The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, Page 48

  “We have heard nothing. We draw the obvious conclusions.”

  Shiroyama compares the veins in the leaf to the veins in his hands. “If we wished to prevent the frigate escaping Nagasaki Bay, what strategies would you propose?”

  De Zoet is surprised by the question but gives a considered answer to Iwase. “Chief de Zoet proposes two strategies: deception and force. Deception would involve embarking upon protracted negotiations for a false treaty. The merit of this plan is lack of bloodshed. Its demerits are that the English will want to work quickly, to avoid the North Pacific winter, and that they have seen the stratagem in India and Sumatra.”

  “Force, then,” says Shiroyama. “How may one capture a frigate without a frigate?”

  De Zoet asks, “How many soldiers does Your Honor have?”

  The magistrate first tells the scribes to stop writing. Then he tells them to leave. “One hundred,” he confides to De Zoet. “Tomorrow, four hundred; soon, a thousand.”

  De Zoet nods. “How many boats?”

  “Eight guard boats,” says Tomine, “used for harbor and coastal duty.”

  De Zoet next asks whether the magistrate could requisition the fishing boats and cargo ships in the harbor and around the bay.

  “The shogun’s representative,” says Shiroyama, “can requisition anything.”

  De Zoet delivers a verdict to Iwase, who translates: “It is the acting chief’s opinion that while a thousand well-trained samurai would easily subdue the enemy on land or aboard the frigate, the problems of transport are insuperable. The frigate’s cannonry would demolish a flotilla before the swordsmen could come close enough to board. The Phoebus’s marines, moreover, are armed with the newest”—Iwase uses the Dutch word “rifles”—“but with three times the power, and much faster to reload.”

  Shiroyama’s fingers have dismembered the maple leaf. “So there is no hope of detaining the ship by force?”

  “The ship cannot be captured,” says De Zoet, “but the bay may be shut.”

  Shiroyama glances at Iwase, assuming the Dutchman has made a mistake with his Japanese, but De Zoet speaks to his interpreter at some length. His hands mime at various points a chain, a wall, and a bow and arrow. Iwase verifies a few terms and turns to the magistrate. “Your Honor, the acting chief proposes the erection of what the Dutch call a ‘pontoon bridge’: a bridge made of boats bound together. Two hundred, he thinks, would suffice. The boats should be requisitioned from villages outside the bay, rowed or sailed to the narrowest point of the bay’s mouth, and fastened, from shore to shore, to make a floating wall.”

  Shiroyama pictures the scene. “What stops the warship cutting through?”

  The acting chief understands and speaks to Iwase in Dutch. “De Zoet-sama says, Your Honor, that to ram through the pontoon bridge, the warship would need to lower her sails. Sailcloth is woven from hemp, and often oiled to make it rainproof. Especially in a season of warm weather, like the present one, oiled hemp is combustible.”

  “Fire arrows, yes,” Shiroyama realizes. “We can hide archers in the boats …”

  De Zoet looks uncertain. “Your Honor, if the Phoebus is burned …”

  Shiroyama recalls the myth: “Like the chariot of the sun!”

  If such a plan succeeds, he thinks, the lack of guards shall be forgotten.

  “Many sailors,” de Zoet is saying, “in the Phoebus are not English.”

  This victory, Shiroyama foresees, could win me a seat on the Council of Elders.

  De Zoet is anxious. “The captives must be allowed to surrender with honor.”

  “Surrender with honor.” Shiroyama frowns. “We are in Japan, Acting Chief.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  FROM CAPTAIN PENHALIGON’S CABIN

  Around six o’clock in the evening on October 19, 1800

  DARK CLOUDS CLOT AND THE DUSK IS SILTED WITH INSECTS and bats. The captain recognizes the European sitting in the prow of the guard boat and lowers his telescope. “Envoy Fischer is being rowed back to us, Mr. Talbot.”

  The third lieutenant searches for the right reply. “Good news, sir.”

  The evening breeze, rain-scented, rustles the pages of the pay book.

  “‘Good news’ is what I hope Envoy Fischer brings us.”

  A mile over calm water, Nagasaki lights its candles and closes its shutters.

  Midshipman Malouf knocks and puts his head around the door. “Lieutenant Hovell’s compliments, sir, and Mr. Fischer is being ferried back to us.”

  “Yes, I know. Tell Lieutenant Hovell to bring Mr. Fischer to my cabin once he is safe on board. Mr. Talbot, send word to Major Cutlip: I want a clutch of marines ready with guns primed, just in case …”

  “Aye, sir.” Talbot and Malouf leave on their agile young feet.

  The captain is left with his gout, his telescope, and the fading light.

  Torches are lit at the guard posts on shore, a quarter mile astern.

  After a minute or two, Surgeon Nash knocks his particular knock.

  “Come, Surgeon,” says the captain, “and not before time.”

  Nash enters, wheezing tonight like a broken bellows. “Podagra is an ingravescent cross for sufferers to bear, Captain.”

  “‘Ingravescent’? Deal in plain English in this cabin, Mr. Nash.”

  Nash sits by the window bench and helps Penhaligon’s leg up. “Gout grows worse before it grows better, sir.” His fingers are gentle, but their touch still scalds.

  “You think I don’t know that? Double the dosage of the remedy.”

  “The wisdom of doubling the quantity of opiates so soon after—”

  “Until our treaty is won, double my damned Dover’s!”

  Surgeon Nash unwraps the bandages and puffs out his cheeks at what he finds. “Yes, Captain, but I shall add henna and aloes before all traffic in your alimentary canal comes to a dead stop ….”

  FISCHER GREETS THE captain in English, shakes his hand, and nods around the table at Hovell, Wren, Talbot, and Cutlip. Penhaligon clears his throat. “Well, be seated, Envoy. We all know why we are here.”

  “Sir, one small preliminary matter,” says Hovell. “Mr. Snitker has just accosted us, as drunk as Old Noah, demanding to attend our meeting with Envoy Fischer and vowing he’d never allow an interloper to ‘siphon off what’s rightfully mine.’”

  “What’s rightfully his,” interjects Wren, “is a clog up his arse.”

  “I told him he’d be called when needed, Captain, and trust I did right.”

  “You did. It is Envoy Fischer”—he makes a gracious gesture—“who is the man of this hour. Please ask our friend to distill his day’s work.”

  Penhaligon studies the tone of Fischer’s replies as Hovell takes notes. The Dutch sentences sound polished. “Well, as per his orders, sir, Envoy Fischer spent the day in consultation with the Dutchmen on Dejima and Japanese officials at the magistracy. He reminds us that Rome was not built in a day but believes the foundation stones of British Dejima are in place.”

  “We are pleased to learn it—‘British Dejima’ is a fine phrase.”

  Jones brings in a brass lamp. Chigwin provides beer and tankards.

  “Begin with the Dutch: do they, in principle, agree to cooperate?”

  Hovell translates Fischer’s reply as, “‘Dejima is as good as ours.’”

  This “as good as,” thinks the captain, is the first sour note.

  “Do they recognize the legitimacy of the Kew Memorandum?”

  The long reply makes Penhaligon wonder about Fischer’s “foundation stones.” Hovell makes further notes as Fischer speaks. “Envoy Fischer reports that news of the VOC’s collapse caused dismay among Dutch and Japanese alike, and without the edition of the Courant, the Dutch would not have believed it. He used this dismay to present the Phoebus as the Dutchmen’s only hope of a profitable homecoming, but one dissenter, a clerk by the name of”—Hovell checks the name with Fischer, who repeats it with distaste—“Jacob de Zoet, dubbed
the British race to be ‘the cockroaches of Europe’ and swore to cut down any ‘vermin collaborators.’ Objecting to this language, Mr. Fischer challenged him to a duel. De Zoet retreated to his rat hole.”

  Fischer wipes his mouth and adds a coda for Hovell to translate.

  “De Zoet was a lackey of both Chief Vorstenbosch and ex-Chief van Cleef, whose murder he accuses you of, sir. Envoy Fischer recommends his removal, in chains.”

  Some settling of old scores, Penhaligon thinks, nodding, is to be expected. “Very well.”

  The Prussian next produces a sealed envelope and a checkered box. These he slides across the table with a lengthy explanation. “Mr. Fischer says, sir,” explains Hovell, “that thoroughness demanded he tell you of De Zoet’s opposition but assures us that the clerk is ‘neutered.’ While on Dejima, Mr. Fischer was visited by Dr. Marinus, the physician. Marinus had been deputized by all ashore, saving the blackguard De Zoet, to tell Mr. Fischer that the merits of the British olive branch were plain as day and to entrust him with this sealed letter addressed to you. It contains ‘the unified will of Dejima’s Europeans.’”

  “Please congratulate our envoy, Lieutenant. We are pleased.”

  Peter Fischer’s slight smile replies, Of course you are pleased.

  “Now ask Mr. Fischer about his tête-à-tête with the magistrate.”

  Fischer and Hovell exchange several sentences.

  “The Dutch tongue,” Cutlip tells Wren, “is the noise of mating pigs.”

  Insects encrust the cabin’s window, drawn by the bright lamp.

  Hovell is ready. “Before his return to the Phoebus this evening, Envoy Fischer enjoyed a long audience with Magistrate Shiroyama’s highest adviser, one Chamberlain Tomine.”

  “What about his warm relationship with Magistrate Shiroyama?” asks Wren.

  Hovell explains, “Envoy Fischer says that Shiroyama is, in fact, a ‘lofty castrato’—a figurehead—and that real power lies with this chamberlain.”

  I prefer a fibbing underling, Penhaligon worries, to fib consistently.

  “According to Envoy Fischer,” Hovell continues, “this powerful chamberlain viewed our proposal for a commercial treaty with great sympathy. Edo is frustrated by Batavia’s unreliability as a trading partner. Chamberlain Tomine was astonished at the dismemberment of the Dutch empire, and Envoy Fischer sowed many seeds of doubt in his mind.”

  Penhaligon touches the checkered box. “This is the chamberlain’s message?”

  Fischer understands and speaks to Hovell. “He says, sir, that this historic letter was dictated by Chamberlain Tomine, approved by Magistrate Shiroyama, and translated into Dutch by an interpreter of the first rank. He was not shown its contents but has every confidence that it shall please.”

  Penhaligon examines the box. “Fine workmanship, but how to get inside?”

  “There’ll be a hidden spring, sir,” says Wren. “May I?” The second lieutenant wastes a minute failing. “How damnably Asiatic.”

  “It would be no match”—Cutlip snorts snuff—“for a good English hammer.”

  Wren passes it to Hovell. “Picking Oriental locks is your forte.”

  Hovell slides one end panel and a lid slips off. Inside is a sheet of parchment, folded twice and sealed at the front.

  A man’s life is made, Penhaligon thinks, by such letters … or unmade.

  The captain slices the seal with his paper-knife and unfolds the page.

  The script is Dutch. “I impose once again, Lieutenant Hovell.”

  “Not at all, sir.” Hovell uses a taper to light a second lamp.

  “‘To the captain of the English vessel Phoebus. Magistrate Shiroyama informs the “Englanders” that changes …’” Hovell pauses, frowning. “Pardon, sir, the grammar is homespun—‘… changes to the rules governing trade with foreigners lie not within the remit of the magistrate of Nagasaki. These matters are the preserve of the shogun’s Council of Elders in Edo. The English captain is therefore’—the word is ‘commanded’—‘commanded to remain at anchor for sixty days whilst the possibility of a treaty with Great Britain is discussed by the proper authorities in Edo.’”

  Hostile silence settles over the table.

  “The jaundiced pygmies,” declares Wren, “take us for a gaggle of greenhorns!”

  Fischer, sensing something badly amiss, asks to see the chamberlain’s letter.

  Hovell’s palm tells him, Wait. “There is worse, sir. ‘The English captain is commanded to send ashore all gunpowder—’”

  “They’ll have our lives, by all that’s holy,” swears Cutlip, “before our powder!”

  I was a fool, thinks Penhaligon, to forget that diplomacy is never simple.

  Hovell continues: “‘… all gunpowder and admit inspectors onto his ship to ensure compliancy. The English must not attempt a landing.’ That was underlined, sir. ‘Doing so without the magistrate’s written permission shall be an act of war. Finally, the English captain is warned that the shogun’s laws punish smugglers with crucifixion.’ The letter is signed by Magistrate Shiroyama.”

  Penhaligon rubs his eyes. His gout hurts. “Show our ‘envoy’ the fruits of his cleverness.”

  Peter Fischer reads the letter with rising incredulity and stammers high-pitched protests at Hovell. “Fischer denies, Captain, that the chamberlain mentioned these sixty days, or the gunpowder.”

  “One doesn’t doubt,” says the captain, “Fischer was told what was expedient.” Penhaligon slits open the envelope containing the letter from the doctor. He is expecting Dutch but finds neatly written English. “There is a capable linguist ashore. ‘To Captain Penhaligon of the Royal Navy: Sir, I, Jacob de Zoet, elected on this day president of the Provisional Dejima Republic—’”

  “A ‘republic!’” Wren snorts. “That walled-in hamlet of warehouses?”

  “‘—beg to inform you that we, the undersigned, reject the Kew Memorandum; oppose your goal of illegitimately seizing Dutch trading interests in Nagasaki; reject your bait of gain under the English East India Company; demand the return of Chief Resident van Cleef; and inform Mr. Peter Fischer of Brunswick that he is henceforth exiled from our territory.’”

  The four officers look at ex-Envoy Fischer, who swallows and asks for a translation.

  “To continue: ‘Howsoever Messrs. Snitker, Fischer, et al., assure you otherwise, yesterday’s kidnappings are seen by Japan’s authorities as a breach of sovereignty. Swift retaliation is to be expected, which I am powerless to prevent. Consider not only your ship’s company, innocents in these machinations of states, but also their wives, parents, and children. One appreciates that a captain of the Royal Navy has orders to follow, but à l’impossible nul n’est tenu. Your respectful servant, Jacob de Zoet.’ It is signed by all the Dutchmen.”

  Laughter, rakish and rookish, fills the wardroom below.

  “Pray share the bones of the matter with Fischer, Mr. Hovell.”

  As Hovell translates the letter into Dutch, Major Cutlip lights his pipe. “Why did this Marinus feed our Prussian all that donkey manure?”

  “To cast him,” sighs Penhaligon, “in the role of a prize jackass.”

  “What was that frog croak,” asks Wren, “at the end of the letter, sir?”

  Talbot clears his throat. “‘No one is bound to do the impossible.’”

  “How I hate a man,” says Wren, “who farts in French and expects applause.”

  “What is this”—Cutlip snorts—“‘Republic’ buffoonery about?”

  “Morale. Fellow citizens make braver fighters than jumpy underlings. This De Zoet is not the fool that Fischer would have us believe.”

  The Prussian is subjecting Hovell to a volley of outraged denials. “He claims, Captain, that De Zoet and Marinus cooked up the mischief between them—that the signatures must be forged. He says that Gerritszoon and Baert can’t even write.”

  “Hence they inked in their thumbprints!” Penhaligon resists an urge to hurl his whale’s tooth paperweight a
t Fischer’s pasty, sweaty, desperate face. “Show him, Hovell! Show him the thumbprints! Thumbprints, Fischer! Thumbprints!”

  TIMBERS CREAK, men snore, rats chew, lamps hiss. Sitting at the fold-down desk in the lamplit wooden womb of his sleeping cabin, Penhaligon scratches an itch between the knuckles of his left hand and listens to the twelve sentries relaying the message “Three bells, all well” around the bulwarks. No it is not, by damn, thinks the captain. Two blank sheets of paper are waiting to be turned into letters: one to Mr.—never, he thinks, “President”—Jacob de Zoet of Dejima, and the other to His August Personage, Magistrate Shiroyama of Nagasaki. The uninspired correspondent scratches his scalp, but dandruff and lice, not words, fall onto the blotter.

  A wait of sixty days—he tips the detritus into the lamp—may be justifiable …

  Crossing the China Sea in December, Wetz worried, would be a battering voyage.

  … but to surrender our gunpowder would see me court-martialed.

  A cockchafer twitches its twin whiskers in the shadow of his inkpot.

  He looks at the old man in his shaving mirror and reads an imaginary article buried deep in the next year’s Times of London.

  “John Penhaligon, former captain of HM Frigate Phoebus, returned from the first British mission to Japan since the reign of James I. He was relieved of his post and retired without pension, having achieved no military, commercial, or diplomatic success.”

  “It’ll be the impressment service for you,” warns his reflection, “braving outraged mobs in Bristol and Liverpool. There are too many Hovells and Wrens waiting in the wings …”

  Damn the Dutch eyes, thinks the Englishman, of Jacob de Zoet …

  Penhaligon decrees that the cockchafer has no right to exist.

  … damn his cheese-weaned health, damn his mastery of my tongue.

  The cockchafer escapes the Homo sapiens’ slammed fist.

  A disturbance breaks out in his guts; no quarter shall be given.

  I must brave the fangs in my foot, Penhaligon realizes, or shit my breeches.

  The pain, as he hobbles into the next-door privy, is violent …

  … in the black nook, he unbuttons himself and flops on the seat.