Under the Java Moon, page 4
Within moments, she’d climbed down the tree that she scaled almost every day.
“Let’s play with the ball,” she said, taking her brother’s hand. The clouds were still blocking the sun, keeping the air cooler.
Rita fetched the ball from the corner of the yard and tossed it to Georgie. He didn’t catch it, but he laughed and ran after it.
She smiled at her brother’s laughter. It was good to hear it, since there weren’t many things to smile about. Her parents always looked worried. Mama stayed in her bedroom more and more. Even Oma had been quiet lately.
Rita tossed the ball again, and Georgie made a valiant effort to catch it. He missed. “Keep your hands together,” she called. “Like this.”
Georgie brought his hands together, but when Rita tossed the ball again, he didn’t move. The ball bumped his elbow.
“You can still move, Georgie,” she said. “But keep your hands together when you catch.”
“I can show you,” Johan said, suddenly appearing. He must have come out of his house when Rita’s back was turned. “Sit,” he told his dog, who obeyed.
This time when Rita threw the ball, Georgie caught it with the help of Johan.
“Got it!” Georgie announced in a proud tone. He tossed it back, and it went about a meter, so Rita stepped forward to scoop it from the ground.
Just then, the clouds parted, and the sun’s rays settled on Rita’s head and shoulders and arms. The temperature notched higher, as if a light had been turned on.
“Come inside,” Anja said immediately.
The dispersing clouds meant that the planes could see the island.
As if on cue, the air raid sirens went off.
Rita’s pulse jumped, and she craned her neck to look at the white-blue sky. She couldn’t see planes anywhere. Maybe it was another drill.
Johan took off toward the bomb shelter, his dog loping after him. Then Mama, Oma, and Dea came out of the house, carrying flashlights. Behind them, Kemala carried a sack of fruit. Darkness was hours away, but who knew how long this raid would last. Mama also carried a bag that contained a few supplies, including a pouch of rubber wafers. Everyone took them to the shelters. The rubber pieces were to put in between their teeth and prevent a concussion if a bomb exploded nearby.
“Let’s go, Rita,” Mama said, her expression one of grim determination. “Come with us, Anja.”
Rita dropped the ball and snatched up Georgie’s hand. They trudged to the shelter. Their gardener Bima came around the side of the house and ushered everyone inside, much like Papa did when he was home. Rita hated walking through the cold, muddy water that had collected at the bottom of the trench. She sloshed through it, then sat on one of the benches. The dog was at least smart enough to perch on the end of the bench. He didn’t bark, but whined a few times.
Through the edges of the shelter’s roof, patches of blue sky were visible.
Rita stared at the slice of sky, wondering where the planes were. Johan stayed by the entrance, standing and looking outside, too, like Papa did.
Mrs. Vos started talking to Mama about some of the recent invasions by Japan. The Philippines had been invaded last month, and now New Guinea and a number of islands in the NEI were being, or had already been, overtaken.
“Soon, we’ll have nowhere to go,” Mrs. Vos fretted.
“The newspaper says that Australia and the NEI are working together to stave off Japan,” Mama countered.
Mrs. Vos shook her head, her eyes full of worry. “Japanese battleships are outnumbering and outpowering our minesweepers and anti-submarine patrol boats. What are our vessels compared to the world’s largest battleships? Did you see this morning’s paper?”
Mama shook her head because Papa was the one who collected the newspaper and brought it home in the evenings.
“Japan has declared war on the Dutch government after their invasion of Borneo and the Island of Celebes.” Mrs. Vos paused. “They’re coming after our oil fields, and it looks like they’ll get them. They are also promising the Indonesians independence from the Dutch.”
“Maybe we should talk about this when the children, and the others . . . aren’t around,” Oma interrupted, whispering.
Mrs. Vos dipped her head. “They need to know what’s going on, Mrs. Van Benten. It’s no secret why we’re all sitting in a bomb shelter with soaking wet feet. Children will understand what they can, but our lives are changing.”
Rita looked between the women. She didn’t see Oma upset very often, but her face was like immovable stone now.
Mrs. Vos slipped her arm about Greta’s shoulder, who kept her head down, her hands clasped in her lap.
A silent moment passed, at least as silent as it could be with a siren wailing down the street.
Oma closed her eyes, and her lips moved in what Rita knew to be a silent prayer. Oma had been praying a lot the past several weeks.
Mama’s hand covered Rita’s, and despite the cool, dank air, she felt warmer after that.
The sirens howled and wailed, going on and on. How long did they have to stay here? The sun would set soon, and then the bombers couldn’t see anything. Right?
Rita felt hungry, but she didn’t want to ask for food. Everyone was probably hungry, and she didn’t know what Mama had brought in her bag. Johan had told her that she should be grateful she was only hungry. Stories about other islands getting bombed had reached even her ears, mostly through Johan, which meant their food was bombed too, he’d said.
Johan turned from his lookout spot. “I see a plane.”
Mrs. Vos stood immediately and sloshed through the water to join Johan.
Rita nestled against her mother as worry tightened her throat.
“Oh, my goodness,” Mrs. Vos said quietly. “They’re Japanese planes.”
Rita’s skin rippled with fear.
Oma’s silent prayers became urgent whispers.
Then, Rita heard it. A deep rumbling noise. If there had been clouds, she might have thought it was thunder coming before a storm. But the sky was clear, and the sound of a plane moved closer and closer. Rita’s stomach turned into a mess of knots. Was the Japanese army going to bomb her house?
Every second that passed felt like an hour.
The plane passed over, and the thunder grew quiet.
Rita waited. Held her breath. Clenched the rubber wafer between her teeth.
No explosions came, though.
Nothing.
One minute passed, then another.
“It’s gone,” Mrs. Vos said, her voice airy, as if she’d been running back and forth to the house.
“Will it come back?” Johan asked the question they all wanted answered.
“I think the plane was passing over,” Mrs. Vos said, but she didn’t sound sure. Not at all.
Of course, the adults knew a lot more than Rita did, but every day, life changed more. They were eating simple meals. Oma didn’t take her and Georgie to the market anymore in case there was a bomb raid.
Above the shelter roof, the leaves rattled with the wind. A sweet sound especially when it brought clouds along with it. Then the rain came, pelting and swift, dripping its way through the roof above. Soon, the air sirens stopped.
Anja, Dea, and Kemala rushed out, heading to the house. Oma picked up Georgie and followed. Rita was about to leave with her mother when Mrs. Vos said, “Now that we’re alone, you need to know that the Japanese army has been making promises that they don’t have the power to make, but it looks like they’re going to try.”
“That would mean a revolution,” Mama said, gripping Rita’s hand. “In the middle of a war. We can’t have the islands in an upheaval from within if Japan is going to help the Indonesians take over the Dutch government. What will become of the Dutch citizens?”
“Time will tell,” Mrs. Vos said in a strained voice. “I don’t like any of it, and the queen is in no position to give us her attention. She’s in exile herself.”
Mama nodded, her lips in a tight line.
As they climbed out of the shelter, they were greeted by the wind tugging at the bamboo bushes bordering their yards. Above, the mango tree swayed, and down the road a ways, the palm trees looked like they were dancing. Rita knew the wind would make the palms drop some of their coconuts.
Kells began to bark as Johan ran back to his house. Rita held onto Mama’s hand as they pushed through the rain toward the veranda.
Once Rita entered the house, Anja, Dea, and Kemala were already inside, closing all the windows.
Without even bothering to change into dry clothing, Mama went directly to the radio in the dining room, turned it on, then sat at the table to listen.
Rita was surprised because Mama usually waited to listen with Papa when he came home. The announcer was in the middle of a news report, talking about the number of aircraft held by Allied Java Air Command.
“Is that us?” Rita asked, moving to stand near her mother. Rita’s hair was damp, her clothing half wet, but no one told her to go change.
Mama looked over at her, and instead of shooing her away, she extended her arm. Rita settled into the chair next to her.
“Yes. We are outnumbered, Rietie,” Mama said.
“By how much?” Rita asked. She could count to nearly one hundred even though she wasn’t in school yet. One day, Johan had challenged her, and she’d missed only three numbers.
Mama nodded toward the radio, and then Rita heard it.
“Allied Java Air Command has eighty-six operational planes, and the Japanese forces have over three hundred modern aircrafts.”
Rita wondered if Johan knew this. Or if his father did? Or her father? Papa didn’t fly planes, but sometimes planes bombed ships—Johan had told her that too.
“Is what Mrs. Vos said true? We have nowhere to go? We are trapped?”
Mama turned to her then and placed her cool hands on either side of Rita’s face. “The most important thing to remember is that we are together. You, Papa, Oma, and little Georgie. That’s all that matters. We are alive, we are safe, and we have food in our house.”
Rita felt like a lump was moving up her throat, making it hard to swallow. She wanted to believe Mama, and she did, yet . . . Papa hadn’t been home for two days.
Chapter Four
“The Indies had been preparing for war for years but were not really ready. The Netherlands Eastern Forces Intelligence Service, comparable to the American CIA, was well informed. . . . But because there was no state of war, they could do no better than keep a watchful eye on the many Japanese living in the country. Japanese merchants, photographers, tailors, dry cleaners . . . tended to be the best in whatever trade they were in. . . . After the attack on Pearl Harbor, these people disappeared, only to resurface as high-ranking officers after the Dutch surrendered. All those years they had been spying on us.”
—Johannes Vandenbroek, Singapore Island
George
George Vischer climbed back into the truck and settled next to Lieutenant Hooft. The rain pinged on the roof of the military truck, a melody to the deeper rumbles of thunder. The world outside was streaked with gray, cut apart by lightning that shot from the clouds like muzzle fire. George wasn’t driving this time, and for that he was grateful since the roads were quickly filling up with puddles from the downpour. He was more comfortable in a ship or submarine than driving a testy military vehicle.
Hooft started the truck, then shifted gears and pulled back onto the road that would return them to naval headquarters. They’d been traveling for days, negotiating purchases with opium factories across Java. In fact, this was the fourth time in the past month and a half that George had been away from his family for days at a time. He was exhausted.
“So that’s our only choice, huh?” Hooft asked. He was a dark-haired man, shorter than George, but broader at the shoulders.
“It appears so.” George released a sigh. They’d just left an opium factory after securing another agreement to purchase distilled water from the plant. Everything was in a shortage, but enough money would buy what they needed. The shortages compounded by the day. Who would have thought that an opium factory would be the saving grace of the Dutch navy?
Locating distilled water was one of George’s recently assigned tasks. At naval headquarters in Batavia, he was in charge of making sure that the naval depots throughout the archipelago were supplied with navy ships and aircrafts. He knew they were outnumbered. Everyone knew it. No one talked about it, though. Would they all be expected to “fight to the death” like Churchill had told his British troops in Singapore to do?
Counter that with dozens of news reports over the past few weeks about the Japanese military’s brutality and its unwillingness to follow any rules of war. It was a sobering thought. If the Allies wouldn’t back down, and neither would Japan, then the battlegrounds would reap more destruction.
George oversaw the purchase of materials for both fleet and aircraft. Unfortunately, materials were getting harder and harder to come by now that Java was under attack. Airfields near Bogor, Yogyakarta, and Malang had been attacked. Bombed and abandoned. So they had to drive to an opium factory and purchase distilled water for submarines. The distilled water was part of the crucial process of removing salt from seawater and turning it into usable fresh water.
The rain continued to pound on the truck and fill the potholes in the road as they drove toward headquarters. At least they were finished with their assignment, and George could check on his family. George adjusted the AM radio in the truck, piping in a staticky news report, confirming the Japanese bombardment of an airfield near Malang. Although the city was on the east side of the island, and George and his family were on the northwest side, any bombardment of Java had an impact. But the news was old, which surprised George. It was as if the newscaster was trying to fill the time with information, regardless of how old it was, while waiting for updates.
For weeks, the Japanese military had done a number on Java, dropping bombs on airfields throughout East Java. Stories had reached them of Dutch people evacuating the larger city of Surabaya. George had witnessed the destruction with Hooft as they’d been traveling to various factories. And last week, the airfields near Bogor and Bandung were bombed in West Java. The strength of Japan’s armed forces was felt every day now, but not everyone was living in fear. Most of the Indonesians in George’s acquaintance were continuing business as usual—selling in the markets and shops to the Dutch, and many of them were still working for the Dutch. But political rumblings had started, and groups had formed that were decidedly anti-Dutch.
Not only were the Dutch facing the external enemy of Japan, but an internal conflict was growing as well, as groups of Indonesians similarly longed for independence from the Dutch. Japan had been sending out messages of support to the Indonesians—but Japan also had an agenda. George wasn’t necessarily a political man. He loved the sea and loved following his career path as an engineer—it was what had brought him to Java Island in the first place. But he knew that Queen Wilhelmina would not simply turn over islands that the Netherlands had colonized for three hundred years now. Not with centuries of investment and developing infrastructure . . . did this mean it all came down to money?
Still, another side of George would never begrudge a people’s desire for independence. He wasn’t part of the original colonization centuries ago, but he’d read enough to know that the Dutch had frequently used ruthless methods to take control of various islands. The history between the Dutch and Indonesians wasn’t always pretty, but in this modern era, surely peaceful agreements could be made, couldn’t they?
George knew he might be fooling himself. The news report currently coming from the blaring radio was anything but peaceful. There would be no easy solution to any of this. The rain stopped, and the northwest wind pushed the clouds across the steely sky. Brushstrokes of blue opened. The sight of the sun might be welcome in some parts of the world, but here, on Java, it meant that bombers would be on their way again.
George exhaled as he thought of his family at home. Were the air raid sirens going off again? Was his pregnant wife rushing to the bomb shelter with their two children and Oma?
Every day was not only an outward battle with invading forces but an inward battle of wanting to be on Laan Trivelli with his family, helping and protecting them. Yet, if he wasn’t doing his naval duty, like the others with him, there would be no one to stop Japan’s progress. Even if most days the efforts seemed futile. Clearly, Japan had the upper hand.
The majority of Allied forces were going head-to-head with Nazi Germany on the other side of the world. This left other countries basically at the mercy of the determined Japanese imperial army.
“How is your wife doing?” Hooft asked as the radio cut to another program.
George had confessed to a couple of his officer friends that his wife was pregnant with their third child. Both friends were married with children, and they understood the added risk during these perilous times. Schools, churches, and hospitals had turned into air raid shelters. Food was being rationed, and medical supplies were even harder to come by. What if when Mary’s time came, she couldn’t get good medical care?
“She’s been feeling sick most days but is sleeping better at night at least.”
Like George, Hooft lived in KPM company housing and had been on Java for several years. KPM was the Royal Packet Navigating Company—or the Koninklijk Paketvaart Maatschappij—that George had been with for over ten years, having arrived in Batavia in 1927. But when the war started in 1939, both George and Hooft had been mobilized into the reserves of the Royal Netherlands Navy. “Kids all right? Mine are going stir crazy without school to keep them busy. Or maybe I should say that my wife is ready for this conflict to be over already.”
“Agreed. I don’t know how much my mother-in-law can bear. She doesn’t need more challenges in her life. Her visit here was supposed to be peaceful. Ironically, we were all happy she was in Batavia rather than Holland when the Nazis took over.” George’s gaze strayed to the fields they were passing. The peanut fields were soaked with rain. They were still some distance from naval headquarters, and it was nice to be away from the base for a short time.
