Bloody Sunrise

by Christopher Nicole

  When Mikasa arrived soon afterwards, Nicholas accompanied Togo on a tour of inspection. Displacing just over fifteen thousand tons and measuring four hundred and thirty-two feet overall, with her twin-shaft vertical triple expansion engine developing fifteen thousand induced horsepower she could reach a speed of eighteen knots. Her nine-inch thick belt armour and her three-inch thick armoured decks, her four twelve-inch and fourteen six-inch guns, and her complement of eight hundred and thirty men, made her a match for any ship afloat. It was true that the British had more than a dozen ships of similar size, speed, and capability, but the British were now Japan’s ally. It was also true that the Americans had just laid down the first of a class of new battleships, to be known as the Virginia Class, and which would displace more than sixteen thousand tons and be armed, in addition to four twelve-inch and twelve six-inch, with eight eight-inch guns, but these were several years away from completion.

  ‘Years we must put to good use, Barrett san,’ Togo said, standing on Mikasa’s bridge and looking down at the sweep of her foredeck. ‘As of now, Mikasa is my flagship. Now my only dream is to lead her into battle against the Russians.’

  ‘I doubt that is going to happen, now that the world knows we will be supported by Britain.’

  Togo smiled. ‘That is exactly it. Now it is up to us to provoke a conflict. And quickly.’

  Nicholas frowned at him.

  ‘You see, Barrett,’ Togo explained. ‘Our treaty with Britain is for a period of five years only. Oh, there are provisions for a renewal, but who can say what changes may have taken place in European alignments by the end of five years? No, no, the treaty has given us our opportunity to further our ambitions without the risk of outside interference, except to our advantage. Long before it expires, we must have settled the Russian business, once and for all.’

  *

  It was a concept of power politics with which Nicholas presumed he had to come to terms. And certainly it seemed as if Russia was determined to push ahead with its expansionist policies in eastern Asia, regardless of Japanese objections, or the fact that the Japanese now possessed the support of Britain; the Bear even began to probe Korea, at least economically.

  He contented himself with making all the necessary plans for an outbreak of hostilities, when it occurred; that it would occur seemed definite.

  *

  He had sufficient domestic distractions, as before the end of this year of 1902 Aki died of an abdominal cancer. Although they had never been close, Nicholas was quite distressed.

  ‘I sometimes feel as if I have lived too long,’ he confessed to Elizabeth. ‘When one’s children start dying before one . . .’

  ‘You have other children, for whom you must live,’ she told him. ‘Not to mention me.’

  Takamori naturally attended the funeral, as did Young Nicholas; Alexander was away on a goodwill cruise, to the United States, with Yoshino. Takamori and Nicholas gazed at each other, across the grave, and when the casket had been lowered, Nicholas went round to grasp his son’s hand.

  ‘I am honoured to share your grief, honourable Father,’ Takamori said. ‘What of the boy?’

  ‘He is my son, now,’ Nicholas said.

  Takamori bowed again.

  *

  ‘You cannot bring yourself to forgive him,’ Elizabeth said.

  ‘I regard him as representative of everything that is bad in Japanese life,’ Nicholas said.

  She sighed, but would not press the point. Yet the tensions between Takamori and his father became yet more strained when, only a few months later, Takamori married. It was as if the death of the sister he had so much loved had created a need. In 1903, Takamori was thirty-eight, and his bride, Satamoto Nikijo, was nineteen. Nicholas knew that such autumn-spring marriages were common in Japan, but found it difficult to accept in the case of his own son. Duty called upon him to act the father’s role, but he was also aware that most of the guests were samurai and their ladies, and that they looked upon him with at best disfavour, while being forced to honour so famous a warrior.

  ‘It is disturbing to think that there remains so much of the old bushido spirit still lurking, just under the surface,’ he said at breakfast the following morning.

  ‘This is its last generation,’ Elizabeth suggested.

  ‘Do you really believe that?’ Nicholas asked. ‘Old Satamoto is a samurai, and you can tell that all his sons have been brought up as samurai. Do you not suppose Nikijo has been educated in the same tradition? How do you suppose she will bring up her son?’

  ‘Well, we shall have to be very interested grandparents,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Yes, Kisuda. What is the trouble?’

  Kisuda was now past seventy, and inclined to tremble. He was certainly trembling at this moment. ‘There is a visitor, honourable madam.’

  ‘At this hour?’

  ‘Who is it, Kisuda,’ Nicholas asked.

  Kisuda trembled some more; he knew everything about the family, as he spent his entire life overhearing various conversations, and had a retentive memory. ‘It is a young lady, honourable master.’

  Nicholas looked at Elizabeth; in Japan, young ladies, if they were ladies, did not go calling by themselves, and certainly not in the early morning.

  ‘I will attend to it.’ Elizabeth got up, and accompanied Kisuda out of the room. Nicholas drank some tea, and tried not to think. Was it possible that Nikijo could have fled Takamori’s bed after one night? No, that was not possible; a Japanese wife, even if horrified by something her husband might have demanded of her, would kill herself rather than admit to such a disgrace. He gazed at the screen door as it slid back, and then scrambled to his feet.

  ‘Admiral Barrett,’ said Sue-Ellen Cummings.

  *

  Sue-Ellen wore western clothes, a green wool tiered shoulder cape over a gold wool promenade dress with a pleated skirt. Her velvet hat and ribbons and matching gloves, would have been sufficient to make Kisuda’s eyes roll. Her golden hair was up in a pompadour and all but invisible save for stray wisps drifting down her neck, and there were pink spots in her cheeks.

  She was twice as pretty as Nicholas remembered her. Which was sufficient to bring a flush into Elizabeth’s cheeks: she had never seen Sue-Ellen before

  ‘Do you know this young woman?’ she asked. ‘She came here to see you, apparently.’

  Elizabeth was the sort of woman who had so accepted the Japanese way of life that she would find nothing to quarrel with in her husband visiting a geisha house, but she would never be prepared to accept a Caucasian rival.

  ‘Don’t you remember me, Admiral?’ Sue-Ellen asked. ‘We met in Peking.’

  ‘I remember you very well,’ Nicholas said. ‘Forgive me for staring; this is a bit of a surprise. This is Miss Cummings, Lizzie,’ he explained. ‘I told you about her.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Elizabeth said, grasping the various possibilities well before they dawned on her husband.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ Nicholas said. ‘I was told that your parents had after all returned to the States, three years ago. Did you not go with them?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sue-Ellen said.

  ‘I think you had better sit down,’ Elizabeth recommended, as the girl looked likely to fall down.

  Sue-Ellen looked right and left with an air almost of desperation.

  ‘On one of those cushions on the floor,’ Elizabeth recommended. ‘You’re in Japan now. You do understand that? Kisuda, we shall have some more tea.’

  Sue-Ellen clearly had no idea how to go about sitting on the floor. She dropped to her hands and knees, then sat with her legs gathered to one side, while her cheeks flamed. Nicholas and Elizabeth, who were both wearing kimonos, sat also, while Kisuda bustled in with more tea.

  ‘From what my husband has told me, I imagine you would like to see Alexander,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Unfortunately, he is not here. He is on his ship, and his ship is . . .’ she looked at Nicholas.

  ‘In South America,’ Nicholas said. ‘B
ut before then, she was in the States.’ The penny dropped. ‘My God! You met each other.’

  ‘In San Francisco, yes.’ Sue-Ellen had recovered her composure as she sipped the tea.

  ‘And now you are here,’ Elizabeth remarked.

  ‘I obtained a passage on a steamer across the Pacific, Mrs Barrett.’

  Elizabeth’s gaze slightly softened at the form of address.

  ‘May I ask why?’ Nicholas inquired.

  ‘Well, I . . . I wished to be with Alexander, sir.’

  Nicholas decided to be deliberately obtuse, until she had made a full explanation. ‘He invited you to visit us, is that it?’

  Sue-Ellen licked her lips, and cast an anxious glance at Elizabeth.

  ‘You have not by any chance eloped with our son?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘Well . . . not exactly.’ Colour again flared in her cheeks.

  ‘But he asked you to come here to wait for his return.’

  ‘Well . . . not exactly.’

  ‘But he knows you were coming here?’ Nicholas asked.

  ‘Well, no. He doesn’t.’

  ‘I think you should tell us exactly what happened between you,’ Elizabeth invited.

  Sue-Ellen licked her lips again. ‘Well, we met, as I said, in San Francisco. Everyone knew a Japanese warship was coming in, and I went down to see her, and . . . we met.’

  ‘That point is established,’ Elizabeth agreed.

  ‘Well . . .’ another hasty circling of her lips. ‘We wanted to see each other, but my parents would not receive Alexander, so we . . . we met privately.’

  ‘I see,’ Elizabeth said. ‘May I ask how old you are, Miss Cummings?’

  ‘I am twenty, Mrs Barrett.’

  ‘Twenty! My God! And you allowed our son to seduce you.’

  Sue-Ellen’s head came up. ‘I wanted it too, Mrs Barrett.’

  She did not lack courage, Nicholas reflected.

  ‘Well, at least you are not accusing Alexander of rape,’ Elizabeth said. ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Four months ago. I mean, we met several times while he was in San Francisco. Then his ship left. Four months ago.’

  ‘By which time you had arranged an elopement.’

  ‘No. No, when he left we did not expect to see each other again, for a while. We want to get married. He was going to speak with you, when he returned home, and ask you to contact my parents, and I was to speak with them, and see if we could not come to some kind of arrangement.’

  ‘But then you decided you couldn’t wait.’

  ‘I couldn’t wait, Mrs Barrett, because two months after Alexander had left, I realised I was pregnant.’

  *

  ‘Oh, good lord!’ Nicholas exclaimed.

  ‘Do your parents know of this?’ Elizabeth asked, remarkably calm.

  ‘No. Papa would have gone mad. Mama too. I . . . I borrowed some money and bought my passage. I had nowhere else to go, Mrs Barrett, sir.’

  Nicholas looked at Elizabeth. His gaze was returned without a change of expression. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I shall write to your parents, and you will too. You say they would have gone mad to discover your condition, Miss Cummings. Do you not suppose they have been going mad worrying what has happened to you?’

  ‘I wrote them a letter,’ Sue-Ellen said.

  ‘And there was no one waiting for you when you landed?’ Nicholas was astounded.

  ‘I knew they could wire, Admiral. So I told them I was taking the train east, running away from home. I didn’t tell them about Alexander. Or about the baby.’

  ‘You are a very deceitful young woman,’ Elizabeth said severely. ‘As I said, we will both write to them, and explain the situation.’

  ‘But they’ll take me back,’ Sue-Ellen wailed. ‘And then take away my baby. I couldn’t stand that. I’d kill myself. It’s Alexander’s child, Mrs Barrett.’

  Once again Elizabeth’s expression softened. ‘Do you love my son, girl?’

  ‘I do, Mrs Barrett. And he loves me. We fell in love when we first met, in Peking.’

  It was Elizabeth’s turn to look at Nicholas.

  ‘She can stay here until Alexander returns,’ he said. ‘Then they can be married.’

  ‘You do realise that there is no way we can keep her presence here a secret?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘And that by the time Alexander returns there will be no possibility of keeping her pregnancy a secret, either.’

  Sue-Ellen was looking from one to the other, anxiously.

  ‘You’re not suggesting we send her back?’ Nicolas asked.

  ‘No!’ Sue-Ellen cried. ‘Please!’

  ‘We won’t send you back,’ Elizabeth said. ‘But your parents must be told.’

  ‘Then they’ll have me taken back.’

  ‘When is your next birthday?’

  ‘The third of December.’

  ‘Well,’ Elizabeth smiled. ‘They can’t make you do anything after that, Sue-Ellen, as you’ll be twenty-one. And that’s only six weeks off. I think, if I write them and explain the situation, and post the letter in the usual way, it will be three weeks before they get it . . .’

  ‘They’ll wire the consulate here in Tokyo,’ Nicholas pointed out.

  ‘It’ll still be only three weeks to her birthday,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I would hope that in the circumstances, they will agree to a reconciliation. And in the meantime, we will assume that they have already done so, and treat you as our guest, and our future daughter-in-law.’ She embraced the girl.

  *

  Having Sue-Ellen to stay with them was a great pleasure, even if Nicholas suspected that the Cummings might not be as readily accommodating as Elizabeth hoped; she had never met the missionary and his wife. And he was right. Elizabeth’s letter was duly posted three days later, and on 10 November Nicholas received a call from the American naval attaché.

  ‘Seems we have a bit of a problem, Admiral,’ said Captain Easterbrook.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Nicholas invited.

  ‘Well, it’s to do with this young lady you have staying with you. Miss Cummings. I guess you know she’s run away from home.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Easterbrook scratched his ear. ‘Her parents want her back.’

  ‘Well, they can’t have her back. She’s going to marry my son.’

  ‘Yeah. According to the wire we’ve received, that’s the last thing they want. No offence, Admiral: I’m quoting.’

  ‘They’ll have to accept it, Captain. Miss Cummings is pregnant.’

  Easterbrook looked as if he’d been hit on the chin. ‘There could be repercussions.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to have repercussions.’

  ‘Admiral, as of this moment, you are holding an American girl against her parents’ will. That’s a serious matter.’

  ‘Then you go off and file an official complaint, Captain. By the time you get your papers together Miss Cummings will be over twenty-one. And I’m not holding her against her will, I can assure you of that.’

  Easterbrook considered the situation and left. Nothing more was heard for another three weeks, and Nicholas and Elizabeth celebrated Sue-Ellen’s birthday with quiet relief. But Nicholas still expected repercussions, and braced himself when, at the turn of the year, he was summoned to Togo’s office.

  *

  ‘Ah, Barrett san,’ Togo said. ‘Sit down. Tell me, when is Yoshino back from her cruise?’

  Here it comes, Nicholas thought. ‘At the end of this month, honourable Admiral.’

  ‘That is good. Now will you give me a breakdown of the Russian capital ships based on Port Arthur?’

  Nicholas frowned in surprise. But Togo was working towards something, he did not doubt. ‘I’m afraid the Russians have been building up their strength, honourable Admiral. There are now seven battleships based on the port. Petropavlovsk is the flagship. She is a new ship, only four years old. She displaces over eleven thousand tons, can make sixteen knots, and is armed with four twelve-inch a
nd twelve six-inch guns. She has two sisters, also in Port Arthur, Poltava and Sevastopol. In support are two very new first-class ships, Retvisan and Tsessarevitch. Both have the same armament as the others, but are over twelve thousand tons and can make eighteen knots. Then there are two others, Peresviet and Pobieda. These are also over twelve thousand tons, and can make over eighteen knots, but they are of the class armed only with four ten-inch guns, and eleven six-inch.’

  ‘That is seven ships, to our six,’ Togo mused.

  ‘Not one of those ships is anywhere near as strong as our four new vessels, honourable Admiral.’

  ‘Still, we cannot be certain of victory in a fleet battle. And we must be certain. Barrett san, the situation is fraught with danger. As you have just established, the Russian Pacific Squadron has virtual parity, and Russia has at least an equal number of battleships in the Baltic, which could be sent East. In addition, they are constantly building up their forces in Manchuria. Right at this time, we have the potential to transfer more men from Japan than they have available, or can quickly provide, by their one-track railway. But with every trainload of men and munitions which comes East, that situation is altering to our disadvantage, and as you know, Russia can, or claims she can, eventually mobilise an army of several million men, which is far beyond our capabilities.’

  ‘Our information is that it would strain her resources enormously, honourable Admiral. Is it not for this reason that they continue to negotiate?’

  ‘We thought so, once. But now we have altered our opinion. His Majesty believes that Russia is talking merely to give her time to prepare herself for war.’

  ‘And he means to force the issue now? With respect, honourable Admiral, this advantage we have is very tenuous. As you have pointed out, the Russian Pacific Squadron is fully capable of extending us to the limit. If they were able to prevent us transferring troops across the Sea of Japan . . . or in fact, just by holding on to Port Arthur, even if they never came out, they could make life very difficult. While all the time men, again as you say, would be streaming East over the railway.’