Ambonese soldiers formed part of the mixed garrisons of the Dutch outposts of Groot-Atjeh, and one old Ambonese veteran at Toengkoeb supplied G. B. Hooijer with the fullest account in his book of the earlier campaigns of General van der Heijden.
The story-teller of Toengkoeb
Hooijer wrote that the chief pleasure available to the garrison of Toengkoeb was the talk outside the gate als een oud Amboineesch krijger zijn verhalen begon op te disschen van vroeger tijden, toen onze soldaten vochten, in plaats van de Atjehers zooals nu — when an old Ambonese warrior began to serve up his tales of former times, when Dutch soldiers did the fighting instead of the Achehnese as now.
He told of the day General van der Heijden appeared at that same Toengkoeb met een wolk op zijn voorhoofd because its capture had not gone as swiftly as he had a right to expect; of the columns advancing over the wide sawahs (wet rice-fields) on which his hearers now looked without daring to set a foot, without a shot falling or a hostile Achehnese daring to show himself. Growing warm, the grey soldier would spring up from his bench to point out the kampongs (villages) across the sawahs through which the main column had passed to approach the Messigit from the rear, its front being covered by marshes and a series of fortifications; and the thick tree at six hundred paces where the Achehnese guide had brought the column directly opposite the strongly held house of prayer, from which fire was at once opened that cost him and two soldiers their lives and wounded an officer and sixteen men.
The narrator had lain down with his comrades behind a little dyke at the edge of the sawah (wet rice-field), debouching man after man from the path enclosed between high paggers (bamboo fences) and palisades, and had answered that fire; the artillery had thrown a granaatkartets through the roof and ceiling of the mosque; and a second guide, with a pistol held to the back of his head, was made to indicate the prescribed direction. The column, cutting its way through hundreds of paggers and taking a couple of bentengs in passing, had covered only half its road by four in the afternoon and then withdrew to Tjadé — the cause of the general’s anger.
See Also
Source
De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh, door G. B. Hooijer, Gep. Luit.-Kolonel O. I. Leger, met 24 platen (Haarlem: De Erven F. Bohn; Batavia: G. Kolff & Co., 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Centrale Boekerij, Amsterdam. OCR-filename: 20260719_140140_DLP-134-De_verlaten_posten_in_Groot_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 22, 24, 26.