Gai-Jin (27 page)

THURSDAY, 18TH SEPTEMBER
:

The Inn of the Forty-seven Ronin was in a dingy alley not far from Yedo castle, set back from the dirt roadway, and almost hidden behind a high, ill-kempt fence. From the street the Inn appeared drab and nondescript. Inside it was lush, expensive, the fence solid. Well-groomed gardens surrounded the sprawling single-story building and its many isolated one-room bungalows were set on low pilings and reserved for special guests—and privacy. The Inn’s patrons were well-to-do merchants, but also it was a safe house for certain shishi.

Now, just before dawn, it was peaceful: all patrons, courtesans, mama-san, maids, servants sleeping. Except the shishi. Quietly they were arming themselves.

Ori sat on the veranda of one of the little houses, his kimono down around his waist. With great difficulty, he was replacing the bandage over the wound on his shoulder. The wound was fiery red now and angry and agonizingly sensitive. His whole arm throbbed and he knew a doctor was urgent. Even so he had told Hiraga it was too dangerous to fetch one or to go to one: “I might be followed. We cannot risk it, too many spies and Yedo is Toranaga sanctuary.”

“I agree. Go back to Kanagawa.”

“When the mission is over.” His finger slipped and brushed the festering sore and a pain stabbed deep to his innards. There’s no hurry, a doctor can lance it and remove the poison, he thought, only half believing it. Karma. And karma if it continues to rot. He was so absorbed that he did not hear the ninja slide over the fence and creep up behind him.

His heart twisted with fright as the ninja clapped a hand over his
mouth to prevent any outcry. “It is
me,”
Hiraga whispered angrily, then released him. “I could have killed you twenty times.”

“Yes.” Ori forced a smile and pointed. Amongst the bushes was another samurai, the arrow in his bow poised. “But he’s on guard, not me.”

“Good.” Hiraga greeted the guard and, mollified, pulled off his face mask. “Are the others inside and ready, Ori?”

“Yes.”

“And your arm?”

“Fine.” Ori gasped and his face twisted in pain as Hiraga’s hand snaked out and grabbed his shoulder. Tears seeped from his eyes but he remained silent.

“You’re a liability. You cannot go with us today—you will go back to Kanagawa.” Hiraga stepped onto the veranda and went inside. Greatly dispirited, Ori followed.

Eleven shishi were seated on the fine tatami, armed. Nine were Hiraga’s compatriots from Choshu. Two newcomers were from the Mori patrol that had let them pass yesterday, later to desert and beg permission to join them.

Hiraga sat, tiredly. “I could not get within two hundred paces of the temple or the Legation, so we cannot fire it and kill Lord Yoshi and the others when they arrive. Impossible. We must ambush him elsewhere.”

“Excuse me, Hiraga-san, but are you certain it was Lord Yoshi?” one of the Mori men asked.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“I still cannot believe he would risk coming out of the castle with a few guards just to meet some stinking gai-jin, even disguised. He is too clever, surely he would know he is the supreme target for shishi, except the Shōgun, bigger even than the traitor Anjo.”

“He is not clever. I recognized him, I was close to him once in Kyōto,” Hiraga said, secretly not trusting either of the Mori samurai. “Whatever his reason, he could risk the Legation once without guards, not twice. Surely that is why the area is awash with Bakufu samurai. But tomorrow he will be outside the castle again. It is an opportunity we cannot miss. Could we mount an ambush somewhere? Anyone?”

“Depends on the number of samurai with the cortege,” a Mori samurai said. “
If
a meeting is held as the gai-jin want.”

“If? Would Lord Yoshi try a stratagem?”

“I would, if I were him. They call him the Fox.”

“What would you do?”

The man scratched his chin. “I’d delay, somehow.”

Hiraga frowned. “But if he goes to the Legation as yesterday where would he be the most vulnerable?”

Ori said, “Getting out of his palanquin. The gai-jin forecourt.”

“We can’t get there, even with a suicide rush.”

The silence gathered. Then Ori said quietly, “The nearer to the castle gates the safer his captains would feel, therefore the fewer their immediate guards and the less their vigilance, coming out … or going back in.”

Hiraga nodded, satisfied, and smiled at him and motioned to one of his compatriots. “When the House wakes, tell the mama-san to fetch Ori a doctor, secretly and quickly.”

Ori said at once, “We agreed it is not safe.”

“An asset must be protected. Your idea is perfect.”

Ori bowed his thanks. “Better I go to the doctor,
neh?”

In first light Phillip Tyrer half ran half walked towards the wharf with two Highlanders, a sergeant and a private in tow. “Good God, Phillip, two guards are more than enough,” Sir William had said a moment ago. “If the Jappers intend mischief our entire garrison won’t be sufficient to protect you. The message has to be delivered to Ketterer and you’re it. ’Bye!”

Like Sir William he had had to pass through the hundreds of silent samurai who had returned just before dawn. No one molested him or even seemed to acknowledge his presence other than with a quick flick of their eyes. Ahead now was the sea. His pace quickened.

“Halt, who goes there, or I’ll blow yor bloody head off,” a voice said from the shadows, and he skidded to a stop.

“For Christ’s sake,” Tyrer said, palpitating with fright. “Who the hell d’you think it is, it’s me with an urgent message for the Admiral and General.”

“Sorry, sir.”

Quickly Tyrer was in a cutter being rowed briskly towards the flagship. He was so glad to be out of the Legation trap he could almost weep and urged the oarsmen on faster, then went up the gangway two rungs at a time.

“Hello, Phillip!” Marlowe was officer of the watch on the main deck. “What the devil’s up?”

“Hello, John, where’s the Admiral? I’ve an urgent dispatch for him from Sir William. The Legation’s surrounded by thousands of the bastards.”

“Christ!” Anxiously Marlowe led the way down a gangway, then aft. “How the hell did you get out?”

“Just walked. They let me through their ranks, didn’t say a bloody word, not one of them, just let me through. I don’t mind telling you I was scared fartless—they’re everywhere, except inside our walls and down by our wharf.”

The Marine sentry outside the cabin door saluted smartly. “’Morning, sir.”

“Urgent dispatch for the Admiral.”

At once the voice slashed through the door: “Then for God’s sake, Marlowe, bring it in! Dispatch from whom?”

Marlowe sighed, opened the door. “Sir William, sir.”

“What the hell’s that idiot done n—” Admiral Ketterer stopped, seeing Tyrer. “Oh, you’re his aide, aren’t you?”

“Apprentice interpreter, sir, Phillip Tyrer.” He handed him the letter. “Er, Sir William’s compliments, sir.”

The Admiral tore the letter open. He was wearing a long flannel nightgown and tasselled sleeping hat and thin-rimmed reading glasses and he pursed his lips as he read:

Carefully the Admiral reread the letter, then said decisively, “Mr. Marlowe, ask the Captain and General to join me here at once. Send the following message to all ships: ‘You will instantly go to action stations. All Captains to report aboard the flagship at noon.’ Next, send a signal to the Ministers asking them to be kind enough to join me here as soon as possible. Mr. Tyrer, get yourself some breakfast and be ready to carry back a reply within a few minutes.”

“But, sir, don’t you think—”

The Admiral was already bellowing at the closed door. “Johnson!”

Instantly his orderly opened the door. “Barber’s on his way, sir, your uniform’s freshly ironed, breakfast’s ready the moment you’re at table, the porridge’s hot!”

Ketterer’s look fell on Marlowe and Tyrer. “What the devil are you waiting for?”

At Yokohama the Struan cutter—the only steam engine, propeller-driven small boat in the Japans—swung against their wharf, wind brisk with a
slight swell to the grey sea under the overcast. Jamie McFay climbed nimbly up the steps, then hurried along its length heading for their two-story building dominating the High Street. It was barely eight o’clock but he had already been out to meet the bimonthly mail ship that had arrived with the dawn, to collect mail, dispatches and the latest newspapers that his Chinese assistant began to load into a cart. Clutched in his hand were two envelopes, one opened the other sealed.

“’Morning, Jamie.” Gabriel Nettlesmith intercepted him, stepping out from a small group of sleepy traders waiting for their boats. He was a short, roly-poly, untidy, smelly man, reeking of ink and unwashed clothes and the cigars that he smoked perpetually, editor and publisher of the
Yokohama Guardian
, the Settlement’s newspaper, one of the many in Asia that Struan’s owned, openly or secretly. “What’s amiss?”

“Lots—be kind enough to join me for tiffin. Sorry, can’t stop.”

Even without the fleet at anchor the harbor was already busy with cutters plying to and from the half a hundred merchantmen, others clustering around the mail ship, still others heading for her or coming back. Jamie was the first ashore, a matter of principle with him and a business expedient where prices of essential items, always in short supply, could fluctuate wildly depending on the mails. Hong Kong to Yokohama direct by mail steamer took about nine days, via Shanghai, about eleven, weather permitting. Mail from home, England, took eight to twelve weeks, weather and piracy permitting, and mail day always an anxious time, joyous, awful or in between but ever welcome, waited for and prayed for nonetheless.

Norbert Greyforth of Brock and Sons, Struan’s main rival, was still a hundred yards offshore, sitting comfortably amidships, his oarsmen pulling hard, watching him through his telescope. McFay knew he was being observed but it did not bother him today. The bugger will know soon enough if he doesn’t know already, he thought, feeling uncommonly frightened. Frightened for Malcolm Struan, the Company, himself, for the future and for his
ai-jin—
love person—who waited equally patiently in their tiny Yoshiwara house across the canal, outside the fence.

He increased his pace. Three or four drunks lay in the gutter of High Street like old sacks of coal, others scattered here and there down along the seafront. He stepped over one man, avoided a raucous group of inebriated merchant seamen staggering for their boats, ran up his steps into the large foyer of Struan’s, up the staircase to the landing and down the corridor that led to suites of rooms the whole length of the godown.

Quietly he opened a door and peered in.

“Hello, Jamie,” Malcolm Struan said from the bed.

“Oh, hello, Malcolm, ’morning. I wasn’t sure if you’d be awake.” He closed the door behind him, noticed that the door to the adjoining suite was ajar, and went over to the huge teak four-poster that, like all the furniture,
came from Hong Kong or England. Malcolm Struan was pasty-faced, and drawn, propped on pillows—the boat trip back from Kanagawa yesterday had drained more of his precious strength, even though Dr. Babcott had kept him sedated and they had made the journey as smooth as possible. “How are you today?”

Struan just peered up at him, his blue eyes seemingly faded and set deeper into their sockets, shadows underneath. “Mail from Hong Kong’s not good, eh?” The words were flat, and gave McFay no way to break it easily.

“Yes, sorry. You heard the signal gun?” Whenever the mail ship came within sight, it was the custom for the Harbor Master to fire a cannon to alert the Settlement—the same procedure all over the world, wherever there were Settlements.

“Yes, I did,” Struan said. “Before you tell me the bad, close her door and give me the chamber pot.”

McFay obeyed. The other side of the door was a drawing room and beyond that a bedroom, the best apartment in the whole building and normally reserved exclusively for the tai-pan, Malcolm’s father. Yesterday at Malcolm’s insistence and her happy compliance, Angelique had been installed there. At once the news had rushed around the Settlement, feeding other reports and rumors that
their
Angelique had become the new Lady of the Lamp, and the betting odds on that she was Struan’s in more ways than one, every man wanting to be in his bed.

“You’re mad,” McFay had told some of them at the Club last night. “The poor fellow’s in terrible shape.”

Dr. Babcott interrupted, “He’ll be up and about before you know it.”

“It’s got to be wedding bells, by God!” someone said.

“Drinks on the house,” another called out expansively, “Good-oh, we’ll have our own wedding, our first wedding.”

“We’ve had lots, Charlie. What about our
musumes?”

“They don’t count, for God’s sake, I mean a real church wedding—and a right proper christening an—”

“Jumping Jehovah, are you implying one’s in the oven?”

“The rumor’s they was like stoats on the ship coming here, not that I blame him …”

“Angel Tits weren’t even feeanced then, by God! Say that agin’, impugg’ning ’er ’onor, and I’ll do you, by God!”

McFay sighed. A few drunken blows and broken bottles, both men had been thrown out to crawl back within the hour to an uproarious welcome. Last night, when he had peeped in here before going to bed himself, Malcolm was asleep and she was nodding in a chair beside the bed. He awoke her gently. “Best get some proper sleep, Miss Angelique, he won’t wake now.”