Gai-Jin (88 page)

Automatically the nonplussed samurai bowed back to Tyrer and as he straightened, Sir William, flushed from his unaccustomed run, stopped for a moment and faced the samurai. Immediately Tyrer bowed to him, calling out,
“Salute!”
The officer and all his men bowed, Sir William bowed back and now the samurai were back in control.

At once Sir William turned and went into the wedge, which was gaining ground, the people closest to the marines being shoved back by the rifles.

“Get out of the way! Get back … back!” the young Captain was shouting, his adrenaline pumping. He was just behind the point of the wedge, and when the way did not clear fast enough for his liking he shouted, “fix bayonets!”

As one man the marines stepped back two paces, fixed bayonets, levelled them at the crowd, each marine picking a target, each becoming a graven, waiting cog of a killing machine that was famed and feared throughout the world. “prepare to charge!”

Sir William, Tyrer, and McFay stopped breathing. Along with everyone else. Immediate silence. Then the evil spirit that all mobs contain vanished and the men here became just a rabble that broke and fled in all directions.

The Captain did not wait. “Port rifles, follow me!” He led the way at a run towards the village where the majority of traders, soldiers, a dozen cavalry,
and samurai were gathered, all of them still oblivious of Sir William and his marines.

Again the wedge formed but as they came up to the back of the shouting mass, they heard the General shouting, “For the last time I order you out or I will throw you out …” to be drowned under a roar from a crowd that was clearly ready to explode. The Captain decided there was no time to waste. “Halt! One round over their heads, fire!”

The volley blew away the noise and the fury and got immediate attention, even from the equally unprepared cavalry. Everyone had whirled or ducked and in the silence Sir William, red with rage, stalked into the space between the two sides. Further down the street Lunkchurch and the others were transfixed. He held a second burning rag in his hand, poised to throw, the first was already on the veranda against the wooden wall, flames spreading. Seeing Sir William and the marines, they evaporated into side streets, rushing pell-mell for home.

All other eyes were on Sir William. He settled his top hat more firmly and took a paper out of his pocket. In a loud grating voice he began: “I am reading you Her Majesty’s Riot Act: If this unauthorized assembly does not disperse instantly, every man, woman or child is liable for arrest and …” His next few words were lost under general grumbling and curses but, instantly, the rabble began to dissolve.

The Riot Act of 1715 had been promulgated by Parliament after the Jacobite Rebellion that only ruthlessness had contained and obliterated. The new law was designed to stop any unauthorized dissension at its source. It granted all Magistrates or Justices of the Peace the right and duty to read the Act out to any group of more than twelve persons considered a threat to the peace of the realm, the onus on the rioters to hear and obey. Anyone who did not disperse within forty-five minutes was liable to immediate arrest, incarceration, and, if proven guilty, to either a sentence of death or to being sentenced to transportation for life at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

There was no need for Sir William to finish reading. The village street emptied but for the troops and the General, and the samurai. “Phillip, deal with them, tell them to go home please.” He watched for a moment as Tyrer went over and bowed and the officer bowed back. He’s a good lad, he thought, then turned away to put a bleak eye on the General who was flushed and sweating. “’Morning, Thomas.”

“’Morning, sir.” The General saluted. Smartly—but only because of the soldiers around him.

Sir William did not raise his hat in reply. Stupid berk, he was thinking. “Pleasant day, what?” he said easily. “I suggest you dismiss the men.”

The General motioned to the cavalry officer who was, secretly, more
than a little pleased that Sir William had arrived when he did, knowing too that the Japanese were not at fault and he should have been walking his horses into the rabble of traders. What a bunch of ill-disciplined scum, he thought. “Sergeant!” he called out. “All the men back to barracks and dismiss them. Now!”

The soldiers began sorting themselves out. Tyrer bowed a last time to the samurai officer, feeling very pleased with himself, then watched them amble away up the street towards their North Gate.

“Damn good show, Phillip, you did very well,” Jamie McFay said.

“Oh? Didn’t do a thing really,” Tyrer said, pretending diffidence.

Jamie McFay grunted. He was sweating, his heart thumping, he had been sure that someone would pull a trigger or jerk out a sword. “That was bloody close.” He glanced over at Sir William who was deep in a one-sided conversation with the General, now even more flushed. “Wee Willie’s giving the bugger hell,” he said softly, smiling. “Stupid clod!”

“He’s …” Tyrer stopped as their attention was diverted up the street. Samurai were sprinting towards a shop on the east side that had caught fire. “Good God, that’s the shoya’s house…. ” He was already running, McFay at his heels.

Several of the samurai had jumped up onto the veranda and began beating out the flames while the others hurried to the big water barrels with their ring of buckets that were kept at intervals everywhere against such emergencies. By the time Tyrer and McFay had reached there the fire was under control. Half a dozen more buckets and the last of the flames sizzled and died. The outer shop wall was gone. Inside they saw the shoya, beside him an ashigaru, a foot soldier. Both of them stepped out onto the veranda. The shoya knelt and bowed, the ashigaru bowed. They muttered thanks. To McFay’s astonishment there was no sign of Hiraga, the man he and Tyrer knew only as Nakama. But before either of them could say anything the officer had begun questioning the shoya and the foot soldier.

“How did the fire start?”

“A foreigner threw a rag against the wall, Sire.”

“Dog’s shit, all of them! You will make a report and explain the cause of this disturbance. By tomorrow, shoya.”

“Yes, Sire.”

The officer, a pockmarked man of thirty-odd, peered into the shop.
“Where’s the other man?”

“Sire?”

“The other man. The Japanese who was chased in here by the gai-jin?”
he said irritably.
“Hurry up!”

The ashigaru bowed politely,
“So sorry, sir, there was no one else here.”

“I distinctly saw him rush in here—he was carrying swords.”
He turned to his men.
“Who saw him?”
They stared back at him uneasily and shook their
heads. His face reddened.
“Search the shop at once!”
The search was thorough and produced only the shoya’s family and servants who knelt and bowed and stayed kneeling. They denied seeing anyone. A moment of silence then Tyrer and McFay were dumbfounded to see the officer suddenly lose his temper and begin raving at them.

Stoically the ashigaru and all the soldiers stood at attention, rigid, the villagers on their knees, heads to the ground, trembling under the tongue-lashing. Without warning he stepped up to the ashigaru and belted him backhanded around the face. The man stayed as impassive as he could under the flurry of blows and invective. At the officer’s shrieked command the shoya was instantly on his feet and stood unflinchingly while the frenzied man beat him as cruelly around the face, the women and children trying not to wince at every blow, yet motionless.

As suddenly as the beatings had begun they stopped. Both men bowed deeply, their faces now welted. Again the shoya knelt. Formally the officer bowed back, all traces of the tirade gone. His men formed up and he led them towards the North Gate as though nothing untoward had happened. Tyrer and McFay stared after them blankly. In a moment, when it was correct to do so, the shoya got up, the women and children went into the house, and he began to supervise the repair to the wall. Village activity in the street picked up.

“What the devil was all that about?” McFay said.

“I don’t know,” Tyrer said, both of them shocked at the brutality and its impassive acceptance. “I only caught a word here and a word there—I think it was to do with Nakama, I think they all said he’d never been there.”

“That’s impossible—I know he was inside that hut. I saw him myself.” McFay mopped his brow. “Apart from that, why take all that from that bastard? He was a lunatic. And look at them now, acting as though nothing happened. Why?”

“I don’t know—perhaps Nakama can explain.” Tyrer shuddered. “I’ll tell you one thing, I’m damned if I’d like to be in their power. Ever.”

“Hello, Angel, how are you?”

“Hello, darling, I’m—I’m much better, thank you.” Angelique smiled wanly as Struan came in and shut the door. She was propped up by pillows in her bedroom in the French Legation, the late afternoon sun coming nicely through the window and the shadow of a guard now permanently stationed outside.

In the early hours of this morning when Struan had rushed—hobbled—to her side, she had resisted his entreaties to move, enough in command of herself to remember that she must stay here because tonight André Poncin would deliver the medicine that would deliver her from evil. No,
not evil—yes, from evil, she had wanted to shout: André’s going to deliver me from the evil I carry and from the evil I’ve done.
“Oh, mon Dieu
, Malcolm, I am all right and don’t want to move!”

“Please don’t cry, my darling, please.”

“Then leave me be, it’s all right, Malcolm. I’m quite safe, I always was safe and Doctor Babcott has given me something to stop this shaking, haven’t you, Doctor?”

“That’s right, Malcolm,” Babcott had said, “and please don’t worry, Angelique’s perfectly all right, she’ll be right as rain when she wakes up. It would be better not to move her. Not to worry.”

“But I bloody do!”

“Tonight, perhaps she can move bac—”

“No,” she had whimpered, tears spilling, “not tonight, perhaps to morrow.”

Thank God for tears, she thought again as she watched Malcolm plod over to the bed, knowing that this Heaven-given weapon against men, thought to be a weakness, was a mighty shield. His smile was fine but she noticed the dark rings under his eyes that seemed strange and an air of weariness.

“I dropped by earlier but you were dozing and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“You would never disturb me.” His concern and love was so open and so deep that she had to fight to keep quiet and not helplessly scream the truth. “Don’t worry, my dear one, everything will be wonderful soon, I promise.”

He sat in a chair beside the bed, telling her about the near-riot and how Sir William had stopped it so quickly. “He’s a good man in many ways,” he told her, but he was thinking: not in others. He and Norbert had been forewarned about their summons into his presence tomorrow morning. At once they had met privately: “It’s none of Wee Willie’s bloody business,” Norbert had agreed sourly. “Let him concentrate on Japanners and getting the fleet back! Listen, the intruder, I hear you identified him as one of old Canterbury’s murderers, the other Tokaidō bastard?”

“No, I didn’t, I think he was a different man though he’d certainly been shot. Hoag said he was the same one he operated on at Kanagawa.”

“Why was he at her window, eh?”

“I don’t know—it’s weird. Just a thief, I suppose.”

“It’s right weird. A Catholic too. Weird …”

Struan saw that Angelique was waiting for him to continue and he wondered if he should bring the subject out into the open, the why of that man, to ask for her ideas and give her his, but she looked so tiny and defenseless that he decided to wait for another time and another day—the sod’s dead whoever he was and that’s that. “When I come back after dinner
I’ll bring the latest
Illustrated London News
, there’s a great article about the latest London fashions …”

Angelique listened with half an ear, avoiding the clock on the mantelpiece that tick-tocked the minutes delicately. André had told her he would return from the Yoshiwara about nine that evening, that she should have a pot of warm green tea ready, and something sweet to eat as the mixture might be foul-tasting. Also some towels, and it would be best not to take any more of Babcott’s sleeping draft.

She glanced at the clock. 6:46. It’s so long, the waiting, she thought, her anxiety increasing. Then the inner voices became alive again. Don’t worry, they whispered, the hours will quickly pass and then you are free, don’t forget you won, Angelique, you were so brave and so clever, you did everything perfectly—don’t worry about anything, you lived and he died and it was the only way you, or any woman, could have lived—soon you will be free, of him,
of it
, and all that has gone before will be no more than a bad dream….

I’ll be free, thank God, thank God.

The relief surged through her. She smiled at him. “How handsome you look, Malcolm. Your evening clothes are perfect.”

Her warmth jerked him out of his gloom, everything dreadful surrounding him—except her. He beamed. “Oh, Angel, if it wasn’t for you I think I’d explode.” Tonight he had taken much trouble to select the right silk evening clothes and the finest doeskin half-boots, pure white silk ruffled shirt and white cravat with a ruby pin that his father had given him on his last birthday, his twentieth, May 21st. Only six more months and then I am free, he thought, free to do whatever I like. “You’re the only thing that keeps me sane, Angel,” he said, and his smile banished the last of her devils.

“Thank you, my darling,” she said. “Explode? Why?”

“It’s just business,” he said, matter-of-fact, avoiding the real issues. “Damned politicians are messing up our markets in their usual, obsessive pursuit of personal power, money and advancement, it never changes no matter what country, creed or color. Overall the Noble House is in fine fettle, thank God,” he told her, sluffing over the crisis they were facing in Hawaiian sugar and Brock’s increasing stranglehold over Struan’s markets and borrowing facilities.