The sharpshooter of Biloel — de scherpschutter van Biloel — was an unnamed Acehnese marksman who in the closing months of 1895 and the opening weeks of 1896 picked off the sentries of the Dutch forward post of Biloel in Groot-Atjeh from a concealed trench, and who was killed in an ambush laid by a European sergeant and five fusiliers at daybreak. The episode forms the second sketch in P. H. R. Beuming’s Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh, which subtitles it Historische Schets uit het Bentingleven op Groot-Atjeh — a historical sketch from benting life in Greater Atjeh.
Setting: the post of Biloel
Biloel lay in the neighbourhood of the posts Lamkoenjit and Tjot Goé, east of the hill called the Boekit Terin; to the west it bordered the extensive territory of Lamkrak, and its front looked out on a mountain chain called Batoe Mengoera. The garrison consisted of about 150 bayonets under the command of a captain. Like the other forward posts it was built wholly of bamboo, with a roof of atap — see the forward-post benting for the construction Beuming describes.
The photograph of Biloel reproduced in the book carries the caption Onze vroegere benting Biloel, een der meest beschoten voorposten — our former benting Biloel, one of the most heavily shot-at forward posts — with a cross marking the sentry-box that was vooral het mikpunt der vijandelijke scherpschutters, the particular target of the enemy marksmen.
The situation at the end of 1895
Beuming sets the sketch at the end of 1895, when the bands of Panglima Polim and of the Sultan’s party were acting everywhere with boldness. They had marked out the Dutch forward posts in particular, and since orders had at that time been given from above to operate as little as possible outside the bentings, the Acehnese marksmen had free play. Biloel above all had to suffer.
Notwithstanding the privations of the forward posts, the spirit among the men was excellent. They troubled themselves very little about the continual firing of the enemy and no longer even noticed the bullets whistling through the reed roofing. Yet it happened only too often that a victim fell — sometimes by day, sometimes at night as the men lay resting on the baleh-baleh, the bunks of split bamboo. If the firing became too severe a grenade was sent over; for a time it would then be quiet, but soon the Acehnese marksmen returned and the firing began anew.
The cook and the cooking-kettle
Beuming preserves one comic incident of the bombardment. One day, when the post’s cook was preparing the field menu — that day pea soup with salt pork, in soldier’s phrase snert van de bovenste plank — an enemy bullet struck the great cooking-kettle and made a good hole in it. The cook, who had been labouring over his soup with his knoedellepel, shook the ladle in impotent rage in the direction of the marksman who had played him this trick, who might indeed count himself fortunate to be out of the cook’s reach. Drommels, dat gat moet ik stoppen, anders krijgen de sobats van middag niks te bikken — confound it, I must stop that hole, or the mates will get nothing to eat this afternoon — and he drove a wooden plug into the hole. The men had their soup at midday after all.
The sentry-killings
One of the enemy marksmen had marked out the sentries in particular. Scarcely had day broken when his well-aimed shots rang out. They struck the lean-to roofs of the sentry-boxes without intermission and many a sentry became the victim of his duty. The Europeans called this Acehnese marksman de scherpschutter van Biloel and were of opinion that he was a deserted European fusilier. The native fusiliers in particular could make nothing of him: in their superstitious fear they thought of an Orang-Setan, a devil-man.
It happened one morning that the sentry on the north face — a native fusilier — was fatally struck. Although the Javanese soldiers did not lack courage, they could no longer be induced to take that dangerous post. Beuming is careful about the point: Kent men het karakter van den Javaan, dan weet men, dat hier niet is te denken aan lafhartigheid, maar aan bijgeloovige vrees — whoever knows the character of the Javanese knows that here one must think not of cowardice but of superstitious fear.
The ambush
The commander saw that this could not continue and resolved to make an end of the sentry-murders of this mysterious marksman. He charged a European sergeant with the task of laying an ambush by night in the foreground with five European fusiliers, in order to catch the dangerous marksman or render him harmless.
The sergeant chose five sturdy soldiers and left the benting about midnight in complete silence by the sally-port. The little patrol was armed only with the rifle, the cartridges stowed in their trouser pockets so as to move more freely and cause as little noise as possible. Step by step the little band moved through the pitch-dark night; the deep darkness prevented them from seeing even one pace ahead, and to avoid losing one another each held fast to the man in front.
They had left the benting far behind when they reached the edge of the sawah, the partly flooded rice field. With every precaution they began to wade through it; at some points they sank to the hips in the mud, but after long floundering they got firm ground under their feet again. The sergeant then took counsel with his men on how they should post themselves, and they decided to lie down side by side with small intervals behind the sawah dyke.
Only the monotonous sound of the crickets and the call of the tjekkoh — a tree lizard whose cry sounds distinctly like its name — broke the stillness of the tropical night. The great marsh mosquitoes attacked the men violently, but the Indies soldier regarded these plagues as a necessary evil. The waiting in that pitch-dark night seemed endless.
Daybreak and the shot
At last a dull rumbling like an approaching thunderstorm sounded in the distance: the morning gun had fallen on the roadstead of Oleh-leh. It was now five o’clock — Beuming notes in a footnote that in most garrisons in the Indies a gun was fired morning and evening, the morgen- en avondschot, and that as soon as the morning gun fell the buglers blew the reveille.
The nocturnal darkness gradually disappeared and daylight broke; the crickets ceased their nightly concert. The extensive hill terrain lay lonely, lit by the first rays of the morning sun that made the dewdrops on the grass blades glitter like so many thousands of diamonds; the summits of the rocky mountains bathed in a dazzling golden glow. A mysterious stillness lay over the picturesque landscape; no living being was to be seen. Alles ademde hier vrede, alsof er geen vreeselijke Atjeh-krijg, die reeds zoovele offers had geëischt, bestond — everything here breathed peace, as if there were no terrible Atjeh war that had already demanded so many victims.
About half past five, near a little bamboo thicket some fifty metres from the ambush, the men suddenly saw the head of an Acehnese rise out of the ground; soon afterwards the owner of that head came into view. He was a tall, strongly built fellow with a beardless face, dressed only in long black trousers with a short sarong about the loins, his head covered with an Acehnese fez. About his naked upper body hung a cartridge pouch of the Dutch troops’ pattern, and in his right hand he carried a Beaumont rifle. Not in the least suspecting the presence of the hated kaffirs, he surveyed the terrain at his ease.
The Dutch now understood that they had the sharpshooter before them. To take him alive without loss on their own side was impracticable. At a sign from the sergeant six shots fell in quick succession; the Acehnese swung his arms in the air and fell. In an instant the men were out of their hiding places. De schildwachtendooder van Biloel was voor goed van het oorlogstooneel verdwenen — the sentry-killer of Biloel had disappeared for good from the theatre of war. The well-aimed shots had killed him instantly.
The trench
The riddle of his mysterious rising out of the ground was soon solved. Some metres behind the fallen Acehnese, in the burnt-off alang-alang field behind the bamboo thicket, they discovered a trench about one metre deep by one metre wide, extending some ten metres to either side. The opening was ingeniously covered with high grass, so that a superficial observer would certainly not have suspected its presence. In the trench were found a klewang and a patjol, an Indies digging spade.
It was evident that the Acehnese crept behind the bamboo thicket in the night to take his place in the trench. At daybreak he could then successfully harass the sentries, and only too often his shots found their mark. Because of the great distance this masked hiding place could not possibly be seen from the benting. Behind the thicket he had a splendid observation post, and through the trench he could change position under cover to mislead the sentries.
Beuming explains in a footnote the Dutch practice behind the burnt field: to prevent the Acehnese from stalking the bentings and for better observation of the surrounding terrain, the high alang-alang grass around the bentings was continually burnt off.
Aftermath
The patrol then made its way back to the benting, taking with it the rifle, the klewang and the cartridge pouch, in which a number of cartridges remained. The men were greeted with cheering, for the commander had watched the outcome from the banket with a field glass and the news of the success had preceded them.
That same day a strong patrol marched out to bury the fallen Acehnese. He was given as his last resting place his own fortress, which was demolished along with the bamboo thicket. The benting continued to be shot at afterwards, but the Acehnese no longer ventured so near the post. De scherpschutter van Biloel behoorde tot het verleden — the sharpshooter of Biloel belonged to the past.
See Also
- Biloel
- Voorpostenbenting
- Lamkoenjit
- Tjot Goé
- Boekit Terin
- Batoe Mengoera
- Lamkrak
- Orang Setan
- Alang-alang
- Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh (1911)
- P. H. R. Beuming
- 1895
- 1896
Source
Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh, met speciaal vervaardigde kaart en toepasselijke photo’s, bewerkt door P. H. R. Beuming, oud-onderofficier van het Ned.-Indische Leger (Amsterdam, December 1911; uitgegeven ten bate van het te stichten Herstellingsoord voor Rijks-Ambtenaren). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br N 82-144
Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh, met speciaal vervaardigde kaart en toepasselijke photo’s, bewerkt door P. H. R. Beuming, oud-onderofficier van het Ned.-Indische Leger (Amsterdam, December 1911). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.