However, Chika believed that Charles’ European heritage would exclude him from any position in the Japanese government, including the school system. She thought it would be pointless for him to undertake four years at a high school and then several more at a university to emerge with little or no suitable employment prospects. Instead, Charles should be prepared for a career in commerce in some other enterprise – Chika not realising at the time that Edouard’s high-handedness with both foreign and Japanese counterparts would prejudice most employers in Yokohama against him.
Charles enrolled in the Yokohama Commercial School, passing with flying colours the only entrance test, which was to read a few lines in English from the Royal Reader, Book One. The school had been founded 20 years earlier by another disciple of Fukuzawa who had persuaded Japanese merchants in the new city that they needed to acquire the techniques of modern business and should put up the funding. The school ran a five-year course, with the three main departments being business, English and Chinese classics, the latter two staffed by teachers with no experience of business whatsoever. For the business studies, the school had set up different rooms to simulate a customs hall, a post office, a telephone exchange, a stock exchange, a brokerage, a currency exchange and a retail store. The students would correspond with students at a counterpart college in Kobe in the role of banker, merchant, shipping agent or broker.
As well as studies in class, the boys had an intensive routine of exercise, with each student taking part in rowing, gymnastics and kendo. For an hour each week the boys would drill as army cadets, and once a year would take part in a mock battle in the countryside. When conscripted, the graduates would get a commission in the army after a year’s service.
Charles worked hard, studying in his little room at Chika’s house in Iseyama from where he could see the comings and goings of the port through a pair of binoculars. But his fiercest passion became kendo, practised in the evenings at a fencing salon called the Joyokan, or House of Constant Sunshine. The sword-master was a middle-aged man who had fought in a samurai unit of the new regular army, first against the Satsuma rebels and then much later in the Chinese war. Charles was getting taller, with reddish hair and a high nose making it clear he was not of Japanese blood. But even so, he was well steeped in all the practices of martial tradition, developing a cut that feinted towards the head so that when his opponent had begun a protective move, he would call ‘Wrist!’ as required, and move his bamboo sword to hit the exposed wrist.
At the Joyokan the fencing students heard talk about the Genyosha, the Dark Ocean Society, whose members had been a turbulent force since the time Charles was born. Springing from this was the new Kokuryukai or Black Dragon Society, its name taken from the Chinese characters for the Amur River, which formed the northern border of Manchuria. The Black Dragon members believed Japan’s domain should extend deep into the mainland – they would grow their hair into queues, adopting Chinese dress and learning to speak Chinese and Mongolian so they could become spies for Japan’s inevitable expansion.
The older swordsmen talked among themselves of a master at judo named Uchida Ryohei who belonged to the Kokuryukai and had travelled across Siberia on a secret spying mission to St Petersburg. In May, one of them mentioned attending a dinner where like-minded army and navy officers and officials from the Gaimusho, the foreign ministry, had agreed on the need for war if Russia did not soon leave Manchuria and stop its activities across the Yalu and Tumen rivers close to the north of Korea.
In August 1903, the 15-year-old Charles read that a Japanese minister in St Petersburg had put proposals to the Russian government. Up in Tokyo at the Kinkikan Hall in Kanda, a meeting of the Taigaiko Doshikai, or Comrade’s Society for a Strong Foreign Policy, renamed itself in a more focused way as the Tairo Doshikai or Anti-Russian Comrades Association.
In October, the date for the promised third and last phase of the Russian withdrawal from Manchuria had passed and was ignored like the second phase earlier in the year. A belated Russian counter-proposal made no promises about Manchuria and suggested limits on Japan’s freedom of action in Korea. The anti-Russian comrades filled the big kabuki theatre in the Ginza, passing a resolution that ‘the time has now come for us to take measures of the last resort’ and that ‘we shall no longer permit hesitation and indecision on the part of the government’.
Newspapers previously ambivalent or even opposed to military action now swung to the war camp, and journalists held a meeting at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo insisting on strong action. The viewpoint of compromising with Russia, conceding its pre-eminence in Manchuria for Japanese control of Korea, was derided as weakness. Already time had been lost, allowing the Russians to complete their railway across Siberia.
In November, the emperor passed through Yokohama on his way down to Kobe for large-scale army manoeuvres in the hinterland. In early December, the speaker of the Diet’s lower house, Hironaka Kono, revealed himself a supporter of the anti-Russian activists when he diverted from reading the government’s speech in reply to the emperor’s opening message, inserting instead a note of censure for the government’s ‘indecision’ over the Manchurian question. Katsura, the prime minister, dissolved the parliament the next day to avoid this doctored reply going to the palace.
Over December and January, the talk at the Joyokan was about troop mobilisations and manoeuvres, of Imperial conferences involving generals and admirals, while the government put out statements about more diplomatic overtures and responses that seemed less and less sincere. The warships disappeared from Yokosuka, the big naval base south of Yokohama.
On 9 February 1904, a boy came rushing into the banking chamber at the commercial college where Charles and the other students were learning how to prepare bills of acceptance. Holding up an extra edition of a newspaper, he shouted: ‘It’s started!’
The night before, those same Japanese destroyers had crept into Port Arthur at midnight, and fired their torpedoes and guns at the brightly lit Russian fleet anchored there. Other ships had landed troops in Seoul the previous afternoon, engaging in a brief firefight with two small Russian ships.
As more details emerged, lanterns and banners went up around Yokohama celebrating this victorious opening to the war, which was not formally declared until two days later. By then Charles and his fellow classmates had all gone down to see the Russian minister, Baron Rosen, and his legation staff arrive by train from Tokyo – they had been given their marching orders from Foreign Minister Komura – and board a French mail steamer. Lines of mounted police held back the curious and vocal crowd, and police agents grabbed anyone starting to heckle the Russians. Charles felt quite sad at seeing them depart.
Chika continued to upbraid Charles for any lapse into self-indulgence. With Ito now also married off, the new maid from the Boso Peninsula was a young girl with dark good looks and an uncouth accent, O-Take. She sometimes gave Charles a direct, sultry look when she emerged glowing and tousled from her door at the bathhouse. But Chika kept her under a watchful eye and must have warned Take not to be alone with him.
Everyone said that Charles should eventually marry his adoptive cousin and childhood playmate Na-a-chan, Uncle Bunshiro’s daughter, who was becoming a squarely built young woman with a strong jawline and steady, serious eyes. Charles felt she was more like a sister though. A bit earlier, when Charles was 14 and she 15, Chika had taken them both up to a fine ryokan at a hot-spring resort on the way up to Hakone, the Kansuiro. They had bathed and slept alongside each other without any stirrings.
The war became part of the background, with everyone assuming it would be over quickly, like the one against China nearly ten years earlier, and work out to Japan’s advantage too, with large indemnity payments from the losers paying for its costs, and more territory gained for the few lives lost. The election for a new Diet was held in March in an unusually orderly atmosphere.
Indeed, the newspapers and the poster-p
rinters had a field day with the early naval exploits. The newest hero became Lieutenant-Commander Hirose Takeo, who had pressed home the second attempt to blockade Port Arthur’s harbour, steering an old merchant ship to be scuttled in the entrance. Hirose had pushed in close, but not quite far enough, before his ship was sunk by Russian guns. Before setting off, he had penned a verse of poetry wishing he had more than one life to give for his country. He was blown to bits by a shell-burst while waiting for his last man to leave the ship. A scrap of his flesh was retrieved by the departing crew, and given a full ceremonial burial back in Tokyo.
After a couple of months, the patriotic optimism felt around the country began to change as huge casualties from this first big war of the century began to return. Na-a-chan joined the Ladies’ Patriotic League and joined its relief parties at Hodogaya Station. The women met hospital trains bringing wounded and sick soldiers back from the siege being mounted on the Russian stronghold of Port Arthur from the Japanese landing point further up the Liaotung Peninsula. She and the other volunteers would change dressings, hand out tea and snacks, and write letters for the soldiers.
‘It will be all over soon,’ she would say, on returning to Yokohama, sometimes with red eyes from weeping at what she saw.
Chapter 5
BITTER VICTORY
There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.
— The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Tokyo 1904–05
Life changed for Charles in a completely unexpected way when his paths crossed with an old school friend. Masuda Masataro was the son of one of the wealthiest Japanese businessmen in Yokohama, a trader in sugar and other commodities. He would visit Charles regularly during visits back to Yokohama from Waseda University in Tokyo, inviting Charles up to his family’s mansion on the hilltop above Chika’s rented home.
The Masuda household was big and sprawling, in the Japanese style, but with the addition of some Western furniture, a large grandfather clock and an icebox in the kitchen. Masataro’s father was a burly fellow, roughly spoken, with a gruff voice, reflecting his origins in the countryside outside Yokohama. He had made his start in business by collecting bits of coal dropped by the labourers bunkering the steamships which he then hawked around the streets. His round face was friendly, his eyes shrewd.
Mr Masuda would appear back from his warehouse and counting shed late in the day, and quiz the two boys about their lectures and the professors who gave them. He seemed fascinated that someone could make a living talking about such useless subjects. ‘Can’t imagine what’s the point or who’d employ you,’ he would say. ‘How can you tell which farmers are wetting their barley to bump up the weight? Only by experience!’ (This had developed as a problem in the supply of food for the vast army in Manchuria and Korea – the wet grain would be rotten by the time it reached the soldiers.)
One Sunday, Masataru mentioned that Waseda was just opening its own school of commerce. ‘Wouldn’t it be good if Hach-san could transfer there and come and board with me?’ he said. Mr Masuda nodded and said nothing.
Masataro was a round, good-natured boy of about 18, with a feeble handshake and a shy manner, perhaps derived from the illness that had kept him out of school earlier and delayed his graduation to high school. Charles got the feeling that he was struggling at Waseda and wanted the support of someone who had a better grasp of English and the Chinese classics. Maybe he was attracted to his friend’s European appearance and thought this might open some doors for both of them.
Within a few days, the subject was raised by Chika. Evidently there had been a communication of sorts from Mr Masuda, and perhaps some conference with Herr Gielen. She seemed supportive of the idea. Somehow, her previous financial concerns about Charles attending the Gyosei foreign school in Tokyo had vanished. He came to learn that Mr Masuda had won a reduction in price from the boarding house proprietor if two students shared one of his larger rooms. Maybe Bavier & Co. had agreed to raise Chika’s allowance, or maybe an ageing Chika had simply decided to reduce her outgoings. Charles came to think later that perhaps she wanted some respite from trying to exert constant authority over someone who was spending longer periods out in the city, and who in growing up, perhaps reminded her of his father.
Masataro came one Sunday and they set off up to Tokyo with Charles carrying his belongings in a tansu and various cloth wrappings – most precious among them his kendo sword and mask, and a few books. At Shimbashi Station, they transferred themselves and the baggage to a couple of rickshaws and set off across the city to Waseda on its western edge. About three hours later, they arrived at a crossroads near the campus. Near the end of the settlement, they stopped outside a long low traditional building of dark timbers with walls plastered in a persimmon colour.
The landlord, Mr Ito, came out and looked Charles over suspiciously. He took Masataro aside. ‘I thought you said his name was Sakai?’ he accused. Masataro bustled Mr Ito through the archway into the courtyard and Charles greeted him with exaggerated formality in Japanese, which made the landlord flustered. He started to say something, then bowed in return and waved the pair inside.
Their room was located in a side extension out to the garden. Its floor was covered in less than fresh tatami mats, with an electric light bulb hanging from a wire. After stowing their belongings, they set off past a row of noisy restaurants and some bookshops about to close up for the day, and entered a particularly rowdy tea house. Masataro was greeted loudly by the waiters. A table of students with cropped hair looked up and called the two over.
‘This is Sakai,’ Masataro announced. ‘He looks like a hairy foreigner but he’s one of us inside.’ The students made space on the bench, and a sake cup was slid across the table and filled. A new life in Tokyo had begun.
The next morning, they put on their black student uniforms and Masataro took Charles in through the university gates. Charles found the course much the same as at the college in Yokohama, but on the business side more focused on economic theory, the rudiments of accountancy, and commercial law as found in the United States and Britain. Several of the teachers were American missionaries of various Protestant sects. A lady married to one of them, Mrs McGregor, who wore long skirts and wide-brimmed hats, became their English teacher.
At first, Charles would assiduously attend all lectures and try to take copious notes, most of which made little sense to him when he took them out to read under the light bulb after dinner. Later, the friends occasionally cribbed for each other but the numbers were too small in the department for this to go unnoticed. Even so, there were long enough gaps to spend sitting in lectures with other departments, especially history, where Charles much preferred to spend his time, or in the library browsing books pulled off the shelves, or joining kendo sessions in the university gymnasium.
As he settled in, Charles ventured out into the city, sometimes with Masataro, sometimes on his own. On longer trips into the city, he would roam the streets around Kanda and Ochanomizu where he had spent his kindergarten days, enjoying the atmosphere of students rushing between cafés and lecture halls, dipping into books and magazines on the tables outside bookshops, and slipping into the audience of the discussions and lectures on current politics frequently held in the YMCA hall.
Charles also went some Sundays to the orthodox church at Surugadai where the old Russian priest Nikolai Kasatkin still preached, looking as splendid as ever in his robe and hat, his long beard more grizzled. Several policemen now stood outside the church, to provide Bishop Nikolai with protection from local hotheads in the heated wartime mood and at the same time keep an eye on this outpost of Russia so close to the Imperial palace. Once, Charles was asked to identify himself. ‘Are you a Russian?’ a plainclothes policeman asked him.
The public mood about the war was getting uglier. After the initial daring raids by the Japanese around Port Arthur, the Russians had rallied under their new fleet comm
ander, Admiral Makaroff, who had been a visitor to Tokyo and Hakone only a few years earlier. Then in April, his flagship, the battleship Petropavlovsk was blown up by a mine during a patrol into the Yellow Sea. Makaroff and all 700 crew on board were lost. It didn’t seem like a particularly honourable victory. Charles wished the tall-bearded Russian admiral could have at least died in an all-out big-gun battle with Admiral Togo.
Not long afterwards, a Russian destroyer intercepted a Japanese troopship, the Kinshu Maru, and sunk it with a torpedo. The soldiers were ordered to line up on the deck of the sinking ship and fire their rifles at the Russian warship. Some committed suicide to avoid being rescued and thus taken prisoner. This was extolled as another example of the Bushidō spirit.
There was another attempt by the Japanese to blockade the entrance of Port Arthur, this time by a fleet of nine old cargo ships. Their crews lost contact with Togo’s flagship and went ahead with the operation in the eye of a ferocious storm when no hope could be held of pulling out the crews. Hundreds of Japanese sailors died. Still the harbour mouth was open.
The blockade was taking its toll. The battleship Hatsuse hit a mine and sank. The cruiser Yoshino went down after being rammed by the battleship Kasuga in a thick fog. The land attack on Port Arthur was making slow progress. Soldiers died in their thousands in frontal attacks on Russian pillboxes, minefields and barbed-wire entanglements.
Then as the northern ice melted, three fast cruisers of the Russian fleet in Vladivostok broke out of the Japanese naval cordon and sped down into the Sea of Japan, sinking two Japanese transport ships, the Hitachi Maru and the Sado Maru, with well over 1000 soldiers lost, along with the ships’ British officers and engineers. Whipped up by the press, a mob appeared outside the home in Tokyo of Admiral Kamimura, whose flotilla had failed to stop the raiders. With rumours that Russian cruisers were now operating off the Bay of Tokyo, fishermen stayed in port and food prices jumped sharply.
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