Tokyo Bay Read online

  Pearl Harbor, Nagasaki, Hiroshima ... the greatest East-West conflagrations in history. But where did the terrible mistrust which sparked these cataclysms spring from?

  Vital clues emerge from the dramatic events of July 1853 when steam- driven US Navy warships loomed shockingly out of the haze cloaking Tokyo Bay. Rumours that foreign monsters had arrived on smoking volcanoes engulfed the civilian population in hysteria - and hordes of feudal warriors rushed to defend the coastline of the world’s most

  isolated realm,

  TOKYO BAY

  With these two nations teetering on the brink of war, Robert Eden, an idealistic young New England officer, swims secretly ashore on his own unauthorised peace mission, inspired by the haunting moonlit beacon of Mount Fuji.

  On land he clashes with fearsome sword-wielding samurai led by the formidable Prince Tanaka Yoshio - and encounters Tokiwa, a beautiful and courageous geisha fleeing amidst the general panic. The intense emotional entanglements that follow will ensnare Eden and

  his descendants in Japan’s destiny for generations to come.

  With this enthralling first novel of a new Asian trilogy, the author of worldwide bestsellers SAIGON and PEKING illuminates as never before a little-known historical episode which helped shape the modern world.

  With his novels Saigon, Peking and The Bangkok Secret, Anthony Grey memorably chronicled the crucial impact of the West on Vietnam, China and Thailand. Tokyo Bay is the first volume of a new fictional trilogy that will broaden the focus across East Asia and illuminate 150 years of tortured rivalry between Japan and the West - a rivalry of great significance for the world that still remains to be resolved.

  Anthony Grey’s books and short stories have been translated into some fifteen languages worldwide. His enduring epics Saigon and Peking are critically ac1aimed best-sellers in Europe, the Far East, South Africa, Australasia and the Americas. A former foreign correspondent with Reuters in Eastern Europe and China, he has written eight novels to date. His first book was an autobiographical account of the two years that he was held hostage by Red Guards during China’s Cultural Revolution. He makes documentary films for British television, broadcasts internationally on the BBC World Service, and lives at present in London.

  Also by Anthony Grey

  Autobiography

  HOSTAGE IN PEKING

  Short Stories

  AMAN ALONE

  Non-Fiction

  THE PRIME MINISTER WAS A SPY

  Novels

  THE GERMAN STRATAGEM

  THE BULGARIAN EXCLUSIVE

  THE CHINESE ASSASSIN

  SAIGON

  PEKING

  THE BANGKOK SECP.ET

  THE NAKED ANGELS

  ANTHONY GREY

  Tokyo Bay

  A novel of Japan

  PAN BOOKS

  First published 1996 by Macmillan

  This corrected edition published 1997 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Ltd

  25 Eccleston Place, London SWIW 9NF

  and Basingstoke

  Associated companies throughout the world

  ISBN O 330 34918 X

  Copyright © La Fun Ltd 1996

  The right of Anthony Grey to be identified as the

  author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance

  with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

  reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or

  transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic mechanical,

  photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written

  permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized

  act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal

  prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  3579864

  A UP catalogue record for this book is available from

  the British Library

  Phototypeset by Intype London Ltd

  Printed by McPherson’s Printing Group

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired nut,

  or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Dedicated to the cherished memory of dearest Shirley, who contributed as generously to this book as she did to all others before it; and to Clarissa and Lucy for their youthful courage, resilience and love during a time of trial; and to my dear late mother, Agnes, for her fighting spirit.

  Dedicated also to Angela - with much loving gratitude.

  In future as long as the sun shines on the earth, let no one sail towards Japan, not even an ambassador. This declaration will never be revoked and will be maintained on pain of death.

  Japanese edict issued after execution of foreign missionaries, 1640.

  CONTENTS

  Anchorages of the American Warships in the

  Bay of Tokyo July 1853

  ix

  PROLOGUE

  1

  PART I

  The Black Ships Arrive

  19

  PART II

  The Black Ships At Anchor

  165

  PART III

  The Black Ships Close In

  333

  PART IV

  The Black Ships Land

  443

  POSTSCRIPT

  668

  PROLOGUE

  Midnight, 7 July 1853

  WHITE LATHER FLEW from the heaving flanks of a dying courier horse as its helmeted samurai rider spurred the exhausted animal fiercely across the arched bridge spanning the last of three concentric moats in front of the Shogun’s massive castle at Yedo.

  ‘Chokurei da!’ yelled the rider to armoured pike- men who stood guard beside the inner bastion’s tall iron-and-wood gates. ‘Kinkyu chokurei da!’ He drew a small scroll, bound with golden thread, from the sleeve of his dark blue fighting kimono and flourished it pointedly above his head.

  The scowling sentinels, who wore broad helmets and ribbed body armour of leather and bamboo, had begun to lift their pikes menacingly in his direction. But the commanding shout of the obviously young samurai stopped them in their tracks. His words constituted a secret password indicating that he carried a rare ‘urgent message’ from the Emperor, who lived in seclusion in Kyoto, three hundred miles to the south-west. Also, close up, they could see the heraldic six-pointed star of his clan emblazoned on his sleeveless jimbaori battle-coat in gold filigree, denoting that he was a nobleman of the very highest rank.

  ‘Hayaku!’ yelled the rider impatiently, wheeling the unsteady horse as the startled sentinels swung open the ponderous gates. ‘Hayaku! - Be quick!’

  As soon as the gap between the gates was wide enough, he sent the horse surging into the castle’s inner courtyard. He rode hard through a succession of further guard-points, yelling and brandishing the scroll each time, until he reached the flight of stone steps that led up to the main entrance of the stronghold. The moment he flung himself out of the saddle, the horse collapsed, blood reddening the foam at its mouth. It shuddered and squealed pitifully before expiring. But the young samurai nobleman did not stop or glance back as he bounded up the steps, his twin swords jutting from the sash belt of his kimono. On showing the scroll and its imperial seal to a chief sentry officer, he was granted immediate entry.

  Running and walking by turns, he raced along successive high-vaulted passageways, where the walls shimmered with gold leaf. Ascending staircases three steps at a time, he passed beneath painted wall panels depi
cting mythical birds in groves of bamboo and mountain pines. Overhead, wooden beams lacquered in black and gilt supported ornately decorated ceilings, but the young samurai scarcely spared them a glance. Pausing only to ask directions from spear bearing sentries dressed in formal uniforms of bright brocade, he rushed on.

  Approaching the gilded doors of the Shogunate council chamber, he removed his helmet and again plucked the scroll from the wide sleeve of his kimono. His expression was ablaze with urgency as he addressed the senior officer of the council’s guard. A moment later he removed his thonged zori, to be ushered inside barefoot.

  A hundred pairs of eyes swung silently to focus on him as he stepped, panting, into the chamber. They belonged to gaudily dressed daimyo, the feudal overlords of Japan’s provincial regions, who were assembled in kneeling ranks around a low central dais on which the Shogun himself was seated. Garbed in court dress of stiff-shouldered jackets, loose trailing trousers of silk, and shiny black-lacquered bonnets, the daimyo stared in astonishment at the dishevelled, travel-stained young nobleman. ‘When he sank to his knees and bowed his head to the floor, they could see that his shaven crown and its coiled topknot of hair were covered with sweat and dust. Before prostrating himself he had pulled his twin swords from the sash at his waist, to place them reverently beside his helmet on the tatami-mat floor; like his garments, their scabbards and embossed hilts were also damp and mud-stained.

  From the centre of his raised and cushioned dais, the Shogun watched impassively. Under flowing robes of grey silk his legs were invisible, giving him a Buddha-like appearance, but although he was sitting stiffly upright his thin face was unnaturally pallid, and the sheen of perspiration visible on his brow suggested he might be suffering from some serious illness. The dramatic entry of the breathless messenger had produced a momentary flicker of alarm in the Shogun’s eyes, but he recovered his composure quickly and made a slight movement of his head. This prompted one high official of the council below the dais to rise to his feet and bow very low in his superior’s direction. Moving forward, he bowed once more, then gestured for the young messenger to assume a kneeling position and explain himself.

  ‘Sire, I am Tanaka Yoshio, a prince of the Kago clan from Kumatore said the samurai in a ringing voice. ‘I have been entrusted to bring you a message of the gravest urgency from His Divine Majesty the Emperor in Kyoto.’ He extracted the scroll from his sleeve, bowed very low again in the direction of the Shogun, then handed the message to the grey-haired official, who also bowed low in accepting it.

  ‘It is not usual, O Tanaka-san, for a nobleman of such high rank to act as a common courier,’ said the official quietly. ‘Why have you chosen this role?’

  ‘I volunteered for this sacred duty because of the vital nature of the message,’ replied Tanaka breathlessly. ‘I started out with other couriers, who either fell exhausted or sacrificed their horses to me so that I might arrive as speedily as possible!’

  ‘It is clear now’ The older man nodded, but as he turned and began to move back towards the dais with tantalizing slowness, the young samurai found he could not contain his impatience.

  ‘Sire, a fleet of smoking black ships is bringing many foreign barbarians from the outside world to Yedo!’ he burst out, remembering just in time to lower his head once more in a formal gesture of respect. ‘There is grave danger. . . The vessels carry many mighty cannon and hundreds of soldiers... They are driven by great wheels which churn the water into white waves... They can even sail strongly against the wind!’

  He paused once more, struggling to catch his breath. He had just used the pejorative expression gai-jin meaning ‘outside country barbarians’, and his eyes flashed as he repeated it. ‘The gai-jin are all Americans. Some are black giants! They forced their way ashore in the Satsuma tributary islands of Lew Chew, to the south-west. They appear to be intent on conquest! Travelling fast, they will arrive very soon in the bay before Yedo!’

  An audible gasp rose from the assembled daimyo, but they fell silent again as the high official reached the Shogun’s dais. When he opened the scroll and bowed very low, a hush of tense expectancy fell over the chamber.

  ‘Powerful ships bringing armed beasts from the outside world are approaching Yedo began the official, reading the imperial message aloud with alarm in his voice. ‘Their clear intent is to violate by force the sacred soil of Nippon. The barbarians falsely believe that the Emperor resides in Yedo castle, and it is hoped nothing will be said to enlighten them. The task of treating with the outside country beasts will therefore rest entirely in your hands. At this time of great national danger we hope and pray fervently that the sanctity of our land and its people will be protected and preserved.’

  Pale-faced and visibly shaken, the high official closed the scroll and bowed low towards the Shogun once more, before adding: ‘The message, sire, as anticipated, bears the personal seal of His Divine Majesty; Emperor Komei.’

  For several seconds a tense silence reigned among the daimyo and none of them moved or spoke. Then the Shogun made another small movement of his head towards the messenger and, without rising fully, the young samurai picked up his swords and his branched helmet and backed respectfully out of the chamber, bowing low at every step. As the giant gilded doors swung closed on his exit, he heard a single angry voice break the stillness.

  ‘Jo-i gai-jin! Jo-i gai-jin! - Expel the barbarians!’

  Quickly other voices took up the cry, and soon the council chamber was filled with an angry chorus:

  ‘Jo-i gai-jin! . . . Jo-i gai-jin! . . . Jo-i gai-jin!’

  After pausing to listen for a moment, Prince Tanaka thrust his twin swords securely into the sash of his kimono and put on his helmet. Slipping his feet into the thonged zori he had discarded a few minutes earlier, he turned and raced back swiftly towards the castle entrance, by the way he had come.

  High in the distant, starlit darkness above the unseen coasts of Japan, a strange cone of white light suddenly appeared. To Second Lieutenant Robert Eden of the United States Navy, who was watching from the gently heaving quarterdeck of the steam frigate USS Susquehanna, the shimmering light had seemed to float silently upward out of the black depths of the Pacific Ocean without any warning. He stared hard at the ghostly apparition with a mixture of awe and fascination, unable to tear his eyes away from it.

  The cone of brightness seemed to hover motionless, two miles high in the heavens. Below it the coastline of the closed and secret land towards which the wooden sidewheel frigate was steaming lay still and indistinct in the darkness. Eden stood alone by the rails on the quarterdeck, and the steady churning of the ship’s great side-wheel paddles was the only sound in the night.

  As he watched, the image became almost hypnotic, and a thought of astonishing irrationality flashed through his mind: was this a vision he was seeing? Suspended halfway between heaven and earth, the perfect pyramid of light seemed to pulse with its own luminescence. Could he, he wondered wildly, be gazing at some miraculous manifestation of a God in whom he no longer believed? In the stillness of the middle watch, was he being rebuked for his angry abandonment of belief in a compassionate and loving creator of mankind? Despite the wildness of this notion, some intuitive reflex forced him to lower his gaze. Continuing to stand motionless by the ship’s rail, he bowed his head slightly without knowing clearly why he did so.

  Six feet tall and in his twenty-fourth year, Lieutenant Robert Eden was an impressively athletic figure in his gold-epauletted officer’s frock coat and white drill pantaloons. His shoulders were broad and powerful beneath the dark blue double-breasted coat, and his left hand rested with an easy physical confidence on the gleaming brass hilt of his sheathed sword. Alert and keen-eyed, his demeanour in all was that of a vigorous man who loved nothing more than the challenge of physical action. His gold- braided blue cap with its patent-leather visor hid a shock of dark brown hair and his weather-beaten complexion was obviously Anglo-Saxon. Yet his broad, handsome face was incongruously high ch
eek-boned and his eyes were narrow and deep- set, betraying a distant mingling of North American Indian blood with that of the hardy European pioneer-settlers of New England who had been his ancestors. In his expression too there was a fierce, brooding quality which hinted that he might be nursing some inner emotional pain. He smiled only rarely, and consequently the brawny gunners who manned the massive spar deck port cannons under his command never wasted a moment in responding to his crisply given orders.

  While standing with his head still bowed, Eden was aware that he was not praying in any way taught to him during his conventional Episcopalian upbringing in a small town on the wooded heights of eastern Connecticut, a few miles inland from Long Island Sound. Instead he found his mind had filled with a deep and awesome silence. The thrashing of the Susquehanna’s paddle-wheels and the sounds of the sea seemed to be momentarily blotted out, and be felt strangely spellbound.

  The stillness appeared to vibrate gently at some mysterious frequency, producing a feeling far more profound than prayer, and quite unexpectedly images of memory that had haunted him waking and sleeping for six years flashed unbidden into his mind. But now they were more intense than ever before, almost as vivid as real life. In a darkened, storm-lashed Connecticut woodland his very young wife lay splayed limply at the foot of a tree. The wheels of an overturned buckboard still spun slowly nearby. A spasm of agony twisted her smooth features and he clutched despairingly at the slippery, newborn infant not yet severed from her dying body. With an almost unbearable intensity Eden felt his own agony again; then the images melted away as swiftly as they had come, and to his astonishment a gentler sense of ease as quickly took possession of his senses. For an instant this feeling of peace was as intense and tangible as the previous pain; then it too was gone, leaving him feeling baffled as to what had prompted such powerful sensations.