by Isabel Wolff
Perhaps to distract us from our worries about the war, my parents indulged Peter and me. When we returned to the plantation, Peter announced that he wanted a rabbit; so my parents got him a pale brown and white one with long lop ears and a coat like swansdown. Peter called it Ferdi, and my father built a big hutch, and made a wire run on the lawn for it, with a coconut shell for water, and a section of split bamboo ‘roof’ to give it shade.
More happiness was in store when, one morning, my mother asked me to go onto the verandah to fetch her book. As I opened the front door, I stopped. Standing in the middle of our lawn was Jasmine, holding the reins of a small white pony.
I stared at it, my heart racing, scarcely daring to hope. ‘Whose is it?’
Jasmine laughed. ‘Yours!’
‘Mine?’ With a cry of joy I ran up to it.
I’d wanted a pony for so long. I’d count the croaks of the tokeh and each time I heard seven I’d squeeze my eyes shut and wish for one. Now my wish had come true.
‘Is he really mine?’ I asked my mother, still unable to believe it.
‘He really is.’ She crossed the lawn towards us. ‘He’s called Sweetie.’
I stroked Sweetie’s velvety muzzle, and felt his warm breath on my hands. ‘But where did you get him?’
‘We bought him from the Bosmans, tea planters near Solo. He belonged to their daughter, Lara.’
‘Doesn’t she want him?’
‘She does,’ my mother replied, ‘but they’re going back to South Africa and can’t take him with them. We heard that they were looking for a good home for him, so Daddy went to see him last week. He promised Lara that you’d take great care of him.’
I flung my arms round Sweetie’s neck. ‘I will.’ I ran to my mother and kissed her. ‘Thank you!’
At first, Jasmine would lead Sweetie round the garden, while Flora or I sat on his back making clicking noises; then Susan, who’d done some riding in England, showed us how to make him walk on, turn to the left or right, and trot. She used to come with us on rides into the rubber forest, though somehow we’d always end up wherever Arif was working. He and Susan would sit next to each other on the ground, chatting quietly in Malay, their heads and hands almost touching, while Flora and I kept a lookout for Wil.
And so, despite all the trouble that was in the world, I remember the summer of 1940 as a very happy time.
My parents tried to stop Peter and me listening to the radio, but it was on so much that we couldn’t help but hear what was happening in Europe. The main news was that the Germans were using Holland as a base from which to attack Britain. The British were fighting back, though no one seemed to think they could win. But they had a new plane, the Spitfire, which everyone was excited about. We all listened to a broadcast by the Dutch Prince Bernhard, in which he said that the RAF needed hundreds more of these wonderful planes. He talked about the Spitfire Fund and asked the Dutch in the Indies to contribute whatever they could to this important cause. He appealed for money and, just as importantly, aluminium.
I remember my mother and Jasmine taking saucepans and cake tins from the shelves in the gudang, and I used to collect up our used toothpaste tubes. My father raided his tool shed for nuts and bolts and old paint tins. The Jochens even donated their aluminium kitchen table – I remember it being carried onto their lawn where it got hot in the sun. All these things were packed up and sent to the docks at Batavia to be shipped to England.
There were Spitfire Fund parties at the Rotary Club in Garut, our nearest town. For one of these gatherings, my father made a huge plywood caricature of Hitler’s face, which Susan painted, and Flora, Peter and I varnished. People queued up to throw coins into its horrible, shouting mouth, and I was thrilled to think of all that money going to the fund.
Even with this activity, we felt removed from the conflict. So I was shocked one day to hear a classmate, Corrie van der Velden, tell our teacher, Miss Vries, that there was going to be a war with Japan.
‘What makes you think that?’ Miss Vries responded calmly. As she began to wipe the blackboard her engagement ring sparkled. She’d told us that she was getting married in the spring.
‘My father says it’s going to happen,’ Corrie answered, ‘and he’s a major. He says that the Japs will come here and fight us and that it’s going to be terrible. I overheard him telling my mother, and she got very upset.’
Miss Vries put the blackboard wiper down. ‘I really can’t imagine that that’s going to happen, Corrie, so let’s have no more talk of it. Now … would you all get out your maths books?’ After school I tearfully asked my mother if the Japanese really were going to invade Java.
‘Of course they’re not,’ she answered. ‘I suspect Corrie’s only saying that because she thinks it makes her seem important. What do you think, Flora?’
Flora looked up from her book. ‘I agree. Just because her dad’s in the army. I’m not taking any notice of it.’
‘Nor should you, Klara,’ my mother told me. ‘The only thing you’re to worry about is your school work.’
But the idea of the Japanese fighting us wouldn’t go away. During the summer holiday I heard my father and Wil arguing about it one evening as they sat on our verandah.
‘It’s a ludicrous notion,’ Wil declared.
My father lowered his beer. ‘Why – given that the Japanese have already invaded Manchuria, Korea, Formosa, and most of eastern China?’
‘All right, but they’d never dare attack us in those planes of theirs – they’re just tin cans! I tell you, Hans, it’s not going to happen.’
Even when the Dutch government asked plantation managers to start a Landwacht, or home guard, to train units of local men for guerrilla warfare, Wil scoffed. But my father took it seriously. He formed a platoon.
He chose twenty of our best plantation workers, including Suliman and Arif, and drilled them on our drive, using rifles that the Dutch government had provided. Peter, Flora and I used to like watching the ‘cadets’ being put through their paces. Susan would join us and pretend to be chatting to my mother, though she’d shoot glances at Arif as he marched up and down. I can still remember the commands that used to ring across our garden:
‘Schouder geweer! Pre-sent arms! Links, rechts! Links, rechts!’
But the months went by and to everyone’s relief our small army didn’t seem to be needed.
Early in December 1941, Flora, Susan and I were at school. It was almost the end of term, and we were looking forward to our Christmas concert. But at Assembly one morning the headmistress, Miss Broek, announced, with a grim expression, that the holiday would begin that very day.
‘The reason,’ she told us, ‘is that yesterday Japanese planes attacked the US Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor, sinking eight of their ships. America is now at war with Japan.’
As a gasp rippled through the hall, Miss Broek added that the Netherlands, as a close ally of the United States, had declared war against Japan too.
‘So we must all pray that the brave Dutch soldiers will protect us,’ Miss Broek went on. ‘Please bow your heads.’
Prayers were said – I heard stifled sobs; then we all filed out and collected our bags.
As Flora, Susan and I walked down the school’s front steps, I saw Corrie being met by her mother, a blonde Australian woman who was always smiling. Normally petite, she was hugely pregnant, with twins, Corrie had told us.
I went up to Corrie. ‘So you were right.’
‘Well, not me – my papa.’ She flashed a rueful smile. ‘It’s scary, isn’t it?’
I nodded. ‘Very.’
‘Oh, it’ll be fine girls,’ Mrs van der Velden said. ‘It just means you’ll have a bit longer for Christmas. Enjoy it, though, because I’m sure you’ll be back in class soon enough!’
The next day, as we decorated the house for Christmas, I put on the radio and heard that the Japanese had attacked the Philippines. A few days later the announcer told us that Japanese pilots had made strikes on
Singapore and Borneo. Then, as we sat down to lunch on Christmas Day, we heard that the Japanese had captured Hong Kong.
‘Surely they’ll stop there!’ my mother cried. Her face had grown pale and I was suddenly frightened. The war seemed horribly close.
‘No,’ my father said grimly. ‘They’ll come here, because they want oil, and this is where the oil is.’
Now every adult conversation was about the war. On the radio and in the newspapers, citizens were advised how to prepare for it, where to hide in case of air attacks, what to pack if your home had to be evacuated.
‘Where should we hide if the Japs attack?’ I asked Flora anxiously. ‘Under the verandah?’
Flora thought for a moment. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Because of the snakes.’
‘That’s true. Maybe our dads will build an air-raid shelter,’ I suggested. ‘Let’s ask them to do that.’
The next day Flora came to me, her eyes red with weeping. Her father wouldn’t be making an air-raid shelter, she told me.
I was horrified. ‘Why not?’
Flora’s eyes shone with sudden tears. ‘Because we’re leaving Java.’
It was as though I’d been pushed off a cliff. Then I heard approaching voices and saw Wil, with my father. I ran to them.
‘Mr Jochen …’ I was so upset that I could hardly get out the words. ‘Is it true, Mr Jochen? That you’re leaving Java?’
He nodded. ‘We are. I’ve just been discussing it with your dad. As my wife and the girls have British passports, I’ve decided that we’ll get a boat to Singapore and stay there until the hostilities are over.’
‘But …’ I felt a wave of dismay. I was losing my best friend.
‘What if the Japs take Singapore?’ my father asked Wil.
Wil laughed, then slapped Dad on the back. ‘My dear Hans, Singapore is invincible!’
The day before the Jochens left, I went to their house. I could see that Susan had been crying, largely because of having to leave Arif, I suspected, and I had to swallow my own tears as I watched Flora pack. I helped her choose the clothes that she was to take, and her mother said that she could bring one or two toys so she packed her favourite dolls: Lottie, a china doll with brown ringlets, and Lucie, a rag doll with big button eyes. Flora also had a brass lizard that she treasured. It had delicate hands, a wonderfully sinuous tail and green agates for its eyes. I’d always coveted it and hoped, with the selfishness of a child, that Flora might leave it behind for me to look after. But to my disappointment, she put that in her case too.
The next day the Jochens drove away. My father was angry that Wil had decided to leave; it would hugely increase his own workload; he would now have to be the plantation administrator as well as the manager. I heard him tell my mother that he thought Wil Jochen a fool to put his family at such risk, given that the sea was full of Jap submarines. But my mother, Peter and I saw them all off with hugs and smiles, and promises to write. I watched Flora waving to me through the rear window until the very last moment. Then, as their car disappeared from view, I burst into tears.
My mother put her arm round me. ‘Don’t be upset,’ she said, though she was almost crying herself. ‘Two such good friends can’t be parted for long. I’m sure you and Flora will see each other again.’
My mother could not have known then that we would, but in circumstances that none of us could have imagined.
Everyone was talking about Singapore. Most people insisted, as Wil had done, that it was an ‘impregnable fortress’ that would ‘never be taken’. But in mid-February, Singapore fell. Knowing that many people had been killed, I was terrified for Flora’s safety. Then, as the Japanese swept further south taking Borneo and Sumatra, I began for the first time to fear for our own.
‘Will they definitely come here?’ I asked my father.
He hesitated. ‘I’m not going to lie to you, Klara – I believe that they will.’ He touched my cheek. ‘But you mustn’t worry because there are rules about what they can and can’t do – international rules.’ Despite this, I had a dreadful sense of foreboding.
My mother began sewing rucksacks for us all. Into them she carefully packed tins of beef and beans, milk powder, packets of biscuits and medical supplies, especially quinine tablets against malaria. Her great fear was that Peter would get malaria again. She also made some outfits for him and me to grow into.
‘We need some clothes for the future,’ she told us, ‘because we don’t know what will happen, or where we’ll be.’
My parents kept the radio on constantly during this time. The news was terrifying. We heard of naval battles in the Java Sea and of two Dutch warships that had been sunk.
‘What about the sailors?’ I asked, imagining them flailing in the water.
‘Some may have survived,’ my mother said after a moment. ‘But I’m afraid that many won’t have done, and we must pray for them.’
One day it was announced that the retreating Dutch had managed to destroy half the oil wells on Borneo and Sumatra.
‘What heroes,’ my father murmured.
Then the announcer said there were rumours that the Japanese had beheaded these men, or hacked off their limbs, and that their wives and daughters had been raped.
My mother gasped.
‘What does “raped” mean?’ I wanted to know.
‘It means that they were … tortured,’ she answered after a moment.
‘Tortured?’
‘Yes. Hurt very badly, on purpose.’
I turned to my father, bewildered. ‘What about the rules, Dad? You said there were rules.’ But he just shook his head.
It was reported that there was now fighting on Java itself, around Surabaya, near the beach where we’d had such a wonderful holiday. I imagined the white sand being strafed by Japanese planes, and couldn’t sleep.
A week later, Peter and I were in the garden when we saw a red glow in the sky and heard low rumblings. It was as though one of the island’s volcanoes was awakening.
Frightened, we ran to Mum, who told us that it was just thunder, but I knew it must be gunfire, because by then we’d heard that the Japanese had made landings in West Java. Peter and I sat together on the verandah. How, I marvelled, could something as dreadful as war make the sky look so lovely? Within days, Batavia had been taken, soon followed by Bandung. Java was now in Japanese hands.
The day after the invasion I went with my mother to the market to get extra supplies of rice, sugar and flour. There was an eerie silence as we walked through the streets. The shopkeepers, who usually stood outside their stores, chatting, were all inside. Many of the shops were closed. When we got to the square I saw that the Dutch flag that always flew there was gone. In its place was a white flag with a blood-red ball in the centre of it.
My mother looked stricken. ‘They’re already up here – in the mountains; we must go home.’ So we hurried back, got everyone inside, then locked all our windows and doors.
The knowledge that we were now occupied was terrifying. Everyone knew of the atrocities that the Japanese had carried out on other islands. We’d also heard that in some parts of Java, gangs of youths were taking advantage of the situation and were rompokking – looting – the houses of Europeans, and killing anyone who tried to fight back. It was reported that the soldiers of the Dutch East Indies army, having surrendered, were being sent to prisoner-of-war camps. I imagined Corrie’s father among them, his hands shackled.
‘Should we leave Java too?’ I asked my father. ‘Like the Jochens did?’
‘No, Klara,’ he replied. ‘There’s nowhere for us to go; we must just pray that the occupation doesn’t last long.’
Stories of cruelty began to circulate. We heard that in the towns and cities, European civilian men were being herded into schools and government buildings, but that their families were not being allowed to visit them. We were told that in Bandung a kawat, or barbed-wire fence, had been put around the perimeter of these buildings, turning them into a prison camp.
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One night, we learned, three men who’d been interned in one of these camps were caught climbing out. The next day the Japanese lined them up outside the gates. They left the men standing there, in the sun, for two days, without shade, food or water. Then they were severely beaten and brought back inside. A few days later three other men had been caught doing the same thing. But they weren’t made to stand in the sun. They were tied to posts and bayoneted in front of all the prisoners.
There were also rumours that the European civilian men would now be transported to an old military barracks, called Tjimahi, and that their wives and children would be moved into ‘protected areas’.
‘To be protected from what?’ I asked my parents.
My father’s mouth became a thin line. ‘From the local people, with whom we’ve lived, peacefully, for more than three centuries.’
‘I don’t need to be protected from Jaya,’ Peter volunteered. ‘He’s my friend.’
‘These “protected areas” are really camps,’ my father explained. ‘They’re for holding lots of people, so that they can’t go round causing trouble for the Japs.’
‘Will we have to go into a camp?’ I asked.
‘Fortunately, we won’t,’ my mother answered. ‘The Japs have said that they’ll leave the planters alone, as they need us to go on growing our crops.’
‘Which they’ll then send to Japan,’ my father added sourly.
‘Yes, but at least we’ll be together, Hans,’ my mother reminded him gently, ‘and still in our home. We must just be thankful for that.’
My father gave a defeated sigh. ‘I am.’
