served with a very pleasant sauce like rich apple, and was greatly admired, much to the satisfaction of the host. At dessert he announced that durians had arrived and were only awaiting the permission of the ladies to enter. Oh no, they never could or would think of allowing it. ‘Vile things,’ ejaculated the Bishop who, being both physician and botanist, was an accepted authority upon esculents. ‘Well,’ was the reply, ‘I can hardly ask you to eat them twice as I know that to-day you have done so once already.’ Their quick denial was met by a burst of triumph, the white teeth of the Bengalee domestics bearing conspicuous witness to the laughter of the sahibs. ‘You have all done it; you have all done it,’ cried the votaries of the fruit; and truly it was so. The Rajah, skilful in the diplomacy of cuisine as in the management of native potentates, had contrived a sauce which, under the belief that it was apple, had beguiled us for once into becoming durian eaters.8

  Chapter 12

  The Chinese Insurrection

  Before he left for Brunei in early 1856, St John went on a tour of some of the outlying districts. Around the town of Bau, with its several goldmines, he remarked on the tremendous increase in the number of Chinese – there were now some four thousand in Sarawak – and worried that it might lead to trouble. Triad activity had been reported, and there had been resistance to some of the edicts of the Brooke government, for the Chinese were used to running their own affairs and brooked no rajah. The immediate flashpoint was opium; official imports had dropped as it was being smuggled into Sarawak on a large scale, and mainly for the Chinese. The Brooke raj never put much faith in statistics but opium, together with arms and powder, was heavily taxed and that tax was a major source of government revenue.

  But the trouble over opium was merely a small ripple of the wider political currents in China and Singapore, where Chinese assertiveness was strongly on the rise. When it was fined £150 and obliged to pay tax based on the quantity of opium previously imported, the kongsi remembered its old grudge from James’s rewriting of its charter and determined to strike.

  It is hard not to believe that the loudly voiced British abrogation of all defence obligations towards Sarawak was a major element in this, since it was decided that the Rajah and his officers might safely be slain but other British residents should remain untouched for fear of naval reprisals. Brooke intelligence was good, and although the Rajah was away in Singapore, Charles Johnson was warned of the plot and hurried from Skrang to Kuching, only to find it basking in deceptive tranquillity. But the forts were manned and the garrison was set on alert, with a gunboat on the river, before he left again.

  When James returned in early 1857, he irritably stood down the soldiers, against the advice of Crookshank, his senior officer, and Middleton, the chief of police. Such rumours about the Chinese were as old as time, all nonsense. Since the Singapore inquiry, more and more of the world had begun to look like nonsense to James. The forts were emptied of reinforcements, the weapons locked away. And then the six hundred armed Chinese came.

  According to St John:

  Roused from his slumbers by the unusual sounds of shouts and yells just after midnight, the Rajah looked out of the Venetian windows, and immediately conjectured what had occurred. Several times he raised his revolver to fire in among them; but, convinced that alone he could not defend the house, he determined to effect his escape … summoning his servant he led the way down to a bath-room, which communicated with the lawn, and telling him to open the door quickly and follow close, the Rajah sprang forward with sword drawn and revolver cocked, but found the coast clear. Had there been twenty Chinese there he would have passed through them, as his quickness and practical skill in the use of weapons were unsurpassed. Reaching the banks of the stream above his house, he paused as he found it full of Chinese boats; but presently hearing his alarmed servant, who had lost him in the darkness, calling to him, he knew that the attention of the Chinese would be attracted, so diving under the bows of one of the barges he swam to the opposite shore unperceived, and, as he was then suffering from an attack of fever and ague, fell utterly exhausted and lay for some time on the muddy bank, till, slightly recovering, he was enabled to reach the Government writer’s house.1

  It won’t do, of course. St John was not actually in Sarawak, so his loyal version glosses over certain difficulties. The first victim of James’s derring-do was his servant, Penty, whom he tried to throttle in the darkness. James may not have been physically himself but his behaviour throughout the insurrection falls far short of bottomless courage. His reaction is closer to simple terror. And after the terror, he is a broken man. Through the window, he and Penty silently watched Nicholetts, the eighteen-year-old cadet, cut down and beheaded by the Chinese, his head then stuck on a pole and paraded round town in triumph as the head of James Brooke. Penty was obliged to ‘display very unwonted activity’ to slip away into the jungle once James had made his own escape through the bathroom.

  ‘The other attacks took place simultaneously,’ continued St John.

  Mr. and Mrs. Crookshank, rushing forth on hearing this midnight alarm, were cut down – the latter left for dead, the former seriously wounded. The constable’s house was attacked but he and his wife escaped, while their two children and an English lodger were killed by the insurgents.

  Here occurred a scene which shows how barbarous were these Chinese. When the rebels burst into Mr. Middleton’s house, he fled, and his wife following found herself in the bath-room, and by the shouts was soon convinced that her retreat was cut off. In the meantime the Chinese had seized her two children, and brought the eldest down into the bath-room to show the way his father had escaped. Mrs. Middleton’s only refuge was in a large water-jar; there, she heard the poor little boy questioned, pleading for his life, and heard the shriek when the fatal sword was raised which severed his head from his body. The fiends kicked the head with loud laughter from one to another. They then set
fire to the house, and she distinctly heard her second child shrieking as they tossed him into the flames. Mrs. Middleton remained in the jar till the falling embers forced her to leave. She then got into a neighbouring pond.2

  She sat there for some time, up to her neck in water, until rescued by a friendly Chinese who concealed her in Chinese costume. But her Ali Baba-like sufferings were far from over. When her deliverer led her past the ruins of her house, the first thing she saw was four dogs ripping her child’s burned corpse apart. The story was both horrific and embarrassingly close to pantomime. In a pre-football age, the alleged actions of the Chinese seem oddly unconvincing and Mrs Middleton’s account bizarre. Harriette’s daughter, Mab, summed it up as ‘Mama, they’ve killed all the chickens and the little Middletons.’3

  The stockades were assaulted and taken after fierce resistance, only four men being on duty in one and three in the other. In an effort to improve the odds, two prisoners, one mad, one a debtor, were released and armed. The madman shot himself. The debtor decamped. He was probably a certain Dayak who had formed a peculiar obsession with the safe of the Borneo Company and could usually be found either attacking it or escaping from custody following a previous attempt. The Chinese now had muskets, powder and heavy guns. They roamed the town, whooping and shooting it up indiscriminately like cowboys.

  ‘The confusion which reigned throughout the rest of the town may be imagined, as, startled by the shouts and yells of the Chinese, the inhabitants rushed to the doors and windows, and beheld night turned into day by the bright flames which rose in three directions, where the Rajah’s, Mr. Crookshank’s, and Mr. Middleton’s houses were all burning at the same time.’4

  James fled to the Datuk Bandar’s house and, finding the Malays preoccupied with placing their wives and children in a place of safety, fell down the river, heading for Skrang and reinforcements. He had to borrow the very clothes he stood up in from the Malays.

  Later there would be a need for a hero, but candidates were thin on the ground at the moment. St John was often at loggerheads with the missionaries and in later years did much to drive a wedge between them and the Rajah so that the bishop, in St John’s version, seems more like a collaborator than a resistance fighter. Harriette tells the story rather differently, and in her view it is Frank McDougall who is the bold swashbuckler of the piece. Tidman, secretary to the Borneo Company, offers yet another version, with Helms, his manager, as the man of the hour.

  The remaining British sought refuge in the mission house, where Frank calmly made an inventory of their weapons. There were six guns. Realising that armed resistance was useless against such odds, he dispensed blessings and opted instead for trust in prayers. We can be sure that he was quite unsurprised next morning to have them answered and receive assurances from the kongsi that no harm was intended him but that he must come to the hospital to care for their wounded. Learning that Mrs Crookshank was not, as at first thought, dead but lying incapacitated by the roadside, he stoutly insisted she be cared for before he would undertake a mission of mercy to the Chinese, and she was finally brought to the house. Her thick braids had protected her head against outrage from Chinese swords but the rings had been torn from her fingers.

  The Chinese were now cosily installed in the courthouse, squatting on the seats of the Rajah and the Malay lords, quietly smoking and exulting in their victory. Nicholetts’ head was still on display on its pole, though it is unclear whether the leaders actually believed it to be that of James. They would, they announced, henceforth assume direction of the country themselves but the bishop, Mr Rupell the merchant, and Helms of the Borneo Company were to be put in charge of the Europeans; the Datuk Bandar was to answer for the Malays.

  The bishop for once did not bite his tongue: he mentioned the certainty of the imminent arrival of Charles Johnson and thousands of loyal Dayaks, eager for revenge. The Chinese seemed not to have thought of that. In fact, it cast quite a shadow over their triumph, but they said rather optimistically that they would write to Charles offering to leave him in peace to rule his Dayaks if he did not bother them. To gain time, the Europeans and Malays all swore an oath of allegiance to the kongsi, recorded in a document sprinkled with the blood of freshly killed chickens. The swearers were similarly sprinkled so that when Frank returned to the mission house, with hat and smock besmirched with gore, Harriette was convinced he had been fatally injured. ‘After which,’ noted Tidman, ‘came tea and cigars, and we had to sit another half hour drinking and smoking, and when we left, were obliged to shake hands with the brutes whom with the greatest pleasure we could have shot dead on the spot.’5

  The Christian Chinese were also attacked by the insurgents and now fled in turn to the mission house for protection and, from there, watched the Chinese ships, laden with booty, head back to Bau, fifteen miles upriver. The rebels tried to take Helms with them as hostage but he discreetly hid himself in the jungle. ‘No one in Sarawak could imagine what had become of him,’6 Harriette notes curtly and cattily, anxious to dispose of Frank’s rival.

  The real, though misplaced, courage was shown not by the Europeans, but by Abang Patah, the fiery son of the Datuk Temonggong, who, with a small band of lightly armed Malay followers, ruthlessly pursued the Chinese and took one of their vessels before being driven off. European writers would later appropriate this courage as being obviously inspired by James and so conceal the Rajah’s embarrassing state of total funk. Irritated by this Malay belligerence and reinforced by new arrivals, the Chinese turned back and now began the systematic destruction of the town. The Malays, under the gentle Datuk Bandar, attacked the Chinese vessels again, seizing ten, though heavily outgunned, and moored them in the middle of the river as a base from which to fire on the rebels. The Rajah sent an unhelpful note to Helms urging him to ‘hold the fort’. It is unclear whether this was intended literally or metaphorically.

  The bishop meanwhile, taking charge as usual, had assumed command of Rupell’s schooner and sent the women and children downriver to safety in the fort at Lingga so the men would be free to fight. He had also boldly run the Sarawak flag back up the flagpole, whereas the Kuching Chinese more prudently kept both a Sarawak and a white flag in stock and displayed whichever was appropriate to the particular stage of the conflict. Helms set off in another vessel and the bishop in a third to track down the elusive Rajah. When they met, there were harsh words, but James was persuaded to return to Kuching, only to find the Malay quarter ablaze.

  St John writes vaguely of a general panic that gave James no choice but to retire yet again, but it is manifest that this was not his finest hour. His days of charging were long over. He was depressed and hopeless and, determined to retreat, was heard to cry out in despair, ‘Offer the country on any terms to the Dutch.’ At this, Frank McDougall’s anger waxed hotter still. ‘If the Rajah deserts his country,’ he snapped, ‘I must look after my diocese.’ He set off huffily gathering arms while James fled ever further downstream. Tidman notes of the bishop, ‘Like us all, he was armed to the teeth, with sword, double-barrelled and revolver. He recalled the good old times, when lord-bishops could strike a blow, if need were, in a good cause.’7

  Then fate intervened again. In the gloom and the mud and the scuttling crabs of the river-mouth, suddenly there was black smoke. It was the new, boldly armed vessel of the Borneo Company, Sir James Brooke. The two James Brookes took each other’s stock, united and returned with all speed to Kuching. They took the first Dayak reinforcements from Skrang in tow, led by a fevered Charles Johnson. These Skrang Dayaks were the very people James was supposed to have outrageously slaughtered according to the Singapore inquiry, and much was made of their present loyalty to the government. But here it was perhaps more an example of their detestation of the Chinese and the successful use the Brookes made of the principle of divide and rule – that and the lure of human heads.

  The gloom and the depression had passed away from the Rajah now, and everyone was in tearing spirits. The moment we op
ened the town, we were exposed to the fort, and the guns from the old fort opened up on us with grape of original composition – balls, nails, scraps of rusty iron, came whizzing round, many of which were later picked up as souvenirs … The next instant our long eighteen-pounder forward spoke his mind. Firing almost simultaneously with another gun of the same calibre the roar was a good one, and then came the sharper notes of the swivels and rifles. The shot from the gun forward, which was manned by the mate, went slap into the fort and created a scare. Out scoured the Chinese like wild hares in March, some dashing up the road … while many ran through the bazaar, affording practice for the riflemen on board. The new fort was quickly cleared, and two or three more rounds completed the action. We steamed slowly up the river, on the sides of which the Malay kampong was still burning, and then coming back again anchored off the bazaar. And thus the Company’s steamer re-took the town of Sarawak.8

  It was at this point that the Chinese Insurrection turned into the Chinese Massacre. Many Chinese were still busy destroying the Malay settlement on the left bank of the river, and here the Dayaks and Malays landed behind them, burned their boats and coolly slaughtered them. Those that escaped into the jungle or killed themselves in despair were ruthlessly sought out and found to have between £5 and £20 sterling and quantities of silver cutlery on their bodies. An attempted stand upriver was swept aside by the newly emboldened Datuk Bandar and a total rout of the insurgents commenced. Burdened by their women and children and their considerable loot, the Chinese now straggled in panic towards the Dutch border, bearing with them the sacred stone, the Taipekong, from the temple that was the very core of the kongsi. Harassed by the Dayaks, they bought time by dropping booty and rice. Years later, an English silver cruet would turn up in a remote longhouse as a sacred relic of the time, firmly believed to turn the fields green and drive away disease. St John has the Chinese finding a mysterious and forgotten path around the gallant and loyal Dayaks at Gumbang. Other writers have them, perhaps more plausibly, securing free passage with a hefty bribe.