by Ben Stevens
‘It was undoubtedly a fine performance, Kukai, for which you should be congratulated.’
‘Thank you, master,’ I said. ‘But, if I may return to the matter of these mirrors… You mentioned something about an ancient Greek, a man called Ar – , Ar – …’
‘Archimedes,’ smiled my master. ‘But there are so many legends surrounding that genius of long ago, that it is hard to know whether he did actually construct that ‘death-ray’; that so-called ‘ship-killer’…
‘In any case, Tsukino proved singularly unresponsive to my attempted questioning of him, shortly before his execution – so that I shall probably never know exactly where the inspiration for that giant weapon, masquerading as a sixty-foot statue of the Buddha, was obtained. Or quite how Tsukino was able to arrange its construction…’
‘And does anyone know what will become of this statue now, master?’ I asked. ‘The fire which began inside its head destroyed only part of the internal wooden frame before it was put out, after all…’
My master gave a slight shrug.
‘Ito has the intention of dismantling it, I believe. He is a singularly practical man – and so he can expect for the two regions he now governs to receive an extremely handsome sum for the retrieved copper, which has somewhat risen in price since the time he forced Tsukino to buy it.
‘The statue has actually proved to be something of an ‘investment’, if you will…’
With this observation, we continued walking, our wide-brimmed straw hats protecting us from the burning sun above.
A Slave’s Tale
Based upon a true story
1
‘…His physique is superb; clearly he is as strong as an ox. He easily stands head and shoulders above most Japanese males. In age, he appears to be still in his early twenties. His teeth are a gleaming white, his skin as black as charcoal. He speaks no known tongue – certainly not Japanese, nor any of the familiar gaijin languages such as Portuguese, Dutch or English. Yet his eyes sparkle with evident intelligence, and he looks frankly and without the least sign of nervousness or fear at anyone who attempts to address him.
‘…So far as determining who he is, where he comes from or indeed discovering anything at all concerning him, however, all attempts have as yet been in vain…’
The above is part of the rather breathless account scribbled down by the senior physician serving the daimyo Nobunaga. It concerned the mysterious man – this one whose skin was ‘as black as charcoal’ – who had been discovered lying half-dead on a beach along Japan’s southern coast.
We – that is, my master and I – happened to be in this region, so that we were requested by the daimyo Nobunaga himself to come and see this foreigner, this gaijin, for ourselves, and for my master to see if he could devise some means of communicating with him.
When we arrived at the castle, and specifically in the area where this man was being kept, we discovered a crowd of people packed almost five deep around the wooden-barred room. A guard called out ‘Hey, come along now, you all have to go’ – yet when I saw a coin being then surreptitiously placed into his hand, he at once coughed and appeared suddenly engrossed in checking the bunch of keys he carried.
‘What is this?’
My master’s voice sounded like ice, at once cutting through the general babble. His appearance – over six feet in height and strikingly bald, with those unusually high cheekbones – made him immediately familiar to those who’d not even seen him before, but who certainly still knew both his name and reputation.
‘Ennin,’ sounded the low murmurs. ‘It’s Ennin…’
‘I… err… I believe you’ve come here at my lord Nobunaga’s specific request, Ennin-sensei,’ began the guard hesitantly.
Again, my master’s voice sounded like a whip-crack –
‘Is that some sort of animal you have kept inside that barred room?’ he asked.
‘No, Ennin-sensei, no,’ stammered the guard, his face reddening. ‘It is the man who has been found, the foreigner who – ’
‘Then who are these people jostling all round, pressing coins into your hand for the privilege of peering in at him?’
The guard gulped, appeared to think deeply for a few seconds, and then said quickly –
‘Hey, come on, all of you! You have to go, now!’
Reluctantly, the crowd dispersed, moving towards the entrance my master and I had just passed through.
With this obstruction removed, my master and I stared into the small, wooden-barred room ourselves. And so I got my first view of this black giant. He was sat upon his cot, staring back at us with deep brown eyes. He seemed remarkably unperturbed (far less afraid) by everything taking place. My reasoning was that he was already fully resigned to being an object of curiosity, for people to gawp at.
Then I realized that I, too, was gawping. It was hard not to. I blinked, and at once looked away from those strangely evaluating brown eyes.
‘Open this door,’ my master commanded the guard, motioning at the small door set into the wooden bars.
‘But, Ennin-sensei, we never open this door unless there are three of us, all fully-armed,’ gasped the guard, staring with astonishment at my master. ‘When this brute stands upright, he is –’
‘Open the door,’ repeated my master, who I knew was struggling to contain the anger he felt towards this idiotic guard.
The guard nodded, gulped, and selecting one key quickly stuck it in the lock and turned it before stepping just as hurriedly backwards, his right hand hovering by the hilt of his sword.
‘Remain here,’ said my master.
‘Yes, Ennin-sensei,’ returned the guard. ‘And at the first sign of trouble, I will – ’
The long, cool stare my master gave the man soon served to silence his babbling.
And into that small room we entered. Slowly, the man got up from his cot – a plank fixed to the wall by two chains, a thin pillow and a blanket tidily folded at one end – and stood fully upright.
I repressed a gulp. He truly was colossal. Taller even than my master, who as I have said stands at a little over six foot. It was fortunate for him that the cell in which he’d been placed had an unusually high ceiling; and yet still the top of his head all but brushed against it.
The kimono he’d been given to wear was ridiculously small for him, the sleeves of it almost up past his elbows. Using those skills I’d learnt from my master these past few years, I quickly noticed the scar tissue on the man’s wrists, ankles and around his neck, and made the appropriate deduction.
It was obvious that he had been a prisoner – or at least a man kept in chains – at some point.
My master gave a slight bow, which the man returned after a moment.
‘En-nin,’ said my master, tapping himself in his chest with the fingers of his right hand.
Then motioning at me, he said, ‘Ku-kai.’
He repeated the two names several times, pronouncing them carefully, motioning with his hand every time.
At last the black man gave a slight smile, his yellow-tinged eyeballs gleaming, and said –
‘Watashi wa Makku… Konnichiwa…’
I glanced at my master in astonishment, although my master’s expression was completely impassive. So this man had, in fact, already learnt some basic Japanese – or the words ‘I am’ and ‘Good afternoon’, at the very least. I gathered that this man – or ‘Makku’, as he appeared to have introduced himself – had picked up just a few words, by listening in to those people who’d been gawping in at him these past few days.
‘Amazing…’ breathed the guard from outside. ‘He has previously said nothing to anyone else who has tried to talk to him. Nothing at all…’
My master did not appear to hear these words. Or, more likely, was just ignoring them. Instead he stood there, deep in thought.
Finally he turned, and addressing the guard said –
‘We will require a low table to be brought into this room, and three cushions so t
hat we are not required to sit on the straw which covers the floor of this cell. Some good food, also, and some sake.’
‘But, Ennin-sensei – ’
At once my master raised his voice in exasperation –
‘Need I remind you that I and my servant here have come at the express request of your lord Nobunaga himself? If I am to try and discover a little about this man – that is, Makku-san, as we now know him to be called – then this will certainly take some time.
‘So in addition to the aforementioned items, we will also require plenty of paper, ink and a brush. A room needs to be prepared for me and my servant, as we will be staying at this castle at least a couple of nights.
‘Kindly see to all of this at once.’
‘I… Yes, Ennin-sensei.’
With that, the guard left this brick-built, subterranean area with its cell constructed along one wall. My master sighed.
‘We will have to wait some time, as that idiot frantically gabbles out all I have just said to whoever will then relay it to lord Nobunaga. But Nobunaga is, I believe, a sensible daimyo, not especially opposed to foreigners – as some of them certainly are, Kukai! – and, as such, I have every reason to believe that he will readily consent to those few modest things I have asked for.
‘So, we just have to wait.’
And with that, he smiled at this black gaijin, who in turn smiled back at my master as he again seated himself comfortably upon his cot.
2
Needless to say, Makku did not just simply sit there and tell my master and me his horrific story – the one which shows the gaijin to still be almost savages in certain respects. Although he would quickly prove to be an extremely able linguist, easily picking up Japanese from my master (he is by now fluent, and also able to read and write), still his story was mainly communicated with simple pictures drawn by using a brush and paper – a village, a ship, a line of captured men, women and children all chained together like so many cattle. As Makku’s story unfolded (I was the one writing down such information as my master could glean), so the huge black gaijin also learnt the Japanese words for whatever it was that these pictures were showing.
So soon he discovered that seiko meant ‘slave’; and he also began practicing the Chinese characters for this – 生口.
It would be deeply tedious for the reader to learn his entire story in the same manner which my master and I did, however. So I shall set it down as though Makku was communicating it now, in his fluent, indeed somewhat eloquent Japanese –
I come from a small village in a huge country. There we have creatures the likes of which you have never seen. It is hot the entire year round. My village was close by the sea – something which would prove unfortunate for me, and everyone else in the village.
But I should really start by saying that I am the youngest of four children. There was a fifth, a boy, but he got sick and died while still young. So I was left with two sisters and one brother. Growing up we learnt to hunt, and to grow crops. We swam and fished in the sea. We had small boats. Life was good.
When I came of age, it was decided that I would marry a certain girl in the village. There was a long ceremony, with much eating and dancing, and the date was fixed. But then the following morning, we saw the large ship on the horizon. It was of a sort we had never seen before; had we only known what it was, we would have run from it like the wind! Left our village and hidden far away, only to return when this ship of death had gone again…
Staring at this strange vessel in fascination, like everyone else in my village, I thought I heard a low moaning coming from within it. Many voices, all of them raised in despair. But perhaps it was just my imagination… But then, all at once, there was the most appalling smell. It came from this ship! A foul stench – a mixture of sweat, fear, vomit, excrement and death…
And this revolting wind also brought with it the smaller boats, full of bearded men with red faces and whips, strange weapons that spat fire and creatures with four legs that snarled and bit us, hunting us out wherever we tried to hide in the village – for when we finally realized that we should run, it was far too late…
These men also had these long weapons they held in their hands – long, gleaming. With these and the strange things that spat fire they cut down all the elderly, the ones they had no use for. A baby was snatched from its mother’s arms and thrown to those creatures with four legs, who immediately tore it to pieces. My heart cried out with the horror of all that I was seeing, and my sight seemed to dim and my senses all but desert me.
I believe it was the same for everyone in the village, even the strong men, so that we made hardly any resistance to these devils who had been brought by that stinking ship of death. As the huts in our village burnt we were chained together, yokes placed around our necks and our wrists bound. Soon the blood ran from those places were the chains and wooden yokes rubbed; it was the same for all of us – strong men to young children.
We were herded onto the small boats and transported to that stinking hulk moored some way out. The stench grew ever viler the closer we got to it. And there was a low moaning coming from within it – coming from the bottom of that boat.
And then I, and all of us tied together, discovered what lay down there in the bottom of that boat. Other people, all of them black like me; men, women and children. Forced to lie there, shoulder to shoulder. Hundreds of them. And we were crammed in also, whipped without mercy until we lay down there in that dark, stinking place, the very floor of which was wet and foul with human waste…
The men with beards had silenced those lying down in the darkness with their whips; but as soon as the door above was closed, the moaning began again. I suppose many villages had been raided, so that people spoke in a variety of tongues and I did not understand all the words – but I knew what was being said, nonetheless. A plea for death itself to come as a merciful release; for this ship to sink, even… Wherever it was taking us, we knew that our existence had now become a living hell…
And, despite our wish for death, the ceaseless moaning was also for food – and water. It was unbearably hot down there in the fetid darkness. Sweat made my eyes sting. The man lying right next to me had some sort of fever, and vomited repeatedly. When he finally stopped, it took me some time to realize that he was in fact dead.
His body had begun to swell and smell terribly by the time the men above came down to us, prodding us with whips and their feet to see if we were still alive. I was unchained (I should say that we were all tied together by our ankles, as we lay there) and with another man made to carry out those people who had died – that man next to me, another man, two women and a young girl. These bodies we carried up onto the deck of the ship, and were then forced to throw into the sea.
Despite the hideousness of this duty, still it was a definite release to be up there in the fresh air. To see the sky above, so gloriously blue with a few white clouds running across it… The birds flying some way off – for they seemed unwilling to come near this stinking ship of misery. For a moment I had the chance to hurl myself into the sea; to give myself up to its wetness forever… Although I was a strong swimmer, still there was no land in sight, and I knew that I would ultimately tire and drown… But what was the alternative – to merely return down there in that foul darkness, and there in misery wait to discover just where this ship was taking me…?
And then I heard my father’s voice speak to me. He had died a few years before (my mother was also dead – and I was glad of this, now); and yet I heard it as clearly as if he had been stood next to me. It came from the sky, the sun. It was the voice of Man as a whole; the voice that commands you to survive and endure even when darkness has engulfed your very soul, and it seems that all hope has truly gone.
‘…There will come a time, my son, when there is a chance for you to escape this ship. But that time is not yet…’ said my father’s voice; and barely had I heard these words when the moment passed and I and the other man were being forced back
down there into the terrible darkness, the moaning from all those men, women and children lying crammed side-by-side in their own waste never ceasing.
Before I was returned to my own spot, it was roughly indicated to me that I should go along those people lying down with a wooden bucket of water, from which they could drink. This water was unbearably foul, and undoubtedly disease-ridden, but so parched were we that we gulped down as much as we could before the whip cracked and it was time for the next person to drink. There were also hard, round things given to us to eat, but these were so salty that we were at once unbearably thirsty again…
Rats moved all the while around us, attracted by the waste, the blood from our unhealed sores – and our helplessness. Vile creatures, black with great, thick tails. They squeaked to one another, and bit us, massing on anyone too weak to resist. And, often, despite the filth in which we lay, some of these red-faced men – these bad spirits – would come down to us, and lie upon the helpless bodies of our women…
So it continued. What else can I say about this time? I could talk forever about that hell-ship and still no one who has not been on such a vessel can even remotely understand what it is like… But I was at least now clearly designated as being a ‘helper’ to the bearded men, which meant I was often unmanacled and given various jobs to do, such as trying to clean that place where we lay, with tubs of human waste then being carried to the top of the ship and hurled into the sea.
Once too many slaves had begun to die – often from that sickness which gives you bloody diarrhea – the men decided that we should all be given some time up on the top of the ship, as though the sea air and the sight of the sky might have some beneficial effect upon our disease-racked bodies and minds which desired only suicide as a form of release. (So that we were often forced to eat, hot irons, whips and a device which crushes the thumbs being used on anyone who tried to refuse.)
