“Hai, Nakama, wakatta.” A thousand questions were jostling to be asked and Tyrer knew this man could be a well to be emptied, but it must be done cautiously and this was not the place. He saw the intense concentration on the man’s face and wondered how much of what he said Nakama actually understood, reminding himself to speak slowly and as simply as possible. “How many of you fight against the Bakufu?”
“Many.” Hiraga slapped at a vagrant mosquito.
“Hundreds, thousands? What sort of people, ordinary people, gardeners, workmen, merchants?”
Hiraga looked at him, bewildered. “They nothing. On’ry serve samurai. On’ry samurai fight. On’ry samurai hav weapon. Kinjiru other have weapons.”
Tyrer blinked again. “You’re samurai?”
More bewilderment. “Samurai fight. I say fight Bakufu, yes? Nakama samurai!” Hiraga took off his hat and pulled away the soiled, sweat-stained cloth that served as a turban to reveal his characteristic shaven pate and topknot. Now that Tyrer could see his face clearly, for the first time without the low-brimmed coolie hat and the first time he had really looked at him, he saw the same hard, slanting eyes of a two-sworder, and the vast difference in bone structure from villagers. “When Shusho, captain samurai, see me so, I dead.”
Tyrer nodded, his mind amok.
“Easy me es’kape. P’rease, give so’rdier c’rothes.”
Tyrer was finding it hard to keep the excitement, and dread, off his face, part of him desperate to flee, the other avaricious to have all this samurai’s knowledge that could, no, would, be a major key to unlock the world of Nippon and his own future if handled correctly. Just as he was about to blurt out his agreement he remembered Sir William’s previous admonition and, thankfully, took time to compose himself.
“Easy es’kape, yes?” Hiraga repeated impatiently.
“Not easy, possible. But risky. First I have to be convinced to be sure you are worth saving.” Tyrer saw the sudden flash of anger—perhaps it was anger together with fear, he could not decide. Christ, samurai! I wish Sir William were here, I’m out of my depth. “Don’t think I can r—”
“P’rease,” Hiraga said as a supplicant, knowing that this was his only real chance to break out of the trap, but thinking, Hurry up and agree or I shall kill you and try to escape over the wall. “Nakama swear by gods he’rp Taira-san.”
“You swear solemnly by your gods you will answer all my questions truthfully?”
“Hai,” Hiraga said at once, astounded that Tyrer could be so naive as to ask that question of an enemy or believe his affirmative answer—surely he cannot be that stupid? What god or gods? There are none. “By gods I swear.”
“Wait here. Bolt the door, only open it to me.”
Tyrer put the revolver in his pocket, went and found Pallidar and McGregor and took them aside breathlessly. “I need some help. I’ve found out Ukiya is one of the men wanted by the samurai. It turns out he’s a sort of dissident. I want to disguise him as a soldier and sneak him back with us.”
Both officers stared at him. Then McGregor said, “Excuse me, sir, but do you think that’s wise? I mean, the Bakufu are the legal government and if we get caught th—”
“We won’t get caught. We just dress him up as a Redcoat and put him in the middle of soldiers. Eh, Settry?”
“Yes, we could do that, Phillip, but if he’s spotted and we’re stopped we’ll be up the creek without a paddle.”
“Do you have an alternative suggestion?” Tyrer said, a nervousness to his voice as his fear-excitement rose. “I want him smuggled out. Without his help we would probably all be dead and he will be extremely useful to us.”
Uneasily the other two men looked at each other, then at Tyrer. “Sorry, it’s too dangerous,” Pallidar said.
“I-don’t-think-so!” Tyrer snapped, head aching. “I want it done! It’s a matter of extreme importance to Her Majesty’s Government and that’s the end to it!”
McGregor sighed. “Yes, sir, very well. Captain, what about mounting him?”
“As a dragoon? Ridiculous idea, a gardener won’t be able to ride, for God’s sake. Much better let him march, surround him with sold—”
“Fifty pounds against a brass farthing the bugger can’t keep step, he’ll be as obvious as a whore in a Bishop’s underpants!”
Then Tyrer said, “What about if we put him in uniform, bandage his face and hands and carry him on a stretcher—pretend he’s sick.”
The officers looked at him, then beamed. “Good oh!”
“Even better,” Pallidar said happily, “we pretend he has some foul disease, smallpox—measles—plague!” In unison they laughed.
The samurai officer and the guards they had agreed to allow within the now empty Legation followed Tyrer, McGregor and four dragoons throughout the house. Their search was meticulous, every room, every cupboard, even the attics. At length he was satisfied. In the hall were two stretchers, on each a soldier, both feverish, both bandaged, one partially, the other, Hiraga, completely—head, feet, and hands—outside his soaking uniform.
“Both very sick,” Tyrer said in Japanese, Hiraga having given him the words. “This soldier has spotted disease.”
The very mention of the words caused the samurai to blanche and move back a pace—outbreaks of smallpox were endemic in the cities but never so bad as in China where hundreds of thousands died. “This … this must be reported,” the officer muttered, he and his men covering their mouths as all believed infection and spread of the disease was caused by breathing befouled air near a sufferer.
Tyrer did not understand so he just shrugged. “Man very sick. Not go near.”
“I am not going near him, you think I am mad?” The big man went on to the veranda. “Listen,” he said quietly to his men. “Don’t say a word about this to the others in the square or there may be a panic. Stinking foreign dogs. Meanwhile keep your eyes open, this Hiraga is here somewhere.”
They scoured the grounds and outhouses, the full complement of Legation staff and soldiers drawn up in the shade, waiting impatiently to begin the march down to the wharf and to the waiting boats. At last satisfied, the officer bowed sourly and stalked back through the gates, samurai massed outside, Joun still bound near the front ranks, the petrified gardeners kneeling in a row, all hats off and naked. As he approached they cowered deeper into the dirt.
“Get up!” he said angrily, disgusted that when he had ordered them to strip, not one of them had the shaven pate of a samurai, or any sword cuts, wounds or other sign of samurai status, so he had been forced to conclude his prey was still hiding inside, or had escaped. Now he was even more angry and stomped in front of Joun. “To disguise himself, the ronin Hiraga has shaved his head or allowed his hair to grow like one of those scum gardeners. Identify him!”
Joun was on his knees, broken, near death. He had been beaten and brought back to life and beaten and brought back again on Anjo’s orders. “Identify this Hiraga!”
“He’s … he’s not, not there.” The youth cried out as the officer’s iron hard foot thudded into his most sensitive parts, then again, the gardeners shivering and terrified. “He’s not … not there …” Again the merciless blow. In desperate, helpless agony, beyond himself, Joun pointed at a youngish man who fell on his knees, screaming his innocence.
“Shut him up!” the officer shouted. “Take him before the judge, thence to prison and crucify the scum, take them all, they are guilty of hiding him, take them all!”
They were dragged away shrieking they were guiltless, the youngish man squealing that he had seen Hiraga earlier near the house and if they let him go he would show them but no one paid any attention and quickly his cries and all their cries were ended, brutally.
The officer wiped the sweat off his brow, satisfied that he had carried out his orders. He took a sip from a water bottle and spat to clean his mouth, then drank gratefully.
Eeee, he thought, and shivered. The spotted disease! A gai-jin disease brought from outsid
e! Everything rotten comes from outside, gai-jin have got to be thrown out and kept out for all time. Angrily he watched the bands forming up, soldiers strutting, his mind on the shishi he sought.
Not possible that that gardener was a famous shishi, the Hiraga of the fight. Karma that I and my men arrived too late that day to see him and the others who escaped. Not karma, God was watching over me. If I had seen them I could not have pretended to accept the one Joun pointed out. Where is this Hiraga? He is hiding somewhere. Please God, help me.
Eeee, life is curious. I hate the gai-jin yet I believe in their Jesus God, though secretly, like my father and his father and his back to before Sekigahara. Yes, I believe in this Jesus God, the only thing of value from outside, and didn’t the Jesuit Teacher Princes say Belief gives us added power and that when we had a problem to worry it as a dog worries a bone.
Hiraga is hiding somewhere. I have searched carefully. Therefore he has disguised himself. As what? A tree? What?
Inside the walls preparations for departure continued. The flag came down. Bands were playing now. Horsemen into their saddles. Stretchers into a tumbril. Gates opening, the mounted soldiers forming up, led by the gai-jin with the Japanese name, now passed and going down the hill and—
The bandages! The revelation burst in the officer’s mind. There is no plague! Clever, he thought excitedly, but not clever enough! Now, do I confront them and bottle them up in one of the narrow streets? Or do I assign spies to follow him and peg him to lead me to others?
I peg him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
TUESDAY, 14TH OCTOBER:
The engagement party was in full swing under the oil lamps that lit the crowded main hall of the Club—the whole building taken over by Malcolm Struan and bedecked for his party. All respectable members of the Settlement had been invited and were present, all officers who could be spared from the fleet and Army—and outside on the High Street patrols of both services were ready to inhibit drunks and undesirables from Drunk Town.
Angelique had never looked more striking—crinoline, Bird of Paradise feather headdress and dazzling engagement ring. The dance was a pulsating waltz by Johann Strauss the Younger, brand-new and just arrived from Vienna by diplomatic pouch, which André Poncin was playing with gusto on the piano, ably supported by a skeleton Marine Band in full dress uniform for the occasion. Her partner was Settry Pallidar—his selection to represent the Army had been greeted with a roar of approval, and total jealousy.
Victoria Lunkchurch and Mabel Swann were also dancing, this time partnered by Sir William and Norbert Greyforth, their dance cards filled the moment the party was announced. For all their girth both were good dancers, both wore crinolines though these could not compare with Angelique’s in either richness or décolletage.
“Thee’s a right rotten skinflint, Barnaby,” Victoria hissed at her husband. “Mabel and me’re going to have new folderols if it costs thee thy whole company, by God! And we wants titfers like hers, by God!”
“Wot?”
“Yes, wot! Titfers—hats!” Angelique’s headdress had been the final coup de grace for both women. “Tis war, her against us’n.” Even so their popularity overcame their jealousy, and they twirled with abandon.
“Lucky bloody bastard,” Marlowe muttered, eyes only for his rival. His blue naval uniform jacket glittered with the added gold braid of an aide-decamp, white silk trousers and stockings and black, silver-buckled shoes.
“Who?” Tyrer asked, passing by with another glass of champagne, flushed and excited with the evening and with his success in spiriting Nakama, the samurai, out of Yedo and, with Sir William’s approval, into his house as a Japanese teacher. “Who’s a bastard, Marlowe?”
“Get stuffed—as if you didn’t know!” Marlowe grinned. “Listen, I’m the Navy’s rep, I’ve got the next one and I’ll show the bugger what’s what or die in the attempt.”
“Lucky devil! What is it?”
“Polka!”
“Oh, my word—did you arrange it?”
“Good God, no!” The polka, based on a Bohemian folk dance, was another recent addition to the dance floors of Europe and all the rage, though still considered risqué. “It’s on the program! Didn’t you notice?”
“No, never did, too much on my mind,” Tyrer said happily, bursting to tell someone how clever he had been, and even more that tonight, as soon as he could, he was heading across the Bridge to Paradise and into the arms of his beloved—regretting that he was sworn to secrecy on both counts. “Dances like a dream, doesn’t she?”
“Hey, young Tyrer …” It was Dmitri Syborodin, well oiled and sweating, a tankard of rum in his fist. “I asked the Bandmaster to throw in a cancan. Guy said I was the fifth to ask.”
“My God, is he going to?” Tyrer asked, appalled. “I saw it performed once in Paris—you won’t believe it, but the girls didn’t wear any pantaloons at all.”
“I believe it!” Dmitri guffawed. “But Angel Boobs has ’em on tonight, and not afraid to show ’em either, by God!”
“Now, look here …” Marlowe began hotly.
“Come on, John, he’s just joking. Dmitri, you’re impossible! Surely the Bandmaster wouldn’t dare?”
“Not unless Malc gives him the nod.”
They looked across the room. Malcolm Struan sat with Dr. Hoag, Babcott, Seratard and several of the Ministers watching the dance floor, eyes only for Angelique as she dipped and swayed to the enchanting, daring modern music that exhilarated all of them. His hand rested on a heavy cane, the gold signet ring sparkling as his fingers moved to the beat, dressed in sleek silk evening clothes, winged collar, cream cravat and diamond pin, his fine leather boots from Paris.
“Pity he’s still so disabled,” Tyrer murmured, genuinely sorry, but blessing his own luck.
Struan and Angelique had arrived late. He walked with extreme difficulty, hunched over as much as he tried to remain upright, his weight on the two canes, Angelique radiantly on his arm. Dr. Hoag was with them, attentive and ever watchful. There were cheers for him and more for her and then, gratefully sitting, he had welcomed them, invited them all to partake of the feast that had been laid out on tables. “But first, my friends,” he said, “please raise your glasses, a toast to the most beautiful girl in the world, Mademoiselle Angelique Richaud, my bride to be.”
Cheers and more cheers. Liveried Chinese servants brought iced champagne by the case, Jamie McFay added a few words of joy and the party was on. Wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy, a special Chablis much favored in Asia, brandies, whiskies—all exclusive Struan imports—gin, beer from Hong Kong. Sides of Australian roasted beef, a few whole lambs, chicken pies, joints of cold salt pork, hams, Shanghai potatoes, baked and stuffed with roast salt pork slivers and butter, as well as puddings and chocolates, a new Swiss import. After supper had been cleared away and seven drunks removed, André Poncin took his place and the band began.
With great formality towards Malcolm, Sir William begged the first dance. Next was Seratard, then the other Ministers—except von Heimrich who was in bed with dysentery—the Admiral and the General, all of them and others taking turns with the other two women. After each dance Angelique would be surrounded by flushed and beaming faces, and then, fanning herself, she would make her way back to Malcolm’s side, delightful to everyone yet completely attentive to him, every time refusing the dance, at length allowing herself to be persuaded by him: “But, Angelique, I love to watch you dancing, my darling, you dance so gracefully.”
Now he was watching her, torn between happiness and frustration, frantic that he was hobbled.
“Don’t fret, Malcolm,” Hoag had said this evening, wanting to calm him, the simple act of dressing a nightmare of pain and awkwardness. “This is the first time you’ve been up. It’s only a month since the accident, don’t worr—”
“Tell me that once more and I’ll spit blood.”
“It’s not just the pain that’s tearing you apart. It’s the medication, or lack of i
t, and today’s mail. You got a letter from your mother, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he had said in total misery, and sat on the edge of the bed, half dressed. “She…well, she’s furious, never known her so angry. She’s totally opposed to my engagement, to my marriage … if I listened to her, Angelique is the devil incarnate. She …” The words tumbled out of him. “She dismissed my letter, dismissed it and said, here read it: Have you gone mad? Your father’s not dead six weeks, you’re not yet twenty-one, that woman’s after your money and our company, she’s the daughter of an escaped bankrupt, the niece of another felon, and, God help us, Catholic and French! Are you out of your mind? You say you love her? Rubbish! You’re bewitched. You will stop this nonsense. You-will-stop-this-nonsense! She has bewitched you. Obviously you are in no frame of mind to run Struan’s! You are to return without that person as soon as Dr. Hoag permits it. ”
“When I permit it. Malcolm, will you do as she says?”
“About Angelique, no. None of what she says is important, none of it! Clearly she didn’t read my letter, doesn’t give a fig for me. What the devil can I do?”
Hoag had shrugged. “What you’ve already decided: you will be engaged and in due time married. You are going to get better. You will have lots of rest, lots of good soups and porridge and stay off the sleeping draft and painkillers. For the next two weeks you will stay here, then you will go back and face the”—he had smiled kindly—“the future with confidence.”
“I’m very lucky to have you as a doctor.”
“I’m very lucky to have you as a friend.”
“Did you get a letter from her too?”
“Yes.” A dry laugh. “I did, now that I think of it.”
“And?”
Hoag had rolled his eyes. “Enough said?”
“Yes. Thanks.”
Now, watching her dancing, center of a universal admiration, and lust, breasts in large part fashionably revealed, slender ankles enticing eyes to seek further under the billowing hoops of apricot silk, he felt himself hardening. Thank God for that, he thought, much of his rage evaporating, at least that’s working, but, Christ, I know I won’t be able to wait until Christmas. I won’t.