The five men made the short voyage to shore without speaking, immersed in thought, their senses so dulled by fatigue that they were almost oblivious to the action around them. Only when they tied up did they realise that this was the moment when they were to separate as a group; it was time to say goodbye to Nicolaas and Dawi. The two men climbed aboard the prahu, still attached to the launch, and untied it. For a moment all five men looked at one another, then Johnny stuck out his hand to Nicolaas. ‘Good luck, old man. And thank you. We couldn’t have done it without you.’ Then he shook Dawi’s hand too, and repeated the sentiment. ‘We couldn’t have done it without you, my friend. Thank you.’
Dawi grasped Johnny’s hand with both of his and bowed until his brow and the hands met. He mumbled a Batak ‘thank you’.
He shook Len’s hand with equal warmth and gratitude. Then Jock and Dawi stood eye to eye and grasped each other in a quick embrace, before a Dutch soldier appeared at the top of the ladder exhorting them to hurry up. Len began the climb from the boat.
Johnny said goodbye to Glen Cant. ‘Might see you in Tjilatjap,’ he told him.
‘Yeah, righto. Good luck, mate.’
The two officers didn’t salute; they shook hands, then Johnny climbed up after his ratings to set foot on dry land again, while both the prahu and the launch headed off, in different directions. The three raised their hands in salute to the prahu, now just another native boat, and received two-handed waves in return.
★ ★ ★
Now Johnny explained to Len and Jock what he had learned from Glen Cant and Captain Hokke GN of the Sirius, and what he proposed to do. The two men listened carefully.
‘The Japs captured Palembang, probably about when we ran aground, and they control Sumatra. They are expected to land in Java at any time.’
‘They’re right up our arse,’ said Jock, stating a blunt truth.
‘You could put it that way, Jock. Yes. These ships in Merak are part of a fleet assembled to intercept them. Any remaining vessels of the British Auxiliary Fleet have been ordered to leave for Tjilatjap on the south coast. Hokke, the Dutch commander told me there’s talk of an evacuation from there.’
The three briefly pondered their prospects.
Jock flung his bag up onto a waiting lorry and climbed up after it.
‘Let’s not mess about, then. Come on, Lenny.’
Len didn’t need much encouragement. As long as he could feel the sun on his back, he was heading in the right direction. He handed up his little case, clambered up beside the Scotsman, and the two of them grabbed Johnny by the arms and hauled him up.
★ ★ ★
The DAF lorry whined in low gear along the narrow concrete paving, lurching over fractures and skirting around works, dodging bicycles and the foot traffic that swelled hour on hour as the impact of the Japanese attacks hit home on the local population. They travelled at a speed somewhere between high second and low third gear, and stopped frequently. Len found the lurching of the truck combined with the peculiar odours of the land particularly unpleasant, especially where an accident with a dead buffalo caused the road to narrow to one lane.
At the point where they crossed the road to Bantam and the coast, they were forced to stop once more, and so got out and stretched. They could hear the sound of bombing and see thick clouds of smoke rising from Tanjung Priok, Batavia’s port, sixty miles away, while behind them was similar evidence of the raid on Merak. When the driver sounded his horn, they scrambled back into the truck. It began to crawl along, and Len went back to his bundle and sat down. It beat rowing, he thought, but it wasn’t much faster.
Johnny was sharp enough that when Len and Jock began to unwrap a veritable feast of chicken parts, boiled eggs, cheese and sausage – gifts of the cook on the Sirius – he made them divide it up into rations enough to last them for the next couple of days. Given the climate, he allowed them to devour the chicken first; they did so with alacrity. Later, as the heat became intolerable under the canopy of the truck, Len tied back some of the canvas and enabled air to flow through. From the bottom of his bag he pulled out the revolver Johnny had given him. He took a rag from a pile covering the vehicle’s wheel jack, broke down the weapon and began to clean it. All three then spent some time slowly and methodically stripping down their revolvers, cleaning and reassembling them, a ritual of renewal, in a deeply meditative silence.
Eventually the three of them, senseless with fatigue, surrendered to the motion of the vehicle and fell into a deep slumber. In spite of the road surface, they managed to sleep for some time, before the sound of a rabble intruded on their rest. It disturbed Johnny first, who looked at his watch. It was after three in the afternoon. The other two stirred, sighing and groaning, having slept like the dead. Len stuck his head out from beneath the canvas. There was a shout, and he quickly brought it back in again.
‘What do you see, Len?’ asked Johnny.
‘I’d say we’re nearly there, sir. Batavia. There’s some sort of military road block, and the intersection is jammed. There are people trying to move in all directions. And there’s a car with a Dutch family in it, stuck in the middle. There are soldiers trying to sort it all out.’
After some interaction between the driver and the soldiers on the ground, they were able to inch their way through the mass and progress slowly against the flow and into the city.
★ ★ ★
The driver had instructions to deliver the sailors to the authorities in Kota, the old city, near the harbour. At about half past four, the lorry stopped in a rather elegant square of lime-washed buildings with orange tiled roofs and plane trees bounding the four sides. There, the three grabbed their things and hopped down, and the lorry drove off, leaving them standing on the pavement outside a Dutch colonial building that looked like the City Hall.
Inside, Johnny found the Operations Officer’s desk, and they were directed to a room on the third floor. As they ascended the marble staircase, they fought against a tide of people who were hastily descending, arms filled with cartons of files and documents, some of which floated loose, sailing out into the void to be caught by the fans and driven to the floor below. The air was filled with the sound of boots clattering on stairs or timber floors, and the occasional shouts of command and response, underscored by the sound of rapid typing.
Johnny led their way along a corridor to the office of the British Navy representative, in the rear of the block. When he stepped inside, he found a Royal Australian Navy Lieutenant busily sorting documents into cartons. Wisps of smoke rose from a rubbish bin by a desk, and the odour of burnt paper hung in the air.
The Lieutenant looked up, startled. Air-raid sirens began to wind up their eerie wail.
‘Jesus, mate, who are you? And where the hell have you been?’
Johnny said, ‘I’ve brought news of Admiral Spooner and the staff party from Singapore.’
The Lieutenant looked at his visitor’s Reserve stripes for a moment, then stuck his head through a door into the adjacent office. He didn’t seem to have noticed the ratings. Within a moment, a second officer appeared, a senior officer, who perfunctorily ran his eyes over the newcomers, seeming astonished by their heavily weathered and clearly stressed condition. He thrust out his hand. ‘John Collins, Commodore Batavia. Can I get you some water?’
Johnny knew Captain John Collins, Royal Australian Navy, Commodore China Force, was a man of some mana, a reputation built around his sinking of an Italian light cruiser in the Mediterranean. Collins reached for the water carafe now, and began to pour without waiting for Johnny to reply.
Johnny saluted. His ratings, suddenly conscious of their appearance, came to attention and also saluted.
‘Stand easy, gentlemen,’ Collins offered. ‘How can I help?’
‘Sub-Lieutenant Johnny Bull reporting, Royal New Zealand Navy Volunteer Reserve. Commanding ML310, late of Singapore, evacuating a party of thirty-three. Admiral Spooner senior officer on board. I can report the Admiral and others are alive, but I’m afraid the party is at serious risk. We’ve got to get help and organise their recovery, sir.’
The Commodore handed Johnny the glass. Jock and Len stood in the background, listening.
‘I’m sorry? Please. Sit down and repeat what you just told me.’
He indicated a chair. Johnny sat.
While the Commodore poured two more glasses and handed the water to Len and Jock, Johnny gave a brief outline of their experience since leaving Singapore.
Collins pointed to a typewriter. From the direction of the port, sirens heralded another raid.
‘I will need a written report. Make it short. I hope we’re not too late.’
Johnny typed while his interviewer helped to divide up the documents and carried on talking. The local anti-aircraft defences began to open fire. Len sat beside Jock on a bench against the wall, mutely observing the preparations to evacuate. The Commodore’s aide kept tearing pages out of folders and adding them to the rubbish bin.
‘You should know the order went out yesterday to relocate Naval command to Tjilatjap. We expect the Japs to land here at any moment. These air raids are clearly a prelude.’
The rumble of more bombing began. It sounded like the Japs were concentrating on something not very far away, and Johnny banged on, as fast as he could, one finger at a time. The defensive fire intensified.
‘And you might as well know this. I’ve just heard that the ABDA fleet made contact with the Japanese. I have ordered all vessels in my command to withdraw from the Java Sea.’
‘And my report, sir?’
‘I’ll make it my top priority, but our capacity is badly stretched, and I don’t know how quickly or easily anyone would be able to mount a search and rescue.’
‘But sir – excuse me for saying so – there is no search. Only rescue. We know where they are. My men and I, we’d like your permission to accompany the rescue party.’
‘With these men?’ Commodore Collins shook his head. ‘I appreciate your commitment, and your loyalty to your crew, but no. You will report along with other Naval units and extraneous personnel to Naval Command in Tjilatjap, where there are boats evacuating essential personnel.’
Looking at Len and Jock, he added, ‘You’ve all done enough. You’ve obviously had a hell of a time already, and you can’t do more. I will do what I can. Good luck, Commander.’
‘Excuse me, sir!’ Len interjected almost before he himself had realised it. Everybody looked at him. He held out Johnno’s small case. ‘What about these?’
The Commodore took the case. Placing it on a desk, he opened it and pulled out the bundle. He unwrapped it, and forty odd packets of notes fell out. It was immediately obvious that they had suffered considerable water damage. Most of the writing was illegible.
Len was stunned. He had considered the possibility, more than once given the weather they had endured, yet to see it left him devastated. He felt he had failed the men left behind, and he raged internally. Jesus Christ! He couldn’t believe it. He’d managed to keep his fucking cigarettes dry, hadn’t he?
The Commodore swept up the damaged mail and passed it to his aide.
‘See if there’s anything worth sending with the dispatch.’
He pushed the case back towards Len, handed a note to Johnny and held out his hand. Johnny stood up and shook it, then saluted as Commodore Collins left the room.
The note was a transport order. Nobody spoke as Johnny returned to the typewriter. He poked at the keys even faster, and finished his report in a few minutes. He stripped it out of the machine and handed it to the RAN Lieutenant.
‘We’d better go,’ he said to Len and Jock.
‘If you follow the river from the other side of the square towards the sea, you will come to some very large East India Company warehouses,’ the Lieutenant said. ‘They are being used as barracks for Dutch troops, and billets for other nationalities. If you go there, you will find transport. Everything is going east, to Bandung, so you shouldn’t have any trouble. We are in the process of relocating our Command Headquarters there.’
‘How far away is Tjilatjap?’
‘About 200 miles, I think. Bandung is about halfway. I’d offer you a ride, but the car is already crammed with material, and, if you have men with you, well … you have the chit, and it should take you all the way.’
He shook hands with Johnny. They headed back down the steps, with the human tide this time. Out in the square, Len had to shield his eyes against the sun. The noise of bombing at the port was disconcertingly close, but as veterans of the Singapore experience, the men could tell how far away the bombs were landing and they knew that if you couldn’t hear them, well, it was probably too late anyway. The three walked over to another side of the square and bought hot steaming glasses of jasmine tea from a vendor. They sat under a tree, enjoying its shade. They sipped bravely for several minutes, watching Military Police direct the tide of traffic sweeping in and out of the square, then they headed off in the direction of the barracks. The sound of bombing abated, and soon the sirens announced ceasefire.
★ ★ ★
If the seventeenth-century Dutch architecture or the distinctive ‘VOC’ acronym for the Dutch East Indies Company under the gable hadn’t distinguished the building, the flow of military vehicles most certainly did. All military traffic was heading into or out of the building, an enormous whitewashed entrepôt stretching along the canal-side, an impressive demonstration of Dutch commercial power that now served as a barracks. When the three sailors arrived at the guard post and presented their transport order, the Dutch soldier waved them in without even looking at the document, so preoccupied was he with the contents of a vehicle exiting. They entered the inner courtyard of the 300-year-old trading warehouse, into an area large enough for several teams of oxen to manoeuvre in at once. Now, instead of wagons laden with bales of rice, tea and coffee, the yard was filled with military vehicles and sections of armed men. A motorcycle messenger narrowly missed them as he sped off. The air was blue with exhaust fumes and the sound of idling vehicles. To the accompaniment of whistles and horns, several lorries laden with native troops of the Dutch East Indies Army trundled through the courtyard and away. The thump of explosions coming from the air raid on Tanjong Priok, now barely a mile away, reminded people why they were in a hurry.
The three sailors took stock. Small groups of military personnel stood around despite the hurry, everybody talking animatedly. Johnny, Jock and Len identified a wide variety of uniforms, much of their elements improvised. The only identifiable uniform they themselves had left were their caps. Apart from the native troops, there was a variety of nationalities here. There were Dutch soldiers and sailors, and large numbers of Royal Naval men, some of whom they recognised as survivors from Malaya and the many vessels now lying sunk off Sumatra. There were a number in slouch hats, some of the three-and-a-half thousand members of Blackforce, sent from Australia to help in the defence of Java. There were the ubiquitous British Tommys, anti-aircraftmen in oversized shorts, and, propped against the side of a jeep, a cigar in the corner of his mouth and a Browning service pistol on his hip, an unfamiliar but unmistakeable American. They learned later that the Americans here were men of the Texas National Guard, part of Blackforce under Australian Brigadier Blackburn’s command.
‘Over there, sir.’ Len pointed across the courtyard, where one of several signs showed a silhouette of a lorry.
‘Yes, come on,’ said Johnny, leading the way. ‘That looks like a good bet.’
They dodged across the courtyard and into the building opposite.
‘Stay with me, you two,’ Johnny said. ‘If we want three passes, there will need to be three of us.’
There was a certain amount of discussion between Johnny and the officer dispensing passes. Johnny had at first been issued with a priority pass for himself, being of commissioned rank. He left in the end with three, and they emerged from the building with clear instructions.
‘Johnny Bull!’
They looked around.
‘Johnny!’
A figure emerged from the melee. They all recognised the Kiwi commander of HDML1063.
‘My God,’ Johnny greeted him. ‘Innes! You made it!’
‘You too.’ Innes looked at his compatriots. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
‘It’s a long story. Where are you going?’
‘The boat’s at Tanjung Priok. We’ve been told to evacuate ahead of any Jap landings.’
‘I know. We’ve been told to make our way to Tjilatjap by road.’
Innes echoed the Commodore’s advice.
‘That’s where we’re headed, but listen, mate, you’re better off going by road at this stage. Nobody knows where the Japs are, and we have to negotiate the Sunda Strait yet. We’ll see you in Tjilatjap. I have to go.’
Off he went.
The men scanned the yard and identified their marshalling point as ‘British Military, Army and Navy’. There they joined a group of mostly British seamen, but there were Australians too, soldiers and sailors of various ranks milling about in a semi-agitated state. The tenor of the conversation seemed to be about the allocation of resources, how long certain individuals had been waiting, and how much traffic had departed without any of them being included. Johnny deduced that someone somewhere was trying to organise transport for the whole body, but that they would be moved according to priorities. For Reservists that did not augur well.
‘Bugger that,’ declared Jock, as the three discussed their options. ‘I say we find our own transport and make our own way to … whatever that damned place is called.’
Johnny looked at Len, who stood waiting for instructions. If anything, he too was for continuing.
‘Well, we won’t get away before most of these people,’ Johnny said. ‘They’ve been here longer, and are regular Navy. Let’s see what we can do for ourselves meantime.’
Len thought about the Singapore dollars still stuffed into his pockets. ‘We could hire a vehicle.’
‘Now there’s an idea, Lenny,’ Jock said.
They debated the option some more, but finally decided they had to put their trust in the hands of others. Johnny spoke to one of the Military Police and was told a likely departure time for any available transport was several hours away. With that in mind, the three were directed to an adjacent barracks, where they found stretcher beds and mattresses. They flung themselves down and, as the evening began to give way to night, descended rapidly into another deep, exhausted sleep.
★ ★ ★
The following morning, while they and others among the waiting men were lined up for an issue of tea and bread, a car arrived and took Johnny away to the Commodore’s office. It happened so fast they barely had time to arrange to meet later.
‘Don’t leave town without me, gentlemen,’ Johnny told them. ‘I’ll be back.’
‘And that was the last they saw of him,’ intoned Jock, in his best impersonation of Orson Welles, as they watched Johnny’s car follow a lorry out the barracks’ gate.
‘Let’s hope not.’
For most of that day, they felt idle. The constant stream of men into the barracks somehow seemed to exceed the transport’s capacity to take them away. They queued endlessly – for meals, for the latrines, for news or any sign of movement – and they got nowhere. Across the city the bombing continued, and more than once they had to dive for cover to avoid attracting the attention of marauding enemy aircraft. It wasn’t until the end of the day that the sailors were told they would be put on transport the following day, and stood down.
By evening they were both anxious for Johnny to return. Neither Len nor Jock welcomed the idea that they would be forced to carry on without him. Tacitly avoiding the subject, they were talking instead about the route across Java that would take them to Tjilatjap, when he reappeared: a car had dropped him off outside the mess. The three took tins of steaming coffee back to their barracks, where they sat and talked. At first Johnny baulked at their entreaties for him to tell his story, but they convinced him that, even if they were captured, nobody would suspect the two sailors of being privy to any military secrets.
‘They flew me to Surabaya, to brief the Americans on the Admiral and the situation with the crew,’ Johnny told them. ‘It wasn’t easy. There’s a lot going on. They’re going to try and send a sub.’
‘I hope they make it in time,’ said Jock.
‘Well … there’s more.’ Johnny looked at his two companions intently, certain that what he was about to tell them would not demoralise them, now that he knew them well.
‘The ABDA fleet’s been destroyed, and the Admiral is dead. It was a disaster.’
He went on.
‘Both Dutch cruisers have been sunk. Houston and Perth may have escaped, but the destroyer escorts have been sunk or have scattered. Exeter is damaged and heading to the Sunda Strait under escort.’
‘Good luck to her,’ muttered Len.
Exeter had special meaning to the Kiwis. Together with Ajax and the New Zealand light cruiser Achilles, she had brought about the destruction of the German pocket battleship Graf Spee in the first Naval action of the war.
For a while they talked, discussing the timetable that would be needed to effect a rescue of the men they had left behind, and the likelihood of success. Eventually, they sat in silence.
‘The Commodore has ordered everybody to be out of Batavia by midday tomorrow,’ Johnny said. ‘Judging from what I saw coming in just now, there don’t seem to be too many men left to move anyway.’
After a bowl of chicken soup, garnished with a couple of slivers of bamboo shoot and some grains of rice, they stretched out again on the mattresses and fell into a gloriously deep sleep for a second night. All around them lay scattered piles of personal effects, uniform items and even weapons: evidence of the haste with which people had departed.
★ ★ ★
Len was the first to waken. It was the silence that had disturbed him, as surely as a loud noise would have. No engine noise, no voices. He shook Johnny. ‘Wake up, sir. There’s something going on.’ Then he shook Jock awake too. It took a while. The three sat up, listening. From the direction of Bantam Bay came the sound of heavy artillery. The invasion had begun. The Japanese were landing. It was midnight on 28 February.
‘Jesus. There’s something going on all right,’ Johnny said. ‘Get up. Quickly.’
They grabbed their meagre possessions – Len’s little case, the food and their bundled clothing – and raced downstairs, where they found the barracks virtually deserted: it appeared that, while they had been sleeping, most of the others had gone. The place was now in darkness, and the electricity was apparently no longer functioning. Instead, a huge pile of furniture and documents blazed in the middle of the courtyard, the illuminations and the shadows dancing in grotesque harmony on the surrounding walls. Individuals dashed fleetingly through the smoke. Several vehicles stood with their doors flung open, apparently abandoned. A man came out of the shadows. He threw something into the back of one of the cars, then climbed in and started the engine. In an instant, Jock leapt out and ran up behind the vehicle, holding his revolver out in front of him. He flung open the passenger door and climbed in beside the startled driver. In a moment he was waving to Johnny and Len, who needed no encouragement, and ran to the car.
‘Get in,’ Jock said. ‘We may have solved our transport problem.’ To the driver, he waved his gun and said, ‘Get going, laddie. We’re not planning to stay here, are we?’
The driver laughed and, after a cursory glance at his new passengers, graunched the vehicle into gear and headed out of the now unguarded gate. He wore the uniform of a regular Dutch Army Captain. Len caught him trying to focus on Johnny’s uniform rank and insignia in the gloom out of the corner of his eye.
Johnny, in turn, tried to get the measure of their benefactor. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Lieutenant Johnny Bull, Royal New Zealand Navy Volunteer Reserve.’
The Dutchman crashed another gear and looked squarely at Johnny. ‘Nieuw Zeeland? Zeeland is where I am from! Ha, ha.’
They sped through empty and ill-lit streets where acronyms such as BTI, PNI or PKI and other slogans could be seen freshly daubed on walls. Johnny asked, ‘What’s the stuff on the walls, my friend? Signals to the Japanese?’
‘Ja, ja. Signals, all right. PKI are Communists. PNI are Nationalists. BTI is a front for the peasants. Plenty of people can’t wait to welcome the Japanese.’
Within an hour they had caught up with the tail end of the evacuation and the convoy that had abandoned them. They had come up against two streams of traffic: one vehicular and largely military, and the other a stream of refugees on foot. Hundreds of people had no choice but to walk – clerks, shopkeepers, maids, houseboys, nannies – pushing handcarts or dragging rickshaws, all piled with life’s necessities, which included chickens in cages and the odd child. The people’s clothes, the landscape and the clouds and the gorgeous light they reflected suggested a gaiety that Len found incongruous and discomforting. The Dutch colonials themselves drove, as did some of the wealthier Javanese merchants, their cars interspersed with requisitioned buses and trucks filled with men and material. As the road took a long right-hand turn and the traffic stretched out in front of them, they could see in the distance not just the lorries but the Royal Navy uniforms of the men with whom they had been scheduled to travel. Len and Jock did not want to draw attention to their own happy situation, and sat well back in their seats. Both columns were moving at the same pedestrian pace.
Eventually the foot traffic fell behind, and they were able to make better progress. They came into increasingly hilly and mountainous country, and the road began to pass through vast paddies where the hillsides had been landscaped into the complex irrigated terracing necessary to grow rice. Water lay where paddies had been harvested, reflecting the sky above, as if a hole had been torn in the landscape.
With Johnny’s consent Jock broke out the last of the rations, and they shared it with their driver. As they ate he spoke. ‘You. Nieuw Zeelander. What are you doing here in Asia at all?’
Since the other two were chewing and had their mouths full, Jock offered an explanation. ‘Len’s a New Zealander too. They came to help me.’
‘Ha, ha, ha.’ The Dutchman was genuine. He caught the Scotsman’s eye in the rear vision mirror.
‘You’re Scottish? Some Nieuw Zeelanders helping a Scotsman and the English stop Japanese from occupying a Dutch country somewhere in the crazy East? Hello?’ He shook his head. ‘You know, we Dutch have been pillaging the East Indies and their people for over 300 years, and we wonder why they hate us.’ He crashed a gear. ‘Staying here is madness. We’ve had our chance. Now, it’s their turn.’
‘You think this is the end of Dutch control here?’ Jock asked him.
‘Isn’t it the end of British control in Malaya? Here, I’m not sure we ever had “control”. Ninety percent of the East Indies Army are native units, and they will not support us. Most of them are looking forward to the Japanese as liberators. Ha, ha, ha!’ He reached into the door adjacent to his seat and pulled out a bottle of what looked like water. Taking a long draught, he handed it to Johnny, who smelled it before taking a tentative draught himself and handing it back to Jock. It was gin, a good over-proof Dutch genever, and it set their stomachs on fire. Len wiped the alcohol from his stinging lips, and settled a little further into his seat.
‘The two regiments – mine included – which were defending Batavia have been ordered to fall back around Bandung, and regroup in support of Southern Command. But I will tell you, it is simple. We do not have the numbers. We will put up a fight, for the sake of our reputation or some such … bullshit! But in the end, against the Japanese we will lose. It’s only a matter of time. Hello.’
Len began to realise that Java and its people offered them no security. The car bounced on over the joins in the concrete road. There was something smoking ahead.
‘I’m sorry we are unable to help,’ said Johnny, graciously.
‘Ha, ha! I don’t blame you, my friend.’ He slapped Johnny on the knee. ‘If I had a choice I would sail to Australia or Nieuw Zeeland too. And buy a farm; why not? But – ha, ha – I think instead I will end up rotting here dead in the jungle.’
His gin-fuelled melancholy was unsettling, but they were distracted from the conversation by the lorries in front, and soon they were forced to thread their way through a group of vehicles that had been attacked by Japanese aircraft earlier in the morning. Several native Military Police were waving them on vigorously and, by the roadside, medics still attended wounded and dying. A cluster of covered corpses lay to one side. The enemy had evidently been in control of the air. Once more they would have to keep their eyes open and their wits about them.
By late afternoon they had made good progress. They were nearing Bandung and knew their benefactor was going no further. Tjilatjap was still the same distance to travel again, but none of them had any doubt that they would engineer a ride, and they still had the Commodore’s transport order. There was no shortage of traffic heading the right way, and virtually all of it was military.
As they reached what looked like the outskirts of Bandung, they came to a roadblock and had to wait as the lorries in front of them were stopped, their identities checked and their interiors inspected, before they were waved on. The fact that they were a small car attracted the native soldiers, and the Dutch officer in charge waved them to the roadside.
Their driver got out and got into a fierce conversation with his fellow officer. To the surprise of the anxious sailors, the two Dutchmen burst into laughter, before their driver returned to address them. ‘Here we go again, ja? I am instructed to rejoin my unit at a base higher in the mountains. It’s not so far. We are supposed to wait there for further instructions: basically on how to surrender, I think. Ha, ha.’
The three reached for their belongings and made as if to get out of the car.
‘Ah, no, no no,’ their Dutch friend exhorted. ‘No, no. I will take you to the station. My friend tells me they are loading a troop train for Tjilatjap. You will be fine. Lekke, eh?’
‘Lekke?’ responded Johnny. ‘Good? Yes!’
‘Carpe diem,’ added Jock. ‘My mother taught me that.’
The engine started. Johnny looked anxiously back at the Dutchman, who burst out laughing again and grabbed his genever from the pocket in the car door. With a wave of his arm, the officer at the roadblock let them pass.
‘Time to go,’ the driver called gaily, driving off in the direction that his fellow Dutchman had indicated.
★ ★ ★
In the end, they didn’t get much closer to the station before the vehicle was stopped again. After a final round of genever and much back-slapping, they parted company with their saviour, who drove off with the road transport heading for the interior and the mountains, where the Dutch military command had relocated. The three sailors found their own way for the last mile, joining a stream of evacuees dressed in the uniforms of various Allied units, heading for the station. By the time they got there, they were drenched in sweat and hungry. Nationalist PNI signs decorated the walls. The station was loosely channelled turmoil, yet Johnny somehow found his way through the melee to seek out the train’s controller and present the ABDA transport order. The freshly printed document from the freshly minted authority impressed the man; the Commodore’s signature secured all three of them seats together in a second-class carriage.
As they made their way towards their platform, they agreed to separate and scrounge some food, paid for with some of Len’s dollars. When they met again they had bananas, skewers of chicken and packages of boiled rice, each neatly wrapped in banana leaf, purchased from vendors who had been doing good business with the busy traffic. They forced their way through the crowd to reach their carriage, squeezing past soldiers in the corridor to reach their seats, but found others already sitting there. Two were young midshipmen of the Royal Navy, survivors of HMS Jupiter, and the other an odd character, a Javanese in a uniform of the Dutch military but devoid of rank. With a bit of negotiation and the enticement of shared food, they found themselves seated, gnawing at chicken or shovelling a wad of rice into their mouths by hand: as they had seen the locals do, but without the skill.
They had only been seated for a few moments when the train gave a sudden movement, accompanied by the crash and jangle of carriages taking up the tension, and the whole lot started to move. Graunching and squealing, and slowly at first, the train gained momentum, though it took some time before they reached any sort of speed. The smell of the coal smoke took Len straight back to England. For a while all six men, squeezed into four seats, sat in silence and gazed out the window. Glistening paddies stretched across the valley floor, the shoots of the new season’s rice harvest beginning to poke through the water.
Johnny broke the silence first. ‘When did you leave Singapore?’ he asked of the other young Naval officers.
‘The 11th of February. On the last convoy.’
‘Not quite,’ said Jock.
‘What do you think we’ll find in Tjilatjap, sir?’ continued the young officer.
Len thought it a silly question as soon as it had been asked. Who could tell? It was another evacuation. Anything could happen: something Johnny confirmed now.
‘I’ve no idea, but we’ll have to stay sharp if we don’t want to be left behind.’
The silence returned. All but the Dutch soldier sat considering their Singapore experience.
★ ★ ★
The lurching of the train woke Len to a spice-laden smell: smoke from the Javanese’s kretek. The local cigarettes were made of a delicious blend of tobacco and clove that Len found particularly seductive, as he no longer had any cigarettes himself.
A hand reached across the gloom and offered the packet. A match followed. Len drew deeply of the sweet-flavoured smoke, and listened as the tobacco within crackled peculiarly. He tasted sweetness again on his lips, and nodded towards his benefactor in gratitude. He handed back the packet.
‘No, no. Keep them. I have more.’ The Javanese held up his hand in refusal.
‘Good on you, mate. I appreciate it. You speak good English.’
‘I went to a missionary school. I chose English over German.’
As Len smoked, he tried to capture some of the detail of his companion in the poor light. ‘What happened?’ he asked, gesturing at the man’s clothes. ‘A uniform without insignia?’
The Javanese gave no indication he had heard, so Len let the question sit. They finished their cigarettes.
‘I am, or have been, a member of the Dutch East Indies Army,’ the man said. ‘A captain of infantry in the KNIL. They offered us the chance to go home to our families. It came at a cost.’
Now Johnny spoke – he must have been listening.
‘Sorry. You say you were reduced to the ranks? Dismissed?’
‘Yes.’
The Javanese lit another kretek.
‘When I took the chance to go home and protect my family, I was paraded, stripped of my rank and discharged for dishonouring the company. It was a trick, to deter others, prove native leadership as unreliable and strengthen Dutch control. In front of my men they made me nothing again.’
The man was staring out the train window into the darkness as he said it, looking backwards or forwards; it was difficult to be sure. Len thought of Nicolaas and his ambivalence about the end of Dutch rule. He began to appreciate the depth of feeling that might exist in the native population, and wonder if Haami Parata might ever find himself in such circumstances.
The train rattled on, lurching where every rail was joined and squealing around corners. It slowed as it began what turned out to be a long incline during which the line appeared to be travelling across the face of steep country. Occasionally, in the distance through the dark and the foliage, Len thought he could see headlights: the dull lights of blacked-out vehicles wending their way across the mountainside on the other side of the valley. It stood to reason that the motorised column they had left at Bandung was continuing to Tjilatjap.
‘How did you get on the train?’ Johnny asked the man.
‘I have PNI friends in the railway.’
‘And Tjilatjap?’
‘My family live near Tjilatjap.’ The Javanese shifted his posture and leaned in closer. ‘My question is, who are you? You are Royal Navy? British?’
Johnny produced his transport pass and handed it over. ‘Royal New Zealand Navy. Kiwis!’
‘Ah, Kiwis. Nieuw Zeeland, yes?’
‘And a Scot!’ Jock was now awake.
‘What are you doing here, Kiwis?’
The kreteks were passed around and the conversation carried on. They all listened quietly when the Javanese talked more about his recent experience.
‘If I was Ambonese or Moluccan, for example – Christian – my experience would have been different. But I am Javanese and a Muslim.’ He paused.
‘So?’
‘So, Javanese are oxen, while Ambonese and Moluccans ride in the cart. They get the privileges while we remain in harness.’
Len watched the man keenly. He was angry, his thoughts bringing him to silence for a moment.
‘You are lucky,’ he said, ‘that I am not Japanese, and you are not Dutch.’
Johnny seized the moment. ‘Where are the Japanese, and where are the Dutch?’
‘The Japanese have landed west of Batavia, at Bantam Bay, where my company was fighting yesterday. They have also landed in the east, somewhere near Surabaya. Their aircraft attacked this road today, so they must have captured airfields. The Dutch are fleeing into their holes.’
‘How do you know this? There are no reports of Japanese activity to the south?’
‘My friends at the railway station told me. And no. Tjilatjap was still an open port when we left Bandung.’
They sat in silence, drawing thoughtfully on their kreteks and letting the smoke slowly escape from their lips. It filled the carriage before being sucked out the open window. When the cigarette fell from the grasp of their Javanese friend and hit the floor in a shower of sparks, it became evident that he had fallen asleep. Len reached out with his foot and ground the butt under his foot, before hitching up the collar of his tunic and folding his arms across his chest.
The whole thing was again a matter of time, set to the constant beat of the wheels over the tracks – ta-tum ta-tum, ta-tum ta-tum, ta-tum ta-tum. He looked across to the two Englishmen, sleeping resolutely through everything. Closing his eyes, he willed himself to sleep.
As the train breasted the summit of the line and began its descent, the carriages changed their attitude with much banging and lurching. The English sailors hardly stirred. The first flicker of daylight reflected on the underside of clouds across the horizon. Then they left the tree-line of the jungle and, as they began to meander down out of the mountains, the landscape transformed once more, back into terracing again. The glimmer of the new dawn spread across the water in the paddy fields, while below they could see the tail lights of a convoy wending its way down off the mountain and across the plain towards the coast. It was fifty more miles to their last chance for freedom.