1821 - The Battle for Palembang

16: a Gray Sky and a Riverful of Corpses (Gombora Island, 1821)

Near Fortress Gombora, Musi River, 1821

One Month Later

The morning started with a grey sky. As the sun rose from the east, and that meant for Brevet Captain R.M. Bimasena, behind Fortress Gombora, that venerable thing, that unbreakable beast, the sounds of war, the endless cannoneering, the endless shooting, and that madness glorified so often by men called 'battle', had stopped momentarily. The Sultan's men prayed at that hour, and so did some of his men from the Mangkunegaraan Legion, and as such it was under common convention of the laws of war that both sides honoured their traditions and the rules of war and ceased fighting for a period of time.

Indeed, the fighting had been terrible. It was no surprise that the Dutch gunners both aboard the bombarding ships and of those batteries near Muntinghe's Town so recently emplaced across the river were excellent artillerymen by any right, trained by Bonaparte's own instructors, who had played a deeply prominent part in carving their way through Europe by cannon and shot.

On the opposite side, the Palembangese gunners were nothing short of exceptional and were much the match for the Dutch. Accurate and sound in their aim, the many boats that crossed in the silence of night from the Colonel Brabant's Brigade's northern bank to the island which Gombora sat on had been sunk by the resurgent fireworks manned by the Palembangese.

Some of the bodies, violently maimed and having gone pale from water, still floated until now, and many dozens of them floated down the river onto the positions of the Dutch fleet, which had anchored itself across a narrow point in the river, its guns facing towards Gombora. Surely, Brabant's Brigade, consisting of the finest men the East Indies could offer, European and Javanese both, had taken a heavy toll, but they were here, and they were here to stay.

The rising sunlight kissed a camp in the flat horizon, with faint traces of smoke marking its approximate position. Last night's fire had been killed by duration or by the rising winds that had engulfed the camp. But Bimasena wanted to find calm, to meditate on this fine morning, so he went by the bank where they had landed, and in his full uniform as if in ceremony–sword, cocked hat, jacket, and white trousers–he took his horse, tied him to a tree, and sat down by the rocky bank. And upon that bank was a grave, and marked upon it was a sword, a light infantry officer's sabre, which had once belonged to a very good man, and an exceptional soldier.

He walked the short distance to the grave, and sat down by it.

"We meet again, old friend." Said he, the wind blowing the feathers of his cocked hat and the tails of his jacket, flapping his white cotton trousers, which had gone brown and loose due to wear-and-tear.

"How is the other side, eh?" He took in the calm early morning winds, and closed his eyes. The man who died here had taught him many things on war, and many things about being a man. To brave the enemy's fire, to command his men well, to think not only as a soldier, but as a leader. And now, he was dead; and none was to guide him.

A short engagement in the woods had taken him, and as much as the surgeons tried to save him, a stray musket-ball had lodged itself too deep within his body for them to save him, and he had died from blood loss. No matter how brave or gallant, the musket-ball could take any man's life. No use were the prayers it seems; it was all a game of chance. All captains of history were merely gamblers of exceptional skill and their cards were fate, the wagers were their lives.

One's virtues could not save them, even then. Now, he touched the grave of his dead friend, and prayed for him to his God, a God that, Bimasena was slowly losing his faith in. After he had concluded his ancient heartfelt prayer, he looked upon the other bank. Activity was sparse, but he took his time to feel the world around him. The current's waves which took the rocks, the rising tides, and that hint of rot and black powder in the air. Such aesthetics were the spice to the steak of the last several days... of his first war.