Merdeka Rising

by Rory Marron

  Chrishaw looked at Sukarno. ‘Mr President, unless this ridiculous shooting stops there will be huge and needless loss of life that will stain Indonesia for years!’

  ‘You are right, General,’ Sukarno replied.

  Sombong ran back into the conference room. ‘The Royal Navy is shelling the town!’

  Chrishaw and Allenby, both still sitting with guns inches from their faces, laughed openly.

  ‘My dear General,’ said Chrishaw, ‘those were only mortars. They were fired because some of your men must have opened fire on my men, breaking the truce.’

  ‘Sombong!’ Sukarno snapped. ‘Sit down and negotiate!’

  Reluctantly he sat.

  ‘General,’ Chrishaw said quietly. ‘You have a very simple choice. Let us evacuate the internees without hindrance and leave Surabaya or face massive reprisals from the combined forces of the entire South-East Asia Command. I assure you the destruction of this town and your army would merely be the start. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘We are not afraid to die,’ Sombong declared theatrically.

  Sukarno stood up from the table in frustration. ‘Sombong, your selfish, stupid arrogance will cost us support all over the world. We need the United Nations, they will reject us—rightly—as a bunch of thugs who make war on women and children! What are you thinking? As President of the Republic of Indonesia I demand that you agree to the cease- fire. If not I will resign as president and blame you!’

  Sombong struggled with his rage, then nodded once. ‘Very well….’

  Mac watched the patched Dakota head down the airstrip to return Chrishaw and Sukarno to the capital. It climbed into the air unmolested.

  As Allenby was returning to the car, a loud explosion sounded in the east of the town. Black smoke swirled upwards against the blue sky.

  ‘Oh, Christ…’ Mac muttered.

  A radio operator came sprinting from the airfield control tower. ‘Brigadier, new signal from Captain Willot at the International Bank. He says D Company must return fire.’

  Allenby’s face was grim. ‘Tell him a cease-fire has been agreed. He must not fire unless his position is attacked. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ He ran over to explain what was happening to the officials who had escorted Sukarno, then rushed to the car with Knowles and Weston, two Mahratta captains, in tow. ‘The Indonesians have agreed to come with us to the Bank,’ Allenby explained to Mac. ‘Follow them!’

  The International Bank of Surabaya

  Shantaran Nambir watched in frustration as the man moved quite openly and unhurriedly across the rooftop to the shelter of a chimney-stack, carrying a rifle with a telescopic sight. Nambir’s head, wrapped in bloody bandages, throbbed painfully. He wondered if the gunman was the bastard in the clock tower who had shot off his ear the day before. ‘Sniper on the roof!’ His frustrated shout was almost a plea. The man was in his sights, the slack gone from his trigger.

  ‘Hold your fire!’ Captain Bruce Willot answered reluctantly, his voice grating. All around the square, he could see Javanese using the truce to take more advantageous positions.

  Several cars and carts had been brought forward to provide increased cover just yards from the bank. Now the square was filling with chanting pemuda who were edging ever closer. Willot’s defensive advantage was disappearing in front of his eyes.

  ‘Steady, Mahrattas!’ Willot said firmly, wondering just how long his men’s resolve could hold.

  Two cars entered the square at speed with horns blaring. The first was bedecked with Indonesian colours, the second a white flag. Two agitated Indonesians got out of the first car and began talking to the crowd. Eventually it parted and the cars drew up outside the bank.

  To Willot’s surprise Brigadier Allenby got out of the second car. Immediately there were angry shouts and the Javanese surged forward, coming between Allenby and the bank. Aggressive pemuda stood four deep, refusing to move out of his way.

  Immediately Willot and the Mahrattas swung their weapons to cover Allenby. After a few moments, Allenby gave up trying to enter the bank and held up his hands for quiet. He spoke to Willot from ten yards away. ‘Captain Willot, this morning President Sukarno and General Chrishaw agreed a cease-fire. The Indonesian representatives will now explain the agreement.’

  Willot lowered his revolver as Sukarno’s aides climbed on to the roof of their car and began to appeal to the turbulent crowd. The phrase ‘Bung Sukarno’—‘Citizen Sukarno’—was used repeatedly. After a fifteen-minute harangue the restless crowd finally quietened, then began to break up.

  Willot saw Havildar Shinde at his shoulder. He let out a long breath. ‘All in a day’s work, Hav.’

  Shinde was peering across the square. ‘Over there, Sahib,’ he said quietly, ‘near the bridge.’

  At the approach to the Red Bridge, several activists were attempting to stir up the crowd once more with chants. Movement out of the square halted. ‘Bloody hell!’ muttered Willot under his breath.

  Sukarno’s associates had also seen the danger and were already in their car and moving towards the bridge. Without hesitation Allenby climbed on the front of the La Salle holding a white flag and shouted to Mac. ‘Follow them!’

  Mac moved off slowly, admiring Allenby’s nerve but not sure if it was wise to move from the bank. Snarling faces pressed against his window but no-one touched Allenby. ‘Och, for fuck sake get back in!’ Mac muttered, trying to keep his eyes firmly to the front.

  Behind him, Knowles stated the obvious. ‘One wrong move and we’re gonners.’

  Mac and Weston did not reply.

  It took ten minutes to inch through the excited crowd. Shouts grew louder and fists hammered on the La Salle’s windows and roof. A door handle was knocked off and the rear lights smashed. Allenby did not flinch. He sat calmly, and untouched, feet braced on the bumper, under the truce flag.

  Mac’s knuckles gripped white on the steering wheel.

  When they reached the other car Allenby dismounted. Weston and Knowles got out to stand with their commander. Mac could see very little. He kept the engine running.

  Sukarno’s aides were being shouted down. Suddenly they looked nervous and unsure of themselves. Mac sensed that this time the ‘Bung Sukarno’ mantra was falling flat.

  A long-haired, bare-chested young man vaulted on to the roof of the station wagon. He unsheathed a Japanese sword and raised it above his head. There were more cheers.

  ‘Sarel!’—‘Let Bung Sarel speak!’

  Crestfallen, Sukarno’s aides gave way.

  Sarel, launched into an impassioned, vitriolic speech, pointing contemptuously at the three British officers. Shouts of ‘Merdeka!’ erupted every few seconds from the excited crowd. Swiftly the mood became ugly. The mob closed on Allenby and the two captains, gesticulating wildly. Hands grabbed at them.

  From the fourth floor of the bank Willot was watching Allenby through field glasses. Large numbers of armed pemuda were again gathering outside. Some were jostling with Mahrattas at the bank’s broken windows.

  ‘Captain!’ Nambir shouted. ‘LMG!’

  Willot looked down and saw a cart carrying a Nambu machine-gun being brought up against the bank’s veranda. Pemuda started climbing over the wall. When he saw Allenby being grabbed his patience snapped. ‘Open fire!’

  At the sound of shooting, the Javanese in the square scattered, many firing their own weapons in panic. The La Salle’s windscreen shattered. Mac ducked in his seat shielding his face with his arms. ‘Shite!’ he gulped.

  He heard the rear doors open and then slam shut as Allenby and Weston flung themselves between the seats. Knowles joined Mac in the front. A hail of shots holed the back and side windows, punching through the top of the front seats and into the dashboard just inches over their heads. Other bullets hit the front of the car.

  ‘Quiet!’ Allenby hissed. ‘Play dead!’

  They lay still. Seconds later they heard footsteps outside the car. A shadow fell across Mac’s face. He held his br
eath. The footsteps faded.

  Mayhem continued around them. Heavy fire from the bank was forcing the mob out of the square.

  ‘Thank God Willot opened fire when he did,’ Allenby said heavily.

  ‘MacDonald,’ Knowles asked urgently, ‘do you think you can start the car?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sir. I can smell oil. Maybe we took one in the sump. I can try…’

  ‘Wait until the next round of firing,’ Allenby replied. ‘It’ll hide the sound of the engine.’

  Mac was getting cramp in his calf. He was also desperate for a cigarette. ‘Anyone got a smoke?’

  Knowles found one in a battered packet. They shared it, passing it furtively under the car seats.

  ‘I hope the prefects don’t catch us!’ Allenby joked nervously.

  They laughed weakly.

  A burst of machine-gun fire swept the square. Quickly Mac reached up and pressed the ignition. The engine turned over several times but would not start.

  ‘Sorry, Sir,’ he whispered.

  ‘That’s that then,’ said Allenby. ‘We’ll get cut down crossing the square. It’ll have to be the river. Agreed?’

  There were mumbles of assent.

  ‘Right,’ said Allenby purposefully. ‘We’ll try for the Ferwerda bridge. It’s about three miles downstream. What weapons have we got?’

  ‘One grenade and my pistol, five rounds,’ Weston said.

  ‘Same here, Sir, five rounds,’ added Knowles.

  ‘MacDonald?’ Allenby asked.

  ‘My rifle, Sir, I’m sitting on it.’

  ‘Leave it! George, next bit of fireworks, throw the egg and let’s run for it. Jump off the bridge—Shhh!’

  ‘Brigadier Allenby?’ The voice was very close.

  They tensed. Cautiously, Allenby shifted and raised his head.

  Mac glimpsed a bare torso and long coils of black hair. He shouted, ‘Indo—!’

  Two shots drowned Mac’s warning. Blood splattered the inside of the car.

  Weston snapped off three quick shots as Knowles threw the grenade at pemuda behind a hoarding. It exploded with a sharp crack, followed by agonised screams.

  ‘Now!’ Weston yelled.

  Mac flung open his door, glancing at the back seat. Allenby lay still, a bullet hole in his forehead.

  They sprinted for the bridge followed by shouts and shots. Weston leapt feet first over the wall. Mac followed. It was a forty foot drop. Dark, cold, oily water engulfed him. He kicked furiously and came up gasping. Eyes stinging, he glimpsed Weston making for a row of boats moored along the far side of the river. Bullets splashed around them.

  Knowles surfaced behind him spitting. ‘Keep moving!’

  Mac launched into a frantic, flaying front crawl. Seconds later Weston grabbed for him, pulling him behind the stern of a fishing boat. Knowles took cover behind a nearby barge. Shots bounced off the concrete walls above them.

  Back in the square, black smoke swirled upwards from the now-burning La Salle.

  Surabaya Post Office

  Rane was finding it difficult to breathe in the heat, even by the shattered third-floor window. Above him the roof and top storey of the Post Office were ablaze. He knew that the creaking, smoking ceiling would soon collapse but he did not want to give up his vantage point until it was absolutely necessary.

  A familiar but unwelcome rattle of an air-cooled diesel engine drowned the sound of small arms fire. Rane took a quick look to confirm his suspicions then shouted down the stairwell to Jemadar Nimse. ‘Jem, T-95!’

  With dismay the Mahrattas watched as the tank rolled into view. Thick, black smoke billowed from its exhaust. A red and white nationalist emblem had been daubed on the turret, partly obscuring Japanese regimental markings.

  Rane fired two speculative shots at the driver’s observation slit. The bullets clanged off the steel. He grunted in frustration knowing that a bazooka or PIAT rocket, still in the hold of the supply ship, would easily penetrate the relatively thin armour.

  The T-95 came on, crushing the corpses in its path. Expectant chants began in the buildings across the street.

  Nimse considered their options. ‘Quick, grenades!’

  Two Mahrattas rushed to the entrance, unclipping grenades from their chest webbing. They threw slightly ahead of the tank, hoping to damage a track. Both grenades exploded without effect. The T-95’s short, stubby 37mm gun boomed. The building shook and masonry fell.

  ‘Everyone down!’ Nimse shouted urgently.

  Maruti Chavan darted back from a ground-floor window and joined the others taking cover behind overturned desks and tables. He heard the tank engine increase revs to mount the steps, then drop to an idle. The Mahrattas pressed themselves to the floor.

  Twin 7.7mm machine guns swept left then right in a thunderous roar punching deep holes in the brickwork and hammering out chunks of razor-sharp mortar. Around the lobby large, plate-glass counter-windows shattered into spinning, jagged shards.

  Chavan saw one comrade’s eyes glaze as a ricochet caught him in the back of his head. The man’s hands fell limply from the stock of his Bren gun. Seconds later another man wailed as a foot-long glass shard pierced his thigh. Swearing under his breath, Chavan began to crawl from desk to desk towards the Bren.

  Bullets flew above him but after a few seconds he realised he was below the guns’ lowest trajectory. He scurried to the Bren, slipped a bag of magazines over his shoulder and started for the entrance. A sudden burning in his right leg made him grunt. He looked down and saw a ricochet had ripped away a piece of his calf. Blood oozed from the wound.

  With one hand pulling the gun, he dragged himself along to an overturned desk nearest the doorway. Straining, he heaved the barrel of the Bren over the top of the desk. He was no more than twenty feet from the tank.

  ‘Let’s see how you like this!’ Chavan snarled, sending a constant stream of fire at the driver’s observation slit. Green paintwork around the narrow opening began to chip away. From within came a muffled scream. Suddenly the T-95 guns were silent. Seconds later it began a jerky, wild reverse.

  When the Bren clicked empty, Chavan slammed in another magazine and kept his finger on the trigger. Again he fired only at the slit. The tank had barely reached the bottom of the steps when it lurched to a halt. Seconds later the turret hatch flew open. Two militiamen clambered out, rolled off the back and fled across the street.

  Nimse dropped down beside Chavan and clapped him on the back. ‘Well done, Chav!’ He saw Chavan’s bloodied calf. ‘Let’s have a medic here! And finish that pile of scrap!’

  Another Mahratta darted to the lobby entrance and lobbed a grenade cleanly into the tank’s open hatch. A dull boom echoed inside.

  Spontaneously the exhausted defenders cheered. Enraged by the setback, the pemuda opened fire once again. There was no answering fire from the bank. The Mahrattas were saving their ammunition.

  A deafening drumming shook the building as the roof and third-floor ceiling collapsed. The extra weight was too much for the floors below. In turn they gave way. Jagged rafters punched through the ceiling, showering the Mahrattas in hot embers.

  Chavan stared at bowing ceiling. ‘Rane!’ he shouted hoarsely, breathing in ash. ‘Answer me, you selfish bastard!’

  ‘Quiet!’ Nimse ordered. ‘Listen!’

  They waited in silence. The building’s partial collapse had momentarily silenced the watching mob. Nimse let his head sag to his chest for a moment and closed his red, stinging eyes. Eight of his comrades had been on the second and third floors.

  Suddenly the stairwell door burst open and three Mahrattas stumbled into the lobby covered in ash and hawking. Rane was one of them. His beard, hair and uniform were singed.

  He saw Chavan’s bandaged leg. ‘Who are you calling selfish? Look at you getting all the attention!’

  Chavan and the other Mahrattas grinned, their teeth bright white amidst the grey-black coating of ash.

  Behind Rane, smoke was rolling down the stairs.
He pushed the door to and helped pull a desk across it. ‘At least this heat will keep the mosquitoes away!’

  Chavan sat on the floor, watching the white ceiling paint brown and blacken from the heat on the floor above. Minute by minute the temperature rose. Uniforms began to smoulder and so they stripped to their underpants. Body hair began to singe. ‘The bastards want us to fry in here!’ Chavan spat. With each breath hot air scorched his lungs.

  The nine survivors knew that finally they had run out of time.

  ‘Here, Chav,’ Nimse said resignedly, handing him five .303 rounds. He went from man to man giving out the last of the ammunition. When he finished, he addressed them all. ‘This is it,’ he croaked. ‘Who’d have thought we’d finish up in bloody Java! I am very proud to be a Mahratta—’

  A lookout raised his hand. ‘Hav, looks like they want to talk!’

  Nimse went to the doorway and saw a militia officer and a nervous-looking older man approaching under a flag of truce. He nodded to let them approach.

  From the doorway the older man spoke in halting English. ‘Indian soldiers, the building is on fire. It will collapse on you at any moment. Do you wish to die? You are surrounded. We give you a chance to surrender your weapons now and live.’

  ‘There will be no surrender,’ Nimse replied. Behind him he heard his men fixing bayonets.

  The two Javanese shrugged and walked away. As soon as they were back at the barricade the shooting restarted.

  ‘Two more tanks coming up the street! Militia closing in behind them!’

  One by one they fired their last rounds until only the Bren gun covering the main entrance was left, then it too clicked empty. ‘That’s it!’ Chavan mouthed, shaking his head. They waited for the final onslaught.

  Above them the burning joists snapped and half the ceiling gave way showering them with burning ash. Pungent smoke swirled around the lobby.

  One Mahratta sprang up gasping, his hair on fire his rifle braced at his hip. ‘Farewell, my friends!’ He rushed blindly out of the entrance uttering a war cry. ‘Bolshri chatrapati Shivaji Maharaja ki jai!’—Shout for Victory to Maharajah Shivaji! A ragged, 50-shot volley silenced him in mid stride.