The Pure Land (18 page)

‘You may join me on the deck of the
Argus
,’ he said, ‘a suitable vantage point from which we can observe the proceedings.’

‘The
proceedings
?’ said Glover. ‘I find myself unable to contemplate the bombardment of a town and consequent loss of life with such a degree of equanimity and detachment.’

Satow bristled. ‘The offer was made in good faith, sir, and with your own safety in mind.’

The Captain was already moving towards the longboat, spoke to Satow. ‘We must leave before the tide turns. Mister Glover has clearly made his mind up and is impervious to reason. On his own head be it.’

Satow pleaded with Glover one last time. ‘If you change your mind, I’m sure you can negotiate with one of these bargees to ferry you on board.’

‘I won’t change my mind,’ said Glover.

‘No,’ said Satow, and he shook Glover’s hand; the exchange was at an end. 

Whether it was bravado, or recklessness, or plain foolhardiness, he had no sense of imminent danger to himself, in spite of what Satow had said. It was true his situation was precarious, and he might have been safer if Matsuo had been accompanying him, but he was surrendered to fate, or history, or whatever other forces were at play. If anything, he was more concerned about Sono. If he could not persuade her to leave altogether, perhaps he could at least ensure she moved further from the docks, up to higher ground.

Shimada’s home was now barricaded; there was no sign of Shimada himself, who would be marshalling defences, commanding the gun emplacements, nor was there any sign of Sono. He prayed she had gone out of town, headed inland, or was at least taking refuge in the Buddhist temple; there at least she should be out of range of the ships’ cannon.

The area near the docks was alive with folk scurrying to move their possessions, get out of the way. One old man was scrambling to pack up his stall, struggling to cram his goods into crates. Much of it was junk, old kitchen equipment, a set of scales, odd bits of pottery. But in amongst it, Glover saw something he wanted, a spyglass.

He asked how much. ‘
Ikura?
’

The old man, in a panic, quoted more than it was worth. Glover paid him double, shoved the spyglass in his coat pocket, headed out of town.

By noon the heat was intense. At the temple he was thorough, searched the grounds, disturbed an old monk in the meditation hall, startled a group of young nuns raking a gravel garden. They must have thought him a demonic visitation. He apologised, ascertained Sono was nowhere in the precincts.

He found a spot, in the shelter of a tree, where he could command a view of the harbour. He sat down on a rock and was suddenly overcome with a kind of dizziness. The intensity of the past few days’ events, the lack of sleep, the turmoil, all combined, now that he had finally stopped and was still, to wash over him like a tide. For a moment he was quite shaken, then he gathered himself again. But he could not throw off the sense of strangeness and distance; it was all dreamlike, yet vividly real.

A sudden memory came to him, of a moment from his childhood. He had been playing on the beach at Bridge of Don, run pellmell along the sand in pursuit of some childish game, and he’d stopped and turned around, seen his companions as if very far away, their voices, the cries of seagulls, thin and empty against the crash of the waves. And it was as if he had awakened to the absolute reality of his own existence; this was his life and this was him living it; he was here, the centre of his own story. And now it was happening again, in this alien land; the life flowed through him, his story unfolded as it must.

He felt his breath come and go of itself, he looked out at the expanse before him, the town spread below, the harbour and the bay beyond, the volcano sitting ageless on its island, clouds and mist at its summit. Insects buzzed in the air and from somewhere behind him came the sonorous clang of the temple bell.

He brought his gaze to rest on the ships in the bay, was jolted into full awareness of the present, the precise situation; this too was real, was actually happening. There was movement among the ships, the gunboats manoeuvring into position.

Time had slowed, but now seemed to accelerate. The weather suddenly turned, clouds gathered, high winds whipped up. Three
Japanese steamers had moved towards the harbour, were surrounded by the British warships. Glover raised the telescope to his eye, adjusted the focal length, managed to home in on one of the steamers. Blue-coated figures were moving on deck, a boarding party; shifting the spyglass, he focused on the other two steamers, saw that they too had been boarded, their crews forced to abandon ship and head for shore in lifeboats. Now the blue-coats seemed to be ransacking the steamers, carrying off plunder, heading back to their own ships. Then there was a sudden flare high in the rigging of the first steamer, and the second, and the third, and all three were ablaze, in no time scuttled, sunk.

The winds rose even higher, the sky turned darker grey, the threat of a storm. Glover braced himself against the gusts. Now there was a response from the Satsuma, the boom of cannon-fire from the batteries on shore. Glover watched in amazement, the puff of smoke from each shot, the shells exploding in the air above the ships, sudden bursts against the darkening grey of the sky, the ships rolling in the gale, the waves turbulent. Again he was visited by that sense of dreamlike vividness; he was here, watching a battle commence. And these were his people, out there with their squadron of ships; the guns firing back at them were cannon he had sold the Satsuma, the clan of his wife; he was caught between the two worlds, could do nothing but watch the events unfold.

There was another barrage from the batteries, and this time there was a hit, directly on the flagship. Glover held the telescope to his eye, tried to hold it steady, saw a confusion of water and sky as the lens veered, then he settled on the
Euryalus
, saw the commotion on deck, smoke and flames, crew rushing to douse the fire, drag bodies clear. This was no dream. The cannon fired again, and again, and one of the gunboats was hit, the other seemed to be struggling in the gale, driven towards shore.

Then the inevitable, the inexorable, happened. The ships
steadied themselves, regrouped and opened fire, bombarded the shore. There was one explosion after another around the gun emplacements, black smoke curling into the air. Buildings caught fire and the fire spread in the high winds, the whole dock area suddenly ablaze. Glover didn’t think, didn’t hesitate, took off running towards the conflagration.

The scene by the docks was infernal, folk falling over themselves, trying to escape, one building after another going up in flames. He remembered Oliphant, talking about fire,
the flower
of Edo, that blossoms all year round
. Now it was the flower of Kagoshima, and its blossoms flared, orange and red.

A troop of firemen marched into action along the main street, ludicrous and courageous, a banner at their head, a ladder and a handpump borne along behind. A family dragged their precious possessions, wrapped in quilts, from their burning home, just before it collapsed. The firemen ushered them away from the site, used barbed poles to tear down what was left of the building before setting up the pump, cranking a trickle of water towards the blaze.

Glover tried to help the family, but they turned on him, the father threatening him with a bamboo pole. All they would see would be a barbarian; they probably thought him part of a landing party, the invading force. He backed off, shoved his way through the crowds, face scorched with the heat of the burning.

The gun emplacements had taken a pounding; direct hits had left craters where men and guns had been. Through the smoke he saw the figure of Shimada, marshalling the remaining gun crews. At one position the guns were being loaded and fired by young boys, no more than twelve or thirteen years old. A shell whistled overhead, exploded in the air above their heads. They ducked, took cover, got up again and recommenced firing. Glover caught Shimada’s eye, gave him a kind of salute. Shimada nodded, carried on barking orders.

Stumbling over rubble, he made his way to Shimada’s home, or what was left of it. The roof had been ripped off, two walls
blown out, the rest was on fire. Christ, Sono. Desperate, he shielded his face with his arm, looked in the burning wreckage, saw no one. She must have made her escape, surely to God. He staggered away, stumbled through the town, hoping by some miracle to find her in the midst of the chaos. 

He had never seen destruction on this kind of scale, would not have believed it possible. The bombardment had gone on for hours, far longer than it took to batter the defences into submission. It had become an act of vengeance, of wrath, a demonstration that might would always prevail. Hundreds had been killed, the whole settlement flattened, laid waste. A rumour had spread that Josling, the Captain of the flagship, had been mortally wounded when that first shell hit its mark. The retribution had been vicious and fierce, pounding the town to rubble and dust; the destruction was indiscriminate, wantonly random. When sufficient damage had been wrought, the squadron had weighed anchor, set sail for Yokohama, secure that justice had been done.

Glover walked through the ruins, through what had been a beautiful town, looking for landmarks, trying to find his way. The pottery had been blown to smithereens, the gardens scarred by great craters, churned to quagmire, the little shrine to Jizo blasted to nothing.

The fires had burned long, fanned by the rising winds, the edge of a typhoon, then the rains had come, doused the flames, left only the odd pocket still smouldering. Glover walked in a waking nightmare of utter desolation, drenched by the downpour, past families returning to their burned-out homes, past the injured, the dead and the dying. He came at last to where Shimada’s home had been, found him standing, staring at the wreckage, or through it, beyond it, at nothing.

Glover waited till he sensed him there, turned to face him.

‘Bad,’ said Glover, the only word adequate.

The old man nodded. ‘Many dead.’

Glover waited, left the silence there between them, left his one question unspoken till he couldn’t any longer.

‘Sono?’

The old man nodded, a choke in his voice as he spoke. ‘
Hai
.’

There was nothing, not one word more, to be said.

Weary, Glover made his way back through the ravaged town, went one last time to the ryokan.

Desultory, mechanical, distanced from himself, he packed his bag, sat staring at the walls of the room.

The next day he negotiated a passage on the first ship out, a Dutch clipper bound for Nagasaki. Repair work had already begun on the docks. As the ship moved out he looked back, thought for a moment he saw Sono standing there, dressed in white, but looking again he saw only a wisp of smoke, blown by the wind. 

Nothing had any meaning. He kept to himself, kept his own counsel, shunned company. He delegated work to his clerks. When Walsh and Mackenzie expressed concern, he told them to go and bugger themselves; he told Ito the same in Japanese. Days, weeks, passed by. He received a letter from Satow, in Edo.