Jade Rooster

by R. L. Crossland

  Hobson felt himself drifting into shock. Forty or fifty urchin spines were the equivalent of several dozen wasp stings.

  “I was out of sight when Jade Rooster anchored and a few of our men came aboard. Hoyt and the captain and second mate pulled revolvers and took the money my men had brought with them. They were in the process of disarming my men and I had no idea what was intended.

  “Everything was going wrong and I had only seconds to consider. I had a pistol and shot Hoyt and the captain outright. A gunfight ensued and Hoyt’s group was wiped out. The rest of the crew was not involved and we either set them adrift or had them move Jade Rooster eastward toward to Mokp’o. Eventually, using local fishing boats, we set the balance of Jade Rooster’s crew free in Chefoo.”

  Hobson was not sure whether the pain of the urchin stings was making his wits sharper or duller.

  “Hold now, you said you shot Brewer and Hoyt. They were beheaded.”

  “Well, Hobson of the Navy…”

  There was that grand title again.

  “…they were long dead by then. Your mention of deaths by installment is ironic. Yes, we were greatly disturbed by the recent beheading of four of our rebels and we decided to send a message. An eye for an eye. There have been several beheadings since, and we have retaliated. I suppose death is death. Death by bullet or death by beheading has the same result in the long run. We, however, do not truly engage in beheading of prisoners. We attempt to stay as civilized as guerrilla war will let us. An unattainable hope of virtue, I suspect.”

  Kim sniffed.

  Hobson thought it was an unconscious self-critical gesture.

  “ In this case, we went among the enemy dead, selected those heads that were unmarked and arranged them ‘for presentation.’ Severed heads are eerie, unnatural. The Japanese know it, we know it. The world over, whatever your religion or background, bodies without heads make people uneasy.”

  “Well, mind, don’t use that particular style of basket again.” Hobson told him why. “Now here’s a thought to give your consideration, Mr. Kim. What would a fellow do if he wanted to contact you in the future.”

  “A fellow couldn’t. You couldn’t. If people can contact me, they can kill me and there is a reward for me.”

  “Well, I’ll put my noggin to it. There must be a way.”

  The voice remained still for several minutes. Talking blindfolded was a new experience, Hobson found it aided his concentration. He seemed more sensitive to pauses and changes in breathing. Perhaps he had always been sensitive to these secondary indications of mood and stress, at a subconscious level.

  “They put the heads on the posts outside villages,” was Kim’s response.

  Hobson had not known that. “You mean the totem posts.”

  Grisly business, this matching of carvings, Hobson thought to himself.

  “Yes, they don’t stay up long. The families take them down. The mudangs say that is making the spirits uneasy. All this decapitation is very bad business. The totems arc to keep away bad spirits, not to herald wandering, unhappy spirits.”

  Hobson did not like the reference to lost wandering spirits.

  The voice continued, “You have a message for me, give it to a mudang. They know even-one and everything that goes on in Cholla province. The Japanese have nothing but contempt for the shamanists. Japan is, after all, bringing civilization to this backward corner of the world.”

  Hobson noted that dark tone of cynicism again.

  “Our superstitious beliefs only serve to convince our island cousins of their spiritual superiority. You, of course, realize that they recognize their emperor as a god who walks the earth? Now who is more backwardly superstitious?”

  “What about the fellow who went by Moon?”

  Iverson cleared his throat and excused himself. His footsteps trailed off into a gritty, distant shuffle and then the room was quiet.

  “Mr. Iverson is a morally sensitive man, “ Kim confided. “Moon? Or maybe Sato. He traveled under the Japanese name. There is great pressure to adopt Japanese names, to become Japanese in form. I think of him as Sato. He was nowhere to be seen at the time.”

  Another pause, the breathing restricted.

  “Sato was an embarrassment. He was supposed to serve as a bodyguard for my wife and I, and then return to Hawaii to help train other Koreans. He was a fundraiser. He helped raise money and develop contacts with the Korean expatriate community. To our consternation, we found some of our major financial supporters began to simply disappear and we found ourselves constantly looking for new sources of funds.

  “I didn’t really catch on until I heard him talking to Hoyt. He was very close to Hoyt throughout the voyage. When Hoyt turned on us, I went looking for Moon. Some of my men searched ‘Moon’s’ stateroom and then we had a ‘talk’ with him.

  “Moon, or perhaps more correctly Sato, was a Japanese agent provocateur. He was assigned to encourage us to do rash things, if he could, and to identify our operations and supporters in America.

  “I said we try to stay as civilized…as guerrilla warfare will permit us. Sato was a spy for the Japanese. His business was pure treachery. I will never know if he was Japanese or Korean. His Korean was flawless. Regrettably, with him we were not so civilized.

  “We scuttled Jade Rooster to hide her, then tied Sato to the mast and let the tide come in. We removed his head after he’d drowned.

  “We had entertained other more distasteful options, but this end seemed fitting. Like a drowning rat, if I may use a Western simile. In the East we hold rats in much higher esteem than we do men such as Sato.”

  Hobson thought he detected another change in Kim’s breathing.

  “I was a man of moral sensitivity once.”

  “What about the ordnance?” Hobson asked.

  “It was all very rushed and distressing. We could never find the goods. A quick search of the holds revealed only barrels of a very smelly waxy substance. Some sort of fish oil product, I think.

  “We were stuck with a vessel that might have the goods we wished to buy and we had to hide it quickly. It was a vessel that we were not capable of sailing, only sinking. We scuttled it and hoped the hae nyo might find the secret. The hae nyo however would not swim into the holds of the vessel though she was in shallow water. Diving underwater is one thing, diving underwater into a contained space with obstruction over one’s head—between one and the surface—is still another. While we have been struggling to come up with an answer to our predicament, our members continue to be rounded up and the Japanese continue their raids.

  “I put this to you, Hobson of the Navy. You are looking for Jade Rooster. We care nothing for her or her routine cargo. If you find her, is there any need to turn any of her unusual contents over to our island cousins?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  They placed him again headfirst into a large basket—without urchins this time—and left him in front of a police box.

  The local police brought him to the headquarters building. Koizumi seemed amused. “So you have been visiting with the local banditry.”

  Hobson was in agony.

  “It has not been an easy job, bringing civilization to this country. There are not enough jails to hold those who do not acknowledge the benefits of the Emperor’s leadership. There is much work to be done and we throw some into the labor battalions.” Koizumi seemed preoccupied.

  “It will take years to bring this country to a level satisfactory to Japan. I suppose they threatened you or gave you some sad story of oppression.”

  This was a different Koizumi, gone was the bon vivant of Japan.

  “They told me not to look for Jade Rooster…” Hobson lied. “And asked why the U.S. had abandoned them.”

  Matsuda poured Hobson a teacup of makkolli, from a teapot. The room started to reel.

  “Abandoned them? Aband
oned them? What does America care about Asian affairs? These people are only a step or two only above savages, in their one-room huts. Why deny Japan its destiny? Korea has been a weak and foolish country, a tributary country of China. China is sick and weak. It’s been corrupt and undisciplined for a long time. Its end is near. The Western countries are dissecting its carcass. Korea is an orphan now; it needs a sempai, a big brother to make its decisions for it.

  The makkolli laced through Hobson and warmed him. He felt a rising sense of well-being and a strange martial kinship with Koizumi and Matsuda.

  “We know what Korea needs. We have risen from feudalism to a modern sensation in a matter of decades. We have discipline; we have done the impossible. We were a backward country and now we are a country that has fought a Western country and prevailed. Korea needs that discipline and we arc the ones to impart a discipline that Asians can understand.”

  Hobson sat attentively, but his silence seemed to incite Koizumi to a new level of justification.

  “We are new to colonialism that’s true, but we’ll do it better than the British and the others. They do it for economic gain only, rarely superimposing their cultural system on their colonies. We will make Korea a true part of Japan in every way. In a few years, Koreans will speak Japanese, have Japanese names, do those things that Japanese do, and perhaps at some point be indistinguishable from Japanese. What greater gift could we give them, we will make them nearly Japanese?”

  Hobson found it took every last bit of concentration to talk. “I may be feelin’ sort of all-overish, but it seems they’re not wanting the ‘gift.’”

  Koizumi exhaled slowly.

  “You’ve heard of Darwin and survival of the fittest. You’re in the Navy, navies understand what survival of the fittest means. Korea was vulnerable to attack by China, Russia, or Japan. If we didn’t step in someone else would have. Japan is strong. Korea is weak. They need what we have to offer. To a lesser extent we need what they have…minerals, lumber, and labor. Until we came, Korea was unfit to survive.”

  Hobson nodded and his head flopped drowsily.

  “Your country’s got a few colonies now, Hawaii and Samoa and Cuba and Guam and the Philippines.” Koizumi smiled.

  “How are you going to handle them? The how do you call it, ‘Philippine Insurrection’ shows that all do not enjoy the guiding touch of the American paternal hand. No, you have your hands occupied for the time being, I think. You tell that to Mr. Draper.”

  “Who’d that be?”

  “You know, the intelligence officer with the Office of Naval Intelligence.”

  “Oh, I’m only a collier sailor.”

  Koizumi slapped Hobson condescendingly on the back and chuckled as he had in Japan. The pain nearly made him pass out.

  Two days later, the Mitsubishi steamship left Chemulp’o for Kobe with Sabatelli and Hobson. From Kobe, Hobson took another steamship to Yokohama and then went to look for Mr. Draper in Tokio. It was nearly the Christmas leave period. After he reported to Draper, he would catch a steamer to Shanghai. He marveled at the amount of non-participatory steaming he was enjoying.

  The office was unchanged. Hobson noted that although Draper always looked disheveled, every book, chart and photograph had a certain order. A portly man in a striped suit with heavy glasses also waited in the office. Hobson was expected.

  “Mr. Smith here from the Embassy is also interested in hearing your report. You can speak freely. Don’t give me just the facts, I want to hear your thoughts and er, insights.”

  Hobson felt uncomfortable. Lately people seemed to be overestimating his significance in the great cosmic scheme. What was so wrong with being a third class quartermaster aboard a collier?

  “The whole system they—the Nip Army and the Kempeitai—have put in place is as cold as…as…”

  Hobson realized the witch analogy, “a witch’s heart,” which he had intended, had too emotional a grip on him. He fell into a more naval one.

  “…as a pawnbroker’s heart.”

  He reviewed his log using it to prompt a string of observations that ran the entirety of the afternoon. He gave a day-by-day account of his search for Jade Rooster, starting with the day he’d left Shanghai.

  “You saw the boat? How deep is it? Not like a pearl diver job, is it? Hard to get into tight spaces and dark?” Draper asked.

  Hobson shrugged his shoulders. “Jade Rooster was scuttled. Looked like they punched a couple holes just above the waterline and then shifted the ballast. Not too big a job to raise the whole barque, I figure. Take longer to raise the whole vessel with getting everything in place and all. Harder to retrieve the ordnance by itself, but faster.”

  “So Major Koizumi thinks I work for the Office of Naval Intelligence? Heck, I am the Office of Naval Intelligence out here. All of it. Not many Japanese language scholars around. Heck, and there’s just a few in the Navy Department interested in Japan or intelligence at all.”

  “Mr. Smith” asked several questions about Kim and the New Hwarang and Iversen. He seemed very interested in the man Hobson had never actually seen.

  “Watch the women,” Mr. Smith repeated with a wry look of appreciation.

  Hobson rubbed his neck and could still feel the damage from the sea urchin spines. It would be a week before he could sleep right.

  “Is it true? Have we failed to honor our treaty? Or was that bunkum.”

  Draper looked perplexed and Hobson thought of Koizumi.

  “Well, there are a couple ways of looking at our involvement here in the Far East.

  “First thing, who is Kim? Is he an elected official or a head of state? Did the Korean head of state ever ask for our help under the treaty? The Japanese finessed the matter very efficiently. Where they didn’t the Koreans blundered in time with the music. The Japanese intimidated the Korean Emperor and made him sign papers and treaties that eventually lent the appearance of legitimacy to the Japanese Annexation of Korea. The appearance of legitimacy is often enough for political purposes.”

  “Did the Korean people rise in arms as a group? No, not at first, not for a while. They were in the bad habit of going the way their emperor declared and with fellows like emperors there is no loyal opposition. After the Korean Emperor abdicated, the prince was placed essentially under house arrest; there was a vacuum that did not fill quickly. There was no readily available spokesman for the Koreans, no rallying point.

  “Yes, there was a treaty. Unfortunately, the Japanese did not take power with an overt show of arms. No, they just employed a finely orchestrated series of palace shenanigans.

  “Now, we had a choice and I can’t really say why we elected to stand aside and let it happen. It might have been one reason and it might have been many. We’re a democracy and why we do things in often a stew of many people’s thoughts and impressions.

  “Sure there is some self-interest going on here. The Philippines are something of a headache for us. If we interfere in someone else’s insurrection problem, well, they can feel free to interfere in ours. Trouble is, the U.S. is thousands of miles away and Japan is right here. It is a great strain to have any sort of presence out here. The Nips have what the strategists back in Newport call ‘interior lines of communications,’ and everything we do takes months to accomplish and a fortune to support.

  “We’re not even sure how involved we want to get in Pacific affairs. Deep down inside, most of us think we backed into colonialism—almost by accident—and our style of administration will be benign, even costly. The Japanese, on the other hand, will make Korea pay for the great Japanese Imperial adventure.”

  Draper picked up a report several inches thick and fanned its pages.

  “There’s cynicism on our part, too. If Japan doesn’t take Korea someone else will. Some think it is better that Japan takes Korea because they are Asians and may be more sympathetic. I don’t think so. The Japa
nese aren’t long on empathy beyond the shores of their own islands. They are too wrapped up in being a child prodigy nation.”

  Draper thought a minute about these words, and then stood up. His sleepy demeanor had disappeared.

  “See that pile of documents over there? That’s what occupies me most of my time. It’s the Imperial Japanese Naval Budget. Right now we Americans are on a collision course with Japan. All their documents assume we will be their next naval opponent, we are known as the “hypothetical enemy.” Budget expenditures are put together to make the Imperial Japanese Navy seventy percent the size of the United States Navy. The United States Navy that has to cover two oceans, and is half the world away. The Japanese are discussing procuring eight battleships and eight cruisers on the floors of the Diet. That’s our immediate concern, not injustice on the Asian mainland.”

  Hobson could see bits and pieces of ships’ blueprints. They were not American ships.

  “Mr. Kim talks about the U.S. coming to the aid of Korea. Couldn’t be fleet help. Everyone saw the trouble the Russians had getting their fleet to Japanese home waters, and how easy it was for the Japanese to defeat them in those same home waters. No, Korea’s troubles are Japanese and our troubles will be Japanese someday. We are not ready for that…yet.”

  Draper made an expansive gesture.

  “Funny thing is, I like these people. The culture’s rich and fascinating and the people can be sensitive and kind. When they get derailed, however, it’s a real train wreck. Right now the U.S. and Japan are on the same rail headed in opposite directions.”

  Draper and “Mr. Smith” wandered off into discussion of details of the Japanese order of battle and suddenly remembered that Hobson was still there.

  “Now, what’s your reading on Jade Rooster?”

  Hobson asked if he could smoke his pipe and Draper assented. “Mr. Smith” drew a Meerschaum from his vest pocket and offered Hobson tobacco, dark Korean tobacco. He set the pouch down by an art deco desk lamp.

  “Well, sirs, as my chief would say, the whole story has got considerable more curves than a barrel of fishhooks…considerable so. I figure Atticaris meant to sell the pneumatic dynamite gun and the Gatling guns to the highest bidder. He promised them to the Koreans, then got a higher bid from the Moros.”