1821 - The Battle for Palembang

29: Dearest Cornelia

For Cornelia van Holt, My Dearest Friend

I hope you are well. I could not be better, for I am alive, and even after all that. Forgive me for how graphic this letter may be, but I must confide into you my thoughts, and how I have turned from a man to a killer. Bear with me as the many pains we have gone through together.

I saw with mine own eyes, the chaos that this quarrel prescribes. Not one man but a thousand, clambering up those terrible steps. I can proudly say that I was one of them.

Up we went the rubble, body and friend and foe alike nothing more than another step of stairs. My comrades and I tried to hunker over and bow as we walked, but there was no use in such. King's man and Sultan's both were in panic, in anger; including that of I. My heart shows fear but the beast in me shows fury, and so I kept on, up these dreadful obstacles, until when we reached the top, and with the King's colours upon us, we cried, though we did so in a dozen languages.

None of us were the same. I, American; Zussman Flemish, many were French, and many Javanese. The officers headed the charge, as if they had nothing to lose, but then again, none of us did; nothing to lose, but much to gain, and in staying alive, one was to gain nothing less but aplenty. Riches and gold, medals and whatnot.

We were all, all the same. Brothers of the blade. Servant to the master's cause. Married to the musket, and caressed by the bayonet. Up, up we went, none stopped, if not for being taken by the Sultan's lead and the Sultan's steel.

And so as we reached the top, we spread about the battlements, charging the guns and taking them, though none of us could fire them. Neither were they loaded; they had been used to take down that-many-a-comrade. No use for us, we minded them not, and the only thing in our heads the mindless fury that this siege has brought.

We killed them. Many of them. The fighting, the surrendering, the brave, the cowards.

A Palembangese charged at me, but there was no use; as I blocked his strike, two men on my flank took him by the sides, stabbing into his stomach and ripping it open. He died with a puddle of his own blood. He shook as the life seeped out of him. We moved on.

Captain Simpson, then, I saw; his face and body bloodied, but the blood was not his. Same as I, a man charged at him. He parried the strike with his sword, grabbed the man's weapon, and crashed his pistol upon that man's head, crushing the man's head. He looked at me, then, and he looked at all of us: "Light company! Load your firelocks!" he said.

And so we did. We bit our cartridges and poured the powder upon the pan. We spit the ball into the barrel. We rammed the barrel home. We made ready. Down, below us, a great disorganised column of faded blue-coats faced off against the much less significant defenders of the fortress. Surely, the latter was of no match; they were being swallowed open. On the other side of Gombora, Colonel Bischoff's men had scaled the walls using ladders and rope. More and more soldiers in blue poured in and lesser and lesser of the Sultan's men were left.

There, Simpson, bareheaded but for the bandage upon his head, called us to arms: "Charge, Charge!" he said. "For Lemaire! For Lemaire!" he yelled, the name of our dead commander. The Mangkunegaraans, that Captain R.M. Bimasena leading them, joined in the shouts; Lemaire was their commander, too, and many had they lost throughout the long fighting.

And we did. And so I did.

We poured down into the centre, cutting, stabbing, and ridding the square of every single one of their number. No quarter, no mercy. A man raised his arms in surrender. I did not think twice, and struck him by the guts. He shouted in pain, but more was to come. Zussman came next to me, and stabbed him again. We were animals. We dug through his guts and did so in anger. The only reason we stopped was that a group of enemy soldiers had banded up and formed up; they loaded, and without us knowing, they fired.

Lenny van der Kleij shouted, then, the first time he spoke after silence since last night: "Keep your heads down, you goddamn bastards!" said he, and although I threw myself to the ground quickly, many did not get the warning.

Zussman surely did not. His chest was pierced through by three musket balls, dead centre; he stood there for a moment, and as his eyes lost its sight, he fell onto the ground, no longer to laugh or joke. Fury filled my soul, and as they loaded, I yelled. "Thirteenth! Thirteeeeenth! With me! Charge!"

Many rallied to my call, and we headed onto that last battlement, that bastion of defence. They hid behind a set of bags, but we quickly disposed of that: and we quickly disposed of them. I looked around, then, with the small group of men I led. Zussman was dead, and Lenny and Sergeant de Zeeuw were nowhere to be seen.

And Simpson, was again, gone.

But there, there up the parapets, a figure of blue I saw, fighting off one man after the next, alone. Many tried to catch up with him, but they were disposed quickly by the Palembangese, who quickly converged on that figure of blue. He carried on one hand his curved sabre of the light infantry and in the other, the Dutch Majesty's flag. He ran, up the steps, dodging one strike after the other, until he finally made it, to the battlements that faced the fleet.

And there, he dropped his sword down to the strap upon his wrists and raised the standard high up in the sky. He waved it, and the fleet saw it, and there I saw his face: it was Simpson. His waves did not last long. He let the flag go, then, and took back his sword, six or seven Palembangese soldiers chasing after him.

I yelled for the rest to come with me, to the rescue of that Mr. Simpson, of which later I found had lived a life so long and so sad. We did, finally, come to his aid, and cleared away one by one the Sultan's men. And upon the pile of bodies, we found Mr. Simpson.

He set his back against the wall, the flag still upright, his arms wrapped around the standard's staff, his head leaning upon it. His sword, too, had been shattered. His body was pierced in one too many places it seems, his stare blank: he then looked at me, his tired face scarred and blood leaking out of one too many holes about his blue jacket. He was too weak to stand, yet upon his face a smile, and with that last hint of energy did Mr. Simpson speak and laughed and coughed blood: "We have it, Wolesley. We've bloody done it."

He looked up to the sky then, and upon his sights, a pair of birds, all which came as the sun began to crawl from hiding. They flew in perfect peace, and remained so, even as the shooting stopped. Mr. Simpson did not stop staring, and at one point, even as the birds went out of sight, his eyes did not shift, his body stiff. There, there the King's colours flew, and Gombora was there, and Gombora was theirs.

A few days later, the Sultan declared unconditional surrender and the general said in his victory address that some regiments were to be shipped home: the Mangkunegaraans and the Thirteenth were among them. I wish many of our number remained healthy and true: Lenny, Zussman, Captain Simpson, Ensign Kollewijn. The world had not been fair, for I am not worthy to come back home alive. I am no hero; many are fitter to be called as such.

But then again, I must be grateful. I am to see you again, and see you soon. Never would I thought I would miss the Kampongs of Batavia so dearly.

Your dearest friend,

Lance-Corporal Peter Wolesley

13th Regiment of Foot (Royal Eastern Legion), Netherlands East Indies Army

18 August 1821