Tokyo Bay

by Anthony Grey

  The commodore waited while Armstrong translated his words and Haniwara Tokuma in his turn conveyed their meaning in sibilant Japanese to the governor and the two imperial delegates. An expectant hush followed, but neither the impassive First Counsellor nor Prince Ido made any comment or reply, and Commodore Perry glanced pointedly at Armstrong to indicate he should be prepared to translate further.

  ‘In conclusion,’ he continued in the same booming voice, ‘I hereby announce my intention to return here in the approaching spring, perhaps in April or May - or even sooner. This will be for the purpose of receiving what we trust will be a favourable reply to the letter from the President of the United States of America. That is all I have to say.’

  The commodore resumed his seat and, after the translation had been made, a hurried conversation ensued in whispers between the governor and his interpreter, who remained on their knees in front of the lacquered chest. When they had finished, Haniwara Tokuma looked up diffidently towards Armstrong and the commodore.

  ‘Will the admiral return with all four of his vessels in the spring?’ he asked tentatively. ‘That is the governor’s enquiry’

  ‘I shall return with all of them,’ replied Perry ringingly, when he had understood the question. ‘And probably more.’ He paused and turned towards Armstrong. ‘Leave them in no doubt that the four present ships are only a small proportion of the entire squadron.’

  On hearing this reply there was another brief flurry of conversation between the two Japanese; then both men bowed simultaneously from the waist in Perry’ direction, before rising slowly to their feet. The governor walked to the lacquered chest and with ostentatious care wrapped the American letters about with the scarlet cloth on which they had been laid out. Then he turned and bowed again towards the commodore, murmuring a single brief sentence in Japanese.

  ‘The governor says: “There is nothing more to be done here,” said Armstrong after listening carefully.

  ‘And he invites us to follow him out of the pavilion, since the ceremony is now concluded.’

  The missionary watched the governor and Haniwara Tokuma move off together side by side, leading the way towards the outer vestibule. The interpreter was still very pale but, despite the signs of strain, his features remained composed. Armstrong tried to catch his eye but he kept his gaze focused before him on the red-carpeted floor of the pavilion, and it was with a muffled sigh of relief that Armstrong himself stepped away from the trapdoor to fall into line behind the commodore and his senior commanders. At times the soles of his feet had seemed to burn in anticipation of the floor beneath him being thrown violently open by a horde of sword-wielding warriors and, as he looked towards the sunlit beach beyond the pavilion entrance, he breathed deeply again and allowed himself to hope for the first time that all would end well.

  To acknowledge the departure of the Americans, both imperial delegates rose stiffly from their stools. When the commodore paused to incline his head in their direction, they again bowed gravely in return, but otherwise their faces remained without expression and they still uttered no audible sound. In total silence the procession of American officers passed out of the main vestibule, scrutinized closely by all the watching Japanese. As the front ranks drew abreast of Lord Daizo near the outer entrance, Armstrong could see from his expression that the nobleman was seething with a barely suppressed anger. His eyes never left Haniwara Tokuma, but the interpreter did not raise his head to look at him as he passed.

  As soon as the commodore and the head of the procession emerged from the pavilion onto the beach, a flurry of exuberant commands rang out as marine and naval officers ordered their waiting men to present arms in honour of their commander-in- chief. Eager, well-drilled feet stamped the sand, and a forest of carbines glittering with fixed bayonets were shifted expertly onto shoulders as the parade formed itself up quickly around its nucleus of senior officers. Within moments the ships’ bands had again launched enthusiastically into ‘Hail Columbia’ and, soon after the parade began to move, this was succeeded by the strains of ‘Yankee Doodle’ which enlivened and cheered the uniformed marchers as they stepped out gladly across the beach.

  Samuel Armstrong responded with equal enthusiasm to the music and began to swing his limbs vigorously in relief. As he marched, he peered anxiously into the surrounding throng of curious Japanese, seeking a parting glimpse of Haniwara Tokuma. But he could not immediately pick out the interpreter among the dense crowds now pressing around the pavilion. The closeness of the staring faces reminded every marcher how easy it would be for the assembled Japanese force to converge suddenly in overwhelming numbers, even at that late stage in the proceedings, and, as he fell into stride at the rear of the commodore’s party; Armstrong sensed he was not alone in wrestling with his lingering feelings of unease.

  The procession moved away in a slow curve, making for the temporary jetty, and Armstrong at last caught sight of the diminutive figure of Haniwara Tokuma standing beside the Governor of Uraga about a hundred yards from the pavilion. His face looked gaunt but he was scrutinizing the parade intently, and Armstrong saw his expression tighten when their eyes met. As they exchanged glances, something indefinable in the stoical demeanour of the Japanese interpreter moved the missionary suddenly to the depths of his being. Fears for the safety of his family were etched into every line of his narrow, intelligent face, but in his stance Armstrong also saw something else - a hint of fierce pride that, no matter what terrible consequences might follow from his actions, for the sake of a higher aim and for his country he had refused to yield to a terrible personal tyranny.

  On recognizing this, Armstrong bowed his head spontaneously in the interpreter’s direction as he marched, feeling more than he had ever done before that the gesture was deserved and appropriate. Haniwara Tokuma’s expression did not change but he waited until Armstrong looked up, then lowered his own head slowly in a brief but equally emphatic bow. He straightened up again just before the Americans turned away down the beach, and as Armstrong marched on towards the jetty and the safety of the massive warships riding at anchor on the bay, he carried away with him above all else the haunting image of Haniwara Tokuma’s brave but stricken face.

  49

  IN HIS TINY AFT cabin above the Susquehanna’s rudder, Samuel Armstrong bent low over his makeshift writing table, hurrying to complete a concluding entry in his journal. Neither the rumble of the flagship’s steering mechanism nor the noisy churning of its great paddle-wheels interrupted his concentration as his right hand worked a quill pen rapidly back and forth across the pages of the large folio notebook. Through an open rear scuttle, the sloop-of-war Saratoga was visible gliding silently in the flagship’s wake at the end of a towing hawser, its sails furled neatly on their yard-arms. Astern of the Saratoga, to port, the Mississippi could also be seen, towing the Plymouth with similar ease, and all four ships were proceeding at a majestic nine knots down the centre of Yedo Bay, heading for the open sea and Hong Kong, Canton and Shanghai.

  Carefully maintaining regimented distances between themselves, the war vessels were giving a final demonstration of the unprecedented power of steam to the thousands of Japanese civilians and soldiers lining the cliffs and beaches. It was the early morning of Sunday 17 July 1853, and no breeze was yet ruffling the flat, shimmering waters of the bay. Because of this, the crews of becalmed Japanese fishing junks, in particular, were watching in awe as the great black warships passed southward, belching spirals of thick smoke and leaving wide paths of churned white water in their wake. Hundreds of heavily laden boats rowed by standing oarsmen were putting out from the beaches too, carrying peasants and townsmen who were eager to catch a last glimpse of the fearsome foreign barbarians and their all- powerful machines.

  After the ships weighed anchor five miles above Uraga, Armstrong had stood quietly watching these crowded boats from the rail of the quarterdeck. At first he had felt an immense sense of relief that the squadron was departing from Japan and all its dangers, aft
er ten long days of tension. He was greatly relieved too that his demanding role as interpreter, which had given rise to so many conflicting inner feelings, was finished - at least for the moment. But, to his dismay, quietness of mind otherwise eluded him and he had soon hurried back to his cabin to try to order his racing thoughts in his journal.

  He wrote furiously for several minutes, then something made him raise his head from his task, as the Susquehanna swung its bows a degree or two eastwards in adjusting its course down the bay. The western shore became temporarily visible through the rear scuttle, and Armstrong was struck afresh by the beauty of the undulating green hills and the manicured rice terraces sweeping gently down to the beaches above Uraga. Steep, bare mountains were becoming visible far off and then, as though it had silently signalled its presence in advance, the thrillingly symmetrical snow-capped cone of Mount Fuji materialized silently from a long rift of white cloud, to stand supreme above the morning landscape.

  The volcano’s broad base was shrouded in low cloud as usual, and its purple-blue flanks and dazzling white summit again seemed to float unsupported in the distant heavens. Seeing the vision-like mountain had always pleased the missionary before, but now the sudden sight of it caused him to stop writing and he laid his pen aside. Standing up, he went to the open scuttle and stared pensively out. Unexpectedly, the simple purity of the mountain’s beauty soothed his anxious mind to some degree, and he watched it unwaveringly until the flagship adjusted its course again and robbed him of his view of the western shore. Feeling calmer as a result, he returned to his table, but instead of making further notes, he sat down and slowly read over the several pages he had already filled with neat, methodical handwriting.

  My greatest joy of the last three days was the discovery, on re-embarking from Kurihama, that Robert Eden had returned mysteriously to the flagship during our absence, he had written. It seemed to me then that my most fervent prayers had been answered on at least two fronts. A major conflict had been narrowly avoided onshore and the brave young New England lieutenant had been miraculously restored to the ship alive, after being missing for seven days. My joy of course was quickly tempered by the discovery that Lieutenant Eden had been gravely wounded, and this morning he’s still fighting for his life on the lower deck in a special partitioned-off area of the ship’s infirmary. He had collapsed on the starboard companion-ladder after being delivered to its foot by an anonymous Japanese craft, and had to be carried bodily below by two startled sentries. At present, three sailors armed with carbines and cutlasses are standing guard twenty-four hours a day around his special sick berth, which adjoins the ship’s prison. This arrangement has been made because strict orders had long since been given that he should be placed promptly under close arrest f he ever set foot on the ship again. From Flag Lieutenant Rice I’ve since learned that the wounded lieutenant has given only a sketchy outline of what happened to him, and no information at all is being given out on this. If he recovers, he’ll face a court martial on desertion charges. The outcome will surely be a spell of imprisonment and the termination of his promising navy career.

  Armstrong stopped reading, feeling a new surge of admiration and compassion for Eden. The young officer had clearly known what enormous risks he was taking with his life and his future when he struck out bravely from the ship. In comparison Armstrong suddenly felt that his own action of buckling on the first sword of his life, so that he did not have to go ashore conspicuously unarmed, had been doubly timid and unworthy, and he shook his head in a little gesture of self-disgust before returning his attention to his journal once more.

  To make matters worse, Eden developed a high fever after the ship’s surgeons operated on his head and leg wounds, The crisis point of the fever passed only late yesterday, and he’s still said to be very weak from pain and loss of blood. I’ve sent repeated messages both to Eden hims4f and to the surgeons, offering to visit and minister spiritually or otherwise to him - but so far I’ve received no response. All of this has illogically made me feel more uneasy than ever about my own role in the dramatic events of the last ten days. Robert Eden followed his peaceful convictions, risking all. But, despite my growing distaste for what I’ve been doing, I’ve continued to play a leading role as an accessory in these naked acts of armed intimidation. I can only hope that my secret efforts to help Haniwara Tokuma resist intimidation may have compensated in some small way. Whether that was so or not, I haven’t really succeeded in modifying our latent hostility to the Japanese in any meaningful way .

  Armstrong again broke off from re-reading the journal entry remembering how Commodore Perry had been stung by the final undiplomatic words of the imperial receipt that had been handed to him at the ceremonial pavilion: ‘Your President’s letter having been received, you will now leave here.’

  His response, on returning to his flagship, had been to order all four warships to advance ten miles nearer to Yedo, sailing spectacularly in line abreast and taking visible depth soundings as they went. Later a dozen cutters were launched to make further soundings inshore, and when the alarmed and breathless Governor of Uraga had eventually caught up and come aboard to ask why the squadron was not departing as demanded, Armstrong himself had been directed to tell him that safer anchorages were being sought and planned for the much bigger squadron of warships that would return in a few months to receive the Emperor’s response. Next day the commodore had transferred his pennant to the Mississippi, and sailed the steam frigate ten miles further up the bay, demonstrating with an unmistakable hostility that the American ships were capable of advancing to areas within cannon shot of the capital itself.

  During intervals in this activity, the governor and his suite of officials had artfully been allowed aboard the Susquehanna. There had been no sign of Haniwara Tokuma and the governor had pointedly evaded all Armstrong’s questions about his welfare, saying merely that he was ‘resting from his duties’. Another interpreter had taken his place and the governor had remained invariably polite and gracious, despite the atmosphere of high tension created by the provocative manoeuvrings of the warships. After a lot of thought, Armstrong himself had decided to say nothing, for the time being, of what he knew about the intrigues and infighting that had surrounded events at Kurihama, in case they introduced new tensions into the remaining meetings. Before the squadron’s departure, the whole Japanese delegation had twice been entertained with wines and whisky as well as ham and other American delicacies, which they had swallowed with great relish. They had also been shown the engines and all the ship’s weapons, which had clearly fascinated them. The new interpreter had conveyed endless questions from the visiting officials and, to the surprise of the watching Americans, he had taken meticulous notes about the dimensions and methods of manufacture of the guns and the engine machinery

  There had also been a final impromptu exchange of modest gifts - American seeds and history books in return for Japanese fans, lacquered bowls and pipes. But Armstrong, as he had noted in his journal, had been unable to overlook the hypocrisy inherent in all this outward civility that had been offered side by side with the hostile and threatening deployment of the warships.

  The real truth behind these moves was summed up quite blatantly by Commodore Perry himself last night, he had written. The commodore said then on the quarterdeck in my hearing that the Japanese ‘could only be brought to reason through the influence of their fears’! He also said he was confident that when they

  fully realized that their sea coast was entirely at the mercy of a strong naval force, ‘they will concede all that will be asked of them’. Although the United States Congress alone has the power to declare war, and certainly has not done so over Japan, there have been times in the past ten days when an effective local declaration of war by the commodore has been implicit in all his actions - and I, to my great regret, have gone on aiding and abetting all this, despite my growing reservations. Japan has at last broken its own code of selfish exclusion to obey the universal law of h
ospitality,’ said another senior officer last night - but my Christian conscience won’t accept now that it is right to enforce such a ‘universal law of hospitality’ with sixty-four pound guns…..

  Armstrong broke off from his reading, feeling again with renewed force the inherent flaws in the arguments that were being used to justify the US Navy squadron’s actions. He wondered why he had not seen these flaws more clearly earlier in the voyage; then he realized that he had in fact been vaguely aware all along that his attitude was ambivalent. In the end, he decided, he had probably chosen subconsciously to ignore the more uncomfortable contradictions and with this shaming thought he returned to the concluding lines in his journal.

  I suppose in truth Robert Eden had youth on his side in acting so bravely and decisively. Perhaps I couldn’t really expect myself to be as fiercely uncompromising after long years spent. trying to reconcile the many impossible conflicts between different religions. Perhaps compromise has long since become a way of life for me; perhaps that’s what experience teaches; perhaps that’s the great lesson of maturity that everybody must learn as they grow older. Or maybe not! Maybe in some situations, compromise is a form of cowardice of which we should be ashamed; important principles should never be compromised! Might the world be a better place if there were more purer, braver spirits - more Robert Edens - among us? His superiors, quite rightly, will say that, by rashly taking matters into his own hands without authority, he increased the risk of war and courted disaster for us all. But Eden, no doubt, would say in response that the actions of his superiors were wrong - and that he was trying to mitigate their effects. Whatever the answers to all these questions are, I hope in the years to come the Japanese won’t smoulder with resentment over this hostile first approach by America, in which I’ve been so closely involved. They would certainly have every right to do so. I can only humbly pray that God will intervene compassionately to help end Japan’s self-imposed isolation - and draw her people into fellowship with the rest of the world without a violent and bloody collision.