The Gurka's

THE GURKA’S
Slowly the feeling of freedom spread to Java, the war was over the japanees had lost,we were enjoying our freedom, with music and friends, who came to us from other camps, especially the man.
At that time we were in camp 9 or 11 in Ambarawa. It used to be a school for girls run by nuns. At the square before the camp was a church and many trees. Entering the camp you found yourself in the hall, here were also the kitchens and various other rooms.The whole school was situated on hill slope.
The Japs were living in the actual schoolbuilding, we where staying in the nuns convent and other buildings.
The first part of our camp started below and then went up. On the top was a large grass field surrounded by barracks, where many women and children lived and slept. At the end of the field were the toilets on the right and left was another huge barrack. Behind this barrack a small path with a long wall lead to a U formed galery. In the galery were very small rooms of circa 4 square meters. In those rooms we had to sleep with 8 people. In the middle of the U galery was a small building with toilets and two showers. At the end of the U was an open field reaching all the way up to the wall that surrounded everything.
In this open field was a nice tree, where we, the children, gathered and played. It was our area.
After the liberation men and boys came back. The first men and boys were welcomed with cheers.
Lots of other people visited our camp bringing sad and serious news of the other camps.
The Indonesian people did not accept the oppression of the whites anymore and tried to make this clear to murder or imprison the white people, who they found on their ways, looking for family members.
We enjoyed the return of the boys and men, among whom were doctors and technicians, who in turn could help us.
While sitting in that lovely tree, enjoying freedom all of a sudden three bullets flew around me. Falling out of the tree and hearing all women yell for their children, I realized that something was wrong, but what was not clear yet.
We ran to our rooms and ducked under the window sills laying flat on the ground while bullets flew around us. Suddenly we were attacked by Indonesian men, who came over the wall and drove us out of the rooms with rifles through the small corridors to the other side. There on the top of the grass field everyone ran as chickens without a head. The men came from everywhere with coloured faces, rifles and hand grenades. They besieged the large group on the grass field. In the surrounding buildings women barricaded the rooms with their beds and chests, but the Indonesians wanted them out also. Everyone had to go to the grass field. The rest of the angry men stood in half a circle yelling at us and pointing their riffles.
They became nervous because it took so much time to get everyone out. They were so nervous that they began to shoot.
The scenes that took place in front of our eyes was like a hollywood film. Everyone was running and fleeing in all directions. After a while we reached a toilet at the end of the field where we locked ourselves in. We stood there in mortal fear thinking that, after all the misery we had survived, we would now die anyway.
Then we suddenly heard a terrible noise and loud yells, this was it, this was the end. But someone shrieked: the Gurka’s, the Gurka’s. Nobody believed it until one of the Gurka's jumped off the roof of the toilet and grinned at us. He ran to the grassfield with his riffle. Everyone waited deadly quiet. The infernal racket was deafening. All you heard was yelling, shooting of machine-guns, all very scary. We felt our hearts thumping in our throats with fear but also with expectation, hoping they could save us.
My God, pugnacious they climed over the roofs, coming from everywhere and within an hour all was over. Deadly silence.
Silently everyone came out of their hiding places and after taking care of the wounded and counting the death, it hit us, we realized that we were liberated again.
A Scottish major was leading these incredible, well trained, strong and lightning fast and sometimes cruel fighters. The Indonesians they caught, found no mercy.
We thought: that is it, but from the woods on the hill the fighting started again.
Never will I forget, what the Gurka’s did for us. The way they came into action after a 3-day journey deadly tired and hungry after being warned by a couple of men from the camp that in the camp women and childred were murdered by the Indonesian. And then again fighting with bullets in their legs for another three days. The bullets were later removed, not in an operating theatre and without morphine, but somewhere in a hiding place with bullets flying over our heads. Never had I felt such admiration for those little men from India, who so heroicly saved women and children under the leadership of a Scottish major and a couple of English officers. Mind you the English were really great then.
With trucks we were taken from this dangerous camp and driven to Banjoebiroe and from there to Semarang to the coast. The whole way from Banjoebiroe to Semarang was bombed by an English warship from out of the sea, it looked as if someone had shaven a large path through the forest. Escorted by English soldiers in jeeps along side, behind and before us the women and children in the trucks covered with mattresses were brought to the coast. The soldiers were joking and singing all the time. We sang along and laughed a lot during this frightning journey. Once in a while we stopped and then the soldiers jumped out of the jeeps and started shooting back at anything that moved. When everything was quiet again we went on. Also in Semarang our stay with all those English was full of joy. They learned us to sing their songs, we were dancing and having fun with them. Thus the anxious days passed quickly. With a ship of the troops, the Amhurst Victory, we sailed to Batavia and from there, with a lot of other people we departed for Holland with the Klipfontein.
I am incredibly grateful of the heroic Gurka’s as well as the English soldiers and the great Scottish major. From the moment they rescued us until our departure to Holland they gave us many pleasant moments and the feeling of safety. Unfortunately I was never able to thank them personally for liberating us the second time.
Dinkie