The Pure Land (16 page)

The next morning Mackenzie, still shaken, paced in front of Glover’s desk.

‘That was absolute madness, Tom! We could have been killed!’

Glover was maintaining a surface calm, but the excitement churned in him, surged in waves. ‘But we did it, Ken. We got them out!’

‘That’s not the point …’

Glover thumped the desk. ‘That’s exactly the point! Can you imagine what it’ll do to these men?’

‘If they survive the journey.’

‘Of course they’ll survive. They’re samurai, for God’s sake!’

‘Aye, don’t I know it!’

‘And Jardine’s will look after them when they get to London, I’ll make sure of that.’

‘It’ll be one hell of a journey.’

‘Can you imagine what it’ll be like for them?’ said Glover. ‘Even Singapore will shake them to the core, when they sail in past the British warships. Then when they dock at Southampton, get on a train to London, they’ll be overwhelmed! And the first thing they’ll realise is they can’t fight that power. It’s impossible. Ito already knows this in his bones. I just want him to realise it fully, put it beyond all doubt.’

‘And then?’

‘He’ll be more determined than ever to work with us, build from the ground up, turn Japan itself into a great power.’

Mackenzie looked at him, held his gaze.

‘And then?’

T
he wheels of diplomacy had ground with inordinate slowness, so far from London, the hub of the known universe. But the announcement, when it came, was chilling in its businesslike simplicity, couched in the language of commerce and the law, not quite masking the massive threat implied.

It was what Glover had feared most. It was likely, though by no means certain, that the Shogun would pay up. He would hesitate, prevaricate, bluster, delay. But in the end he would pay, at the very last moment possible. He had no alternative, no answer to the power of the British gunboats which were already, it was
rumoured, heading for Kagoshima. The Daimyo, however, was unlikely to back down, whatever the consequences.

Alcock, the British Consul, had finally given up his post, retired to a quiet life in China, a country he regarded as infinitely more civilised than Japan. His successor was an altogether harder man, Sir Harry Parkes. He had been alerted to the fact that Glover had links with the Satsuma, had traded with them, even married into the clan. He wrote Glover a formal letter, asking if he would use his good offices to intercede with the clan leadership, attempt to make them see reason.

‘Reason?’ said Glover, reading the letter. ‘The man obviously hasn’t been in this country for long!’

‘They’ll see reason all right,’ said Walsh. ‘When hell freezes over.’

Glover replied to Parkes that he would give the matter some thought. Parkes replied that time was short and there was some need of urgency.

On the twentieth day after the proclamation, the very deadline specified, the Shogun handed over payment of the hundred thousand pounds. A gang of labourers lugged the money, in heavy wooden crates filled with Mexican silver dollars, from the treasury to the British Legation in Edo, now rebuilt and fortified, heavily guarded. The coinage was counted and weighed by a crew of Chinese
shroffs
, money-changers skilled in the detection of forgery, the substitution of base metal for silver. They painstakingly sifted through the piles of shining coins, set them in their scales, nodded their approval.

An illustration depicting the scene appeared in the
Nagasaki
Advertiser
, an artist’s impression by one Charles Wirgman who was in attendance. It showed in the foreground the pigtailed Chinese, huddled over the heaps of coins like misers in some stage melodrama or pantomime. Behind sat three Japanese dignitaries, representatives of the Shogun, stiff and formal in their robes, faces set, stern. On either side stood the British delegates,
each of them affecting a judgemental righteousness, but unable to conceal an avaricious smugness at the sight of the fortune shimmering at their feet.

‘They really put the Shogun in his place,’ said Walsh, passing the newspaper back to Glover. ‘Showed him who’s boss.’

And the picture should have delighted Glover, showing as it did a moment of triumph over the Shogun and all his works. But somehow the scene made him uneasy, the money-changers mercenary, parasitic, the British observers gloating, casually powerful, the Japanese maintaining a stoical dignity in the face of ignominy and humiliation. He was unsettled, folded the newspaper and threw it down.

It was later, when he received another, more urgent communication from Parkes, renewing his request for Glover to intercede with the Satsuma, that he realised why the picture had affected him so much. It gave absolute confirmation of the power wielded by the West, and it epitomised the spirit of Japanese defiance which would now be expressed in extreme form by the Satsuma Daimyo. Now more than ever he would refuse to back down, lose face. Now he could make his stand, be seen to be braver, more honourable than the Shogun who had so feebly capitulated. The bombardment of Kagoshima was inevitable. 

Ito had returned from his sojourn, full of tales to tell. He sat in the front room at Ipponmatsu, recounting his adventures, and Glover listened, hung on every word.

The journey out now seemed like a distant dream. Initially there had been apprehension, the danger of being caught and executed.

‘But
Hagakure
tells us to have firm resolution, be ready for death. So we were ready, had right mind.’

When they had reached open seas, bound for Shanghai, they
knew they were safe. But the journey ahead was fraught and perilous, endlessly long, fully tested that samurai resolve.

The size and scale of the western ships in Shanghai harbour was overwhelming. Ito at least had seen the like on his gunrunning expeditions with Glover. But to board one of these ships, to set foot on its deck, was salutary. The ship carrying them was the 300-ton
Pegasus
, owned by Jardine’s. Their quarters below deck were cramped and dank; they were worked hard, expected to pitch in along with the apprentice seamen; the rations were meagre, the food itself inedible, leathery salt beef and hardtack. Their health suffered, they were racked by vomiting and diarrhoea, had to remain on deck even in the roughest of seas; at one time Ito, in the throes of sickness, had to be tied to the rail so he wouldn’t be swept overboard.

Ito laughed as he told the story against himself, not to admit his weakness, but showing pride at what he had endured.

‘Firm resolution. Readiness for death.’

The journey took four months, and did indeed almost kill them. Then, docking at Southampton, they looked in awe at the massive British warships anchored there.

‘I wanted you to see the possibilities,’ said Glover.

‘We see,’ said Ito, leaving much unspoken.

They had travelled to London by train, another salutary experience, hurtled through the English countryside at unimaginable speed down mile after mile of iron track. It had shaken them, not just physically, but deep in their being, inspired sheer wonder and awe. Japan, by comparison, was crawling out of the Middle Ages.

In London the travellers had been received and welcomed by representatives of Jardine’s. In contrast to their long and arduous sea-crossing, stowed away like chattels, less than steerage class, they found themselves suddenly fêted, treated like heroes, like honoured guests. Their itinerary was mapped out and they embarked on a grand tour of industrialised Britain, visited factories and shipyards,
universities and museums. They spent time in Glasgow, saw the extent of shipbuilding on the Clyde; they made it as far north as Aberdeen.

Ito shivered, mimed being extremely cold, blowing on his hands, rubbing the warmth back into his arms.

‘Now I know why you so tough!’

Glover laughed, could picture Ito’s discomfort, head down into a dreich grey drizzle off the North Sea.

‘I bring you this,’ said Ito, and he carefully, formally, with both hands, handed Glover a letter.

Glover took it, moved by the sight of the handwriting. It was from Martha, even smelled faintly of scent, something with lilies. She must have doused the paper, the envelope.

He put it down on his desk, would read it when Ito was gone.

Ito’s return journey had been much less difficult than the outward voyage; Jardine’s had paid for their passage on an American-built clipper; he and his companions had travelled in cabins like the other passengers, and arrived, exhausted but unscathed, in Yokohama, disembarked without incident, and Ito had made his way directly to Nagasaki, to give Glover his full report.

Glover took it all in, nodded.

‘Now you have returned to a situation even more volatile than it was before you left.’

Ito pronounced the word, queried it. ‘
Volatile?
’

‘More dangerous,’ said Glover. ‘Like gunpowder.’ He mimed lighting a fuse. ‘Boom!’

‘
Hai
,’ said Ito. ‘
So desu
.’

‘The Satsuma Daimyo is making life difficult.’

‘Satsuma always difficult,’ said Ito. ‘No good sense.’

Glover told him about the letter from Parkes, asking him to intervene. Ito thought on no account should Glover go to Kagoshima.

‘Daimyo not change,’ he said. ‘He is like Takashi, but more.’

‘I understand,’ said Glover. ‘But I feel I
have
to go.’

‘Is matter of honour?’

‘Something like that, aye.’

Ito nodded, but looked perturbed. ‘Not good for me to come with you. I not be welcome. Choshu and Satsuma not friends.’

‘Don’t I know it!’

‘Same reason, Matsuo not go.’

‘So I’ll go alone,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s best.’

Ito looked as if was going to say something else, changed his mind.

When he’d gone, Glover read the letter from Martha. 

He read the letter, re-read it, read it again, smelled the fading perfume, redolent of home. She had written it in April; he could picture her sitting at the window looking out towards the sea; the air would still be chilly but with that first faint promise of spring.

He went outside to the garden. The night was heavy and warm, humid. The task ahead weighed down on him, oppressive. He went back inside, read the letter one more time, folded it carefully and put it away in his desk drawer. 

As he disembarked at Kagoshima, he felt it wrench at his guts, the sense, all at once, of familiarity and strangeness, a waking dream. There was the volcano,
Sakurajima
, with its plume of smoke, casting its pale grey pall, leaving a faint trace in the air,
the acridness of ash. There was the road through town, past the gardens and temples, the pottery. He had come here with Sono; it seemed so very long ago. They had walked by a stream, looked at the bamboo in the water, filling and emptying itself.
Shishi-odoshi
. Sono had bowed to a statue of Jizo, prayed for their baby. He had drunk sake with his father-in-law, Shimada, come face to face with Shimazu Saburo, the Daimyo, seen at close quarters that ferocious intransigence that would yet bring destruction on the whole town. He felt suddenly, profoundly, wearied, saw himself useless and helpless in the face of events. He had replied to Parkes, begged him to use his influence to call off the attack, or at least delay it. Parkes had replied that it was impossible, matters had gone too far and were beyond his control. Unless the Daimyo could be persuaded to change his mind, retri bution would be stayed no longer.

Did he really think he could deflect a warlord from his grand gesture of defiance? The Daimyo would probably refuse to see him at all; or worse, he might have him taken prisoner, executed for his insolence, for the crime of being western, alien, a barbarian invader plundering his country. It was madness. And yet.

He steadied himself, felt a sudden sense of purpose. Like an actor in a drama, he had to play his part, see this through. And he knew that even if he were not to succeed with this larger plan, this impossible task, he might at least speak to Sono, persuade her to leave with him. He might save one life, and hers was worth the saving.