by Rory Marron
‘Oh, let me see it, please, Lucy!’ Kate gushed excitedly, hanging on Lucy’s shoulder.
Beaming, Lucy began to read aloud. ‘From South-East Asia Command. Food and medicines will be dropped by parachute at 1500 hours tomorrow. You are requested to prepare a large white cross in an open area. Stand well clear until all canisters have landed.’
‘They’re coming!’ Kate shrieked. ‘At last, they’re coming!’ They clutched at each other, jumping for joy.
A buzz of excitement gripped the camp. Many had been unable to sleep. Kate and Marja were standing in the parade area where, soon after first light, a huge cross had been made out of white sheets and towels.
‘Oh, Kate, I can’t wait to see what will come!’ Marja said eagerly.
Kate giggled. ‘Me too! Our hut was awake most of the night guessing what we are going to get. In the end we settled on pâté, cream cakes, shampoo, underwear and shoes!’
‘Is that all?’ Marja sniggered.
‘Oh, I forgot the silk pyjamas!’
Giggling, they moved to sit on the steps of the nearest hut, shielding their eyes from the sun as they peered above the tree-tops for a sign of a plane. By mid-afternoon most of the camp had assembled around the edge of the field. Anticipation was almost tangible. Small boys were running around the cross, pretending to be aircraft.
After several false alarms they heard it: a throbbing drone slowly increasing in volume. Necks craned to look. One after another, hands rose to point at a black dot to the north.
The C-47 Dakota transport was much bigger and slower than the Mosquito. Kate could see a huge engine on either wing. It came unerringly towards them, descending steadily before circling twice. Suddenly, it veered off and the watchers murmured in dismay. A few seconds later it was turning again and descending even lower for the final approach.
As it roared past, Kate could see objects tumbling out. Parachutes unfurled to reveal refrigerator-sized, cylindrical canisters hanging beneath them. Tjandi camp erupted in cheers and shouts. The C-47 made a last pass, giving them a farewell waggle of its wings, then gunned its engines for home. By then, all eyes were on the ten parachutes.
The first canister came down at the north end of the camp. Children raced to it, their mothers trailing behind. Slowly the watchers realised that the wind was taking the other canisters well away from the parade area. There was a surge towards the administration buildings as people tried to track the descents.
‘Kate, quick!’ Marja shouted. ‘Or someone else will get your silk pyjamas!’
Movement stopped as the second chute escaped the strong breeze and suddenly dropped very quickly. ‘It’s going to hit the school!’—‘Oh, the infirmary!’
Helplessly they watched the canister strike the infirmary roof then slide, smashing tiles before it came to rest upright on the balcony. Lucy Santen appeared and waved, hugging the canister. Exhilarated; the crowd sped off as the third, fourth and fifth canisters came down beside the guardhouse. The thin metal casings burst open showering boxes and tins. A mad, noisy scramble developed as women and children dropped to their knees grabbing what they could.
In dismay, Kate pulled Marja back as they saw the other parachutes sail overhead. Two came down just outside the camp entrance but the others drifted out of sight. ‘Oh, no!’ Kate groaned.
‘What’s the matter?’ Marja shouted urgently, pulling her on. ‘Let’s get them!’
They joined the small crowd rushing through the gate, then stopped abruptly. One parachute had caught on a palm-tree, the canister hanging by its cords tantalisingly out of reach. The other had landed fifty yards further on. It was already open. Javanese women and children from the nearby kampong were helping themselves.
‘That’s ours!’ one of the internees shouted.
‘Leave that alone!’ Julia Stam yelled. ‘Come on, let’s stop them!’
Irate, the Tjandi women moved forward. The Javanese stared at them impassively.
Julia strode up to a young woman who had a baby strapped to her back and who held a tin of powdered milk. ‘Give me that,’ demanded Julia. ‘It was sent for us!’
The woman ignored her and bent down again. ‘Well, really!’ Julia exclaimed, puce with indignation. In fury she snatched at one of the packages. Suddenly the woman lashed out, catching Julia squarely on the temple with a tin. Julia staggered back with a nasty cut. Several of the kampong women drew short curved knives from their bodices. Their message was clear.
‘Keep calm and move back!’ Kate recognised Jenny Hagen’s voice.
‘Come on,’ Jenny shouted as she pushed through to the front. ‘Powdered milk isn’t worth dying for!’
Cautiously and reluctantly the shocked Tjandi group backed off, two of them helping the injured Julia Stam. Immediately the kampong women went back to their scavenging, picking the canister clean. They left unhurriedly, without looking back, their loot in baskets balanced on their heads, their hips swaying.
As they watched, the camp women seethed. Their mood became ugly when they found they could not release the other canister. ‘Thieving bitches!’—‘What good is pork to Muslims? I hope they bloody choke!’—‘Bolshie coolies! My husband will teach them a thing or two!’
‘That’s enough!’ Jenny Hagen yelled. ‘Save your strength! Better not to open it here. We’ll need a ladder and a trolley to take it back. Get one of the carts! Some of you wait here.’
While most of the women followed Jenny back into the camp. Kate, Marja and half-a-dozen others stayed with the canister. Kate wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do if the locals returned. They waited nervously for several minutes until a small procession filed back out of the camp gates. It was led by a pedal-cart, now without its seats and pushed by its proud young owner. Other boys carried a short section of ladder. Some of the women had armed themselves with a saucepan or broom. Two boys climbed the tree and soon they were cutting at the nylon cords suspending the canister. The women gazed in anticipation at both the canister and the parachute. The silk was already earmarked for blouses and shorts.
‘Ow! My leg!’ A girl wailed.
A stone clanged and ricocheted off the canister, grazing another girl’s shoulder. ‘Ouch!’—‘Watch out, natives!’
Thirty yards down the road a line of Javanese youths stood in a half-circle. Some were making obscene gestures. Behind them stood the kampong women. The youths began chanting.
‘Merdeka!’—‘Su-kar-no!’
More stones came in a hail and several found their targets. Saucepans became shields as the women fled back to the camp. A small stone caught Kate high on her right shoulder, deadening her arm. She kept running until she was through the camp gate.
Panting and cradling her sore arm, she went back to peer through the fence. Two youths went up the ladder, cut down the canister and quickly freed its chute. Both were wheeled away on the kart.
Kate looked for Marja. She found her uninjured but tearful. ‘Oh, Kate you’re hurt!’ Marja sobbed embracing her. ‘How could they rob us like that? It’s not fair!’
Kate said nothing. She was thinking of Lucy Santen’s warning.
The day’s events left the inmates of Tjandi angry, bitter and frightened. In the end, few of the dropped supplies were shared. Only the canister and chute that had landed on the infirmary balcony escaped plunder because Lucy Santen barred the infirmary door.
At sunset no-one had complained when Jenny Hagen ordered the camp gate locked. As darkness fell, the inmates gathered to sit in small groups, suddenly very conscious of how vulnerable they were.
Kate and Jenny were in the infirmary with Lucy Santen, who was re-examining Julia Stam’s wound. Lady Teresa van Gaal, a pinched-faced brunette, had arrived a few minutes later to escort Julia back to her room.
‘I’m not staying here one day longer!’ Julia declared self-righteously for Teresa’s benefit. At her insistence, Lucy had tied a full bandage around her head.
‘You’re quite right, Julia,’ Teresa replied. ‘W
e could all be raped and murdered in our beds! Where are the Americans,’ she demanded, ‘that’s what I want to know? Why was it a British plane?’
‘It’s safer if we stick together and wait in the camp,’ Jenny said knowing she was losing the argument.
Teresa was not impressed. ‘How dare those natives abuse us…after all we’ve suffered. They’ll regret it!’
Kate heard the venom in Teresa’s voice and shivered. She busied herself folding bandages.
‘But what,’ asked Lucy, ‘if the Americans recognise their independence? What happens then?’
‘Java is not the Philippines, Doctor,’ scoffed Teresa. ‘The Indies are Dutch and will remain Dutch. The Javanese couldn’t run a fête, never mind a country. I’ve never heard such rubbish. Sukarno will hang and that will be the end of it, believe me.’
‘I’m not so sure anymore,’ sighed Lucy. ‘It could be time for them to run things for themselves.’
Teresa’s stare was withering. ‘Well, well! To think we’ve had a Communist in our midst all this time.’
Lucy rolled her eyes dismissively. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Teresa! The world is changing. You know what’s planned for the Philippines, Burma and India. Perhaps you don’t want to see it.’
‘If you want to leave, I’m sure my husband will be able to find you a berth on the first ship back to Holland,’ Teresa said disdainfully. ‘You won’t mind travelling steerage will you?’
‘Oh, do stop bickering,’ snapped Jenny. ‘Things are bad enough as they are. There’s nothing to do but wait.’
‘Well, my mind is made up,’ said Teresa. ‘My duty is with my husband in the capital. I should think it obvious that general instructions to remain here do not apply to the Governor’s wife and daughter. I am going to pack.’
‘I am leaving, too,’ Julia asserted self-righteously. ‘I’ve had quite enough of Hotel Tjandi!’
Chapter Fourteen
Bloemstraat, Semarang
There was a subdued, nervous urgency in the offices of the Mitsubishi Trading Company. Half-a-dozen Japanese clerks were hunched over desk drawers and filing cabinets transferring files and ledgers to cardboard boxes. It was a Sunday, the business quarter was deserted, and the emergency removal operation was in full swing.
Akira Sato, the general manager, moved about the room constantly, encouraging his anxious staff to hurry. His instructions from Tokyo were short and clear: destroy all records of shipments of rubber, oil, plant machinery, rolling stock, precious metals and dozens of Rolls-Royce, Mercedes Benz, Bugatti and Alfa Romeo cars to Japan.
They were making very good progress and Sato was beginning to relax. One more hour was all that was needed, perhaps less.
Outside, cars belonging to more of his employees were shuttling the boxes to Mitsubishi’s warehouses where they were being incinerated. It would have been quicker if the local staff had been called in to help but Sato had been ordered to keep the plan from them.
A commotion outside made him turn. A group of bare-chested youths burst through the door. They were armed with staves, knives and clubs.
Sato confronted them. ‘This is private property,’ he said in Javanese. ‘There’s nothing here to interest you. You must leave at once!’
The youths glowered threateningly. One of them took a quick step forward and clubbed Sato on the temple. He staggered then fell.
When Sato regained consciousness he was sitting, squashed in with many others in a small, dank room. His ears were ringing. When he tried to move his arms he realised they were tied. His throat was parched and it was stifling hot. There was an odour of urine and faeces.
‘Sato-san, are you all right?’ He recognised the voice of his secretary, Ishihara.
‘Yes, I think so. My arms?’
‘We are all tied,’ said Ishihara quietly. ‘We are in Bulu Gaol. There must be two hundred of us. Upstairs there are some Dutch.’
‘How long was I out?’ Sato asked quickly. ‘And who took us?’
Ishihara shrugged. ‘About half an hour… The gang call themselves the Student Army. They say that we will be freed if the local garrison surrenders its arms and ammunition.’
Sato’s vision cleared and he was able to focus on the barred cell door. A low-wattage bulb illuminated some of the corridor. Opposite his cell was another, equally crammed. ‘What happened at the office?’
‘We were tied up at knife point and brought here.’ Ishihara explained miserably.
‘And the files?’
‘As we left them.’
‘Baka!’—Fool! The shout came from across the cell. ‘Here we are, our lives in danger and all you can think about is the bloody office!’
Sato squinted and recognised Nomura, a junior manager with the Nippon Yusen Shipping Company.
‘Be quiet you two. It’s bad enough in here already.’ Sato knew the voice only too well. It was Kazuo Watanabe, the Vice-Governor of Central Java. Sato despised him because Watanabe had issued an exclusive licence to his brother to open a pawn-broking chain. Weeks later the Japanese had ordered all valuables in Java, including gold, artworks and jewellery to be surrendered through brokerages to fund the war effort. Overnight Watanabe, his brother and a Japanese kenpei major called Nakamura had become immensely rich. A year ago, at a party attended by Watanabe, Sato had drunk a little too much and joked about the ‘Java Treasure’. For the next month kenpei officers had followed him openly every day.
‘Out! Out! Quickly!’
Sato felt strong hands haul him up and fling him into the corridor. He crashed into the stocky, balding Watanabe. They were led to a larger, unfurnished room past cells and corridors also full of Japanese civilians. There was more shouting as their captors began arguing among themselves. Sato caught the words ‘hostage’ and ‘guns’ from one side and ‘Thieves’ and ‘infidels’ from the other. With dismay he realised a different gang, armed with rifles and machine guns, was taking over.
More Japanese were crammed into the room. Sato saw two more of his employees, Omura and Nishi among them.
‘Silence!’
In the doorway was an older youth, wearing militia uniform trousers and brandishing a pistol. A Japanese army sword hung at his hip. His hair coiled down to his shoulders. ‘Black Buffaloes are in charge here!’ His eyes were wild. ‘All others leave now!’
Sato, Ishihara, Nishi and Omura exchanged anxious glances as the group of students that had seized them left looking sullen and dejected. More armed youths took their places. Their leader barked another order. ‘Bring in the women!’
A group of six, nervous-looking Javanese women of various ages, filed into the room.
The Black Buffalo leader raised his hands aloft. ‘Behold! These are the women of Java! You have robbed them, deceived them, and abused them! You are thieves, liars and infidel rapists! Today you will pay for your crimes in the sight of Allah the Merciful!’
Another youth came forward to interpret in simple but clear Japanese. Sato did not need it but most of the others did. He felt their and his own fear.
‘Start with him!’ The leader pointed at Watanabe.
Sato watched the Vice-Governor quail. The leader looked at the women. Timidly one came forward to stand in front of Watanabe. She held out a sheet of paper. Sato could see it was a receipt for pawned items.
The Buffalo leader spoke without emotion. ‘You took from this woman, in the name of Japan, two gold rings and a solid silver bracelet. They were the only items left to her by her mother. She would like them returned. Now!’
Watanabe gaped. ‘I—I don’t know where they are! They were sent to Japan….’
The interpreter began to speak but the leader silenced him with a quick wave of his hand. ‘Sharia law punishes theft with the loss of a hand. We have a variation, two rings, two hands.’
At his signal the youths holding Watanabe partly untied him then stepped away, pulling his arms out at his sides. The leader drew his sword then raised it over Watanabe’s outstretched arm.
The weapon slashed downwards, hacking off his right arm just under the elbow. Watanabe screamed, staring at the blood spraying from the stump. A second, wilder swing took off his left arm near the shoulder. Watanabe pitched forward across the stone floor, slipping in his own blood. His cries for help echoed down the corridors.
As he writhed one of the other youths stepped over him and drew a long, curved dagger quickly across his throat. Sato gagged as Watanabe breath rattled in his throat.
Expressionless, the woman went over to the dying man, bent down and dipped the receipt in his blood then walked out in silence. Horror and disbelief were etched in the faces of the Japanese captives.
Nonchalantly the leader consulted a list. He spoke calmly. ‘Hiroshi Ishihara.’
Alarmed, Sato saw his secretary seized. A slight figure pushed through from the back of the women, took off a headscarf and stared at Ishihara. She was about seventeen.
‘Reni!’ Ishihara gasped. ‘Why?’
As he was pulled to the centre of the room Ishihara pleaded in Javanese. ‘I have done nothing! She’s my wife. I’m a Muslim! Reni, please tell them!’
The leader raised his eyebrows feigning mock surprise. ‘A Muslim? Well, let’s see if you have been cut!’
Ropes were quickly strung over a beam. Two youths upended Ishihara, tying him by his ankles. He was left suspended, head brushing the floor, his arms still tied behind him. He continued to protest loudly that he was innocent. One of the youths drew a bayonet and sliced open Ishihara’s trousers and underwear.
Scorn showed on the Buffalo leader’s face. ‘Hah! You swore you were a Muslim as you took two pure Javanese girls as your wives.’ He glowered. ‘These women are their mothers. Liar! You are nothing but an infidel defiler of our women!’ He raised his sword. ‘Now I will circumcise you properly.’