Forgotten Wars_ Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia - Christopher Bayly [110]
all over the world.’ Travelling in an ordinary car in convoy with Indonesian negotiators, and with only three British aides with him, Mallaby went first to the Internatio Bank in Union Square, where a company of 6th Mahrattas were holding out, confronted by a hostile crowd of 500 or so Indonesians. Mallaby, with the aid of the Indonesians, tried to broker a ceasefire and to disperse the crowd, but the crowd was in no mood to listen. Mallaby’s car was surrounded and, as armed Indonesians threatened to overwhelm the Mahrattas in the bank building, their Indian officer, seemingly unprompted, gave the order to fire. The volley of Bren-gun fire and grenades killed perhaps 150 Indonesians. In the British accounts, Mallaby’s car came under fire in front of the bank. No one was hit, and Mallaby and the two officers in the car with him lay inside it playing dead for about two hours. Then two Indonesians came to the car window. One touched Mallaby on the shoulder; the brigadier stirred and demanded to see the Indonesian commanders. The men went away, as if to confer, and when they returned one of them shot Mallaby who died almost instantly. General firing started up again, and the two Indonesians ducked behind the car. The two surviving officers seized the opportunity, and as Mallaby’s killer was about to open fire again one of them lobbed a grenade. It is unclear exactly where the grenade exploded, but it almost certainly killed the assailants. The officers escaped from the car and dived into a nearby canal. Hidden between barges and pontoons, and ducking under floating corpses, they made it back to the burning warehouses near the naval base. It took them several hours.98 The Indonesian version was that Mallaby was hit by a mortar shell fired by the Indian troops in the Internatio Bank. This version was relayed by Tom Driberg to the House of Commons. Mallaby, Driberg argued, was killed in action and not by ‘foul murder’; the charge was a slur on the Indonesian people.99 The details of the episode remain confused and disputed. What is clear is that by scattering his command and exposing himself personally, Mallaby made fatal errors of judgement. Military historians have tended to reach a verdict of death by misadventure. Mallaby’s brigade had been all but overwhelmed and the defenders of Surabaya claimed victory. An Indonesian news photographer captured the scene: the burnt-out Lincoln sedan in the square and, behind it, a banner: ‘Once and forever – the Indonesian Republic’.100
The British response was immediate and unflinching. Christison issued a chilling proclamation to the defenders of Surabaya: ‘I intend to bring the whole weight of my sea, land and air forces and all the weapons of modern warfare against them until they are crushed.’101 Sukarno and Hatta were told that Major General E. C. R. Mansergh would arrive with a full infantry division and tanks. Sukarno himself now made a radio address: ‘A tiny grain of arsenic is enough to ruin a glass of water’, he pleaded. ‘So also in a nation.’ This created sufficient calm for the withdrawal of around 8,000 internees, and for the British counter-attack. Over the next few days 5 Indian Division massed in the docks. On 9 November Mansergh ordered the surrender of all arms by the following daybreak, on pain of death, and all women and children were to leave the city by the following nightfall. ‘Crimes against civilization’, his ultimatum stated, ‘cannot go unpunished.’ The republican leadership in the city was divided: there was little realistic opportunity for the ultimatum to be obeyed and, as the British officers well knew, it gave the city leadership no alternative but to fight.102 The surrounding countryside was awash with calls for jihad; students from the religious schools poured into the city. Sukarno, pressured to intervene once more, left the issue to the city to decide. In this mood the pemuda prevailed. The airwaves were used to dramatic effect by Bung Tomo that evening. Radio Pemberontakan urged the people of Surabaya to brace themselves: ‘Our slogan remains the same: