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There were a few other merciful concessions to the hostages on the train. After 13 days, the terrorists released two pregnant women, ages 25 and 31. Three days later they wheeled out a 46-year-old sailor suffering from chest pains; he was rushed to Groningen University's intensive care unit.
Life on the train, according to the released hostages, was indeed a deadly combination of high stress and boredom. Because all the crossword puzzles had been completed, even the men inside the train began to take up embroidery to pass the time. One man plunged into a deep mental depression, and at one point another simply fainted, apparently from tension. The hijackers maintained strict hygiene inside the train. Every morning blankets were hung out of the windows and beaten to remove the dust. In the afternoon, hostages were assigned to remove excrement from under the train's toilet pipe and bury it in the gravel of the railway bed. Brooms and cleaning materials were brought in, along with games and a daily food delivery from a caterer, paid for by the government. Unable to take any physical exercise, many of the hostages complained of constipation.
Meanwhile, the Dutch government's crisis team was getting nowhere in its attempts to negotiate the hostages' release. A government psychiatrist, Dick Mulder, made daily contacts with the Moluccans; increasingly, he found himself being either mocked or scolded by the tough young terrorists. Two mediation attempts by respected leaders of the Moluccan community failed completely. Mrs. Josephine Soumokil, 64-year-old widow of the resistance hero executed by the Indonesians, visited the train along with Hassan Tan, 56, a former education and welfare minister in the Moluccan government in exile. Their presence encouraged the terrorists, who greeted them with a minimilitary parade. The visits proved an extra hardship to the hostages: they were forced to sit motionless during the two meetings, which lasted six and 4½ hours respectively.
During the first two weeks of the drama, Dutch officials made it clear that their first priority was the safety of the hostages. As the mediation attempts collapsed and the sullen mood of Dutch public opinion turned to raw anger, the government began to change its position. Interior Minister Wilhelm Friedrich de Gaay Fortman insisted that the overriding need was for "restoration of law and order—that's what is No. 1—if in any way possible, without loss of life." By Friday evening the government decided to attack the train, after the leader of the hijackers, Max Papilaya, 24, refused any further contact with authorities until his demands were met.