The Pure Land

by Spence, Alan

  He would take with him four companions, young samurai from his own Choshu clan. Glover would make the arrangements, smuggle them out.

  Mackenzie had been appalled. ‘It’s madness, Tom! Think of the risks!’

  ‘We have. We know what we’re taking on.’

  ‘What if it all goes wrong? You’ll be expelled from the country. Your assets will be forfeit. You’ll be ruined.’

  ‘Then so be it. Ito and the others are risking so much more.’

  ‘If they’re caught they’ll be summarily executed.’

  ‘They know that. They accept it. It would be cowardly not to help them.’

  Mackenzie had shaken his head. ‘It’s a step too far, Tom. Even for you.’

  ‘So you won’t help?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  Glover had nodded. ‘Fine.’

  *

  He had to admit there was something comical in their appearance, their hair still ragged, roughly trimmed. They had discarded their samurai robes, put on western suits that Glover had acquired for them, and even the smallest suit was long in the sleeves, the trouser-legs, lent an aspect that was almost clownish.

  But then Ito lined them up, a general inspecting his troops. They stood in front of Glover, looking for his approval, stiff and selfconscious, like a family group in a photographer’s studio, posing for a formal portrait. And something in the sheer dignity of their bearing, an inherent pride, shone through. Glover found himself quite moved by it, bowed low to them.

  He fetched a bottle of his best whisky, poured each of them a dram in a small sake cup, proposed a toast.

  ‘To the Choshu Five!’

  They raised their cups, drank.

  Ito cleared his throat. ‘Is tradition, when we go on journey like this, to make haiku poem. May be last journey. I make for all of us.’

  He drew himself up, recited in Japanese, the words slow and incantatory. The others made noises of approval, bowed.

  Then he turned to Glover. ‘I make translation.

  Night journey –

  How far is it

  to the other shore?’

  ‘Good,’ said Glover, and they all bowed once more. ‘Now, it’s time.’

  *

  The night was warm and close. Glover led them down a narrow lane towards the harbour, their collars turned up, hat-brims pulled down, Matsuo following behind, alert to any threat. Their bags had been loaded, earlier in the day, onto a company clipper, at anchor out in the bay. A longboat waited at the harbour, ready to ferry them out. The hope was that in the dark, from a distance, the five might pass for a group of young Europeans. If challenged they were to keep silent, turn their faces away, let Glover do the talking.

  It was all going well till they reached the quay and a lantern suddenly flared at them out of the dark and a voice roared at them to stop, stay where they were.

  ‘Christ!’ said Glover, under his breath.

  The guard was one of the Shogun’s men, patrolling the docks. The fear was that there were more of them, that they’d been alerted, were ready to attack.

  Glover stepped forward, said these men were English traders. ‘Igirisu no shounin desu.’ They were leaving for Shanghai. ‘Shanhai e iku tokoro desu.’

  The guard held up the lantern, shone it in their faces. His own face in the harsh light was hard, unconvinced. He said they would have to wait, barked it out. ‘Koko de matte ore!’

  Ito and the others tensed, braced themselves. Matsuo positioned himself between Glover and the guard, right hand resting easy on the handle of his sword. Then from behind them came another voice, booming out, authoritative, taking the guard to task.

  It was Mackenzie, saying the men were his responsibility, they were on Jardine’s business. ‘Jardine to akinai o shite oru no desu.’

  The guard looked reluctantly placated, turned to go.

  ‘Good timing, Ken!’ said Glover.

  Mackenzie nodded, laconic. ‘Aye.’

  ‘Now we go to England!’ said Ito.

  Relief spread through the group, and one of the younger samurai laughed, said ‘Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. How are you? I am very well, thank you.’

  Another of them shoved him, playful, but a little too hard and he stumbled and fell, his hat coming off and rolling some distance.

  The guard stopped and turned, shone his lantern again, lit up the figure lying on the ground, the young man clearly Japanese. He drew his sword, opened his mouth to call the alarm, but Matsuo was already on him, had drawn his own sword, sliced the man’s throat and he pitched forward, dead.

  ‘Dear God!’ said Mackenzie.

  ‘Go!’ said Glover, urging Ito and the others into the boat.

  Matsuo lugged the guard’s body to the quayside, shoved it into the water with a deep dull hollow splash, the water imploding then closing over it. The boat moved off and there were shouts in the distance, voices raised, more guards running from the other side of the docks.

  ‘Hayaku!’ said Matsuo. ‘Quick!’ And he set off running down a side street, Mackenzie and Glover following.

  ‘Christ Almighty!’ said Mackenzie, wheezing, out of breath. ‘I can’t keep this up!’

  There were guards coming after them; they could hear them getting nearer. They turned off down a narrow lane, into an alleyway. As they passed a doorway, Matsuo stopped, pushed both of them inside, put a finger to his mouth to indicate they keep silent, and carried on running.

  They waited, tense and strained, nerves taut, conscious of the sound of their own breathing. There were more footsteps along the alley but they kept on going, past the doorway, on out of their hearing. Then it was quiet again, and Glover was aware of the thud of his own heartbeat, heard it gradually slow down, back to its normal rate.

  It was dark, but he could just make out they were in the courtyard of a small temple, a wayside shrine. The thick woody scent of incense hung in the air, faintly musty. Mackenzie had slumped, was sitting on the ground, his back to the wall, his face in his hands.

  ‘What in the name of God are we doing?’

  Glover motioned him to be silent again. He had heard something, the low drone of a voice. Carefully, slowly, placing one foot, the other, he made his way across the courtyard, trying to move quietly, but crunching gravel underfoot with every step. He was stopped dead by another sound, the clang of a gong, a struck iron bell. Then he realised the voice was of a monk, chanting, inside the shrine. He took two more steps and peered in. By the faintest glow of a lamp burned almost out, he could see the silhouette of the monk, an old man, sitting cross-legged at his night-watch, his devotions. The monk turned and looked at Glover, looked through him and beyond him to some other place, as if his presence or absence were a matter of supreme indifference. His concentration fierce, he resumed his chanting. Namu Amida Butsu. And he struck the iron bell once more, and the sound reverberated, rang in Glover’s skull, drove everything else out.

  *

  The next morning Mackenzie, still shaken, paced in front of Glover’s desk.

  ‘That was absolute madness, Tom! We could have been killed!’

  Glover was maintaining a surface calm, but the excitement churned in him, surged in waves. ‘But we did it, Ken. We got them out!’

  ‘That’s not the point …’

  Glover thumped the desk. ‘That’s exactly the point! Can you imagine what it’ll do to these men?’

  ‘If they survive the journey.’

  ‘Of course they’ll survive. They’re samurai, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Aye, don’t I know it!’

  ‘And Jardine’s will look after them when they get to London, I’ll make sure of that.’

  ‘It’ll be one hell of a journey.’

  ‘Can you imagine what it’ll be like for them?’ said Glover. ‘Even Singapore will shake them to the core, when they sail in past the British warships. Then when they dock at Southampton, get on a train to London, they’ll be overwhelmed! And the first thin
g they’ll realise is they can’t fight that power. It’s impossible. Ito already knows this in his bones. I just want him to realise it fully, put it beyond all doubt.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘He’ll be more determined than ever to work with us, build from the ground up, turn Japan itself into a great power.’

  Mackenzie looked at him, held his gaze.

  ‘And then?’

  8

  FLOWER OF KAGOSHIMA

  Nagasaki–Kagoshima, 1863

  The wheels of diplomacy had ground with inordinate slowness, so far from London, the hub of the known universe. But the announcement, when it came, was chilling in its businesslike simplicity, couched in the language of commerce and the law, not quite masking the massive threat implied.

  For allowing a civilian Englishman, Charles Richardson, to be murdered, and for failing to arrest his assassins, the Shogun shall pay Her Majesty’s Government the sum of one hundred thousand pounds, in Mexican silver dollars. A further twenty-five thousand pounds shall be payable by the Satsuma Daimyo to be distributed to the relatives of the murdered man. The assassins shall be apprehended, and executed in the presence of British officers. If these conditions are not met within 20 days of this proclamation, there shall be a revenge attack on the Satsuma clan.

  It was what Glover had feared most. It was likely, though by no means certain, that the Shogun would pay up. He would hesitate, prevaricate, bluster, delay. But in the end he would pay, at the very last moment possible. He had no alternative, no answer to the power of the British gunboats which were already, it was rumoured, heading for Kagoshima. The Daimyo, however, was unlikely to back down, whatever the consequences.

  Alcock, the British Consul, had finally given up his post, retired to a quiet life in China, a country he regarded as infinitely more civilised than Japan. His successor was an altogether harder man, Sir Harry Parkes. He had been alerted to the fact that Glover had links with the Satsuma, had traded with them, even married into the clan. He wrote Glover a formal letter, asking if he would use his good offices to intercede with the clan leadership, attempt to make them see reason.

  ‘Reason?’ said Glover, reading the letter. ‘The man obviously hasn’t been in this country for long!’

  ‘They’ll see reason all right,’ said Walsh. ‘When hell freezes over.’

  Glover replied to Parkes that he would give the matter some thought. Parkes replied that time was short and there was some need of urgency.

  On the twentieth day after the proclamation, the very deadline specified, the Shogun handed over payment of the hundred thousand pounds. A gang of labourers lugged the money, in heavy wooden crates filled with Mexican silver dollars, from the treasury to the British Legation in Edo, now rebuilt and fortified, heavily guarded. The coinage was counted and weighed by a crew of Chinese shroffs, money-changers skilled in the detection of forgery, the substitution of base metal for silver. They painstakingly sifted through the piles of shining coins, set them in their scales, nodded their approval.

  An illustration depicting the scene appeared in the Nagasaki Advertiser, an artist’s impression by one Charles Wirgman who was in attendance. It showed in the foreground the pigtailed Chinese, huddled over the heaps of coins like misers in some stage melodrama or pantomime. Behind sat three Japanese dignitaries, representatives of the Shogun, stiff and formal in their robes, faces set, stern. On either side stood the British delegates, each of them affecting a judgemental righteousness, but unable to conceal an avaricious smugness at the sight of the fortune shimmering at their feet.

  ‘They really put the Shogun in his place,’ said Walsh, passing the newspaper back to Glover. ‘Showed him who’s boss.’

  And the picture should have delighted Glover, showing as it did a moment of triumph over the Shogun and all his works. But somehow the scene made him uneasy, the money-changers mercenary, parasitic, the British observers gloating, casually powerful, the Japanese maintaining a stoical dignity in the face of ignominy and humiliation. He was unsettled, folded the newspaper and threw it down.

  It was later, when he received another, more urgent communication from Parkes, renewing his request for Glover to intercede with the Satsuma, that he realised why the picture had affected him so much. It gave absolute confirmation of the power wielded by the West, and it epitomised the spirit of Japanese defiance which would now be expressed in extreme form by the Satsuma Daimyo. Now more than ever he would refuse to back down, lose face. Now he could make his stand, be seen to be braver, more honourable than the Shogun who had so feebly capitulated. The bombardment of Kagoshima was inevitable.

  *

  Ito had returned from his sojourn, full of tales to tell. He sat in the front room at Ipponmatsu, recounting his adventures, and Glover listened, hung on every word.

  The journey out now seemed like a distant dream. Initially there had been apprehension, the danger of being caught and executed.

  ‘But Hagakure tells us to have firm resolution, be ready for death. So we were ready, had right mind.’

  When they had reached open seas, bound for Shanghai, they knew they were safe. But the journey ahead was fraught and perilous, endlessly long, fully tested that samurai resolve.

  The size and scale of the western ships in Shanghai harbour was overwhelming. Ito at least had seen the like on his gunrunning expeditions with Glover. But to board one of these ships, to set foot on its deck, was salutary. The ship carrying them was the 300-ton Pegasus, owned by Jardine’s. Their quarters below deck were cramped and dank; they were worked hard, expected to pitch in along with the apprentice seamen; the rations were meagre, the food itself inedible, leathery salt beef and hardtack. Their health suffered, they were racked by vomiting and diarrhoea, had to remain on deck even in the roughest of seas; at one time Ito, in the throes of sickness, had to be tied to the rail so he wouldn’t be swept overboard.

  Ito laughed as he told the story against himself, not to admit his weakness, but showing pride at what he had endured.

  ‘Firm resolution. Readiness for death.’

  The journey took four months, and did indeed almost kill them. Then, docking at Southampton, they looked in awe at the massive British warships anchored there.

  ‘I wanted you to see the possibilities,’ said Glover.

  ‘We see,’ said Ito, leaving much unspoken.

  They had travelled to London by train, another salutary experience, hurtled through the English countryside at unimaginable speed down mile after mile of iron track. It had shaken them, not just physically, but deep in their being, inspired sheer wonder and awe. Japan, by comparison, was crawling out of the Middle Ages.

  In London the travellers had been received and welcomed by representatives of Jardine’s. In contrast to their long and arduous sea-crossing, stowed away like chattels, less than steerage class, they found themselves suddenly fêted, treated like heroes, like honoured guests. Their itinerary was mapped out and they embarked on a grand tour of industrialised Britain, visited factories and shipyards, universities and museums. They spent time in Glasgow, saw the extent of shipbuilding on the Clyde; they made it as far north as Aberdeen.

  Ito shivered, mimed being extremely cold, blowing on his hands, rubbing the warmth back into his arms.

  ‘Now I know why you so tough!’

  Glover laughed, could picture Ito’s discomfort, head down into a dreich grey drizzle off the North Sea.

  ‘I bring you this,’ said Ito, and he carefully, formally, with both hands, handed Glover a letter.

  Glover took it, moved by the sight of the handwriting. It was from Martha, even smelled faintly of scent, something with lilies. She must have doused the paper, the envelope.

  He put it down on his desk, would read it when Ito was gone.

  Ito’s return journey had been much less difficult than the outward voyage; Jardine’s had paid for their passage on an American-built clipper; he and his companions had travelled in cabins like the other passengers, and arr
ived, exhausted but unscathed, in Yokohama, disembarked without incident, and Ito had made his way directly to Nagasaki, to give Glover his full report.

  Glover took it all in, nodded.

  ‘Now you have returned to a situation even more volatile than it was before you left.’

  Ito pronounced the word, queried it. ‘Volatile?’

  ‘More dangerous,’ said Glover. ‘Like gunpowder.’ He mimed lighting a fuse. ‘Boom!’

  ‘Hai,’ said Ito. ‘So desu.’

  ‘The Satsuma Daimyo is making life difficult.’

  ‘Satsuma always difficult,’ said Ito. ‘No good sense.’

  Glover told him about the letter from Parkes, asking him to intervene. Ito thought on no account should Glover go to Kagoshima.

  ‘Daimyo not change,’ he said. ‘He is like Takashi, but more.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Glover. ‘But I feel I have to go.’

  ‘Is matter of honour?’

  ‘Something like that, aye.’

  Ito nodded, but looked perturbed. ‘Not good for me to come with you. I not be welcome. Choshu and Satsuma not friends.’

  ‘Don’t I know it!’

  ‘Same reason, Matsuo not go.’

  ‘So I’ll go alone,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s best.’

  Ito looked as if was going to say something else, changed his mind.

  When he’d gone, Glover read the letter from Martha.

  Dear Tom,

  I am sending this dispatch in the care of your Japanese friend, Mister Ito. It was wonderful to have news of you, directly from him. (He seems to hold you in high regard.)

  He impressed us as a charming fellow, in spite of his unusual appearance, and his English, though heavily accented, is remarkably good. You can imagine the stir he caused in Bridge of Don! Of course, Father had not two words to say to him, and the little he did say, he shouted as if the poor man were deaf! Mister Ito for his part was happy to sit in silence, balancing a teacup in his lap. I don’t know which of them was the more taciturn. Mother, on the other hand, and as you would expect, talked nineteen-to-the-dozen! She wanted to know if you were well, and how he came to know you, and whether you would soon be returning home. He in turn was the soul of politeness and said you had made a great success of yourself, but that you had not forgotten your home and family. He thought, however, that your work in Japan might yet keep you there for a few more years. I hope and pray that is not the case.