23 August 1942

Today 9 years ago Ineke and I became engaged.  Yesterday we were out from 2.15 to 4 pm.  Exercise started with a run round the exercise yard, this time in the South East triangle where we have not been for some weeks.  There was no compulsion to keep on running but I was rather bucked at finding myself able to carry on until the order was given to halt.  We must have covered 3 kilometers at a conservative estimate.  I should have died at the very thought of running such a distance 5 months ago.  My rib is still somewhat painful but my performance of yesterday I have proved to my own great satisfaction that there can have been  nothing seriously wrong.  After the run, we had 20 minutes fairly strenuous physical jerks and then one ball game.  Chatting with my neighbour, Mingail, yesterday evening, I was interested to learn that he has been actual eye witness of the far famed Indian Rope Trick, Mingail is a Jew and hails from Calcutta.  He saw the trick performed at a place, called Hardwa, in the United Provinces, where it takes place only once a year in connection with some Brahmans festival.  He was one of a crowd of some 5000 spectators and described how the fakir showed to the audience a length of rope about 6 or 7 feet in length and introduced the small boy who was to assist in the act.  After a lengthy discourse on what he was about to do a description of what they were to see, turning around as he spoke and gazing intently of the spectators who were grouped in a huge circle round the open space where he performed, the fakir handed the rope to the boy.  In response to an incantation, the rope straightened itself and became apparently rigid with one end resting on the ground.  To a running commentary on the boy’s action mingled with unintelligible incantations by the fakir, the boy climbed up the rope about a foot at a time until, on reaching the top, he vanished from sight while the rope became limp and fell to the ground.  The boy appeared some time later from among the spectators.  Mingail could give no explanation.  Religious books are being issued this morning and I have received ‘Jesus of Nazareth’, in Dutch, and which I can keep as long as I like.  This book in particular is for Protestants, Catholic get ‘The Catholic Church’, also in Dutch.  This is due to the efforts of the Indonesian prison director, who seems to be a very good man.

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On the occasion, I did not naturally, follow the example given by the Dutch people but waited for the fried eggs I had ordered.  When they were at last served I was rather handicapped by having no second plate on which to put my bread but made a satisfactory meal in spite of the difficulty.  We reached Batavia on 21 November 1926, a Sunday, and again I looked anxiously for  the H & C representative and again I looked in vain.  This time I had no qualms about going to the hotel and, with Hodson’s assistance, I was soon in the Hotel der Nederlanded in Batavia.  The port for Batavia is Tandjong Priok and the 10 kilometers road between the port and the city must be, I imagine, one of the finest in the world being macadamed, wide and perfectly straight over long stretches and bordered each side most of the way by the picturesque flamboyant trees which were then in full boom so that we seemed to be proceeding along an avenue of flaming torches.  Hodson left me while he went out to look out some of his pals from whom he could borrow some money.  He had given me a fairly broad hint as to his financial embarrassment but I was then too much of the canny Scot and too suspicious of everybody in this strange new world to offer assistance.  It was then, while Hodson was absent, that I perused one of his poetry books which he lent to me.  That evening I dined alone in the large dining room of the hotel, feeling desperately self conscious.  My condition was not improved on my observing that I was an object of amusement to the native waiters in my immediate vicinity.  I can hardly blame them in retrospect but at that time I was not in the mood to feel disinterested.  It was appreciatively warm that evening, as it usually is in Batavia, and I had as yet no clothes suitable for the tropical climate.  I wore a rather heavy thick pair of dark flannels and a lined tweed sports jacket which, with the heat, made me feel as if I was indulging in a Turkish bath at full pressure.  The perspiration was dripping off the lobes of my ears and the point of my nose into the soup and my hands were so wet that spoon, knife and fork kept turning and slipping out of my hands.  It was without exception the most uncomfortable meal of which I have ever partaken.  The next morning I presented myself at Harrisons and Crossfield’s office and, as before in Singapore, explanation and apologies were profuse as to the failure to have me met at the boat as had been arranged.  Mr Graham, one of the younger members of the staff, took charge of me and after showing me something of Batavia in a taxi, put me on the train for Bandung, with instructions to proceed to the Preanger Hotel there were a Mr Fenton, one  of the assistants on Langen Estate would be waiting for me.  All went well from then on.  I duly met Fenton, whom I liked at sight, and who, I am glad to say, is still one of my best friends.  We were to stay a day in Bandung for the purpose of giving me the opportunity of buying furniture, cooking utensils, crockery etc for my house on the Estate and in this matter Fenton was most helpful.  I should explain that one of the conditions of my contract was the allowance of 250 guilders for furnishing, with the condition that the articles purchased would remain the property of the company.  I had fully expected that I should have this full sum at my disposal and was therefore very much surprised when Fenton, rather embarrassedly, informed me that a bed costing 100 guilders, and a food cupboard of 25 guilders, had already been purchased for me on the Estate.  Fenton later admitted to me that this transaction, strictly unethical as it was, had been arranged between the manager and a then favourite assistant and was really nothing less than a barefaced swindle.  He could not, naturally, air his opinion then and I myself knew no better, although it did seem strange to me, especially the 100 guilders for a bed.

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Out from 2 to 4 pm.  A run of 6 times round the yard, physical jerks and two ball games.  Hot tea, without sugar, available as has been the case for the past few days.  A capital supper – stewed potatoes with gravy and sliced cucumber with a nice tender piece of meat.  Very tasty.  Exchanged ‘William Pitt’ yesterday with Mingail for ‘Bindle’ by Herbert Jenkins and the latter today for ‘Calico Jack’ by Horace W C Newtie, a story of the music halls of the Gay Nineties.

21 August 1942

Mr Templeton assisted me in buying a cheap suitcase and a solar topi in Penang.  The suitcase was necessary because my mother had packed my trunk and leather suitcase so well that after having removed various articles in the course of the voyage, I could not with all my ingenuity get everything back in again.  In fact it was even a tough struggle with an extra bag.  My friend strongly advised me to buy a good topi while I was at it and recommended an Ellwood which, he assured me, would last me for years.  He was quite right, I have that topi yet.  But all the same such a topi had its disadvantages.  In the first place it was far too heavy and secondly the shape was not fashionable in Java.  A cheap, light, pith topi which can be purchased for a few guilders is much more comfortable and serviceable in addition to being of a shape which gives very good protection for the back of the neck.  When it begins to get shabby it can be passed to your ‘boy’ as a very acceptable present and a new one purchased and it will be many years before the expense of a succession of such topis equals the cost of an Ellwood.  I paid $30 for mine.  In spite of the above stated disadvantages, however, true to type, I wore the Ellwood for the 5 years of my planting career and, just because it cost so much have not yet been able to bring myself to parting with it.  In the afternoon we ascended by funicular railway to a tea house set on a hill and from which a marvellous view of Penang and lesser island around about could be obtained.  When we arrived in Singapore a day or two later I looked out anxiously for the representative of Harrison’s and Crosfield who was to look after me.  To my dismay nobody appeared.  I was at my wits’ end, for remember I was for the first time in my life absolutely alone and with only myself to depend upon and I had so far no experience of standing on my own feet.  Furthermore, I was in this condition in a very, very strange land, thousands of miles from home.  Ultimately, a fellow passenger and brother Scot named Barker, who was transshipping at Singapore on his way to the oil fields in Miri, British Borneo, suggested I should go with him to the town and find the office of the firm.  We stepped into a taxi which soon brought us to the building.  There we found everything closed and learned that that day was a public holiday in Singapre and all offices closed.  Going into a post office along the street to buy some stamps, I noticed that the door of the bank just opposite was open, so leaving Barker for the moment in the post office I crossed the street and entered the building in the hope of finding someone who could put me in touch with the powers to be of H & C.  There was only one man, a European, seated at a desk in the large office and to him, apologising for disturbing him, I explained my difficulty.  He was very sympathetic and informed me that I would have very little chance of finding anybody that day and advised me to put up at an hotel and call H & C’s office next day.  He asked me where I came from and when I told him Aberdeen, it was strange to hear him remark, ‘Is that so?  I was up at Aboyne just the other day.’  He had apparently just returned from leave shortly before.  In the course of our conversation he learned of my destination and conditions of employment.  When I mentioned that the commencing salary was 250 Guilders a month he exclaimed, ‘What a damned shame.  How can they expect anybody to live on that?’  Needless to say, this did not help the least little bit to raise my already fairly low spirits.  Happily, however, as it proved, he couldn’t have known what he was talking about.  The salary was ample, but he was probably applying Malaya standards to the sum stated.  On rejoining Barker, who had also not yet removed his luggage from the ship, we returned to the ‘Khiva’.  As I was somewhat apprehensive of putting  up at a hotel, being not too flush with money and also not very certain if such a course would have the approval of H & C, and knowing that the ‘Khiva’ was to lie two days in Singapore, I made bold to ask the purser if I could stay the night on board, explaining the circumstances.  He just looked down his nose at me and replied, ‘The PO Company undertook to bring you to Singapore.  You are here, and we have no further concern with you.’   Since then I have felt that if there should be no other ship available but a P&O liner, I would rather swim than let that company have a penny of my money.  However, Barker and I got our luggage together and having passed the Customs without difficulty we repaired to the Adelphi Hotel where we each took a room.  The next morning early I was at H & C’s office.  Empty apologies, of course, for the blunder and all that and just send the hotel bill to them.  I found I had to stay five days in Singapore before I could get a boat to Java and during that time Barker and I wandered about Singapore although I cannot recall very much of what we saw or did.  Only two things are vivid in my memory.  One occurred the first night I was in the Adelphi.  My room, whcih was on the second floor, overlooked a narrow busy street and just after darkness had fallen I was startled by a hellish commotion of shrieks, yells, shouts and shooting from the street below.  Quite convinced that I had landed in Singapore to see the beginning of a revolution, I dashed to the balcony rail and peered cautiously down.  I then discovered that the noise was caused my some kind of procession, which was preceded by several persons letting off squibs and firecrackers to a running accompaniment of weird yells.  I learned later that it was only a Chinese funeral and that all the noise is indulged in with a view of scaring away any which may have evil designs on the soul of the departed.  I may state here that my idea of a revolution was not so far fetched because at that very time a fairly serious revolution was taking place in West Java and of which we had had daily wireless bulletins on the ‘Khiva’ and reports in the Singapore newspapers.  Fortunately, however, by the time I reached Batavia, where many serious incidents had occurred, the rising had stopped and the authorities had the situation well in hand.  It is interesting to note that in the book ‘Out of the Night’ by Jan Valtin, the writer claims that it was he, as a Bolshevik emissary, who conveyed the instructions and plans for the 1926 Java riots to a Chinese woman in Singapore.

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Out from 2 to 3.30 pm.  Two ball games, first for veterans.  Second game broken off during the first half by order to return to cells.  Issue of one packet of 20 ‘Mascot’ cigarettes.  These issues are, of course, debited to us and paid for from the money we brought in with us.  No money, no cigs.  I had about 30 guilders and have since had transferred to may account of 50 guilders and later 25 by my partner, Sparkes, who brought 600 with him.  My balance at the moment in the region of 40.  The rest has gone on so called medical supplies for which we have had to pay outrageous prices.  Exchanged ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ for ‘William Pitt’, a biography by Macevlay.  Also reading a crime Penguin, ‘The White Cockatoo’ by M G Eberhard which Benson lent me yesterday.