The Courtesan and the Samurai

by Lesley Downer

  Trying not to panic, she turned into another street and came to a large well with a lid and a pump, bathed in a stray shaft of sunlight. There was a bathhouse in front of her, with light shining from the doorway and clouds of steam pouring out. A woman stepped out carrying a damp cloth full of towels. Her plump face was flushed and shiny and she had another towel draped over her head. Hana rushed up to her, relieved to see someone – anyone – she could approach.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she gasped. ‘Can you tell me … ? Do you know …’ She stopped, desperately trying to remember the name her husband had given her. Then it leaped into her mind: ‘The Chikuzenya?’ She said it again, as clearly as she could: ‘The Chikuzenya.’

  The woman stared at her. ‘Of course, everyone knows the Chikuzenya. It’s up there.’ She waved a large red hand. ‘Go right at the end of the lane, then left, then right again and you’ll see the main road in front of you. The Chikuzenya’s on your left, you can’t miss it. The only thing is …’

  But Hana was already on her way, remembering the clerk from the Chikuzenya with his round glasses, who used to arrive at the house with his anxious apprentices bent under huge bundles of silk. The Chikuzenya was one of the biggest dry goods stores in Edo. There’d be people there who knew her and would take her in and her husband could come and fetch her when he got back from the war. She’d send a message straight away to Oharu and Gensuké, telling them where she was. Everything was going to be fine.

  She quickly found the main road, a broad thoroughfare lined with two-storey wooden buildings, but to her dismay it too seemed deserted and all the houses she could see were boarded up. The largest one looked as if it had been empty for months. The rain doors were streaked with grime and the boards were cracked and rotten.

  Then she saw a torn curtain flapping. It was so worn it was almost impossible to see what was painted on it. She peered hard, her heart in her mouth, and made out a faded circle with a character brushed in the middle: Chiku. It was the Chikuzenya.

  Hana bowed her head, her last shred of hope gone. Night was falling, the streets would soon be even more dangerous, and she was overcome with exhaustion and hadn’t eaten all day. Worst of all, it was beginning to snow.

  Cold and shaking, she slumped down on the street, leaned against the rain doors, buried her face in her hands and started to sob.

  3

  Yozo Tajima opened the hatch and poked his head out into the gale.

  Wind and snow beat on his face. He scrambled out, closed the hatch behind him and swung a canvas over it. It was only a few steps to the wheel but the wind was so strong he could hardly make any headway at all. Above the howl of the storm and the creak and groan of the great ship he could hear the ominous flap of a sail. Pushing back strands of hair that were flying loose and brushing off the shards of ice that blistered into his face, he peered up and saw that the main top gallant had torn loose.

  Sleet lashed the deck, stinging his face and hands like showers of needles, and his straw cape flapped wildly, threatening to fly off. He grabbed at it with his big seaman’s hands and for a moment found himself wondering what he was doing there. In all his life he would never have expected to be fighting a gale, sailing north through unknown seas in the worst season of the year.

  Yet here he was, young, in his mid-twenties, adventurous and strong. And although he was different from the other sailors on board – wiry bow-legged characters from old pirate families of the Inland Sea, or hard-drinking seafarers from the Nagasaki dockyards – he was a sailor none the less, and a fine one. He prided himself on that.

  The ship gave a lurch and the masts tipped towards the black waters. As the wind screeched through the rigging, the deck tilted till it was nearly vertical, and Yozo lunged for a rope and hung on until the ship righted herself. Seamen plastered in snow struggled past, leaning into the gale.

  In front of him, the quartermasters were lashed to the helm, fighting to keep the ship heading into the wind. A couple had dog skins wrapped around their uniforms and the rest wore straw capes that, like Yozo’s, flapped wildly. They were a miserable sight in their straw sandals, hanging on grimly to the wheel. One, a scrawny youth, small and slight, was not pulling his weight. His face, pitted with smallpox, was pinched and white, his eyes blank with exhaustion.

  ‘What’s your name, boy?’ Yozo yelled, the wind whipping the words from his mouth.

  ‘Gen, sir,’ the boy answered, through chattering teeth.

  ‘Get below decks, Gen, and find some warm clothes.’ As Gen unlashed himself Yozo took his place at the wheel, his hands strong on the spokes. ‘Hard ’a starboard!’ he shouted. The eight men heaved together, straining every muscle as the great wheel began to turn. Yozo felt the judder of the ship as she bit into the wind. He was soaked to the skin, frozen to the core, his hands raw from gripping the wheel, but he felt a surge of satisfaction, of pure pleasure, as the mighty ship bowed to his will.

  He knew the Kaiyo Maru, every curve and angle of her, as intimately as any lover. He knew her when she was at rest with her sails furled, tall and stately, or cutting across calm waters, the wake foaming behind her, or moving sullenly, laden down with men and cargo. He loved the feel of his hand on the helm, the vibration that rose from her rudder, the rhythms and creaks of her hull and rigging and the bite as she surged through stormy seas.

  The Kaiyo Maru was the flagship, the finest, most modern warship in the shogun’s navy. Employed in the service of the northern forces, she had won them a resounding victory at the naval battle of Awa. She was small as warships went, a ship-rigged three-master shipping 2,590 tons, fitted with a 400-horsepower auxiliary steam engine fuelled by coal. She carried a mere thirty-one guns and a crew of some three hundred and fifty sailors, rounded up from Japan’s ports and dockyards. She had also taken on a tally of troops, some five or six hundred, as many as they had been able to pack in.

  Together with the seven other ships that made up the shogun’s fleet, they were sailing north. Everyone knew it was a foolhardy venture to sail north at this time of year, though no one had imagined quite how bad the weather would be, but they had little choice. They were on the wrong side of a bitter civil war, the losers in a revolution that had seen their liege lord, the shogun, toppled from power and replaced by his ancient enemies, the southern clansmen.

  Most of the shogun’s allies had capitulated to the southerners, but not Admiral Enomoto. He had been commanded to hand over the shogun’s navy to the new masters of the country, but he was not a man to take orders from the enemy. He had refused, and along with Yozo and all those who remained loyal to the shogun had fled north, taking with him the shogun’s eight ships. Now they were fighting not only for their ideals but for their very survival.

  As Yozo leaned on the wheel, he remembered Enomoto pacing up and down his cabin. They had known they had to go somewhere, and urgently. But where?

  ‘The island of Ezo!’ Enomoto had cried, his face lighting up in a moment of inspiration. Ezo was a vast island on Japan’s northern frontier, where Japan brushed up against the wilderness. Only the southernmost strip of coast had been settled; the rest was virtually uninhabited. All the northern armies had to do was set up a firm base there, gather their strength and when spring came march south again and take the country back for the shogun.

  ‘The Star Fort is the key to the whole island,’ Enomoto had exclaimed, spreading out a map. ‘It’s the main defence for the city of Hakodate. If we can capture the Star Fort then we’ll have the city. It has a perfect harbour, very deep and sheltered by hills, so we’ll anchor our fleet, then go to the foreign consulates in Hakodate, explain our cause and get the support of the rest of the world. There are only two other towns on Ezo: Matsumae and Esashi. We’ll easily capture those and the island will be ours. We’ll establish the democratic republic of Ezo in the name of the shogun with Hakodate as our capital and from there we can move south and take back the rest of Japan.

  ‘After all, we have the Kaiyo Maru,’ Enomoto ha
d declaimed, his voice rising. ‘Whoever has the Kaiyo Maru has Japan. The war is not over yet!’

  4

  Yozo peered through the snow at the figure hunched over the binnacle. The officer of the watch straightened up and cupped his hands to his mouth, his words coming faintly through the blustering gale: ‘East by north, a half east. Hold her on course.’

  But Yozo was on another ship – on the Calypso, some six years earlier, heading for Europe. What an adventure that had been!

  For as long as anyone had ever known, Japanese people had been forbidden to leave the country on pain of death, and the only western barbarians allowed in had been the Dutch, who lived in the tiny enclave of Deshima, just off Nagasaki. Ever since he was a boy, Yozo had been fascinated by western culture and his liberal-minded father had sent him to Dr Koan Ogata’s school of Dutch learning. He had barely completed his studies there when the prohibition on foreign travel had finally been lifted and news had spread that the government was looking for fifteen loyal young men willing to go abroad for three or four years.

  Standing now on the snow-swept deck, Yozo remembered the journey to Edo, the endless interviews with ancient courtiers in the audience chambers of the shogun’s castle and how he had waited with bated breath for the decision to come through. He could hardly believe it when he was chosen.

  Then on the eleventh day of the ninth month of the second year of Bunkyu, 2 November 1862 by the barbarian calendar, he’d finally been on his way. Along with Enomoto and thirteen others, he was to learn western languages and western science and study subjects like navigation, gunnery and engineering. Most important of all, they were to commission and oversee the building of a warship, the first Japan had ever commissioned, and sail it back.

  After six long months at sea, Yozo arrived in Holland. Along with his colleagues he placed the order for the ship and from time to time went to the shipyards to oversee the construction, but he’d also travelled – to London, Paris and Berlin. He’d seen his first trains and ships, discovered how the telegraph worked, and soon stopped gawping at the way that water came out of a tap, not a well, and streets and wealthy houses were lit not with candles and lanterns but gaslights.

  Then – three years after he arrived – the new warship, the Kaiyo Maru, was launched and along with his colleagues he set off on the voyage back to Japan. It had been a dreadful homecoming. Not long after he got back, the shogun was toppled from power. Determined to fight to the end for their liege lord, Yozo and his friend Enomoto had thrown in their lot with the northern resistance, bringing with them the Kaiyo Maru and the whole of the shogun’s navy.

  A crewman emerged, looming out of the driving snow like a ghost, slipping and sliding on the icy deck. He pressed his mouth to Yozo’s ear.

  ‘Captain’s orders. You’re wanted down below. I’m taking over.’

  As Yozo opened the hatch, a blast of smoky air burst out, thick with coal dust and oil. He scrambled down the ladder into the darkness of the hold, fighting to keep his balance as the wind battered him from behind. He was chilled to the core and covered in snow from head to foot. He straightened his shoulders and flexed his hands, trying to get the feeling back, then fumbled with stiff fingers at his straw cape and loosened his hood. Snow showered off and scattered in icy lumps across the floor. His fine woollen-worsted uniform with its braiding and gold buttons was soaked through.

  A tall, skinny man with long bony fingers and untidy black hair above a pale, hollow-cheeked face was standing at the foot of the ladder. Kitaro Okawa had been the youngest of the fifteen adventurers who had gone to Europe and was the intellectual of the group, though even now he looked too young to be a seasoned sailor. He had large sensitive eyes and his neck was so thin his throat Buddha – his ‘Adam’s apple’, they called it in English – stuck out painfully. Yozo could see it bobbing up and down when he spoke. Even his hair was thin, tied in a scraggly knot on top of his head.

  ‘They’re waiting for us down there,’ he said, handing Yozo a towel.

  Yozo rubbed his head and face and pushed his hair back with his hands. He was in no shape to enter the captain’s cabin. He glanced at Kitaro.

  ‘It’ll have to do,’ Kitaro said with a shrug of his bony shoulders.

  As they picked their way through the gloom of the gun deck, the howl of the gale and the crashing of waves outside faded away, drowned by the creaking of cannons shifting in their moorings and the clatter of plates and bowls tumbling around with every roll of the ship. A few oil lamps swung from hooks, casting a wavering yellow light, but most had been extinguished for fear of fire. Beneath the distant roar of the furnace, they could hear the faint squawk of chickens in their coop and the protesting bleat of goats.

  The gun deck was crammed with men. The troops who had marched so jauntily on to the ship and lined up proudly on the forecastle now sprawled like casualties on a battlefield. Some swung in hammocks crammed together above the cannons and dining tables, wherever they could find a space. The rest lay on thin straw matting or directly on the wooden boards, their eyes closed and their faces pasty. The place stank of vomit.

  ‘Like grains of rice in a sushi roll,’ observed Kitaro as they stepped between the fallen bodies. ‘Packed that tight.’

  Ducking under the beams they made their way to the captain’s cabin, grabbing the brass railings to keep their balance. There was a babble of voices inside and yellow light filtered out. Yozo pushed open the door.

  Admiral Enomoto was there along with some of the higher-ranking officers and the nine Frenchmen, bent over maps spread across the table. They were all dapper in their uniforms, bow ties and watch chains in place, the braid on their cuffs glistening, buttons shining and hair gleaming. They fell silent as Yozo and Kitaro came in.

  ‘Merde,’ muttered one of the Frenchmen. ‘What a horrible storm!’

  Yozo grinned. Like all the Frenchmen on board, Sergeant Jean Marlin was a prickly, arrogant character. He spoke Japanese after a fashion, though he had an amusingly feminine turn of phrase; no doubt he had picked up his vocabulary in the pleasure quarters, Yozo thought. But underneath his arrogance, Marlin had a sense of humour. He had started as one of their instructors, drilling them until they had been transformed from a bunch of samurai who swung their swords whenever they felt like it to a disciplined, highly skilled army who marched in step, fought as one and could load and reload their Chassepot rifles three times a minute. Yozo knew that Marlin was as committed as they were to their cause.

  The ship lurched and the men grabbed the table and slapped their hands on the maps and instruments to keep them in place. Enomoto stood impassive till the pitching eased, then looked across at Yozo, who stood dripping salt water on the fine Dutch carpet.

  ‘Good job, Tajima,’ he said. ‘You could run this ship single-handed.’

  The shadow of a grin flitted across his fine-boned face. Recently he had grown a moustache and taken to wearing his hair cut short and parted to one side in the western fashion. At first glance he looked the perfect gentleman, aloof and languid and clearly of aristocratic stock, but nothing could conceal the stubborn set of his jaw and the burning determination in his eyes. Yozo was the only person on the ship not in awe of him.

  ‘If my readings are right we’re just about here,’ Enomoto said, pointing at one of the maps. ‘Washinoki Bay. We’ll swing the Kaiyo Maru to port, drop anchor and land the troops at dawn. Let’s hope the weather’s in our favour.

  ‘Tajima,’ he went on, looking straight at Yozo. ‘I want you to go with the land forces, with Commander Yamaguchi and the militia.’

  Yozo was startled. ‘Commander Yamaguchi?’ The words were out before he could stop them, and the other officers exchanged glances. But orders were orders. Yozo bowed crisply, straightened and saluted in western style. ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  ‘You too, Okawa,’ said Enomoto to Kitaro. ‘Now, listen carefully. Once you’ve landed at Washinoki Bay you’ll be marching through Kawasui Pass across the peninsula, heading
for the Star Fort just outside Hakodate. Remember, you’ll be travelling fast and light. There’ll be guides at the beach to lead you. Sergeant Marlin and Captain Cazeneuve are going with General Otori and taking the most direct route through the mountains, advancing from the north. With luck both detachments will converge on the fort at the same time. The garrison won’t be expecting anyone to cross the mountains in this weather, so you’ll take them by surprise. As for the fleet, we’ll be sailing around to Hakodate Bay and will drop anchor once the fort is safely in our hands.’

  When the meeting was over, Yozo and Kitaro scrambled down the ladder to the lower deck. Oil and coal fumes seeped from the stokehold as the ship chopped through the water and a couple of lanterns swung violently, lighting the darkness.

  ‘ “A hero holds the world in the palm of his hand,” ’ Kitaro mouthed above the roar of the boilers and the clangs and crashes of the stokers and trimmers working down below.

  ‘The Commander, you mean?’ Yozo sat himself down on a coil of rope. He could see that Kitaro was trying to look unconcerned but he knew him too well to be fooled. Kitaro was as dedicated to the cause as any of them, but he was a seaman and a scholar, not a soldier, and unlike Yozo had seen little action. While Yozo was perfectly at home with a rifle in his hands, Kitaro was more of a philosopher. Thinking was his métier.

  Yozo took the flask off his belt and lifted it to his lips, enjoying the sensation of the fiery liquor burning down his throat. His hands were black.

  ‘Commander Yamaguchi is a hero, but he’s a brute too,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The Demon Commander, they call him. Could be Enomoto wants us to keep an eye on him. I hear he’s a bit too free and easy with his sword. Maybe that’s why Enomoto’s sending us with him and not with the regular army.’