by Gai-Jin(Lit)
"Thank you, but I doubt if I'll need naval support."
Jamie said, "Another problem is--"
"When we're in the cutter." Sir William was already halfway to the main deck. "We'll take yours, it's faster. Head for the Drunk
Town wharf."
In moments the Struan cutter was at full speed, marines crowded into the stern, Sir
William, Jamie and Tyrer in relative comfort in the midship cabin. "Now, Jamie, another problem?"
"It's Mr. Tyrer's not-so-tame samurai,
Nakama." Jamie glanced at Phillip briefly. "Part of the mob attacked him but he broke away, somehow got some swords and fought back, cut one drunk, an Aussie, but not badly, and would have killed the rest if they hadn't fled. Some of them got guns, rushed back and nearly blew him away so he retreated into a village store, we think there may be some samurai with him--and there's a dozen or so maniacs surrounding the place, ready to lynch him."
Sir William gasped, "A lynch mob?
In my jurisdiction?"
"Yes, sir. I tried to get them to leave him alone but they told me to piss off. Nakama wasn't at fault initially, Sir William,
I saw him on High Street, that much I'm sure of."
"Good," Sir William said tightly.
"Fortunately we've one law for the rich and the same for the poor, and the same for anyone under our protection. If he's lynched we will lynch the lynchers. I'm tired of Drunk Town and their rabble nonsense. Until we get our allotment of Peelers from London we'll form our own police force. I'm Chief. Jamie, you're temporary Deputy Police Chief with
Norbert an equal Deputy--equally temporary."
"Not on your nelly, Sir Wil--"
"Then it's Norbert alone," Sir
William said sweetly.
"God dammit, all right," Jamie said, not pleased at all, knowing that that job had to be a thankless task. "Norbert, eh? Did you hear about Norbert and the tai-pan?"
"What about them?"
Jamie told them about the quarrel and challenge. "The betting's five to one they sneak off one dawn and one of them will end up very dead."
Sir William's eyes looked to heaven and he said wearily, "I'm away three days and everything's up the creek." He thought a moment.
"Phillip, you'll order both of them into my office first thing tomorrow." His voice changed and the other two men winced at the venom therein: "Advise them both, in advance, that they had both better be wise, docile and better listen to, and be guided by my gentle homily. Coxswain! Get a bloody move on, for God's sake!"
"Aye aye sorr..."
"Did you bring my briefcase, Phillip?"
"Yessir." Tyrer thanked Heaven he had remembered.
Hiraga was peering through the slats of the barricaded door of the shoya's shop-house at the shouting, angry men, armed with pistols and muskets. Sweat ran down his face. He was choked with rage and not a little afraid though he hid it from the others. Blood from a slight wound in his back stained his shirt--he had discarded his frock coat the moment he had rushed in here to fetch some swords. The shoya stood nervously beside him, unarmed except for a fishing harpoon--only samurai could bear arms, on pain of death.
Trapped with them was a greying ashigaru, a foot soldier, who watched Hiraga with awe and confusion: awe for his fighting ability and because he was clearly shishi, confusion because he wore gai-jin clothes and grew his hair like them and seemingly lived in the Settlement with them, yet was also the subject of these unwarranted attacks.
Stinking gai-jin, he thought, as if a futile attempted burglary by a baka ronin mattered--of course the man was just a simple ronin thief and not after the girl, what civilized man would want one of them? The fool was correctly killed for his impertinence, no one was hurt, so why all the violence? Baka gai-jin! "Is there a way out the back?" he asked.
The shoya shook his head, his face ashen. This was the first time there had been a major disturbance with so many gai-jin on the rampage. And he was directly involved: had he not harbored this shishi? Even the maniac ronin had been in his house and he had not reported them as he was obliged to do--not only them but any strangers?
"There's bound to be a Bakufu investigation," his wife had moaned an hour ago, "we are bound to be called before them to testify. Enforcers are still at the guard houses.
We will lose everything, including our heads,
Namu Amida Butsu!" She and their eldest daughter had been shopping at the vegetable market when the first of the mob had rushed through the village shouting threats, upsetting crates, barging and jostling shoppers and causing them to run home in panic.
"So sorry, Sire," the shoya managed to say, "we are surrounded--there are more gai-jin in the back alley."
Apart from the dozen-odd men outside confronting them, most of the population of the Settlement was collected on both sides of No Man's
Land. The majority had begun as onlookers out for a lark, but now many were well whipped up by a hard core of rioters wanting revenge. Behind those in the village street were twenty samurai from the
North Gate guarding the village. In front were those from the South Gate. None of the samurai had their swords out but all had their hands on their hilts, officers to the fore. The same was true with the troops confronting them, rifles ready, the dozen cavalry sitting on their horses waiting for orders, the General nearby--everyone confidently and noisily spoiling for a fight.
Once again the senior Japanese officer shouted above the clamor for the gai-jin to disperse and once again the General shouted imperiously--to a following roar of approval--the samurai were ordered to disperse, neither side understanding the other, or wanting to understand.
Hiraga could just hear the General among the shouts and counter shouts. Fool, he thought, seething, but he is not as big a fool as madman Ori. Good that he's dead, very good!
Stupid to do what he did to achieve nothing but trouble, stupid! I should have killed him the moment
I caught him wearing her cross--or in the tunnel.
When her warning screams had broken the night's quiet, immediately followed by rifle fire, he and
Akimoto had been hunched down in the alley near Struan's, wearily lying in wait for
Ori, hoping to intercept him--they had not seen
Angelique go to the Legation so presumed him to be somewhere nearby, perhaps even inside the Struan
Building.
In the confusion that followed, they had joined the growing mass of half-dressed men converging on the
Legation, their laborer's clothes and caps camouflaging them.
In shock Hiraga and Akimoto saw the two doctors arrive and then, in a little while,
Ori's body dragged out into the light. At once
Hiraga motioned to Akimoto and they slid nervously into the night, and the moment they were in their village hideaway, Hiraga burst out,
"May Ori be reborn gai-jin filth not samurai! This will stir up a hornet's nest.
Sneak back to the Yoshiwara at once, use the tunnel and hide until I send word or come to find you."
"And you?"'
"I am one of them," he had said with a twisted smile. "Taira is my protector, so is the gai-jin leader, everyone knows so I am safe." But I was wrong, he thought bitterly, the mood of the men outside becoming even rougher.
A couple of hours ago, the moment Pearl was spotted on the horizon, he had left the village and walked along High Street heading for the British Legation with a whole list of phrase translations Tyrer had asked to be done while he was away. He was lost in thought, more than a little anxious to hear firsthand about the Yedo meeting when furious gai-jin faces jerked him out of his reverie.
"It's Tyrer's Jappo..."
"Isn't he samurai..."
"Hey, monkey, you-ah, you samurai heya..."
"He certainly looks like the other bugger..."
"Jesus, that's a fact... same hair style..."
"We'll teach you lot to interfere with our women
..."
Without warning someone shoved him in the back, knocking him down, sending his top hat rolling away to be stomped into the mucked roadway to roars of laughter while others began to kick him, banging into each other in their haste. This gave him a second's respite and, using his superior physique and youth, he had scrambled up and broke through the cordon with them in ponderous pursuit.
Down the alley by Struan's into the village area, samurai guards running in from both gates to see what was going on. More men blocked access to his hideaway where he had hidden his pistol so he darted into the shop of the shoya, grabbed some inadequate swords and whirled to the attack. His berserk charge caught his assailants unawares, scattering them, three went down, one wounded, and the others fled out of range. Somewhere down the street a man fired a musket, the bullet passed harmlessly, and more men with guns started collecting, and in the jumbled melee of samurai and gai-jin, he and the ashigari had somehow retreated with him into the shop.
The three men ducked as a bullet came out of nowhere to shatter an ornate vase. From the back part of the house a child moaned only to be quickly hushed.
Outside the shouting increased. Lunkchurch, well heated and in his usual afternoon brandy haze, bellowed, "Let's fire them... burn the buggers out..."
"Are you off your rocker? All Yokopoko could catch f--"
"Burn 'em out, by God! Who's got a match?"
When the Struan cutter swung alongside the
Drunk Town wharf, everyone piled out and ran down its length into the square, marines in front.
Ahead they saw the backs of the samurai confronting this portion of the mob. At once the
Captain put their plan into operation. On his command his men formed into a wedge, rifles at the ready, and charged into the space between the two sides and wheeled, the point of the wedge threatening the Drunk
Town people who began to give away and split into two groups, shouting and alarmed. Tyrer had rushed over to the samurai who was equally alarmed by the sudden appearance of the disciplined soldiers, bowed and called out loudly in Japanese,
"Please, Sir Officer, all men to stay here safe, Please to salute my Master, Lord of
Gai-jin."
Automatically the nonplussed samurai bowed back to Tyrer and as he straightened, Sir
William, flushed from his unaccustomed run, stopped for a moment and faced the samurai. Immediately
Tyrer bowed to him, calling out, "Salute!" The officer and all his men bowed, Sir William bowed back and now the samurai were back in control.
At once Sir William turned and went into the wedge that was gaining ground, the people closest to the marines being shoved back by the rifles.
"Get out of the way! Get back... back!" the young Captain was shouting, his adrenaline pumping.
He was just behind the point of wedge, and when the way did not clear fast enough for his liking he shouted,
"FIX BAYONETS!"
As one man the marines stepped back two paces, fixed bayonets, levelled them at the crowd, each marine picking a target, each becoming a graven, waiting cog of a killing machine that was famed and feared throughout the world.
"PREPARE TO CHARGE!"
Sir William, Tyrer, and McFay stopped breathing. Along with everyone else. Immediate silence. Then the evil spirit that all mobs contain vanished and the men here became just a rabble that broke and fled in all directions.
The Captain did not wait. "Port rifles, follow me!" He led the way at a run towards the village where the majority of traders, soldiers, a dozen cavalry, and samurai were gathered, all of them still oblivious of
Sir William and his marines.
Again the wedge formed but as they came up to the back of the shouting mass, they heard the General shouting, "For the last time I order you out or I will throw you out..." to be drowned under a roar from a crowd that was clearly ready to explode. The
Captain decided there was no time to waste.
"Halt! One round over their heads, FIRE!"
The volley blew away the noise and the fury and got immediate attention, even from the equally unprepared cavalry. Everyone had whirled or ducked and in the silence Sir
William, red with rage, stalked into the space between the two sides. Further down the street
Lunkchurch and the others were transfixed. He held a second burning rag in his hand, poised to throw, the first was already on the veranda against the wooden wall, flames spreading. Seeing Sir
William and the marines, they evaporated into side streets, rushing pell-mell for home.
All other eyes were on Sir William.
He settled his top hat more firmly and took a paper out of his pocket. In a loud grating voice he began: "I am reading you Her
Majesty's Riot Act: if this unauthorized assembly does not disperse instantly, every man woman or child is liable for arrest and..." His next few words were lost under general grumbling and curses but, instantly, the rabble began to dissolve.
The Riot Act of 1715 had been promulgated by Parliament after the Jacobite
Rebellion that only ruthlessness had contained and obliterated. The new law was designed to stop any unauthorized dissension at source. It granted all Magistrates or Justices of the
Peace the right and duty to read the Act out to any group of more than twelve persons considered a threat to the peace of the realm, the onus on the rioters to hear and obey. Anyone who did not disperse within forty-five minutes was liable to immediate arrest, incarceration, and, if proven guilty, to either a sentence of death or to being sentenced to transportation for life at Her Majesty's pleasure.
There was no need for Sir William to finish reading. The village street emptied but for the troops and the General, and the samurai.
"Phillip, deal with them, tell them to go home please." He watched for a moment as Tyrer went over and bowed and the officer bowed back. He's a good lad, he thought, then turned away to put a bleak eye on the General who was flushed and sweating. "'Morning, Thomas."
"'Morning sir." The General saluted.
Smartly--but only because of the soldiers around him.
Sir William did not raise his hat in reply. Stupid berk, he was thinking.
"Pleasant day, what?" he said easily. "I suggest you dismiss the men."
The General motioned to the cavalry officer who was, secretly, more than a little pleased that Sir
William had arrived when he did, knowing too that the Japanese were not at fault and he should have been walking his horses into the rabble of traders. What a bunch of ill-disciplined scum, he thought.
"Sergeant!" he called out. "All the men back to barracks and dismiss them. Now!"
The soldiers began sorting themselves out. Tyrer bowed a last time to the samurai officer, feeling very pleased with himself, then watched them amble away up the street towards their North Gate.
"Damn good show, Phillip, you did very well," Jamie McFay said.
"Oh? Didn't do a thing really," Tyrer said, pretending diffidence.
Jamie McFay grunted. He was sweating, his heart thumping, he had been sure that someone would pull a trigger or jerk out a sword. "That was bloody close." He glanced over at Sir
William who was deep in a one-sided conversation with the General, now even more flushed. "Wee
Willie's giving the bugger hell," he said softly, smiling. "Stupid clot!"
"He's..." Tyrer stopped as their attention was diverted up the street. Samurai were sprinting towards a shop on the east side that had caught fire. "Good God, that's the shoya's house.
..." He was already running, McFay at his heels.
Several of the samurai had jumped up onto the veranda and began beating out the flames while the others hurried to the big water barrels with their ring of buckets that were kept at intervals everywhere against such emergencies. By the time Tyrer and
McFay had reached there the fire was under control.
Half a dozen more buckets and the last of the flames sizzled and died. The outer shop wall was gone. Inside they
saw the shoya, beside him an ashigaru, a foot soldier. Both of them stepped out onto the veranda. The shoya knelt and bowed, the ashigaru bowed. They muttered thanks.
To McFay's astonishment there was no sign of
Hiraga, the man he and Tyrer knew only as
Nakama. But before either of them could say anything the officer had begun questioning the shoya and the foot soldier.
