by Spence, Alan
‘He say you pay this amount, you only take half the guns.’
‘We made a deal,’ said Glover. ‘He has to stick to it.’
He nodded to Ito, moved towards the door.
The trader stood up, screamed, ‘No!’
As if the moves had been choreographed, several things happened in the same instant: one of the guards blocked the exit, drew a pistol and pointed it at Glover, who raised his hands in the air; the second guard grabbed Wang-Li by the scruff and slammed him against the wall; Ito moved swiftly, light on his feet, across the room and behind the trader, in one movement held his unsheathed sword to the man’s throat; the second guard also drew a pistol and pointed it at Ito. They stood frozen in a tableau, a stalemate.
Glover nodded to Ito, shrugged at the guard in front of him. Then everything seemed to slow down, and he saw the guard reach forward to take Glover’s own pistol from his belt; as the man leaned forward, Glover butted him in the face with his head, and the other guard half-turned, was caught broadside by the trader, shoved across the room by Ito. Glover’s guard dropped his pistol and Glover hit him again, this time with a classic straight left that felled him, dropped him to the floor. Once again Ito was across the room, held his sword to the throat of the second guard, its point piercing the skin.
For a moment there was a silence, a stillness, their breathing loud, the sounds from the courtyard far away.
‘Now,’ said Glover. ‘We’ll be going.’
Almost as an afterthought, he reached into the leather bag, took out two gold bars and tucked them into the pockets of his coat.
‘For the inconvenience,’ he said, and raised his hat.
The trader could barely contain his rage, looked like a caricature, eyes bulging, neck sinews stretched and taut.
Wang-Li was shaking as he led the way out the door, Glover following, Ito covering their retreat. As Ito turned his head a moment, the second guard made one last effort to stop them, threw himself at Ito. Not flinching, Ito cut him down calmly with a single stroke, stepped over him, hurried down the stairs.
In the courtyard, they moved quickly, took over from the labourers loading the carts. There were three carts and they took the reins of one apiece, nudged the horses out of the yard.
At the dock they moved quickly. Wang-Li haggled with another Chinese over the crate he was picking up for Walsh. Glover organised the crew to load the consignment of arms on board. Ito stood on guard, sword at the ready.
By the time the trader arrived in pursuit, an entourage of armed men at his back, the clipper was already heading for the open sea.
*
On deck, Ito sat cross-legged, his sword, in its scabbard, laid in front of him.
‘You were very useful with that,’ said Glover.
‘Sorry?’ said Ito, not understanding.
‘The sword,’ said Glover, and he mimed cutting with it, swiping the air. ‘Very good.’
‘Ha!’ said Ito, and he smiled, nodded.
‘You could teach me,’ said Glover, miming again.
Ito laughed. ‘You want to be samurai?’
‘A Scottish samurai!’ said Glover.
The Japanese sense of humour still took Glover by surprise. Ito threw his head back and roared with laughter. When he’d recovered, Glover continued. ‘I could teach you how to box.’
Ito looked confused. ‘Box?’ He pointed at a wooden crate.
‘Boxing!’ said Glover, jabbing with his fists.
Ito understood, laughed again. ‘And this!’ He mimed butting with his head.
‘Ha!’ said Glover. ‘It’s an old Scottish move!’
Ito butted again, mimicked Glover’s expression, made him laugh just as loud.
As they began the run in to Nagasaki harbour, Wang-Li called out, handed Glover a telescope. He peered through it, brought a ship into focus.
‘Damn!’ he said. ‘It’s not one of the Shogun’s junks this time. It’s the bloody Royal Navy. There’s no way we can outrun them.’
‘So,’ said Ito, picking up his sword. ‘We fight them.’
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ said Glover, raising the telescope again.
The frigate ran them down easily. A boarding party clambered on deck, held Glover and Ito at gunpoint.
‘This is an outrage!’ said Glover. ‘I’m a respectable merchant on legitimate business!’
The cargo was dragged from the hold. An officer jemmied open a crate, took out a rifle, a box of ammunition. ‘Respectable?’ He held up the rifle. ‘Legitimate?’
Glover stayed calm, but raised his voice. ‘I insist on speaking to your Captain.’
Another voice, authoritative, spoke behind him. ‘Mister Glover.’
Glover turned, recognised the man, thank God. It was Mackenzie’s friend Barstow, the one who had presided over Glover’s initiation in the First Degree. Hele, conceal never reveal.
‘Captain Barstow,’ said Glover. ‘You know me. You know my intentions are honourable.’
‘Indeed?’ said the Captain with a slight raise of the eyebrow, a faint smile behind the bristling full-set beard.
‘This consignment of guns is for the protection of the foreign settlement in Nagasaki. You know the situation as well as anyone. It is unpredictable, volatile. The place is a powder-keg, especially since last year’s attack on the Legation in Edo.’
‘I understand you experienced that first-hand,’ said the Captain.
‘I was lucky to escape with my life, sir.’
The Captain nodded. ‘Quite.’
‘The need for security is paramount. We have to be ready to defend ourselves.’
‘And the danger lies with these rebel clans, the Satsuma, the Choshu?’
He stared directly at Ito, who stood rigid, met his gaze.
‘There are certain elements within those clans,’ said Glover, ‘who pose a serious threat to our very presence here.’
The Captain nodded to the boarding party, who lowered their guns. ‘Very well, Mister Glover. I shall accept your explan ation. A report will be entered in the log and no further action will be taken, on this occasion. But take heed. Some of my fellow officers may not be so accommodating.’
He turned away, prepared to descend the rope ladder back to his own vessel. ‘We shall escort you safely into the harbour. As you are no doubt aware, these waters are infested with pirates, and it would be unfortunate if your cargo were to fall into the wrong hands.’ He saluted. ‘I bid you good day.’
*
Back on shore, in their favourite drinking den, Glover proposed a toast.
‘To British fair play.’
Ito remained sullen, grunted.
‘He insulted Choshu clan, and you agreed with him.’
‘I said elements of both clans were dangerous. Your friend and mine, Takashi – remind me to which clan he belongs. Ah, yes, Choshu!’
‘He say we are same as Satsuma. But Satsuma are much worse. Cause all this trouble.’
‘God, give me strength!’
‘Now Satsuma buy a ship from your country.’
‘A very smart piece of business, which I was happy to broker.’
‘Ship is called the England.’
‘So,’ said Glover. ‘Japan is buying England!’
Ito let the words sink in, caught the joke, threw back his head and roared again his great throaty laugh.
‘One day!’ he said.
‘To Japan!’ said Glover, proposing another toast.
‘Nippon!’
Together they said, ‘Kanpai!’, knocked back their drinks, banged their cups down on the table, ordered more.
*
They were on the lawn at Ipponmatsu, Glover in shirtsleeves, Ito in his usual loose-fitting Japanese clothes. Matsuo was in attendance, carrying two full-size wooden swords. He bowed, handed them both to Ito, who passed one to Glover.
‘Hai!’
He showed Glover how to stand, weight evenly balanced, light on his feet, demonstra
ted how to hold the sword, the grip firm but light.
Glover tried to copy, felt cumbersome and awkward.
Ito showed him again, emphasised the importance of the stance, the readiness, told him to breathe deep, feel his own strength, the fire in his belly an energy he could tap.
‘So.’ He demonstrated a few cuts and sweeps with the sword, his movements graceful and dynamic, fierce but controlled. ‘Now, you.’
Once more Glover tried, mimicked the moves with great gusto but a certain lack of finesse.
‘It’s harder than it looks,’ he said, laughing. ‘Still. A bit of work and I’ll get the hang of it.’
‘Much work,’ said Ito, straightfaced. ‘Again.’
Again Glover swiped and hacked the air. The evening was warm. He was working up a sweat.
‘Again.’
Stand firm but relaxed, feel the grip, raise the sword. Strike and step forward. Again. Again.
‘Again.’
‘Christ!’
‘Again.’
‘Bloody taskmaster!’
‘Again!’
Glover was ready to crack the wooden blade down on Ito’s skull. He was breathing heavily; the sweat prickled his scalp, the back of his neck; his shirt stuck to him.
‘Now,’ said Ito. ‘You get your breath back, you attack. Hit me.’
‘Gladly!’ said Glover.
‘Remember,’ said Ito. ‘Breathe deep.’ He patted his stomach. ‘Feel it here.’
Glover tried to calm himself, concentrate.
‘Good,’ said Ito. ‘Now.’
He stood, balanced, poised, the sword held out in front of him, nodded to Glover to come at him.
Glover raised his own sword, charged, brought the blade down with real force.
Casually, almost disdainfully, Ito deflected the blow, sent Glover staggering.
‘You see?’ he said. ‘I use your own strength against you.’
‘Aye,’ said Glover. The impact had jarred his arms, his wrists. ‘I see!’
‘Now,’ said Ito. ‘Again.’
*
It was late afternoon, a faint coolness in the breeze. Matsuo had helped them lace up their gloves. Glover had bought them on a whim – two pairs – from a market stall at the docks, part of a job-lot that included a cricket bat and a leather football, probably brought out by some missionary full of zeal to convert the natives to the way of sport.
Now it was Ito’s turn to look uncomfortable.
‘A return bout,’ said Glover. ‘The noble art!’
Ito looked, flummoxed, at cumbersome wads of padding on his hands. ‘Noble art,’ he repeated.
‘Fisticuffs,’ said Glover. ‘Queensberry Rules.’
Ito looked even more confused.
‘Seconds out!’ said Glover, and he took up position, left foot forward, hands in front of his face. Ito did the same, but with his right foot forward.
‘A southpaw,’ said Glover. ‘Makes it interesting.’
Ito gave up even trying to comprehend, did his best to follow Glover’s movements, ducking and weaving, weight on the balls of his feet. Glover showed him how to keep his guard up, jabbed once or twice, let the blows land on Ito’s gloves.
‘Straight left,’ said Glover, and he motioned to Ito to hit back, parried each jab.
‘Good!’ said Glover. ‘Now.’ And he feinted with the left, cut under Ito’s guard with a right to the solar plexus, knocked the wind out of him.
Ito straightened up, bowed, resumed his position, guard up. He managed to block the next uppercut, after two or three attempts succeeded in retaliating, landing a punch to Glover’s head.
‘Grand!’ said Glover. ‘You have the makings of a pugilist! Maybe some day we’ll fight with the gloves off, bareknuckle.’
Ito nodded, understood the challenge. ‘Maybe some day we fight with real swords, cold steel.’
And Glover saw in an instant the coldness, the steeliness, in Ito’s gaze, knew if it ever did come to such a fight, Ito would fillet him. For all the apparent depth of their friendship and trust, it was still there, that otherness, that distance. Ito lived by a code that was absolute, overrode everything, and Glover, like the rest of the barbarians, would always have to keep up his guard.
*
The incident, as it happened, featured two of Glover’s acquaintances as its principal players. The sheer brutality of it, the sudden barbarism, ensured the tale was told and retold.
Glover heard it first as a rumour, then as a newspaper report, later by word-of-mouth from an eyewitness to its initiation.
Charles Richardson, whom Glover had met on his arrival in Dejima, and again at the Legation, had gone out riding along the Tokkaido from Yokohama with two companions, a young diplomat named Dawes, and his fiancée Miss Clemence, recently arrived from England. By their account, Richardson had been in a boisterous mood, revelling in his role as their guide to this land of savages.
Unfortunately, as fate would have it, they encountered, coming in the opposite direction, the Satsuma Daimyo with his entourage. Glover remembered vividly his brief meeting with the Daimyo, the power of the man, the intensity and ferocity of his gaze from inside the norimon. The Daimyo was on his way from Edo where he had been summoned for an audience with the Shogun. Glover could imagine the scenario all too vividly, a drama shaping itself with a kind of implacable inevitability, given the characters involved.
Richardson was ahead of his two companions, nudging his horse along the narrow roadway. The Daimyo’s advance guard, two formidable warriors, fully armed, ran ahead of the norimon, ordered Richardson and his party to get out of the way.
Richardson, foolhardy, shouted back at them, refusing to budge, told them to stop yabbering their bloody gibberish, he was a British citizen and refused to kowtow.
Dawes realised the danger, called out to him to back down. But it was too late. Four more guards rushed forward, drawing their swords, followed by four more on horseback. A single cut sliced Richardson’s arm and he was dragged from his horse, shouting at the others to save themselves for God’s sake. Dawes felt a blow to his shoulder as he managed to turn his horse. Miss Clemence screamed as a sword was swung at her head and she somehow, miraculously, turned away, the blade taking off her hat and cutting through her hair.
The young couple managed to spur their horses clear, ride at a gallop back to Yokohama and raise the alarm before collapsing, exhausted and bloodstained.
Word spread and the reaction was outrage. That westerners should be attacked in this way was bad enough, but that a woman should be involved was unforgivable. Fifty men armed themselves, saddled up and rode along the Tokkaido – British sailors, French troopers, Dutch and American merchants, all ready to do battle.
The precise scene of the attack was not hard to find; there were dark bloodstains on the road, flies buzzing around it, a few scavenging dogs. Some distance away they found the remains of Richardson, dragged under a tree and left there, covered by straw mats, disembowelled, the throat cut, the head and face hacked and slashed, the right hand severed where he’d tried to ward off a blow.
Glover learned these gruesome details from Dawes himself some months later. Dawes was passing through Nagasaki, en route to Shanghai and thence to England. His fiancée had already gone home, much shaken by her experience. Dawes would follow her, take up a posting in London. He had recovered from his wounds, apart from a continuing ache to the shoulder where the swordblade had struck.
‘I fear that’ll be with me the rest of my days,’ he said, seated in an armchair at the Foreigners’ Club, peering into his glass of whisky as if reading his future there. ‘That and the deeper scars.’
‘Console yourself,’ said Mackenzie, ‘that it could have been much worse, for yourself and your fiancée. The fate of Mr Richardson could have been your own.’
‘Indeed,’ said Dawes.
‘What in the name of God possessed him?’ asked Mackenzie.
‘Bravado,’ said Dawes, ‘pure and simple.’
‘And entirely inappropriate,’ said Glover. ‘The man was a fool.’
‘Well then,’ said Dawes, bristling slightly, ‘he certainly paid for it.’
‘My fear,’ said Glover, ‘is that many more may yet have to pay the price. The consequences may yet be far-reaching.’
‘It was only by the grace of sweet reason,’ said Dawes, ‘that there were no further consequences on the night of the attack. The band of men who rode out of Yokohama that night quickly became a mob.’
‘The urge to revenge is strong,’ said Mackenzie.
‘There was a faction eager to pursue the Daimyo and his party, settle the matter there and then.’
‘It would have been a bloodbath,’ said Glover.
‘The Consul preached restraint,’ said Dawes. ‘He argued that it was a diplomatic affair and must be settled through the proper channels.’
‘I bet the mob loved that!’ said Glover.
‘There were indeed rumblings, about lily-livered appeasement. But sanity prevailed. The pursuit was called off, thank God.’
‘Amen,’ said Mackenzie.
‘Aye,’ said Glover. ‘But it’s not over yet. Not by a long way.’
*
In the drawing room of Ipponmatsu the atmosphere was solemn and formal. Five young samurai, Ito and four others, sat straightbacked round the table. Matsuo came into the room, bowed to Glover and to Ito, took his short wakizashi sword from its sheath. He stood behind Ito, who braced himself, sat upright, breathed deep. Matsuo took Ito’s topknot of hair, symbol of his status as a samurai, tugged and held it in his left hand, cut through it with the sword, let the clump of hair drop to the floor. Ito bowed, and Matsuo went to each of the young men in turn, repeated the action, ritually and ceremonially, cut off the topknot, and each of them bowed.
When it was done, Ito looked at the others, shorn and slightly bedraggled. He ruffled his own hair, threw back his head and laughed, and the others did the same. Glover produced a pair of scissors.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘They just need tidied up a bit and they’ll pass for perfect English gentlemen!’
*
Initially it had been Ito’s idea, and Glover had dismissed it as a pipe dream, thought it impossible, too dangerous by far. Now he saw it as the only way forward, for Ito, for all of them, for Japan itself. Ito had to go to the West.
