by Anthony Grey
‘They will realize their purpose is futile and withdraw!’ said Yakamochi fiercely. ‘They will leave us alone.’
Tanaka shook his head decisively. ‘No, they would almost certainly proceed to bombard us with their heavy guns from a safe distance, without any risk to themselves. They can cause enormous loss of life. They might also land a strong force to march into Yedo. And if they did, what would they find there?’
He waited but, because they were puzzled by the unexpected question, neither the officials nor the daimyo spoke.
‘They would discover first their own ignorance. Our spies from the Lew Chew islands have reported that the Americans think our Emperor himself resides in Yedo castle. And that is why they have come here - to deliver a letter of insulting demands to our sacred ruler. If they land and march on Yedo castle, they will find that it is the Shogun who resides here - but that he is very sick and close to death. They will also discover that our governing council is weak and undecided on how best to resist them.’
‘They will never reach Yedo!’ exclaimed Lord Daizo. ‘Fighting men are already being summoned from all the fiefdoms in the surrounding provinces. They are streaming in from the north, south, east and west. Eventually there will be one hundred thousand warriors defending these cliffs. . . . . ..‘
‘We have no understanding yet of the power of their ships or their weapons,’ replied Tanaka coolly. ‘And once they are ashore they will certainly see that our guns are few, small and ineffective - no match for their own superior weapons.’ He paused and gestured towards the canvas screens that snaked along the bluffs. ‘They will also find our whole coastal defence system is feeble. Once they realize that we conceal weakness and not strength behind those screens, they may be encouraged to return quickly with an even larger force and attempt to conquer our entire homeland - which the Dutch tell us has been done elsewhere. Above all we need to win time to prepare our defences . .
‘The warriors of Nippon are always ready to defend their sacred soil,’ proclaimed another robed daimyo standing close to Lord Daizo. ‘They are as ready now as they have ever been!’
Prince Tanaka again shook his head firmly in disagreement. ‘For two hundred years Nippon has shut itself off from the world. That has been a time largely of peace, so our fighting men are no longer hardened and experienced in battle. Their fighting spirit is low, their spears and their muskets are rusted, their arrows are unfeathered . . . On the other hand, the boldness of the enemy ships is a sure sign that the gal-jin have a great willingness to fight-’
‘You are suggesting that we capitulate to whatever the barbarians demand of us, without a fight,’ cried Yakamochi accusingly. ‘You are urging a total surrender!’
‘That’s not true. If we antagonize the barbarians, the shogunate may be humiliated before our people. This could lead to turmoil - and even rebellion! So it is essential that we strive to deceive the enemy. We should negotiate skillfully so as to mislead them about our true strength.’
‘This is dangerous,’ interjected Lord Daizo. ‘If we behave like cowards, they will surely sense our weakness. It would be madness for us to rule out the use of force!’
‘If we make the wrong choice, have you not thought how easy it would be for the foreign barbarians to strangle Yedo?’ asked Tanaka mildly, looking again towards the bay where the four black warships were cutting a broad white swathe through the growing swarms of merchant junks and sampans dotting the water. ‘Look how many supply craft are plying back and forth to feed our great city. The enemy will already have noticed that most of its food is brought in by sea. A simple blockade by their ships at the narrows would quickly bring one million people in Yedo to the brink of starvation!’
‘You may be right said Yakamochi fiercely, stepping forward and confronting Prince Tanaka directly ‘But we believe it’s better to fight than to starve! That’s why I’ve volunteered to help escort our delegation to the barbarian ships, disguised as an ordinary samurai guard.’
Yakamochi paused and, with a flourish, drew his short sword from its scabbard. Turning the weapon, he concealed it expertly inside one of the voluminous sleeves of his kimono, then looked hard at Tanaka again.
‘If an opportunity to kill one or more of the foreign barbarian leaders arises, I shall be prepared to act swiftly in this fashion. My father approves of this. And we believe that all of us must act as boldly as the enemy, if we are to save Nippon!’
For a long moment Prince Tanaka held the challenging gaze of the other young nobleman in silence; then he bowed his head formally to Lord Daizo to indicate that the exchanges were at an end.
‘I, too, have volunteered to accompany the boat delegation disguised as a guard, my lords,’ he said evenly. ‘But I intend to do all I can to ensure that we do not use the sword until the moment is ripe.’
‘We shall see who is right - and very soon,’ snapped Daizo, bowing perfunctorily in return. ‘It’s time now to confront these barbarians and their black ships!’
Swinging on his heel he motioned impatiently to his son and his bodyguards, and led the way towards their tethered horses.
5
‘ACTION STATIONS!’
Robert Eden yelled his order sharply, and watched eagle-eyed as his gun crews surged towards the row of massive sixty-four-pound cannon drawn up before the open firing embrasures on the port side.
‘Load shot - and prime!’ he shouted, and nodded with satisfaction as the crewmen ‘wielded their ramming poles with lightning speed to force charges of gunpowder, wadding and huge balls of cast-iron round shot into the gaping muzzles of the guns. As soon as this had been done, slender friction tubes with lanyards hanging loose were dropped into the rear touch-holes, readying the guns for use.
‘Run out!’ barked Eden, striding quickly along the deck, his hand gripping his sword hilt.
As one man, the sailors strained and heaved at the thick ropes threaded through block-and-tackle fittings on the wheeled wooden gun-carriages. In deadly unison the long muzzles of the guns slid out through the bulwarks of the Susquehanna and nosed threateningly towards the Japanese shore. Eden had been timing each action with his pocket watch, and he counted off the seconds loudly to hasten their actions. While the sweating sailors were still checking the breech ropes that restrained the guns on recoil, he drew his sword, flourished it aloft for all to see, and shouted the final order.
‘Fire!’
Leading gunners moved swiftly forward to seize the lanyards of the friction tubes that hung from the vent holes. But, instead of tugging sharply at the cords to fire a match and ignite the gunpowder charges, they merely tapped the stocks of the cannons lightly with their hands before turning away to simulate the evasive action they would have taken if the guns had genuinely fired.
Nodding his approval, Eden moved quickly from one gun to another, speaking a few words of encouragement and praise to each group of gunners in turn. Drills had been ordered every hour during the voyage up the bay, and the gun crews, keyed up by the tension, were already working to their highest pitch of efficiency. When he had finished his rounds, Eden halted and stooped low to gaze out along the barrel of one of the cannons. He saw that the waters of Yedo Bay were dotted more thickly than ever with the dark shapes of Japanese craft. Amongst the slower-moving fishing and cargo junks he noticed a growing number of long, sleek guard-boats that were being propelled forward swiftly and expertly by their crews. As the boats drew nearer, he could see that each one was rowed by six or eight Japanese stripped to the waist. The men were standing upright at their task, facing forward and swinging the whole weight of their slender bodies in unflagging unison to ply the oars. All of the boats, he noticed, were decked with coloured pennants and streamers, and identical insignia flags bearing Japanese characters fluttered at their sterns.
Seated in each boat was a force of twenty soldiers commanded by two officers standing fore and aft. The fighting men wore leather body armour, wide- sleeved cloth jackets and loose trousers. Some clutched mu
skets in their hands, and all wore twin swords in the sashes of their garments. Their narrow- eyed faces, Eden could see, were set in hostile expressions, and their mouths were wide open. Although no other sound was audible above the thud and roar of the warships’ engines, both oarsmen and warriors were chanting and roaring under the direction of the officers who gestured belligerently towards the American vessels.
Another boat caught his eye, heading with greater determination than the others through the mêlée. Black ornamental tassels hung from its bows, and it contained half a dozen sword-carrying samurai who were glaring aggressively towards the US ships. The heads of the warriors were distinctively shaven and pigtails were coiled in topknots on their heads, but amongst them Eden could see a group of unarmed officials dressed in brightly coloured silk gowns and black-lacquered bonnets.
As he watched, the brawny, bare-chested oarsmen redoubled their efforts, straining to match the steam frigate’s speed through the turbulent waters that were still being churned white by its huge paddle-wheels. The unflagging determination of the Japanese rowers was evident in their fiercely knitted brows and rippling muscles, and after a minute or two of this intense effort they pulled their craft ahead of the flagship and turned to manoeuvre close in beneath the port bow, where its rail was lowered.
‘They’re going to try and board us,’ said a firm voice at Eden’s side. ‘Prepare a squad to fend them off with pikes!’
Eden turned to find Lieutenant Rice standing close behind him. His eyes were fixed intently on the intruding longboat and he continued to watch it as he spoke.
‘Commodore Perry intends to keep the squadron moving very steadily up the bay. We shall anchor before the township of Uraga. Until then, his orders are that nobody should be allowed to board us without observing the strictest standards of respect and protocol. But you are all to use the utmost discretion. We don’t want to provoke a fight to the death.’
Eden nodded quickly and turned to his nearest gun crew. Gesturing towards the sharpened pikestaffs stacked in a pyramid on the deck nearby, he spoke to the men briskly, without shouting.
‘Gun drills are finished! Arm yourselves now with pikes. This is the real thing!’
The flattened steel of the pike heads glittered and flashed in the sun as the sailors seized one apiece, then looked expectantly towards Eden.
‘Prepare to repel boarders on the port side!’ he snapped, and led the squad in a dash along the deck to the nearest open gunport.
Without fuss he formed the men quickly into a tight line and, bracing themselves, they thrust their pikes out threateningly towards the encroaching guard-boat. All over the ship similar orders were shouted, and within moments all the gunports and rails of the Susquehanna were bristling with clusters of pike blades.
Amidships in the heaving Japanese boat, an official wearing a gown of sea-green silk had stood up. On catching sight of Eden’s gold-braided officer’s cap above him, he plucked a giant scroll from his sleeve. Holding it up above his head with one hand, he let it fall open vertically, and gestured with his free hand in Eden’s direction. The turbulence created by the Susquehanna’s huge paddle-wheels caused the Japanese boat to pitch and toss, but the official managed to remain upright and he turned so that the words on the scroll became fully visible. At first sight they appeared to be written in English but, as the boat moved nearer, Eden could see that a message had been scrawled in large letters in some other European language. From the bridge platform built athwart ships between the two giant paddle-wheels
Eden heard the sonorous tones of Matthew Perry asking his interpreter to decipher the scroll for him.
‘It’s in Dutch, Commodore,’ replied Samuel Armstrong, the China missionary-linguist who had joined the ship somewhat reluctantly at Hong Kong to act as the squadron’s interpreter. ‘It says: “Depart at once! Foreign ships are forbidden to anchor here.” What shall I reply?’
‘Say nothing at all!’ commanded Perry, who was taking care to remain invisible to the Japanese. ‘We shall ignore all inappropriate communication.’
After waiting in vain for a response, the Japanese official rewound the scroll around its batons and secured it with ribbons. Along with all his fellow occupants of the moving boat, he continued to stare intently up at the American sailors, as though trying to turn the warships from their aggressive progress by a silent act of will. On realizing that his message was to be completely ignored, the same official suddenly began making further dramatic gestures.
First he pointed angrily towards the Susquehanna’s anchor, then towards the mouth of the bay, clearly urging the warships to turn back to sea again. To augment his demand, he drew back his arm and sent the furled scroll wheeling in a high arc over the port bulwark. It clattered onto the deck, close to the gun crew, and one man quickly laid aside his pikestaff to rush over and pick it up. He handed it to Eden, who immediately looked up towards the bridge platform for guidance.
‘Toss it back to them right away, Lieutenant; boomed the still invisible Perry ‘We don’t want it aboard.’
After a moment of hesitation Eden leaned out through the gunport and looked down into the guard-boat below. Beside the official in the green gown, he noticed a topknotted samurai staring up at him unblinkingly. The samurai’s expression was watchful and intensely curious, rather than hostile, but this first sight of a Japanese warrior close up reminded Eden immediately of his dream and of the fierce male face that had appeared so startlingly in the mirror in place of his own. Although this face was not identical to the one in his dream, Eden could only stare in surprise, and Prince Tanaka - now disguised in the plain brown kimono of a lower- ranking samurai - found himself equally fascinated by this first real glimpse of a foreign barbarian officer.
Their eyes remained locked on each other for several seconds, then with a gentle flick of his wrist, Eden threw the scroll down towards the boat, aiming it for the same seated samurai who had only to lift his right arm to catch the scroll cleanly. Tanaka’s watchful expression did not change and, after returning the document to the grave-faced interpreter seated behind him, he continued to stare steadily back at Eden.
At his side, however, the green-robed official grew more furious at this summary rejection of his demand, and above the uproar of the Susquehanna’s churning wheels he began yelling one word over and over.
‘Nagasaki! Nagasaki! Nagasaki!’
‘They’re trying to indicate, I think, Commodore, that we should return five hundred miles to Nagasaki,’ called the voice of Samuel Armstrong. ‘Do you wish to give any response?’
‘None whatsoever,’ roared Perry. ‘My orders stand:
Continue to ignore all improper communication and allow no encroachment whatsoever on our ships!’
Watching tensely through his gunport, Eden saw that the rejection of the scroll had induced a new frenzy of movement around the Susquehanna and the other three warships. A number of fortified junks had appeared, their high fore and aft decks crowded with fighting men bearing spears, lances and cross- bows. More of the sleek guard-boats, which seemed to skim effortlessly across the surface of the bay under the skilful manipulation of their standing oarsmen, were putting out from the shore to augment the throng of craft closing around the American ships. The shouting that had gradually become audible above the pounding of the steam engines increased suddenly, and at that moment Eden saw three guard- boats peel off from the encircling ring of craft and begin darting towards the bows of the slow-moving flagship.
‘Here they come,’ called the voice of Lieutenant Rice from the bridge rails. ‘All hands steady now’
As the guard-boats arrived under the moving bows of the Susquehanna, lines tipped with grappling hooks snaked out to find lodging points. One caught in the fixed rungs of a ladderway beneath an entry port and moments later half a dozen Japanese guards, wearing only loincloths, began swarming up the ropes, still shouting as they came.
‘Use only minimal force to dislodge them!’
R
obert Eden shouted this order in a firm voice, and drew his sword. With a flourish of the weapon he urged his squad forward to block the threatened entry port. Bracing themselves in an arc across the opening, the small knot of American gunners grasped their pikes firmly and thrust them outward to form a glittering thicket of steel points.
‘Wait!’ called Eden sharply. ‘Wait for the right moment!’
The leading Japanese were scrambling hand-overhand up the iron rungs bolted below the entry port, and their wild shouting grew suddenly louder as they caught sight of the threatening pikestaffs. For a second they hesitated, then, with renewed roars of anger, they continued climbing. When the first Japanese climber came within range, the brawniest American gunner let out a roar and leaned as far as he could through the entry port, preparing to jab the point of the pike into his face.
‘Stand back!’
Eden lunged forward with his outstretched sword and knocked the pikestaff aside. The startled sailor recoiled in astonishment as Eden sheathed his sword and wrenched the pike from his hands. Turning the weapon swiftly end over end, he planted the butt of the shaft squarely against the chest of the Japanese, who by now was reaching for the top rung of the gang-ladder. With a single heave he unbalanced the intruder and sent him somersaulting backwards into the foaming water.
‘Use minimum force!’ commanded Eden, taking a pace back and motioning his men towards the entry port once more. ‘Try to avoid bloodshed!’
Following his example, the other sailors quickly turned their pikes around and dislodged successive climbers by rapping their hands or jabbing the pike shafts at their upper bodies. As one Japanese after another tumbled, yelling, into the water, renewed roars of anger rose from the guard-boats. Those who had been toppled into the water clambered quickly aboard whichever of their own craft closed in to rescue them, but no further attempts were made to board. At another order from Eden, one gunner swarmed nimbly down the ladder and cast off the grappling lines, and his crew cheered raucously as the two guard-boats were carried rapidly away towards the stern on the foaming turbulence churned up by the paddle-wheels.