Kobo: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War

by Herbert Strang

  *CHAPTER II*

  *Rokuro Kobo San*

  An Incident in Ueno Park--Japan at Play--Journalism in Japan--A JapaneseGentleman

  Shortly before dusk, one day in the week following the arrival of the_Sardinia_ at Nagasaki, a stalwart figure in the coat, pantaloons, andclumsy clogs of a Chinaman slowly ascended the flight of steps leadingto the Ueno Park in Tokio. The time of cherry-blossom was not yet; thetrees stood bare skeletons against the gray sky; the ground was lightlytouched with rime; it was not the beauties of nature that attracted thesauntering visitor. He seemed, indeed, to have no special object inview; but an observer might have noticed that wherever he saw a group ofJapanese in conversation, he passed them with a very deliberate step,and always on the right-hand side, even when this necessitated somelittle squeezing. Only an observer of more than usual intentness wouldhave connected this curious fancy with the fact that the Chinaman hadlost his right ear.

  He came by and by to a tea-house--not one of the large andwell-appointed establishments which a Samurai would willingly haveentered, but a structure little more than a shed, with tables rangedoutside beneath the trees, and a few musumes sitting with folded handsand crossed feet on a long low bench covered with a crimson cloth. TheChinaman hesitated for a moment; it was cold, and hardly the evening foral-fresco refreshment. But something attracted him towards the shed.He sat down on one of the benches, and was soon contentedly sipping theweak almost colourless decoction supplied to him by the smiling girls astea.

  For half an hour he sat there, sipping, watching the passers with hisyellow almond eyes, thinking Chinese thoughts, silent, almostmotionless. Then he pulled his padded garments more closely around himas though for the first time feeling the cold, rose, bowed low inresponse to the still lower salutation of the attendants, and resumedhis slow walk. There were fewer people about now; no talking groups;nothing apparently to attract the remaining ear; and Chang-Wo, shufflingalong on his clogs, hurrying his step a little, passed beneath the bareoaks and gloomy pines towards the Buddhist temple near the gate.

  Dark was beginning to fall; there were few rickshaws to be seen; thevisitors to the famed Toshogu shrine had melted away. Only here andthere a woman trudged homeward with her baby on her back and a bundle inher hand, or a shaven Buddhist priest sauntered amid the trees.

  Turning from the path to shorten his way by crossing a secluded glade,the Manchu came all at once face to face with a small figure hasteningin the opposite direction. He moved somewhat aside, to pass on, but witha suddenness that took his bulky form utterly aback, the shorter figure,that reached not much past his elbow, flung himself upon the Manchu witha cry like the snarl of a tiger, springing up at him, clutching at histhroat, and hanging on with desperate fury. The shock was sounexpected, the assault so unprovoked, that the bigger man, his handshampered by his capacious sleeves, was taken at a disadvantage, andgained nothing from his superior build. In a moment he was on theground, and the Japanese was kneeling on his chest, retaining his gripon the prostrate man's throat, and striving with all his might tostrangle him. But his advantage was short-lived: the Manchu regainedcommand of his muscles, and exerting all the force of his arms thrustthe assailant from him, wriggled over, and pinned the puny frame to theground.

  Scarcely a sound had been uttered, whether by Japanese or Manchu; butnow, as the latter proceeded with vindictive and triumphant malice toretaliate upon his helpless victim, a half-choked cry, as of an animalat the shambles, broke the silence of the glade. Instantly, as thoughin answer, a tall great-coated form, the form of a European, came outfrom among the tree-stems. A glance apprised him of the position: asmall man, black in the face, was being throttled by a man twice hissize; and with a rush the new-comer hurled himself upon the Manchu,wrenched the Japanese from his grip, and saw that he was only just intime, if indeed not too late. For the small man lay inert, huddled inhis kimono; and the Englishman placed his hand over his heart, fearingthat he was already dead.

  But his doubt was soon dispelled. In a few moments the little fellowmoved, gasped, and sprang to his feet, his slanted eyes asquint withexcess of rage. It seemed that he was about to fling himself on theyoung foreigner before him, so much was he blinded by passion; butrecognizing in a moment his mistake, he looked round for the big Manchu,and found that he had disappeared. With a muttered word of thanks tohis preserver, he rushed madly in the direction he supposed his enemy tohave taken, and the Englishman was left to himself in the gatheringdarkness.

  Bob Fawcett had a half-smile upon his face as he walked back through thepark and the crowded streets to his hotel. It was his fourth day inTokio, and he had already seen many strange things; nothing, perhaps,stranger than the deadly earnestness with which the little Japanese hadsped after an enemy who could have crushed him with ease.

  "I wonder what it was all about?" he thought. "Plucky little Hop o' myThumb! I suppose he's the stuff of which the Japanese army is made."

  He would have liked to know what had brought about the unequal fight,but speculation was vain; and besides, it was nearly dinner-time, andthe meals at his hotel were punctually served. Punctuality was, inBob's eyes, the only virtue the hotel possessed. He did not like theheavy carpets, the cumbrous four-poster in his bed-room, the generalstuffiness that resembled only too closely the fusty musty atmosphere ofcertain hotels at home. He wished he could have put up at a Japaneseplace, lived in the Japanese way, eaten Japanese food, for he was of anenquiring turn of mind. But he had been strongly advised to put up at ahouse run on European lines, and for the present he could not butrecognize that the advice was probably good.

  On arriving in Tokio four days before, and reporting himself at theJapanese ministry of marine, he found that his services were notimmediately required. He was asked to hold himself in readiness toassume his duties at a few hours' notice; meanwhile his time was hisown. It was unlucky that his arrival in Japan was in the very middle ofthe New-year celebrations, for business being at almost a totalstand-still for a fortnight on end, the two English merchants to whom hehad brought letters of introduction had gone away with their familiesfor a holiday, and among the two million people in Tokio there was notone that he knew. There was company at the hotel, to be sure, but itconsisted chiefly of tourists and globe-trotters eager to "do"everything, and Bob had never had a taste for frantic sight-seeing. Heaccordingly chose his own course, and wandered about pretty much byhimself, taking the keenest interest in the novel scenes that everywheremet his eyes.

  A stranger could hardly have arrived in Tokio at a more interestingtime. For ten days after the year has opened Japan is morecharacteristically Japanese, perhaps, than at any other period. It isone universal festival. Among the upper classes visits of ceremony areexchanged; the streets are crowded with rickshaws drawn by coolies infantastic costume--mushroom hats and waterproofs of reeds. They wormtheir way through throngs of adults and children bouncing balls, playingat battledore and shuttlecock, flying kites, tumbling over each other intheir happy frolicsomeness. Shopkeepers are to be seen carryingspecimens of their wares to their customers; brightly-clad geishas addgrace and picturesqueness to the scene. Every variety of costume is tobe met with, from the correct frock-coats of the government officials tothe strange mixture of billycock and kimono which lesser folk sometimesaffect. Every house is decorated; here and there a juggler or a showmanprovides elementary entertainment at the price of three-farthings, andthe unwary visitor, enticed into a booth by the promise of greatmarvels, finds that the magic is nothing more startling than an electricshock, or that the advertised fire-breathing dragon is no more than amoon-faced performing seal. At night paper lanterns dangle from everyrickshaw shaft, making the streets a moving panorama of fairyland; andfrom the low one-storied houses proceeds the quaint barbarous music ofthe samisen--the native guitar twanged by smiling geishas entertainingtheir employers' guests with dance and song.

  Bob spent many delightful h
ours in witnessing these things, and instrolling through the streets, looking into the curio shops, sometimesventuring a discreet purchase. But amid all the merriment there seemedto him to be a something in the air--an undercurrent of seriousness,which was the theme of incessant talk in the hotel smoking-room. Was itto be war? That was the question which was discussed from morning tonight. Everybody knew that negotiations were proceeding between theforeign offices at Tokio and St. Petersburg: what was the result to be?Opinion veered this way and that. Russia apparently would not keep herpledges: would Japan fight? What were the rights of the case? WasRussia merely concerned with holding an ice-free port and developing hertrade, or was she aiming at aggression and conquest? Was Japan strongenough to enforce unaided what the diplomacy of European powers hadfailed to accomplish? Would China come to the assistance of herconqueror? Would Britain be involved in the struggle? These and similarquestions were canvassed to the point of weariness; and Bob all the timefelt that it was talk in the air, for nobody knew. There was noexcitement, no mouthings, no boastfulness. The little soldiers in theirtrim uniforms were not much to be seen in the streets; yet it was notlong before Bob learnt that preparations were quietly, unostentatiously,being made to throw vast armies across the Korea Strait; and as to thenavy, was not his presence there in itself a proof that the governmentwas determined to have everything at the top of condition should thestruggle which many deemed inevitable actually begin?

  On the second morning after the adventure in the Ueno Park, Bob, havingfinished breakfast, went to the reading-room to glance at the paperspreparatory to his usual stroll. There were illustrated Europeanmagazines in plenty with which he was familiar, and a five-weeks' oldcopy of the _Times_, which he looked through without much interest, thenews being so obviously stale. There was the _Japan Mail_, a littlemore interesting, in which he was glad to find an account of the lastmatch between the Australians and Warner's eleven, as well as news ofthe British doings in Tibet and Somaliland. But having brought himselfup to date with those journals in his own tongue, he turned, as heusually did, to the native papers, and stared at them as earnestly asthough only assiduous poring was needed to give him a thorough grasp ofJapanese. He wished he could read the strange hieroglyphics--someshaped like gridirons, others like miniature barns, others like thelittle dancing imps drawn by school-boys with a few straight lines onthe margins of their grammars. He wondered what meaning lay behind thestrangely picturesque tantalizing characters, and sighed as he replacedone of the papers on the table.

  "Not understand, sir?" said a passing Japanese waiter, with the smilingcourtesy of all the hotel attendants.

  "I don't, I confess," replied Bob, returning the smile. "What do youcall this, for instance?"

  "That, sir? That _Ninkin Shimbun_--very good paper. My uncle belongthat paper one time--prison editor."

  "Prison editor?" Bob looked puzzled.

  "In Japan, sir, newspaper two editors one time. Number one editor hewrite War Minister bad man. Policeman he come say: 'Be so kind ceasepublish hon'ble paper; hon'ble publisher, hon'ble printer, hon'bleeditor be so kind enter hon'ble prison'. Number two editor he goprison, number one editor he stay home."

  "I suppose they pay number two well for that," remarked Bob laughing.

  "No, sir; my uncle very poor man. His wages four yen a month; but nospend much, in prison every time."

  "Poor fellow! He earns his four yen."

  The little waiter's countenance took on a lugubrious expression.

  "He prison editor not now no longer," he said. "Everything change inNippon. These days number one editor go prison, number two he out ofwork. My poor uncle sell _Ninkin Shimbun_ Shimbashi railway-station."

  At this moment the hall-porter entered, and bowed to Bob with a deepJapanese obeisance.

  "Japanese gentleman, sir, beg you be so kind give him interview."

  "Oh! who is it?" said Bob, thinking that it must be the bearer of theexpected summons from the minister.

  "Japanese gentleman, sir; say you not know his name. But he very greatman, he very noble Samurai." Then, looking with an air of impartingimportant information, he added: "His name, sir, Rokuro Kobo San."

  Surprised that so important a personage should have been chosen to waitupon him, Bob rose and made his way across the corridor to thereception-room. The porter shut the door behind him, and as he advanceda slight figure stepped lightly across the room to meet him. Whateverdim picture of a Samurai Bob had formed in his mind was banished at thesight of a trim, exquisitely-dressed Japanese, wearing a frock-coat thatwould have done credit to Poole's, and carrying with practised ease asilk hat, which might have been twin-brother of Bob's unused Lincoln &Bennett. He was short, though perhaps rather above the average heightof his nation. In feature he resembled the Japanese of better classwhom Bob had seen at the government offices, but with an indefinabletouch of added refinement, due partly, no doubt, to his Samurai blood,but partly also, as Bob surmised, to his evident familiarity withwestern civilization. He was sallow, like all his race; his jet-blackhair was thick and strong, and a narrow moustache graced his upper lip.It is always difficult to judge the age of an alien in race, and Bob hadlittle or no experience to guide him; but the impression made upon himby his visitor's general bearing was that he was in the prime of life.

  "Good-morning, sir," said Bob pleasantly.

  "Good-morning, sir," said the Japanese with perfect accent at almost thesame moment, bowing with inimitable grace. Bob instinctively bowed inresponse, but felt that his salutation was awkward and stiff bycontrast.

  "I trust, sir, that you will pardon my intruding upon you at this hour.I feared lest I should not have the opportunity of thanking you in myown person for the very great service which you have rendered to me andto my house."

  His mode of speech was measured, even, and perfectly correct, somewhatstilted perhaps, with an old-world flavour that belonged to a courtlierage than our own.

  "You may remember, sir, two days ago, in our Ueno Park, you rescued oneof my countrymen from the hands of a Chinaman, who I have every reasonto think would have killed him but for your generous intervention. TheChinaman was a man of evil character, a desperate man, a villain; theJapanese, who owes his life to you, is--my servant. I thank you."

  "Really, sir," said Bob, somewhat embarrassed, "it was a very smallmatter; I merely hauled the fellow off, and he bolted."

  "To you, sir, it may have been a small matter. It is an instinct withyour countrymen to help the man who is down. To you it is a merenothing; but to me, it represents much, very much. The man you rescuedis my servant; his forefathers have served mine these five hundredyears."

  "I am very glad, sir, that I happened to be passing just at the moment.May I congratulate you on your man? He tackled the big Chinaman withfine courage."

  "He is a brave man indeed, but he grows old. Ten years ago he was withme in the China war; he was in his prime; there was not his equal in ourarmy. The Manchu, as you saw, is a man of more than common strength,but in single fight with my servant at Feng-huang-cheng he escaped withdifficulty, and the loss of an ear."

  "The loss of an ear!" repeated Bob. "Surely he cannot be the man wepicked up off Nagasaki?"

  Kobo San's expression betrayed just a hint of enquiry, and Bob proceededto give an account of the Chinaman's rescue. This was the beginning ofa long conversation, which, starting with Kobo's previous relations withthe Manchu, drifted away into a variety of subjects, giving Bob everynow and again a suggestion of his visitor's extraordinary range andversatility. He was clearly a man of wide reading and many interests,had been a great traveller in his younger days, and spoke as though athome equally in all the great capitals of the west. So interested wasBob that he did not notice the increasing number of rickshaws halting atthe entrance to the hotel, depositing guests laden with strange bundles,the spoils of long chaffering in the Naka-dori.

  This influx was the sure indication of approaching tiffin, and when theJapan
ese rose to take his leave, Bob awakened to the fact, and with somediffidence begged the pleasure of his visitor's company. Kobo San,however, explained that he had but just time to keep an appointment withhis excellency the minister of war, and while courteously expressing hisregrets, extended to Bob an invitation to his own house on the followingday. Bob accepted with genuine pleasure, and escorted his visitor tothe street. The two shook hands almost with the cordiality of oldfriends.

  As Bob turned to re-enter the hotel, he encountered the little waitergazing after the retreating form with a mixture half of admiration halfof awe.

  "Rokuro Kobo San, he very great man," he said, confidentially. "Hekindly send my poor uncle to hon'ble prison."