Under the Java Moon, page 9
“What is it?” George asked. He wasn’t currently riding on the dinghy, but he could see Vos’s disappointed expression.
“The tin must have a leak in it,” Vos said, turning the tin so that the other men could see inside. “The biscuits are damaged by oil and seawater.”
Disappointment shot through George. The men needed sustenance, especially the injured men who were not doing well at all. He looked over at Hooft’s still form. The only sign of life from him was the rise and fall of his chest.
“Toss out the food, then,” Rouwenhorst said. “We can use the tin for bailing water or something else.”
Vos did as told, and when the next shift arrived, it was already dark. George hauled himself onto the dinghy. He took one of the paddles this time. They were making very slow progress, but with the heat of the sun abated, that should improve.
Were they paddling into a trap, though?
Would the Japanese bombers be back at dawn, and would all of this effort be for naught?
There was no way for any of them to know. But if the bombers didn’t return to finish them off, then perhaps they could make it to land in time to help Hooft.
During one shift, it was George’s turn to sleep. He must have been exhausted in both mind and body because, somehow, he fell into a deep nothingness. Hours later, the light of the rising sun awakened him.
That, and Bakker saying, “There’s a coconut floating in the water.”
George blinked his eyes open, dearly wishing that the last twenty-four hours had been a bad dream and he was about to wake up in his own bed in Batavia, next to his wife. How was she doing? Were the Japanese forces already on the island? Would there be more rationing of food? George pushed up on his elbows, hoping to see something promising. Something to give him hope. But the sight that greeted him was an endless stretch of rippling blue.
Then he heard a splash.
Bakker was swimming in the water, away from the dinghy, heading for the floating coconut. A couple of the men, weak as they were, cheered on the swimmer.
Then, suddenly, Bakker disappeared beneath the water. George scrambled to his knees, wincing at the jolt of pain when his toe brushed the plank. “Where did he go?”
Then Bakker reappeared, his face drained of any color. He began swimming back toward them. “Something’s down there,” he choked out. “Something bumped my foot.”
The men with the paddles lifted them and searched the water about the dinghy.
Two more men climbed onto the dinghy, and the vessel sunk dangerously low in the water.
“How much weight can this hold?” Vos said. “No one else get on, or we’ll all sink.”
George saw the panic in Bakker’s eyes as he swam closer to the dinghy. If one man panicked, it would spread like a flash of lightning, and that could lead to a different death for them all.
“There are no sharks in this part of the sea,” George said, although he wasn’t sure if that was true. Sharks would have made themselves known by now, right? He needed to quell any panicking.
“Vischer’s right,” Rouwenhorst said. “Take my place on the dinghy, Bakker.”
George watched as the commander slipped into the water. So George did the same, and Bakker scrambled onto the dinghy.
Bakker’s face was drained of color. “We’re going to die,” he whispered as he hugged his knees to his chest and scanned the water. His voice grew louder, more panicked. “If there aren’t sharks here, there will be somewhere. Or the Japanese bombers will return, or—”
“Stop,” Rouwenhorst said in a sharp tone.
All heads turned to look at him.
“There’s no use complaining,” the commander continued. “We are in God’s care, but we need to do our part. We are staying focused. We are bailing water. We are paddling to the Thousand Islands. We are at the mercy of mother nature. Pray if you must, but the next man who talks about dying will wish he hadn’t.”
George hadn’t heard anything religious from Rouwenhorst before, but if it worked, then it was necessary. A mutiny would do none of them any good. It was several moments before anyone else spoke. And then it was Vos in a quiet tone.
“Hooft is gone.”
George floated to the side of the dinghy closest to his friend. Hooft was lying in the same position as the night before, on his side, his hand curled into a fist, as if in slumber. But his chest wasn’t moving. There was no sign of breathing.
George’s voice choked on his words, “He was a good man. A loyal man. He sacrificed his life to protect us.”
“Amen,” several others echoed.
Two men slipped off the dinghy as if knowing George would climb on and prepare Hooft to be buried at sea. There was nothing to wrap him with, so George simply untied Hooft’s life vest.
Rouwenhorst cleared his throat and said, “We will pray.”
The men paused in bailing water and bowed their heads, joined by the others. Rouwenhorst offered a short prayer. When it was finished, George wiped at his face, then lifted his chin. “God rest his soul.”
It was finished. Hooft had served his time here on earth.
George blinked back his salty tears, then rested a hand on Hooft’s shoulder. “Goodbye, my friend,” he whispered. “Rest in peace.”
With the help of Vos, they rolled Hooft off the wooden plank. His body soundlessly entered the water.
George closed his eyes, trying to not imagine Hooft sinking lower and lower, down toward his watery grave. All of the men were silent, and the only sounds that could be heard were bailing water and paddling. After several moments, George opened his eyes and scanned the horizon, then the rest of the sky, trying to determine their location and how long would it be until they reached the Thousand Islands.
Was Hooft’s death an omen for them all? Would they, one by one, fall prey to this ordeal? At the pace of a couple of men paddling, it would take them days to reach the northernmost tip of the Thousand Islands. The distance was about sixty nautical miles from Tandjong Priok harbor. How long could a man live without fresh water or food?
The commander’s voice broke the quiet surrounding them. “We must pray for rain.”
Chapter Nine
“Every day was the same and yet a little worse than the day before. In the morning, there was the usual roll call, the forced exercises, and then the long wait for kitchen personnel to show up with their buckets of camp ‘food,’ consisting primarily of a gluelike porridge and some bread or a bowl of cooked rice in ever-decreasing amounts. The portions were made even smaller by putting marbles in the bottom of the measuring cups. This was an ingenious way to slowly starve us to death.”
—Joyce F. Kater-Hoeke, Lampersarie Camp
George
George didn’t consider himself a religious man. Yet, he held the belief that the church you were born into was where you remained. Mary was the one in their marriage who had faith, who prayed, who consulted with God. A replica of her mother in that way.
Yet, as the sun rose on Wednesday, teasing at distances too far to paddle to in time, George found himself praying for rain along with the other men. Some were vocal about it. Vos frequently prayed aloud. Even the commander prayed aloud more than once. Others closed their eyes, then murmured a quiet Amen.
And still the rain didn’t come.
None of them had eaten since Sunday.
George began to bargain with God. It might have been humorous in another circumstance, but when the sun was beating down upon wounded bodies hour after hour, and throats were parched, and skin was blistering, and stomachs were hollow, George was happy to bargain with anyone and for anything.
Hooft’s death had been a terrible reality that had shaken them all. George was feeling his own physical toll. His movements had slowed, and he began to fantasize about food and fresh water. The dark irony is that talking about favorite meals was somehow comforting.
During the next shift that George paddled, as the conversation ebbed around him, he noticed the shift in the wind. The air cooled around him, and he looked up to see clouds gathering. Almost at that same moment, the other men noticed too.
“It’s going to rain,” Bakker said.
“Praise God,” Lieutenant Arnoldus said.
“Get the tin,” another said. It was Lieutenant Feij.
Arnoldus shifted about, tugging off his shirt to act as a rain collector. Feij did the same, as did Lieutenant Rutgers. George held the paddle between his knees as he took off his own shirt, then held it out as the first drops fell. At first, the rain was a sprinkle of random, spaced-out drops, then the clouds raced together, darkening as they churned. And rain dumped.
George lifted his chin and opened his mouth. The water was fresh, sweet, cool, refreshing. He swallowed down what he could. But it wasn’t enough.
The storm was over within minutes, and as it dissipated, a few men groaned. There was no way to save the water that would soon seep through the shirts, so everyone drank what little they’d collected. Men sharing with each other.
Vos had caught maybe a cup of water in the tin. That could be saved for later.
The clouds raced past, and the heat returned. Those who weren’t bailing or paddling, sat or floated in a world of listlessness.
In the distance, George spotted the tip of the volcano Salak rising from the western portion of Java. And there was the small island Gede with its mangroves and wild perennials. Seeing the small island was both good news and bad news. Good because it meant they were still heading in the right direction. Bad because they’d made little progress.
“Look,” Vos said, cutting into the numb void they were all existing in. “Something’s floating in the water.”
George paused in his paddling to gaze at the floating item. Not one, but three items. “Coconuts,” he said. In tandem with the other paddler, they shifted their direction to collect the coconuts. George didn’t want anyone trying to swim for them.
Once they were retrieved, they worked to crack one of them open. Vos tried first, but his hands were shaking too badly, so Bakker took over. George was asked to divide the thin milk between the seventeen men, then he broke up the interior meat, which amounted to about three centimeters per person.
Not much, but it was something.
“God is good,” Vos whispered as he ate his first morsel of the coconut.
George decided it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. He didn’t remember loving coconut as much as he did now. And they still had two left. Unanimously, they decided they’d eat one a day, although it was discouraging to think if that became the case, it meant they’d be on the sea two more days.
“We need to increase our speed,” Rouwenhorst said. “We’re all exhausted, but we’ll shorten our rotations. Now that we’ve all had some sustenance, we can put in more effort.”
Renewed energy throughout the group lasted about two more hours, until the heat of the sun once again began draining life, bit by bit. It wasn’t anything new, but a couple of the men were vocal in their complaints.
“We’re like sitting targets,” Mulder said to no one in particular. It was his turn to rest on one of the wooden planks, and he was worse off with blisters than most of the others. “The sun is baking us alive, and a couple of mouthfuls of water and two bites of coconut aren’t going to keep us going for long.” He turned on his side and stared at the volcano Salak.
“We’ve made it this far,” Vos said. “Just this morning we were praying for rain and look what happened.”
Mulder waved toward the blue expanse of sky. “Where’s the rain now?”
“Rest if you can,” Vos said. “Think of your family and how happy they’ll be to find out you survived.”
Mulder closed his eyes, and his hands clenched. “I don’t know . . . I feel half dead already. My skin is literally boiling.”
“Once we reach the Thousand Islands, we’ll have food and fresh water,” Vos continued. “This will all be a bad dream.”
“Here, take my shirt while you sleep,” Bakker offered.
That seemed to appease Mulder, at least for the time being. He finally drifted into sleep. When the shift changed, no one disturbed him. George slipped into the water.
The sun set, bringing much relief from the blistering heat, and they continued their shift changes throughout the night. All conversations had stopped, and the men paddled, swam, or bailed in silence. Even Mulder was silent in his complaints.
When it was George’s turn to rest, his mind raced despite his exhaustion. He stared at the waning moon and wondered if Mary was awake. If she was looking at the moon, too. Four days had passed since he’d kissed his wife goodbye. What did Mary think had happened to George? What did all the families of the missing men think? Had they all been declared dead? Some of them would be right, and that knowledge brought fresh pain over his lost comrades.
George couldn’t sleep, but he kept his body still, hoping that somehow he was fueling whatever reserves he had left. He wasn’t surprised when the sun made its appearance yet again. He groaned as he sat up and found his balance on the plank. With a quick check of his surroundings, he was dismayed to see the little progress they’d made.
Despite the paddling and swimming, the traveling was agonizingly slow. The men in the water clung to planks when they weren’t swimming. If they got rid of the planks, George felt they’d travel all that much faster. And every minute, every hour saved, could be the difference between life and death.
George scanned those on the dinghy. Loeffen had his head bowed, his hands listless at his side. Jaden, one of the crew’s two recruit quartermasters, seemed to be talking to himself, soft and low. George spotted the commander, who was currently bailing water out of the dinghy. “What do you think of getting rid of the planks we’re holding onto? We could swim and paddle faster through the night. We need to shorten our sleeping rotations, too. We need more swimmers.”
Rouwenhorst looked over at George. Although his life jacket was tied to the top of his head, to both dry it out and to offer shade from the early morning sun, his face and upper body were as red as a hot poker iron.
It didn’t take the commander long to consider. “Yes, let’s do it.”
The other men followed Rouwenhorst’s orders, and George could only hope it was a good move. But they did move faster, or so it seemed.
No one had extra energy. Yet, the men continued to paddle and swim. They called out encouragement to each other. Songs were sung. Terrible jokes were exchanged.
As the morning blended into afternoon, and there was no relief from clouds or rain, George knew they were running out of time. Each and every one of them was beyond exhausted. The sun today might do them all in.
Rouwenhorst kept checking his compass, and he must have read George’s mind because he said, “We need energy so that we can keep pushing through the day. Let’s open the second coconut.”
So Vos cracked open the second coconut while everyone watched him. Then his brows tugged together. That couldn’t be a good sign, George thought.
Vos bent his head and smelled the coconut. “Diesel fuel,” he muttered, then looked up. “This one is bad.” He tossed it into the sea, and all the men watched it float away.
Vos looked to the commander, who nodded his assent. And Vos reached for the third, and final, coconut. “Pray the last one is good,” he said, cracking the final coconut open.
It was.
Once again, George was asked to divide the milk and the coconut meat evenly among the men. The couple of swallows of coconut milk and small morsel of the meat were not enough. But it was something.
It was the end of their food, George knew. They were racing against time for their very lives. But the men surrounding him, bobbing in the sea, or tending to tasks upon the dinghy, could defy mother nature only so long.
George couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept, but he feared if he let himself rest, he’d never wake up. As it was, his vision blurred with the blaring sun, as the yellow spread across the blue waters. Beautiful, yet lethal.
“Look,” someone said.
George rotated slowly from where he was bailing water, his body aching, his skin on fire. Dark spots on the horizon . . . That meant one thing. Japanese ships.
The words reverberated through the men as the paddling and swimming slowed. Were they about to paddle straight into their enemies’ grasp?
“They’re palm trees, not ships,” Van Beek said.
Bakker let out a low whistle. “I think you’re right. Palm trees! The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!”
George frowned, then he blinked his eyes a few times, and squinted. Those paddling increased their speed, and suddenly those in the water were swimming with stronger strokes. The dinghy shot forward, and George stared as the realization buzzed through him.
They were approaching the northernmost tip of the Thousand Islands.
They’d made it. They’d stayed on course. And they’d only lost two men.
The men used the last of their reserves. Their goal was in sight. They’d have food, fresh water, shade from the sun. Rescue would certainly be imminent. It would be hours yet, but none of that mattered.
When it was George’s turn to paddle, he and Bakker were opposite of each other. George met the stronger seaman stroke for stroke.
And then, he stopped.
Everyone stopped.
A ship had come into view, heading directly parallel between the men and the Thousand Islands.
George wanted to throw up at the sight of the Japanese destroyer.
“No . . .” Jaden murmured. “Not again.”
“Everyone lie flat,” Rouwenhorst barked.
The destroyer was moving quickly in a straight line. Not toward them yet, but that could change at any instant.
“I don’t want to be captured,” Mulder said. “Anything but that.” He covered his head with his hands.
