Gai-Jin

by James Clavell

  Yoshi said slowly, “When I leave, Doctor-sama. Thank you. I am responsible for you. I will ensure you come back safely. You will need an interpreter, yes?”

  “Yes, please, Lord Yoshi,” Babcott said, not needing one. He looked at Tyrer. “You’re elected, Phillip.”

  Tyrer grinned. “I was going to volunteer.”

  “Ask him how long I’ll be there.”

  “He says: however long it takes to make an examination.”

  “Then that’s settled,” Sir William said.

  “I’ll leave you to it. I’ve a clinic going on so you know where I’ll be.” The doctor bowed to Yoshi, who bowed back, and then he was gone.

  Choosing his words carefully and trying to talk simply, Yoshi said, “Porters outside have cases of silver coins to the value of one hundred thousand pounds. This is offered by the Shōgunate in full settlement of the indemnity you have demanded from the responsible daimyo. In principle, the Shōgunate considers this a correct amount.” He concealed his amusement at Tyrer and André’s shock. “Translate exactly what I said.”

  Again Tyrer obeyed, not exactly word for word this time, but gave a credible précis, helped here and there by André. There was a stunned silence in the room.

  “Sire,” Tyrer said weakly, “my Master ask, he answer now, or Yoshi-sama say more?”

  “More. The Shōgunate advances this money on behalf of Sanjiro of Satsuma. He alone is responsible. As previously explained, he is not subject to Shōgunate control—in all things. Translate.”

  Again this was done. He saw the two leaders were off balance as he had planned. This was pleasing, but did not allay his anxiety. “We cannot force Sanjiro of Satsuma to cancel any orders he may or may not have given his men about gai-jin—or even to apologize—or make him repay the money we are advancing to settle this matter without waging war on him. This we are not prepared to do.”

  This translation required time to get it accurate, André again assisting, aware of the tension and the way everyone was concentrating.

  “Sire?”

  “Say this exactly and carefully: wanting to be friends with the Ing’erish and Furansu, the Shōgunate has solved what the Shōgunate can solve … without going to war.” Yoshi sat back, wondering if the bait was succulent enough.

  His last remarks were received in silence. He noted Sir William was impassive now except for an almost inaudible grunt. But Seratard nodded and glanced at André.

  Inwardly a ferment of glee, Sir William waited for Yoshi to continue. When he didn’t, he said, “Phillip, ask Lord Yoshi if he wants to go on or may I now respond?”

  “He says he does not wish to continue for the moment.”

  Sir William cleared his throat and spoke grandly—to Tyrer’s private dismay: “Lord Yoshi, on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, and the French Government, may I thank you and the Shōgunate for obliterating part of the problem between us. We thank you personally, wishing to make our stay in your land happy and profitable for your country, the Shōgunate and ourselves. This gesture surely begins a new era of understanding between our two countries—and those others represented in Japan.”

  He waited as that was translated, both Tyrer and André apologizing and begging Yoshi’s forbearance, putting the message in simpler terms, as accurately as possible. When they had finished, Sir William said, “With his permission I would like to take a short break. Phillip, or André, please ask his indulgence, apologies and all that, but explain my bladder needs assistance. It’s my cold.”

  The two interpreters hastily translated.

  “Of course,” Yoshi said at once, not believing him.

  Sir William got up and Seratard made his excuses and once in the corridor heading for the pot that neither needed, Sir William whispered excitedly, “My God, Henri, did you read him like I did? He’s saying we can go after Sanjiro ourselves.”

  Seratard was equally elated. “It’s a complete reversal of their policy that everything must go through the Bakufu and Shōgunate. Mon Dieu, is he giving us carte blanche?”

  “Pas ce crétin,” Sir William said, switching to French without noticing it. “If we can do it against Sanjiro, it’s precedent to go against any other daimyo—the Shimonoseki Straits bugger, for one. But what the devil’s the quid pro quo, eh?” He blew his nose loudly. “There’s got to be one.”

  “I’ve no idea. Whatever it is it’ll be rare, mon brave. Astounding that he put himself in our power, never thought he’d arrive with so few men, surely he must have realized we could take him hostage against Sanjiro’s performance?”

  “Agreed. My Lord, what a step forward! Unbelievable that he came to the point at once, no fart-arsing about, never thought I’d see the day. But why, eh? Something’s smelly.”

  “Yes. Merde, pity he’s not tairō, eh?”

  Ha! My thought entirely, old boy, way ahead of you, Sir William told himself. A little push here, a little pull there and like in India we could be off to the races!

  He had unbuttoned, and now, idly watching the flow, his ears closed to Seratard’s further prognosis, he composed his thoughts, considering what he could barter, how far to go, and how to get Ketterer to agree without Admiralty or Foreign Office approval. God damn the fellow!

  And God damn Palmerston. I asked for urgent approval to enforce civilized law, so why hasn’t he replied? He probably has, he told himself. London’s coded message went by telegraph to Basra and is now somewhere on a mail ship in a diplomatic pouch. His flow ceased. He shook himself, as always remembering the schoolboys’ admonition at Eton: “If you shake it more than three times you’re playing with it.” Quickly he stepped aside for Seratard, buttoning up, noticing Seratard was like a small horse in quantity and power. Interesting. Must be the wine, he thought, returning to the conference room.

  The rest of the meeting went breezily. With skill and diplomatic care Sir William, ably assisted by Seratard, established in a very oblique way that “if a force happened to proceed against someone like Sanjiro, for instance, against his capital, for instance, it would be an extremely unfortunate occurrence even though such action could possibly be merited because of some unacceptable act of murder committed against foreign nationals. This act would precipitate a flurry of protests from Yedo and would merit a formal apology if such an inconceivable action was taken…. ”

  Absolutely nothing was said directly, nothing to imply that permission had been given or sought. Nothing would be in writing. Such a possible major hostile act, “a special case,” could be contained only if protocol was carefully followed.

  By now, Tyrer and André both had splitting headaches and were inwardly cursing their Masters for the near impossibility of translating the necessary obliqueness.

  Yoshi was silently ecstatic. Sanjiro was as good as dead and the first barrier removed at no cost. “I think we understand one another and can move to other matters.”

  “Yes, quite clearly.” Sir William sat back, and girded his loins for the quid pro quo.

  Yoshi took a deep breath and launched the next assault: “Translate the following, sentence by sentence. Explain this is for accuracy. Say also for the moment this conversation must be considered a State secret between us.” Seeing Tyrer’s blank stare, he added, “Do you understand State secret?”

  After consulting with André, Tyrer said, “Yes, Sire.”

  “Good, then translate: Are we agreed this is to be a State secret between us?”

  Sir William thought, In for a penny, in for a pound. “Agreed.” Seratard echoed him.

  Tyrer mopped his brow. “Ready, Sire.”

  With an even firmer grip Yoshi said, “It is my wish to modernize the Shōgunate and Bakufu. Translate. To do this I need knowledge. Translate. Ing’rand and Furansuland are the most powerful outside nations. Trans late. I ask you to draw up various plans to help the Shōgunate form a modern navy, dockyard and modern army. Translate.”

  Admiral Ketterer jerked upright, his neck pulsating fire. “Keep quiet,” Sir
William muttered carefully from the corner of his mouth, “and don’t say a word!”

  “Also a modern banking system and experimental factories. One country cannot do everything. You are rich, the Shōgunate is poor. When the plans are accepted I will agree to a fair price. This will be paid for in coal, silver, gold and yearly leases of safe harbors. I would like a provisional answer in thirty days if this is of interest. If yes, is one year enough time for detailed plans to be approved by your rulers?”

  It was difficult for Yoshi to maintain outward poise, and he wondered what they would say if they knew he had no authority to make this offer nor any way to implement any of it. The offer was made to seduce them into a year’s reprieve from outside conflict, a delay he needed to stifle internal opposition to the Shōgunate and to deal with his prime enemies, Ogama of Choshu and Yodo of Tosa, now that Sanjiro would be removed.

  At the same time it was a jump into the future, into the unknown, one that frightened him and elated him in a way he did not understand. All of the ideas were based on information Inejin’s spy had obtained from the unsuspecting shoya Ryoshi about gai-jin methods, and driven home to him by what he had seen and heard on the warship that was immensely impressive but nowhere near as big or as deadly as the Ing’erish flagship.

  Hating the reality but accepting it, he had realized, in self-defense, the Land of the Gods had to become modern. To do this he had to deal with gai-jin. He loathed, despised and distrusted them but they had the means to destroy Nippon, at the very least to put them back into the kind of civil wars that had existed for centuries before Shōgun Toranaga had tamed bushido, the warrior spirit of the samurai.

  He watched the two leaders talk amongst themselves. Then he saw the Ing’erish Leader speak to the young interpreter, Taira, who said in his quaint though understandable Japanese, “My Master thank you, Sire, for … for conf’dence. Need one hundred twenty day send message to ‘Queen Parliament’ and ‘Furansu King’ fetch … to fetch, bring back answer. Both leaders sure answer is yes.”

  A hundred and twenty days was better than expected. “Good,” he said, grim-faced, inwardly weak with relief.

  Now for the better part, he thought, seeing them preparing to close the meeting. An eye for an eye, a death for a death: “Lastly, I am sure W’rum-sama does not know the man he shelters, called Nakama, is a renegade samurai, a ronin and revolutionary whose real name is Hiraga, sometimes called Otami. I require him at once. He is wanted for murder.”

  At that moment, across the bay in the Yokohama’s Yoshiwara, Katsumata said, “Hiraga, have you thought how we can infuriate the gai-jin, a hostile incident to set them against the Shōgunate?” The two men were sitting opposite each other in a secluded little house in the garden of the Three Carp.

  “Torching one of the churches would be easiest,” Hiraga said, keeping his anger buried, for Katsumata was very perceptive—he had just arrived, summoned from his village hideaway by a sleepy servant. Except for a few cookhouse skivvies tending fires and cleaning, no one was about. Raiko and her Ladies were still sleeping—few would be up before midday. “That would madden them, but first let me tell you what I’ve achieved here an—”

  “Later, first we must make a plan. A church? An interesting idea,” Katsumata said, his face cold and hard, no longer disguised as he had been in Hodogaya.

  Now he appeared to be a bonze, a Buddhist priest, clean-shaven but for a mustache. The thatch had been a wig and was gone. His head had the stubble of a bonze, he wore the orange Buddhist robe and sandals and a belt of prayer beads. His long sword in its back scabbard was beside him on the futons and the mon, the five insignia on his robe proclaimed he was a member of a militant, monastic Order.

  These virtual military Orders were made up of samurai who had relinquished their samurai status to serve Buddha, permanently or temporarily, to preach and roam the land doing good works, singly or in bands, purging robbers and bandits and protecting the poor from the rich and the rich from the poor—and some monasteries. The Bakufu, and most daimyos, tolerated them so long as they kept their violence within bounds.

  At dusk last night he strode arrogantly through the barrier, his false papers perfect. He was a day late, unheralded, at once to be given the best available bungalow by Raiko. Unlike other shishi, unique amongst them, his family was rich and he always carried numerous gold oban with him.

  “A church,” he repeated, relishing the idea. “I would not have thought of that—we would leave a message claiming it was done by the order of Yoshi, tairō Anjo and the roju as a warning for them to leave our shores. We need revenge on Yoshi very much.” A fleck of foam gathered at the corner of his mouth and he brushed it away angrily. “Yoshi is the archenemy. One of us must go against him, he killed too many of our fighters in Kyōto, shot some personally. If I could ambush him I would. That, too, later. So, the church will be burned. Good.”

  Hiraga was unsettled, finding Katsumata strange, and different. Now he was impatient, and acting as though he were a daimyo and Hiraga one of his goshi to be ordered about. I’m leader of the Choshu shishi, he thought with more anger, not a student under orders of a Satsuma Sensei, however renowned. “That would turn the whole of Yokohama into a hornet’s nest. I would have to leave, which would be bad at the moment, my work important for our cause. The situation here is very delicate, Sensei. I agree we must plan, for instance where do we escape to, if we are to escape?”

  “Yedo.” Katsumata stared at him. “What is more important, sonno-joi or your safe haven amongst enemy gai-jin?”

  “Sonno-joi,” he said at once, believing it. “But it’s important we learn what they know. To know your enemy like—”

  “I do not need quotations, Hiraga, but action. We are losing the fight, Yoshi is winning. We’ve only one solution: to turn these gai-jin violently against the Bakufu and Shōgunate. This will advance sonno-joi as nothing before and takes precedence over everything. We desperately need this, then we’ll regain support, and face, fighters will flock to our standard, meanwhile the spearhead of shishi regroups here and in Kyōto. I will call for reinforcements from Satsuma and Choshu and again we will attack the Gates to release the Emperor. This time we’ll succeed because Ogama, Yoshi, and the stinking Shōgunate will be distracted dealing with hostile gai-jin. Once we have the Gates, sonno-joi is a fact.” There was no doubting his confidence.

  “And if we agitate the gai-jin, what then, Sensei?”

  “They bombard Yedo, the Shōgunate retaliates by attacking Yokohama—both lose.”

  “Meanwhile all daimyo will flock to support the Shōgunate when the gai-jin return as they will.”

  “They would not return before Fourth or Fifth Month, if then. Before that we will have the Gates, at our suggestion the Emperor will be pleased to give the gai-jin the culprit, Yoshi, or his head, Nobusada, Anjo, and any other heads they need to slake their thirst for revenge. And at our further suggestion the Son of Heaven will agree to allow them to trade, without any more war, but only through Deshima in Nagasaki harbor as they did for centuries.” Katsumata was sure. “That’s what will happen. First the church—what about a ship?”

  Hiraga, startled, said, “What about one?” he asked, his mind stuffed with arguments against what Katsumata surmised, certain it would not happen that way, at the same time trying to think of a way to divert Katsumata, to make him go on to Yedo and come back in a month or two-things were going far too well here with Taira and Sir W’rum, Jami-sama and the shoya to want to jeopardize that. Plenty of time to enrage the gai-jin later with the church when a safe retreat was th—

  “Sinking a warship would inflame them, wouldn’t it?”

  Hiraga blinked. “Like … like nothing else.”

  “We use the church as a diversion, while we sink a ship, their biggest one.”

  Dumbfounded, Hiraga watched Katsumata open a backpack. In it were four metal tubes, bound with wire. And fuses. “These contain explosive, cannon powder. One of them, fused, through a porthol
e or gun port, or attached to the side of the ship would blow out the side, two would be fatal.”

  Hiraga was transfixed, all else forgotten. He reached for a tube. In his hand the bomb seemed to pulsate with life. At the top was the small hole for the fuse and in his mind he saw the fuse spluttering and his arm slip the bomb quietly through the lowest gun port, then another—then ducking back quickly into the boat that was largely hidden by sea mist, silently away, and then, safe, the vast explosion as the bombs ignited other charges and then the great ship slipping under the water.

  And with it all his own plans.

  “It’s an enormous idea, Katsumata,” he said, feeling sick. “We’d need to pick the correct time of the moon and the sea carefully, and plan carefully. Spring or early summer would be best. After that I could not remain here and…There’s so much to tell you about what I’ve discovered.” He almost blurted out that he could speak English well now but stopped. “Just a few more weeks and I’ll be done. Then the church and the ship.”

  “We burn the church and sink the ship tomorrow night.”

  “Impossible!”

  Katsumata was coldly amused by his shock and thought what a shame Ori was dead and Hiraga alive—Ori was so much more superior. But then he, too, was Satsuma, not Choshu. “How many times must I say surprise is our shishi’s best weapon. That and decisive speed. Where is Akimoto?”

  “In the village. I thought it best not to bring him now,” Hiraga said, his mind flooded. Since he had come back from Hodogaya he had not shared his innermost thoughts with his cousin, only that Katsumata had told him Sumomo was dead, betrayed by Koiko to Yoshi, not that he believed both had been thrown into the pit by chance. Like we would be thrown away uselessly in this wild-eyed scheme and all my work will have been in vain. “Tomorrow is too soon. I suggest we ma—”

  “The church will be easy for one man. Akimoto. We will need a dinghy or small fishing boat. Can you get one?”

  “Perhaps,” Hiraga said, answering automatically, fogged with myriad questions and dreads. “Perhaps I could steal one. Sensei, I th—”